Izumi returned a short while later and commenced to bathe Anna’s wounds. She had brought ice and two squares of cotton cloth so that Anna could fold ice cubes into both and hold them against her eye and thigh. She worked carefully and in silence. After a while Anna said, ‘I am frightened of Colonel Takahashi, Izumi-san. He is different to Colonel Konoe-san. I know in my heart he likes to kill. I saw it in his eyes when he decapitated the four Chinese.’
‘He is kempeitai, he has done many more like that. They are recruited because they are born killers. They like the katana, the divine blade, but Takahashi, that is not a name from a samurai family,’ Izumi said scornfully, which did little to comfort Anna. But then Izumi added, as if to reassure her, ‘We must ask Korin-san. She will know what to do. You will recall how she told us there is no man on earth who has not got a secret perversion. All you have to do is find it to give you power over him.’ Then, as if the matter was happily settled, she said, ‘I will now put on the iodine. You must be brave, this is going to sting.’
The room had been left as it had been for the previous owners and was obviously a study that opened into a small, private walled garden. It contained a large desk and wooden swivel chair, a comfortable leather couch and club chair facing a coffee table. Two Persian carpets covered the floor and, except for two large barred windows looking out into the garden, the walls were lined with shelves filled with books.
‘This room hasn’t been converted to Japanese style,’ Izumi explained. ‘It is away from the other rooms and not suitable for entertainment because it must be entered by going through the kitchen or from the outside.’
‘Am I to be locked up in this room all the time?’ Anna asked fearfully. ‘The windows are barred. Am I allowed to open them?’
‘All the windows are barred. I think the engineers did it when they came to convert the house to the Nest of the Swallows. But you can slide them up to let in the fresh air.’
‘It is the same as being in jail,’ Anna protested.
Izumi looked sympathetically at Anna. ‘I will ask Korin-san to let you use the private garden at night when you cannot be seen.’
‘But the door is locked. He — the kempeitai — took the key.’
Izumi giggled. ‘We have another one. I took the spare one off the ring when I came to the back.’ She fished into her pocket and produced the key, then gave Anna a serious look. ‘Please, Anna-san, do not attempt to escape and never go beyond the little gate. If you are seen in the grounds you will be shot. There is no escape from here. Nobody, except Korin-san and I, will know you are here. We will clean and bring you food; there is a toilet and bath.’ She pointed to a door. ‘It belongs only to this room. I think the person who worked in this study must have been very important to have a toilet and bath only for himself.’
Anna spent the next three weeks reading books and, at night, strolling in the small garden. She thought of the little becak owner constantly, and often found herself in tears, for she was certain that she was responsible for his death. But why? Had they tortured him and found out about the box? It seemed the only explanation. Who had beheaded him? The katana is an officer’s weapon and only the officers are trained in the manner of a beheading. Was it Lieutenant Ito or Colonel Takahashi himself? These questions occupied her mind until she felt she would go insane.
Anna had been encouraged to sleep on a futon by Korin-san and was discovering that she much preferred it to the leather couch. Each night she would prepare it and place the Clipper butterfly box, the ashtray and the silver cigarette case beside her. The crystal ashtray, when its six pieces were fitted together, appeared undamaged. If she touched the butterfly at the centre carefully, the ashtray would remain intact. Anna knew it was silly but she saw both these objects as talismans. Each night she’d kiss the Clipper box and touch the butterfly. ‘I love you, Nicholas,’ she’d say, adding, ‘Sleep well wherever you are, my darling.’ Then she would touch the silver cigarette case. ‘I will be like the heartwood, Konoe-san,’ she would say.
Anna’s healthy young body was healing fast and Lieutenant Ito came twice a week to check her progress. She was growing increasingly concerned over the impending visit of Colonel Takahashi. On the sixth occasion the lieutenant had arrived with the four silk kimonos Konoe Akira had caused the Mayor of the Squashed Hat to make for her. Handing them to Izumi, he’d instructed, ‘The first time she must wear the yellow one and must be prepared in the same way as before with the yellow flower in her hair.’
‘When will that be, Ito-san?’ Izumi asked politely.
‘When it is going to happen you will be given three hours’ notice,’ he replied. ‘A suitable futon must be placed in the room and you will bring tea, that is all.’
Korin-san had not been able to help her, as Izumi had suggested she might, in preparing for the visit of Colonel Takahashi. ‘Anna-san, if he has a perversion then I don’t know about it. He has never come here nor even requested my services at his home.’
‘Then he will simply rape me,’ Anna replied, frightened.
‘He is kempeitai and anything is possible, but he is also a senior officer. He will not, I think, want to rape you; that would cause him loss of face. Unless rape is his perversion, he will want your compliance, Anna-san.’
‘He cannot have it! I will never agree!’ Anna cried.
Korin-san smiled. ‘I think we have discussed this before, have we not?’
‘I will mark myself, cut my face, then he will not have what he wants.’
Korin-san seemed to be thinking. ‘If you mark yourself the kempeitai will ensure you have a horrible death, Anna-san. My advice would be the same as before. Kill yourself now while you may. It will be much the better way. Izumi-san and I will share our deaths with you. In Lieutenant Ito’s eyes and those of the colonel-san, it will mean we have failed to watch over you and we will forfeit our lives. We are both old women and so it doesn’t matter; our lives are over and I don’t think we will ever see Japan again. But it would be a shame to destroy your young life. The entrance to the pearl is very resilient and not easily damaged. Soon enough your maidenhood will be taken. You cannot hold on to it forever. Perhaps it is time to be practical? To face life as it is?’
‘Oh, Korin-san, I am pledged to another. It is a gift only he must have. I do not want to return to him as damaged goods!’ Anna did not want to tell her that, in her mind, she believed she would survive as long as she remained a virgin. She knew that this was an irrational thought but she had become fixated on the idea.
Korin-san sighed. ‘Anna-san, there are thirty comfort women here in the okiya; all are beautiful. I am sure they too were pledged to another. If this war ever ends they will be damaged goods, not just a few times to one man, but many times over to many, many men. In the soldier’s okiya some of the young comfort women who are not blessed with extreme beauty sometimes have to take thirty soldiers a day on their futon. You were fortunate to have had Konoe-san, who required other ways. But if Takahashi-san is not perverted and you please him, there are worse fates than the taking of the pearl. It will not be difficult for you to satisfy him if you try. The kinbaku ropes are only one way and if this way is not his, then I have taught you erotic massage and will show you other ways as well. If you don’t please him you will certainly die. This is not a man like Konoe-san with a quick temper and a good heart; this one is rotten inside — he is a killer and will not tolerate disobedience.’
‘But how can I accept willingly someone who may have killed Til? How can I welcome him to my futon?’ Anna asked. ‘I do not have the ability to smile and be compliant, to massage his vile body, to have the arms around me that may have gripped the katana that beheaded Til! How must I perform some of the other things you have taught me, when I know he has murdered a beautiful man whose only crime was that he knew me — that we were friends?’
‘If you wish to live you will find a way. By killing your friend, that is
the first lesson Takahashi-san is giving you in submission, in making sure you acquiesce to his demands, submit to his will,’ Korin-san explained. ‘The world is a hard place, Anna-san. It does not exist for any woman’s convenience. The man’s will comes first. But to survive is the victory, that is the triumph of the heart. Submission means you keep your life — he keeps his pride and his manhood; your heart remains your own — whereas resistance is inevitable death. Japanese men like the colonel-san cannot allow themselves to be defeated by a woman’s refusal. He will know that you were Konoe-san’s mistress. He will also certainly know that the pearl remains intact. Now that he is the colonel he will want to demonstrate that what Konoe-san could not do, he can. In his mind this will make him the superior man.’
‘But how would he know about Colonel Konoe-san and me?’ Anna asked ingenuously.
Korin-san gave Anna a wry smile. ‘It was not a relationship that was a very well-kept secret. He is kempeitai and they always have spies. No one is safe from them.’ She grinned. ‘They could have used me, or Izumi, or both as they are doing now, but at the time they may have been afraid we would alert Konoe-san as he was the commander and our loyalty was to him.’
‘But… but how would he know that I remain a virgin? Who would tell him?’
‘It’s not so hard to work out. It was Yasuko, the mayor’s wife! She would tell her husband and that snivelling little rat would go running to Colonel Takahashi in order to ingratiate himself with the new commander.’
‘But she was my friend!’ Anna protested.
‘Ah, that is not our way. A Japanese woman’s first loyalty is to her husband. He would have asked her and she would have been obliged to tell him everything. Did she not say her husband volunteered her services as housekeeper to Konoe-san? What better way to know what’s going on in the colonel’s private life, eh? I’ll say this for the little bastard — he’s a survivor. You could take a few lessons from him, Anna-san!’ She looked sternly at her. ‘I mean it. You don’t have to snivel and you don’t have to beg, but you must be compliant.’
‘Korin-san, I am not a geisha, I have never been with a man!’ Anna cried. ‘I can’t, I simply can’t!’ She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with her forefinger.
Korin-san ignored Anna’s protests. ‘Anna-san, listen to me, please! Give the colonel-san what he wants! I have shown you how this might be done physically. But you must also get into his head. Flatter him. Congratulate him on his appointment to commander. As you massage his body remark that it is a warrior’s body, that at another time he would have been a samurai, you are certain of this. Then ask him to turn onto his back. If you have massaged him as you have been taught, he will have a fine stand. Do not put your hand around it but tap it very softly with the tips of your fingers from the top to the bottom and back. “Look how strong the divine sword is, Takahashi-san!” you will giggle. Then look suddenly shy and modest and ask in a soft voice if you may confide in him. Then when he says you may, as he most certainly will, then tell him he is a man far above Konoe Akira-san, the vile pervert who liked kinbaku and was incapable of pleasing a woman like the real man in front of you. Tell him that you had always hoped for a real man and not one who on the outside was powerful but on the inside a weakling who couldn’t get it up. Tell him how you have waited for a man like him to accept the precious pearl. That you have kept it intact for the very best there is.’
‘But Korin-san, surely he will not believe all this silly flattery? He is a colonel and a commander and also kempeitai. He will know it is all lies!’ Anna protested.
The seventh okami-san gave Anna a wry grin. ‘He is a man. He will believe you. When a man has an erection it is his penis that does most of his thinking.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
‘I have always strived to succeed. My family is not descended
from samurai, but how can that count for anything?
That pervert Konoe comes from a noble family
and he is afraid to wield the samurai sword.’
Kempeitai Colonel Takahashi
The Nest of the Swallows, August 1945
ANNA’S LIFE CONTINUED, EVERY day more fearful than the last. Each morning she awakened not knowing whether it would bring a visit from Lieutenant Ito and with it his decision that she was finally ready. It was the waiting that created the fearfulness and she had taken to weeping and shaking involuntarily; her nerves were beginning to affect her badly. She had fallen into a deep depression.
On July the 27th Lieutenant Ito arrived on a routine visit and found her in such a state that he was furious and called the two okami-san to task. ‘She is now perfect physically, even the bruises have gone, but he who will be coming will not accept her the way she is!’ he shouted. ‘She is a nervous wreck! You will use the glycerine bullets three times a day for the next seven days, then I shall return. Then, if she is not of a proper temperament, you will be made to suffer; your lives and hers will not be spared. Do you understand?’
On the evening after Lieutenant Ito had visited, the seventh okami-san spoke to Anna. ‘The lieutenant is not pleased, Anna-san. Your behaviour is not as he wishes for Colonel Takahashi-san. We have been instructed to give you a sedative.’
‘What is it?’ Anna asked suspiciously.
‘It is something we use when a young comfort woman is upset, a little glycerine suppository that goes up your bottom. You won’t even feel it.’
‘It’s not morphine?’ Anna asked fearfully.
‘No, not morphine, that would not be good; that is for pain and will have a bad result, a stupefying effect. This is simply something to calm you. If you continue the way you are going, you will certainly be killed pointlessly. Izumi and me also. The lieutenant has said so and we believe him. You will have the glycerine for one week and then you will decide if you are calm enough and do not need it any longer.’
‘I will decide?’ Anna asked, realising that it added another week of protection from Colonel Takahashi, but she was still suspicious. ‘Korin-san, I am not sure,’ Anna protested. ‘Is it the Sublime Fourth Experience? Konoe-san warned me never to partake of it.’
‘No, no, there is no needle in the vein. If we did that we would anger Colonel Takahashi-san by making marks on your arm. Anna-san, please, Izumi and I have agreed we cannot disobey that yarichin, that male slut. We do not want to use the two Korean discipline women. We care about you too much to put you through a needless indignity they would greatly enjoy performing. They are dreadful women who take pleasure in inflicting pain. It is, after all, only something that will calm you. You have become too nervous; your temperament has been damaged and we’re afraid that Takahashi-san will harm you if you are not what he expects.’
‘Korin-san, I do not think I can ever be what he expects, no matter what!’ Anna cried. ‘He, Takahashi-san, caused my friend’s death by decapitation! How can I put this to the back of my mind?’
‘Anna-san, we have spoken about this before, we have spoken about when there are no choices left, only one action we didn’t choose. There is the wisdom of Hongzhi Zhengjue, who lived eight hundred years ago. I will share it with you:
Withdraw now from the pounding and weaving of your ingrained ideas.
If you want to be rid of this invisible turmoil, you must sit through it and
let go of everything. Attain fulfilment and illuminate thoroughly.
Light and shadow altogether forgotten.
Drop off your own skin, and the sense-dusts will be fully purified.
The eye then readily discerns the brightness.
An hour later Anna received her first glycerine suppository that contained heroin mixed with amphetamine. She had no knowledge of heroin, other than administering it by injection into Konoe Akira’s arm as the Fourth Sublime Experience, and she didn’t know that heroin can be absorbed in the system in several ways — a glycerine suppository was just one way of doing so.
Almost immediately she felt better and soon the full euphoric effect of the two combined drugs began to take hold. Her mind was calmed, her depression non-existent. She felt exuberant, wonderfully calm and, even though she knew she was captive, she felt strangely in control for the first time since she had come to the Nest of the Swallows.
Anna well knew the effect of heroin, and had often observed it as she had waited beside Konoe Akira after injecting him. What follows is a euphoric stupor, a drowsiness that often lasts two hours where the user sits still, feeling contented but incapable of much activity. It was during this time that she would snatch a bit of sleep herself on those occasions when she had been required to stay later than usual. Once this nodding-off stage passed, the colonel used to be in a heightened state of mind and his conversation would be at its sparkling best.
As Anna experienced none of these symptoms — except the last one where she felt wonderful, all her cares forsaken — she believed the suppositories did not contain the drug that Konoe Akira had warned her not to touch. She didn’t know that this was because amphetamine combines well with heroin to eliminate the first stage, ‘the nods’, as it is often described, and takes the user directly to a heightened sense of wellbeing, mental sharpness and enhanced creativity, as well as feeling highly aroused.
‘I think this calming glycerine works well,’ Anna laughed some time later. ‘I feel I have achieved what the honourable writer of the eight-hundred-year-old poem says.’ Quoting a part of the last line she still remembered, she said, ‘My eye then readily discerns the brightness. I thank you, Korin-san.’
The Persimmon Tree Page 51
