Modern Japanese Short Stories

by Ivan Morris

  But the times were bad; my attempts to escape the draft came to light; and a previous police record didn’t help either.

  At the first trial they handed down a heavy sentence of eleven years at hard labor. Naturally I appealed, but because of the indifferent efforts of my lawyer, the verdict of the higher court was little better—ten years.

  Ordinarily another appeal to a still higher court would have been made. But, besides being short-tempered, I found the whole thing unbearably tiresome and, out of spitefulness toward the fellow Kawanaka had provided to defend me, I decided, in a moment of youthful folly, to accept the verdict.

  It was the day after the sentence. Breakfast over, my attention was vaguely directed to things going on outside—beyond the door of my cell. Morning at the prison begins with a guard’s crying: “Sick call, breakfast; sick call, breakfast.” Different voices can be heard passing by. It takes at least two months of cell life to distinguish the words “sick call” and “breakfast” from what at first seems an unintelligible mumbling. And it takes at least that long to realize that the affable, white-robed person who shouts “Sweets! Magazines!” and appears to be a peddler as he walks beside a trusty with a pushcart is, in fact, also a guard.

  This one must have been working on a percentage basis, for he was quite good in his high-pressure salesmanship. The Prison Association, which at that time was still putting out a prison paper called Mani apparently had thought up this business for the guards to implement their meager pay.

  Occasionally the cry “Rub that beard!” could be heard. After an application of ice-cold water from the spigot, beards would be vigorously massaged. Soon the turn for a shave would come. The process was swift and simple. It required only three or four strokes with a blunt-edged instrument called a razor, once down each side of the face, under the nose, and beneath the chin. It goes without saying that the whole operation was little short of torture.

  On that particular morning, my ears were tuned for a sound I was waiting for with something more than ordinary expectation. Sure enough, the guard’s footsteps came to a halt outside my cell door.

  “No. 178! Ready for cell change!”

  “Yes, sir! Ready, sir!”

  The answer came out with a youthful bounce as I gave a glance at the cloth-bound bundle containing my personal belongings. Custom had it that those sentenced by courts of second instance, unless for ideological offenses, would be transferred from solitary confinement to a general cell. It is hard to imagine what this change of cells can mean to a young and gregarious fellow like me who has suffered from the loneliness of solitary confinement.

  Already bundled in an arabesque-patterned green cloth were my earthly belongings, all bought since I had come here—a mirror, a bar of soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush, some underwear, a two-volume life of Hideyoshi, and three letters from Machiko. Snatching the bundle up, I stepped outside as the heavy door swung open. Now that I was leaving the place where I’d lived for a whole year, recollections flashed through my head of all the anguish, remorse, and irritation which had been breathed into the air of this cell. With an uncommon consciousness of human vanity, I’d been laughing at my own case; but as a matter of fact, I’d been awakened by the guard on many a night in the throes of a terrible nightmare.

  Padding along in my straw sandals, I walked from my solitary cell on the second floor of Block Six to a general cell in Block Five. Block Five was an extension of Block Six, and the general cell was also on the second floor. The guard opened the door of the large cell.

  “New man.”

  To these words I entered the cell. So from today I’d be with the inmates of this cell. It measured about twelve by fifteen feet. On either side of the two-foot-wide planked walk which ran from the door to the end of the room there were four mats, a total of eight for the room.

  At the end of the walk, up against the wall, there was a box for personal effects; beside that, a glass-enclosed toilet; and above the latter, a window looking out over the shrubbery in the courtyard. On each of the mats on the two sides of the passage was a man, squatting on his mat in his own particular fashion.

  This not being the first time I’d been in such a place, I knew immediately that the fiftyish-looking man squatting closest to the door was the cell boss. I lost no time in giving him the customary greeting of respect.

  The fellow let out a grunt that was hardly audible and turned his ashen face aside. His airs annoyed me. I can see now how stupid I was, but at the time I was cut to the bone by a sudden feeling of resentment toward this old man who, I presumed, was nothing more than a petty criminal and who apparently didn’t think much of me.

  In the angry stare I shot at the old man, my thoughts were apparent: “Better make no mistake about the fellow you see in front of you,” I was saying. “He’s in here for murder. He’s a little different from the sneak thieves you’ve got here, and you’d better not try to make a fool of him!”

  But the old man apparently took no notice of the stripling in his twenties with the bright look in his eyes. His parched and restless glance shot here and there into the void. A shudder passed through me as I watched those eyes. They seemed starved, hungering for a spot on which to fix themselves. My random thoughts, however, did not pursue that impression to any great extent. It was for only one brief instant that I thought; “What queer people there are in this world.”

  Speaking of queer people, there was another one in that cell. He was about thirty-five, and he seemed well-bred and intellectual. Ever since I had entered the cell—and it was now close to the noon meal, for the meal cart could be heard in the distance as it moved along on its rails—this fellow had kept polishing the lid of his utensil box with a dirty rag. He had not stopped for an instant. The cloth made a queer, squeaking noise as it rubbed against the lid.

  Until the war, these boxes for holding one’s food utensils had been painted brown. Now, however, with the war situation so grave, they were made of just plain, unpainted wood. Without pause and without a glance elsewhere, the intellectual kept polishing the lid of his box, now old and gray from having been soaked in water so many times. The lid already had a brilliant sheen, yet with the same regular motion he continued his polishing. Soon, louder noises could be heard from the nearby cells as the trusty passed out the noon meal. Lightheartedly the men began arranging their boxes on the planked walk and taking out bowls and plates.

  When I had been in here before, these bowls and plates had all been of aluminum, but the metal utensils had been turned in for use by the armed forces, and now we ate from chinaware, unmatched bowls and plates, large and small, which inmates had once bought as personal belongings from the prison sales stand. Of course, this stand no longer had such things to sell. The utensils that were being used were therefore quite old, left behind by previous inmates who had had full use of them. So there were all kinds, some chipped and some cracked, large ones and small ones. It was a little pathetic to note that even here one could see evidence of the hard times onto which the government had fallen.

  When the curd soup was ladled out, those with small bowls naturally were at a disadvantage. Those who had foresight would offer whole lunches to some inmate due to leave soon, with the understanding that the large bowl he had been using would be left behind. But those who could not bear to part with an entire lunch had to be content with a small bowl, thereby incurring a loss with each meal.

  As the cell door was opened from the outside, the cell boss turned and growled:

  “Lid!”

  “Here,” someone answered and held out the lid of his box. “Filthy! It’s filthy!”

  I turned at the sound of this different voice and its scathing comment. I saw the intellectual holding out his own shiny lid. The cell boss took it without a word. Using the lid as a tray, he placed each man’s bowl on it in turn and held it out. The trusty scooped the rice from a bucket with a round, wooden implement resembling a ladle. After leveling the rice with the palm of his hand, he dumped it int
o the bowl. The rice was mixed with barley and soy beans.

  I noticed that the guard who accompanied the trusty had suddenly moved a couple of yards away and looked off in another direction, apparently feigning ignorance. During this brief time, three lunches more than the number of inmates came into the cell.

  “Well, this cell boss has a little pull.”

  With this thought I took a second look at the fellow. Beside him, the intellectual, with a satisfied look on his face, was now busily engaged in scraping into one corner of his box lid the grains of rice that had fallen on it. One at a time, he conveyed the grains to his mouth.

  How well I understood now! To make these few dozen grains of rice his own—that was why he worked to polish his utensil box so much shinier than the others. But this was not particularly comical; nor was it particularly serious. It was quite ordinary here, and it impressed me little more than the touch of air.

  While my thoughts thus wandered, the trusty at the entrance to the cell was handing in the last lunch. It was mine.

  “No. 178—that you?”

  The guard glanced at his notebook, peered into the darkness of the cell, and pointed at me with his chin.

  “Yes, sir, sorry to trouble you, sir.”

  After getting my thumb print as a receipt, the guard shut the heavy door and followed the trusty to the next cell.

  The cell boss, who had received my lunch from the guard, sat for some time with the lunch on his lap, apparently enjoying the whiteness of the grains of rice. His parched eyes darted hither and thither.

  “Looks good. Think I’ll keep this lunch for myself.”

  He’d no sooner mumbled these words than he got up to put the lunch with his personal effects.

  “Hey, you! What d’ya think you’re trying to do! Who d’ya think I am!”

  I began hurling out the usual invective, but remembering that the fellow had quite a bit of influence, I immediately changed my tone:

  “Course, if I was getting out of here in six months or a year, I wouldn’t mind giving an old fellow like you something good to eat, but since I’ve got to stay in this hole for ten years …”

  It was almost as if I were talking to myself. My words seemed to carry a note of sympathy, but in reality they were designed to let the men know that I was the possessor of a considerable criminal record.

  There was every likelihood that by noting my number—the low number 178—people who knew the place would see that I was in for murder. But I hadn’t been able to discern even the slightest suggestion of awe. Prodded on by a certain desire for distinction, I’d seen the need for intimidating this old man from the very beginning. I’d been deeply conscious of every word I’d spoken and every move I’d made, down to the motions of my eyes.

  Though I raved and ranted, it had made little impression on this man. He went right on and put my lunch with his personal effects.

  “Damn you! You still don’t understand what I’m trying to tell you!”

  In a fit of rage, I knocked the cell boss down from behind. His scrawny back felt like a piece of lumber through his dirty jacket, the only upper garment he wore.

  Because of this commotion, I was the last to have lunch. Just as I finished, the cell boss was called outside for exercise.

  “Queer fellow! What’s he in for anyway?” I lost no time in asking a fortyish-looking fellow nearby.

  “Sentenced to death.” Two men spoke in unison. Their faces were thrust forward, alight with a sort of pride for having revealed something which would surprise me.

  “So—sentenced to death.” I acknowledged the information with a slight nod. But it set me to thinking, and my face no doubt paled a little.

  “What did he do?”

  “A long list: robbery, rape, murder, public indecency.” The fortyish-looking fellow deliberately enunciated each word. His precise mode of expression was indicative of the intense respect the men with light sentences had for the older prisoner.

  “Is it final?”

  “Yes, it’s been some time now since his appeal was turned down, and any day now, it’s—this! You see, it’s supposed to be carried out within a hundred days after it becomes final.”

  I felt myself in a strange vacuum and again fell silent.

  Noting my youthful agitation, the fortyish one sidled up as if taking pity on me.

  “Yes, you were hasty. You know, men condemned to death can get an extra lease on life, maybe three months or half a year—at least while the trial’s going on—if they commit another murder. So you can never tell when they’ll try it.”

  I knew that well enough. When I was in the station detention cell, my cell mate was a swindler. He had been imprisoned once with a fellow who’d killed his adopted child and been condemned to death. This child-killer also had a way of wanting other people’s lunches. And when somebody would refuse, he’d take out his towel and twist it in his hands. “Since it’s come to this, one or two more won’t matter.” As he mumbled the words, his sinister eyes would be directed at the throat of the man he was talking to. Everyone would contribute a part of his lunch.

  Noticing my dejection, the intellectual, still polishing his utensil box, spoke from his place several mats away:

  “Apologize. You’ve got to apologize.”

  “That’s right! You’ve got to do it tactfully. Then there’s—“

  For some reason, the fortyish fellow cut himself short. Suddenly, a crafty light in his eyes, he gave me a sidelong glance.

  “Long as a fellow sentenced to death is here, extra lunches come in. We won’t lose anything by humoring him.”

  I realized that what these men were saying out of apparent kindness was certainly so. But knowing myself as I did, I was convinced it would hardly be possible for me to apologize to a man at whom I’d been shouting curses only a few moments before. In this perplexed state I passed the afternoon.

  Presently, the boss was returned to the cell. The color had returned to his face, and he began to talk more freely.

  Soon it was night. When the time came to go to sleep, I didn’t know what to do. In the daytime, a sort of unwritten law prevailed within the cell. In accordance with their seniority, the men had places near the cell door: the cell boss at the door, the next oldest inmate beside him, and so on. At night, however, the prison regulations called for the prisoners to sleep according to their numbers.

  This meant that the cell boss, No. 170, would be sleeping at the very end of the room, and that I, No. 178, would be next. I’d have to sleep next to him.

  Sound sleep was out of the question that night. Whether he was sleeping or not, I never knew. He didn’t twist or turn. He just lay there, his gaunt frame with its sallow, rough skin exposed to the glare of the electric light. His breathing was like air going in and out of a bellows.

  I’d heard that there were two other men in Block Five who’d been condemned to death but whose sentences were not yet final. The sounds seemed to come from their direction, shrieks of men having nightmares. Each time they would be followed by the footsteps of the guards going to rouse the sleepers.

  Morning came. We could stay in bed till the guard shouted “Get up! Get up!” but No. 170 next to me was already awake and sitting up.

  I struggled awake. I took one glance at his face and was shocked into disbelief. So ashen was the face that the skin seemed transparent. It wasn’t the face of a living person.

  With the command to get up, the men began folding their thin bedding, sweeping the floor with short-handled brooms, and wiping the planked walk. But No. 170, the cell boss, remained motionless, squatting and facing the cell door.

  “What’s wrong with him anyway?” I whispered to the fortyish fellow with whom I’d become acquainted the day before.

  “You never know when the order for execution will come. If it comes, it should be before the change of guards at nine o’clock. No wonder he’s worried.”

  I muttered something as if I’d understood, but I felt myself paling and beginning
to tremble.

  In all likelihood, a single minute of this man’s life now was equivalent to more than an entire year of the life he’d spent like water. The poor all look older than they really are, but he couldn’t have been much over fifty. If he were to live out his normal lifetime, he’d still have another fifteen or twenty years. He was trying to live those fifteen or twenty years in the next hour.

  Soon it was time for breakfast. Once again, the intellectual shoved aside the box lid offered by the man of the day before and handed the cell boss his own shiny one, as if this were his own personal prerogative. As had happened at supper the night before, this man and the intellectual engaged in a bit of rivalry. The intellectual again pushed aside that dirty cover, and I felt somehow that the fellow who would again and again offer his dirty cover, knowing it would be shoved aside, was a great deal greedier and more to be pitied than the intellectual who pushed it aside.

  The trusty dished up the soup with a ladle. The ladle was big, the bowls small, and the soup spilled over onto the lid. By the time all the men had been served, there was a considerable amount of spilled soup in the lid.

  After getting his lid back from the cell boss, who continued to sit in stony silence, the intellectual walked cautiously back to his own mat. He then tilted the cover and drank down the soup, his lips smacking with unutterable delight.

  I turned to look at the cell boss. In front of him, lined up in a row, were his own meal and the two extra meals that had found their way into the cell. He made no move to take up his chopsticks and remained leaning against the door. I wondered whether he’d soon share his food with some of his favorites, but he didn’t. In a little while he rose, took up the three meals, and placed them with his personal effects.

  Time passed. It must have been after nine, for the voice of the day-shift guard could be heard down the corridor. Though we heard it each morning, the voice of the new guard always sounded as fresh as the chirping of sparrows.

  “It’s after nine,” one of the men said, to let the cell boss know that the hour of danger had passed.