Q: Who did you see on the afternoon of April 29, 1947?
Furukawa looked old. Only thirty-two or thirty-three, he was a slip of a man, his gaunt head drooping over his dusty button-down tucked into worn trousers that gave him the appearance of a wilted bean sprout, world-weary but hiding all the vigor necessary to birth a new era. Or so it seemed to the boy, who’d heard legends about this renegade who’d survived the wartime Communist purges that had disappeared hundreds of his comrades. In the dimness, he looked as grainy as the magazine mugshot made famous by the boy’s own father, a wartime journalist known for his exposés of the purges. Of all the Communists his father had profiled, Furukawa had caught his attention. He’d seemed so ordinary, answering his father’s questions with such plain sincerity it had been inspiring. He’d impressed his father too. Now, though, Furukawa frightened him. Less than a year into the Occupation, the Americans, increasingly alarmed by the Communists’ popularity, had begun retracting civil liberties, harassing the same political prisoners they’d made a show of releasing only months earlier. Word was that Furukawa was on their watch list, and the restriction, coming from the very power that had legalized the Party, had soured his heart, spinning his compass in a new, potentially violent direction. Furukawa, as he had during the war, had been keeping out of sight in this defunct press, printing uncensored news and tracts, allegedly in preparation for a red insurgency.
The boy glanced at the curled body in the corner, its small back brushed by a weak light, and quickly introduced himself, dropping the names of the two university students he knew Furukawa was acquainted with from Party meetings: Kiyama and Sato. “They would’ve never told me where to find you if it wasn’t urgent. I’m looking for Konomi.”
Furukawa showed no recognition, and a splash of heat spasmed the boy’s carbuncular face. Despite the armor of skin that covered his burns, a result of his failure to outrun the incendiaries that had razed his neighborhood two years earlier, inadequate treatment and nutrition had left him susceptible to eruptions and abscesses. He knew he reeked; for months after the bombing, he’d kept to unpopulated areas, scrabbling in the ruins, avoiding the organized gangs of scavengers who prowled the alleys behind restaurants as well as the black markets that had sprung up across the city. But the previous winter had left his body a bed of bones, and he couldn’t shake the fever that had nestled in; following the pull of his feet, he weaved his way into a throng of people that led him to a patch of shade cast by Konomi’s stall. Instead of chasing him away, she’d sat him down and fed him a warm bowl of gruel. It had been the first time in weeks that anyone had spoken to him. That was the end of April almost exactly a year ago.
He glanced again at the body. It was definitely small enough to be a woman.
Furukawa, watching him, moved into the room and crouched to check the body’s pulse. Pushing two fingers into the neck, he lifted the wrist. The arm was still soft.
The boy licked his lips; the tang of pus coated his tongue. “Listen, I know this isn’t protocol, I know you have no reason to trust me, but I’ve got to find her. I know you were with her,” he said, regretting this last part. The information had come from an unconventional source: a rōjin who roamed the city streets in the garb of an Imperial officer, reporting on the goings-on around town. He often showed up at the welfare shelter where the boy had been living for the past seven months. The rōjin’s stories were ranging, picked up from anywhere and everywhere, drawing an attentive crowd. It was also the one lead he had; Konomi had been missing for close to a month.
Furukawa continued to regard him. Then he dropped the wrist and rose to his feet. “I don’t know who your eyes and ears are, but seems like you’re getting outdated information. Your friend Konomi is a traitor.”
The word hit the surface of the boy’s thoughts and rippled through him. “No,” he said finally. “She’d never do that.”
“No? Then tell me why she’s working for the Americans.” Furukawa stepped toward the window and ripped back the blackout papers. The dusty light illuminated the body. It was not Konomi but a compact man in a suit. Furukawa’s right-hand man: Ōtsuka.
WITNESS #2: KIYAMA
TOKYO METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT, APRIL 29, 1947, 18:30
As far as I know, Konomi met the kid in Ueno, at the black market you shut down last summer, starving a nice chunk of the population. She had a stall there. Took one look at the kid and took him in. Before long, he was helping her, guarding her from the cads lurking around. You said Sato wouldn’t talk about her? I always thought he had a little something for her. Fact is, we haven’t seen her in about a month.
Konomi’s a unique one. Outspoken, pretty but not in the conventional way; she’s…alluring, despite her little limp, souvenir from the war. Kid can’t stay away from her. It’s refreshing, the honesty of a kid living with his whole self. These days everyone’s complaining about the spot we’re in, how we were “deceived by the Emperor.” But is anyone asking why? Think about it. We didn’t like being deprived of food, thoughts, choices; we didn’t want to be in the line of fire; we didn’t enjoy killing our fellow men, starving them, torturing them, denying them their homes, families, their right to exist. So why did we do it? Because we lost touch with our humanity and opened our minds to chatter. Before we knew it the strings of other minds had taken hold of our own, and suddenly we were marching to the drum that was drumming the loudest while our hands waved the flag foisted upon us and our mouths hinged open to swallow whatever we were being fed. Once you start, there’s no stopping. We marched faster. We waved bigger flags. We built our empire, sacrificed our children. We did all this—and lost everything. So now what? How do we go on?
The kid, though, never lost his humanity. Is he frustrated? Hunger’s an irritant, and so is pain. Look at his body. Perfect picture of this country, if I can get him on film. Is he resentful? He has reasons to be, his family gone, and he’s what, fourteen? Not that I’d know—he won’t talk about his past, says he’s nobody. How sad is that? Is he vengeful? Like I said, the kid’s whole. His mind doesn’t float like oil on top of his watery heart. He lives for one thing: love. We all know what that is, but do we live by it? It didn’t keep my parents from sacrificing my brother to the war. Not that it matters—everyone’s gone. Naturally, it’s hard loving a woman who thinks of you as a kid brother. Konomi knew that. So she made herself scarce, and the kid’s been moping since. Don’t believe me? That’s your problem.
Today, April 29, we were pretty excited when he came around asking if he could help with May Day. We told him to show up and march. Did he seem agitated? He did not. Did he mention some murder—some assassination—plot? He did not. You come to us because we’re Party members, and you think we’re extremists. But, tell me, what’s wrong with food for the masses? Security for the workers? Equality and justice for all? Sure, the Party’ll go after the mighty, but are we stupid enough to get violent? That stuff’s for film. Not that we love this democracy with its double standards rolling back our freedom until—what? We become docile subjects of the American empire?