Jesse Ball - Silence Once Begun

MRS. ODA

(makes a shushing sound)

JIRO

Of course you remember that. I was trying to recall what the medal was for, but I couldn’t. Do you remember?

MRS. ODA

Geometry. A geometry medal.

INT.

Was there some kind of competition that he won?

JIRO

Yes, I think there was. I think he won a geometry competition and they gave him a medal. He was very proud of it. As a matter of fact, I believe he kept it his whole life.

MRS. ODA

That’s nonsense. It wasn’t a competition. It was a thing he had to do, to get up in front of the school and present at a visit by the mayor. The teacher had him do it because she thought he would do the best job of it, but he didn’t. He actually misdrew the shape and labeled the lines wrong. The teacher gave him the medal anyway, since it had already been made.

JIRO

He always told me …

MRS. ODA

The teacher was very embarrassed. I believe he left the school partway through the year and they had to find a new teacher.

JIRO

Oh, now I remember — and that was because …

MRS. ODA

Because your brother embarrassed us.

JIRO

I didn’t know that.

INT.

But he was ordinarily very good at math, then? That was why the teacher had selected him?

MRS. ODA

I don’t think so. I don’t think he was good at math.

JIRO

Come now. He was good at math. You know that.

MRS. ODA

I don’t know much of anything. Your father and I went to the auditorium. You were there too. So was your sister. We sat there and someone from each class went up to show the mayor what they were learning. Sotatsu was wearing new clothes that we had bought just for that. We didn’t have very much money. Hardly any. But we did this, because we wanted to show people that we were as good as anybody. He was up there in line with the others. We sat in the audience. Practically the whole town was there. Then the mayor came in, and he went up to the stage, and he shook hands. They brought out the young students to do this and that, and they did it. Then someone showed a science project. Then someone showed something about photography, an older child. Then it was Sotatsu’s turn. He was trying to show something, I don’t know, something about a triangle. He drew it wrong. Everyone froze up. Sotatsu kept trying to explain it. I don’t know actually if he did draw it wrong, or if he wrote the wrong numbers, but they didn’t match up. He kept pointing to the drawing on the chalkboard. Meanwhile the mayor was just looking away. He wouldn’t look at Sotatsu. Your father and I, we …

INT.

Mrs. Oda …

[Jiro’s mother got up then and walked away, saying something under her breath to Jiro that I couldn’t make out. That was the last I saw of her.]

[ Int. note . This is from a later portion of the in-person interview. It was difficult to keep Garo on subject, so much of the interview was worthless, or I should say it alternated between being invaluable and being worthless. Some subjects will not disclose information unless they feel they are in a conversation. These individuals ask questions of the questioner, beg for particulars and follow ultimately useless lines of inquiry. Such was Garo. I am therefore skipping the tedious discussion of my own life (with his interminable quizzing), as it has no bearing here. I skip to a point at which we are discussing discipline at the prison.]

INT.

But there were beatings?

GARO

I’m not saying there were beatings, not as such. I’m saying if someone ended up deserving a beating, it would be a rare thing for him not to end up, one way or another, getting the thing he deserved. Do you see it? It isn’t about one person deciding to discipline someone, a guard or anybody else, it isn’t about that person choosing something. It isn’t about the way in which such a thing is gone about. It’s an inevitable thing, a person behaves again and again in a way that is a kind of communication. It is someone saying, I don’t learn the usual way. Try something else with me. And eventually someone else tries something else. Talking about context, it isn’t even the right way. I mean, maybe if you mean, maybe if you are talking about the difference between being above water or below.

INT.

You are talking about a guard beating someone with a stick?

GARO

Yes, but it isn’t beating, it is communication. It isn’t an action, not in and of itself. It’s a constant pressure, the effect of a constant pressure. It is a result, not a thing. It can’t be looked at by itself, separated out.

INT.

Did Sotatsu get beaten that way?

GARO

I don’t believe he was ever beaten. Nothing physical, or not much, was ever done to him. He went along with things, mostly. He wasn’t any trouble. And he wasn’t there for long. Also, there is a feeling around some — that they are doomed. When that feeling comes, the guards tend to have as little as possible to do with that person. Most of them.

INT.

But some don’t?

GARO

Well, there was one guard.

INT.

What did he do?

GARO

He would lean up against the window of Sotatsu’s cell and he would talk. He would stand there talking to him for hours.

INT.

What was he saying?

GARO

Nobody knew at first, but it came out after a while. It was maybe a week of this guy having shifts with Oda and talking to him. Then a supervisor found out and moved the guy on.

INT.

But what was he saying?

GARO

Well, I went to Sotatsu’s cell one of those days after the guy had been talking to him for quite a while. Sotatsu is sitting there on the bed, holding his shogi pieces, staring at his feet. He looks up and sees me. Something made me open the door and come in. I said, What’s the problem? He looked at me for a little while and I stood there. Then he says, Is it true what Mori says, the way the hanging goes? Is it really like that? That’s how I found out.

INT.

All that time he was whispering to him about the execution?

GARO

He was, and what’s worse, he was just making up hideous things. Horrible things. He said they brought the family and made them all watch. He said they hanged you naked so they wouldn’t have to bury the clothes. I don’t know half of what he said, but it was awful. Sometimes that happens to a man in that environment. You can start doing things like that. Mori, I guess, he wasn’t suited for the work.

INT.

So what did you tell Oda?

GARO

I described the hanging to him. We’re not supposed to do it. Sometimes it’ll spook the prisoners, make them harder to deal with. We’re not supposed to, but I figured, what Mori began, I had to finish. So, I explained it to him.

INT.

Can you describe it now?

GARO

Well, this was a long time ago. I don’t know how it’s done currently. I wouldn’t want to talk about that.

INT.

Can you just say again what you said to Oda about those hangings, the way it used to be done? It doesn’t have to mean anything about what goes on now.

GARO

I think so, I think I can.

[ Int. note . I had to return to the city briefly, and Jiro had also returned for a meeting. So, we met at a train station, before going back to his house. At the station, we had to move around to find a spot that was sufficiently quiet for the recorder. We began several times, and had to stop and move. I got into an argument with a drunk man who kept interrupting us, and this made Jiro laugh. It was in good spirits, therefore, that we began this interview.]