Jung-myung Lee - The Investigation

‘Watch carefully!’ Maeda shouted as he became enveloped by smoke. ‘This is what happens when you betray the Empire!’

The prisoners inched closer to the blazing fire, lifting their frozen feet surreptitiously to warm them. Dong-ju watched the fire blankly, as though he didn’t have the energy to be sad or enraged. Perhaps this was the best outcome; everyone could chase away the cold for a moment while the books burned. But after they were rendered into ash, the last spark died and the remnants fluttered away with the wind blowing along the blackened ground, what would be left to give comfort to these barren souls?

We assembled in the warden’s office. Hasegawa was looking out through the gauzy curtains. ‘It’s loud out there,’ he said, sounding placid and annoyed at the same time.

‘The Koreans instigated an incident involving banned books,’ Maeda said pompously. ‘Fortuitously I discovered their plot and destroyed it before they could do much damage. Even better, the important task of building a bomb shelter under this building can proceed.’

Next I gave a short report, as the crime had happened in my territory.

Hasegawa puffed on his pipe. ‘Good. Find out who did this. Punish them as a warning to the others. The shelter must be completed as soon as possible!’

Maeda had already ordered a senior guard to ferret out the leader of the plot and his co-conspirators by beating all the literate Koreans. ‘We’ll find out who did it and hang ’em,’ he said confidently.

The warden took his pipe and tapped it against the ashtray. ‘There’s no point. All Koreans are the same. Everyone’s the leader and everyone’s a co-conspirator. They’re all pigs. A pig is a pig, no one any better-looking or uglier than any other.’

Maeda licked his lips. ‘You’re right, sir, they’re pigs. I’ll bring in a few who are responsible, and we won’t have any more problems.’ His eyes gleamed expectantly as he waited for the warden’s consent.

The warden sucked loudly on his empty pipe. ‘There’s no point, anyway. The bomb shelter is strictly for us. Those vermin won’t be able to survive the Yankees’ attacks now.’

That night, in the interrogation room, Dong-ju and I stared at each other across the desk. I could tell he wanted to revisit what had happened during the day, but we were too tired.

After a long silence Dong-ju asked, ‘Can you take me to the underground library?’

‘There is no point,’ I cried, springing up from my chair. ‘The books were burned. They’re all gone.’

Dong-ju stood up slowly. ‘It doesn’t matter. The books may have been destroyed, but their essence still remains. Their voices are still there.’

‘It’s all over! I burned them with this very hand!’ I began to tremble as emotion took hold of me. Everything poured out of me — regret, guilt, powerlessness and the emptiness of losing everything.

‘It’s not your fault, Yuichi.’ Dong-ju patted my back. ‘Yuichi, you can’t blame yourself. We all have to survive. We have to survive so that we can see the end of this war. Remember, surviving is winning. A corpse cannot cheer.’

‘But I can’t survive unless I become evil.’

‘If these times make us evil, fine, let’s become evil. But let’s keep a human heart. Like Sugiyama.’

‘I can’t bear to see what I ruined.’

‘You burned only paper. You didn’t ruin anything. The words are more vivid than ever.’

I wiped my eyes with the sleeve of my uniform. I didn’t know what he was talking about. He helped me up this time, and I followed his clanking shackles. We went down the stairs through the gaping hole in the ground. I lifted my lamp. The room was empty, but still fragrant with the smell of paper. Dong-ju paced, dragging his shackles. He stopped and picked up a page from a book. Somehow it had been spared. He held it gingerly, as though he were cradling a bird with an injured wing. ‘ The Sorrows of Young Werther .’

My heart began to pound. Young Werther’s story began on 4 May 1771 — How happy I am that I am gone! My dear friend, what a thing is the heart of man! — and ended with a letter he sent to Charlotte on 22 December: They are loaded — the clock strikes twelve. I say amen. Charlotte, Charlotte! farewell, farewell!

There is a melody which she plays on the piano with angelic skill — so simple is it, and yet so spiritual! It is her favourite air; and, when she plays the first note, all pain, care and sorrow disappear from me in a moment.

I believe every word that is said of the magic of ancient music. How her simple song enchants me! Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings that air; and instantly the gloom and madness which hung over me are dispersed, and I breathe freely again.

When I’d read it before, these lines hadn’t meant a thing to me. But now I understood Werther; we were the same. Werther thought of his beloved Charlotte playing the piano, just as I listened to Midori.

Dong-ju reread those lines a couple of times, before carefully folding the piece of paper and placing it in his pocket. ‘There are so many books I want to read. It worries me that I’m getting slower. Even a few pages into a story, I can’t remember what preceded it. I can’t seem to make a connection. I don’t quite remember the meaning of some words, and I can’t decipher long sentences. Words and phrases get mixed up and plots get tangled.’

‘That’s normal,’ I said, trying to brush aside his worries. ‘I sometimes think that Tolstoy wrote The Brothers Karamazov and André Gide wrote The Red and the Black . A man’s memory isn’t perfect. We have the ability to remember, but also an ability to forget.’

Dong-ju looked around. Perhaps he was thinking about his own incinerated poems, pieces of him that perished without ever having touched another being. ‘Once, Sugiyama asked me why Koreans talked so much. He wanted to know what we talked about during our breaks.’

I’d always wondered about that, too.

Dong-ju glanced at me. ‘They talk about Jean Valjean, Jammes, Shakespeare.’

I must have misheard him. Was it possible? ‘How? Most of them don’t even know how to read.’

‘The men who went to solitary were literate, but they weren’t reading just for themselves. In one week they would memorize as much of a book as possible. They’d go back to their cells and tell their friends what they’d memorized. And the men who heard the stories remembered them. A few pages or a chapter or a poem at a time.’

Dong-ju smiled.

‘Cell 113 has Jammes’s book of poetry, Cell 115 has Les Misérables , Cell 119 has The Count of Monte Cristo . Our breaks were the marketplace for tales. Men would take turns telling others what they remembered. The men who heard those stories would repeat them. They shared and gave each other hope this way.’

So books were still alive, having laid down roots in someone’s heart. They were living and breathing inside this brutal prison.

Ten prisoners were assigned to transform the underground library into a bomb shelter. They built reinforcing beams and laid thick planks against the walls. The space quadrupled in size in a mere three days, so that it could comfortably shelter the forty-odd guards working in the central facilities.

Air raids continued daily. Death became even more commonplace. When the siren went off, we ran down to the basement. I would crouch against the dirt wall, imagining what was happening above ground. But the prisoners who actually built the bomb shelter were not only unprotected; they weren’t even told what to do in the air raids. They would hear everything — the propeller approaching in prelude to death, the wail of the siren, the explosions — without any means of escape. They could only pray that the bombs would fall elsewhere. Even as I waited out the bombings, I felt a deep shame; we’d left these men to die while we’d scurried into safety.