Forgiveness (17 page)

His first act of labour in Japan was to take a plate full of steamed fish and shaved
daikon
to Commandant Tetsutaro Kato. Commandant Kato, or “four eyes,” as the Canadians would refer to him, was infamous for his callous cruelty. He had ordered and committed some terrible acts. A few days after Ralph started his duties, two men, an American and a Canadian, were caught committing some misdemeanor. As punishment, both were stripped down to their undershirts and trousers and tied to a stake hammered into the frozen ground. In order to stay alive, they were forced to jog around the stake for the entire night. The other men lay helplessly in their hut listening to their comrades grunt and groan. At dawn, they awoke to the terrible sound of rifle butts beating the men. The American’s body was left at the stake. His head was split open and pieces of his brain had frozen to the ground.

Miraculously, Mortimer survived both the night and the dawn beating. But his frostbitten body became ravaged by gangrene. His flesh rotted and for weeks he suffered in unspeakable agony as the decomposition continued its relentless march. He literally died from the toes up.

This episode solidified Commandant Kato’s standing in the eyes of every man on the camp. He was a monster.

But Ralph came to know that he was also a learned man. Born into an influential Tokyo family, Kato had gone to university and
socialized with scholars, business leaders, and politicians. He had a bright future ahead of him. Then he was commissioned into the army and sent to Manchuria. There, he started to drink heavily. He arrived in Niigata an angry drunkard.

The war had robbed Kato of many things, but not his curiosity. He called Ralph by his last name, which sounded like “Mac-u-rane.” One night, Ralph had finished opening the second bottle of whisky for him and was about to return to the mess hall when Kato spoke softly, showing no sign of being intoxicated.

“Mac-u-rane. Wife?”

Ralph looked closely at Kato’s face. He didn’t want to speak, but an answer was expected.

“No,” he said. He did not bow. He had forgotten. The slight went unnoticed or ignored.

“Mac-u-rane, drive car?”

This was by far the longest Ralph had ever spoken to a Japanese person. Kato also happened to be the highest-ranking Japanese person he’d ever come into contact with. He wanted to keep this short, tight, non-offensive.

“Yes, a truck. Back home.”

“Ah, back a home.” Kato looked past Ralph. He didn’t say anything else, just nodded and seemed to be lost in thought. Maybe he was thinking about his home, maybe he was imagining Ralph’s. Either way, Ralph saw an exit and took it. As he slid the door shut behind him, he saw Kato in the dim light of his hut, smoke from his pipe filling the room. He was still nodding and repeating the word
home.

Both of them were so very far away from it.

On the night of December 31, 1944, a heavy snowfall was not able dampen the men’s New Year’s Eve celebration. Those in Ralph’s hut scraped together the few cigarettes they had and passed them around. Ralph rolled away from them, hoping that 1945 would
bring an end to all of this. It turned out to be a classic case of being careful what you wish for.

Each sleeping hut housed one hundred and eighty men. The huts were built of wood and had a dirt floor. They had been hastily set up. The Japanese had not anticipated capturing prisoners, let alone bringing them to Japan. Nor had they anticipated the record snowfalls that year. The hut roofs were lined with heavy tiles. Two levels of sleeping planks, seven feet long, were attached to opposite walls. The top bunks were five feet above the lower ones. Each man had a rice-straw mat for bedding. Ralph’s hut had a pesky hole in the roof where one of the heavy tiles had blown off a few nights earlier, allowing the wind to howl through. Everyone felt sorry for the poor chap who slept below the hole, but nobody offered to switch places.

The hut’s night watchman was finishing his rounds. He was just entering Ralph’s hut to return to his bunk when he heard a loud
crack.
It sounded like a baseball bat knocking a hardball out of the park. The wood was moving, bending. As the watchman stared from the threshold, the doorway shifted sideways as the entire building collapsed under the weight of the snow.

Ralph awoke to someone or something hitting him on the shoulder. He thought it was a guard pounding him with one of those despised clubs. One of the two-foot ceiling beams had slammed into his shoulder, missing his skull by an inch and knocking him off his platform to the dirt floor. Amazingly unharmed, he stood up. He rubbed the dust out of his eyes and looked up; he saw a sky full of stars and felt heavy snow falling on his face. He looked down and saw the roof of the hut spread out around him. He was standing in the gap left by the missing tile. Men inches to the left and right of him had been crushed. He heard the cries of injured and dying men around him and registered the gravity of the situation. One hundred and seventy-eight men were trapped. The night watchman was already running to alert everyone. Ralph stood exactly where he was.

Other POWs ran to the scene and desperately tried to dig through the rubble with their bare hands. They were pulling men out when the guards’ whistles stopped all efforts. Worried about men escaping, they wanted to count the prisoners. All rescue ceased as the men lined up in the parade square, helplessly staring at the pile of wood and snow. They knew that as they stood there being counted off, their buried friends were dying. Tears ran down their cheeks.

Ralph would think later that it was ironic. Of all the things that had taken him to the edge—bullets, mortars, bayonets, diphtheria, the hellship journey—of all these things, it was snow that had come closest to sending this Canadian boy to his grave.

Eight men died that night under the rubble, three-and-a-half hours into the new year, their third in captivity.

If only that had been the final degradation. The bodies had frozen, and in order to fit them into the Japanese caskets, the living were forced to break the bodies. Legs, ribs, and pelvises were snapped, folded, and jammed into the wooden boxes. The men left alive lost a part of themselves that morning as they lowered the eight broken bodies into the frozen ground.

Mitsue and Hideo had to report to the Canadian Pacific Railway Station at 8 a.m. sharp. Mitsue was up before dawn. She had been awake the entire night. She ran a bath and put on her best skirt and blouse. She had ironed them both the night before. She put on a little makeup.

Mitsue had never heard the house so quiet. She tiptoed down the stairs, made a cup of tea, and sat at the table by herself. She was preparing herself, trying to brace herself, gather her strength. She knew she’d need it.

Hanpei and Wari came down the stairs together. Mitsue made more tea and some somen noodles for them.

“Arigato,”
they said.

It was a day like no other. Their trunks were packed, nailed, and stacked by the front door.

Mitsue made a little
nigiri
for Hideo and June and then cleaned the dishes. When they were both done eating, Mitsue put the bowls and chopsticks into the basket that would be left for the rooming house owner. What use were they to them anymore?

They left the kitchen together. Hideo turned out the light and they waited in the front lobby in the half-light of dawn. Not a
word was spoken. Mitsue was glad that she had taken a little time to prepare herself because she felt a wave of emotion. She swallowed hard to keep it at bay; to keep it all inside. She was so frightened to leave.

The truck they had arranged arrived right at 7 a.m. The outfit had taken many Japanese families to the train station, so the driver knew how to handle the wooden boxes. He stacked them quickly and neatly in the back of the truck. As they drove away, Mitsue didn’t turn around to watch the boarding house or Little Tokyo fade away. She kept her eyes forward and tried not to blink. She didn’t want tears ruining her makeup. She kept her hands folded in her lap so nobody would notice them shaking. Amid the confusion, terror, and anxiety, there was an unspoken code of silence. Everyone’s hands were folded. Everyone’s hands were shaking. They tried to be Japanese in the best way they knew how, by keeping their composure, keeping their civility.

Mitsue met her family on the train station platform. They were all dressed in their Sunday clothes too. Yosuke had his overcoat on even though the sun was starting to warm the air and the grey morning mist was lifting. They had packed less than Mitsue had. It looked like they were going on a camping trip. Susanne had made sure to bring all of her school books, even though nobody knew if she’d be able to find a school where they were going. Mary had a deck of cards and a few board games to pass the time. She had a Ouija board too. Maybe she would look for some answers there. Where were they going? What would it be like? Why was this happening?

The station was full of Japanese folks. Mitsue looked across the platform. Half of them were children. Some she knew from Sunday school.

They had to load their own trunks on the train. Pat and Hideo did most of the heavy lifting for the two families. Once that was done, an officer with a bullhorn ordered everyone to board.

Mitsue felt like a cow at Hastings Park. Her heart sank as she sat down on a wooden bench. Her worst fears were coming true. She
sat by the window and Hideo sat next to her. He took her arm as the train jerked forward. Clickety-clack down the tracks, the train made them sway back and forth in their seats. Mitsue saw a policeman standing on a box with a rifle, staring at the train as it went by. His face was blank. There were some people on the platform still holding hands through the windows with loved ones on the train, and running alongside it. They didn’t want to say goodbye. One man panicked. He wouldn’t let go of his wife’s hand. Finally, as the train picked up speed, he fell onto the platform. His whole family was gone. His wife was sitting with two small children a few rows up from Mitsue. She put her hands to her face and cried until she fell asleep.

The train left the station at 8:45 a.m. They were in a dirty old car with rows of wooden benches. It smelt of dust and sweat and dirt. There were no dining cars or food of any kind. There was one common toilet and it hadn’t been cleaned in some time. Passengers and luggage were all packed in tight. A lady a few rows back complained loudly that they were being treated like pigs. She was speaking in loud Japanese and then burst into tears.

The scenery outside was familiar but already everything felt different. Mitsue was saying goodbye to the city of Vancouver, goodbye to her life as she knew it. It had been taken away from her—all of it. The Sunday school kids, her job with Mrs. Yamamoto, sunny afternoons in Stanley Park with friends, family dinners in Celtic, the thrill of starting her own life. This city was throwing her out. She and every single person she loved had been uprooted and discarded.

By evening, they were at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Mitsue had never seen them before. She thought they were beautiful. They looked like a great wall. The passengers had no idea what was on the other side of the mountains. The train slowed to start the steep climb. Mitsue wondered if they were too heavy to make it.

Night fell and the world became full of shadows. The moon hid behind the clouds. It was the most restless of nights. Mitsue could not lie down anywhere, so she leaned on Hideo. The metal sides of
the train were cold going through the mountains. Everyone kept their jackets zipped tight.

As day broke, they found themselves east of the Rockies, making their way through the foothills. Another world opened up before them. They had never seen anything like it; miles and miles of emptiness stretched as far as their sleepy eyes could see. There was a silence in the vastness. Mitsue felt as empty as the horizon.

Everyone ate some of the
onigiri
that Mitsue had packed for breakfast. She had known that the rice balls would travel well and be appreciated. She passed them out to Hideo, June, Hanpei, and Wari. You seldom know exactly what someone is thinking, but when sharing food, you know just what the person is experiencing. They ate in silence.

As the morning wore on, people talked more. Mitsue visited with her Celtic neighbours. They hadn’t been told much, but they did know that each family would disperse as soon as the train stopped. They all feared they would not see one another again for a long, long time.

After lunch, everyone was tired. Most dozed off. Those who did awoke sometime later with a jerk that sent many flying out of their seats. Groggy, Mitsue tumbled down the steps, blinked to see daylight, and stretched her cramped body.

Where were they? It was like waking up from a bad dream.

They were at the train station in Lethbridge, Alberta, just east of the Rocky Mountains and in the Canadian prairies. Each family disembarked and assembled their belongings, staying together until their name was announced and the family was matched with a farmer who had contracted to use them as labourers on sugar beet farms. Mitsue stood with her family as tall and as straight as she could in her Sunday best as men walked past her, staring at her, claiming her with their eyes.