Beasts of a Little Land(100)
“The zoo? Why? And so late at night,” Jade asked, carefully clutching the parcel of food in her arms.
“I’ll tell you in the car,” Ito said. His driver, wearing pristine white gloves, was waiting in the front seat, and Ito himself opened the door for Jade before getting in on the other side.
“Where do you still get oil? Not even the military can find it these days,” Jade wondered aloud.
Ito laughed. “In some ways, you’re still a child,” he said, patting her arm playfully. “I know you don’t like or trust me, but in the name of time—sheer time that we’ve known each other, just listen to me. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t trust anyone, don’t suffer unnecessarily, see the truth behind what people say, and always find a way to survive. That’s my advice.”
“Why do I have to survive?” Jade asked. “I feel like there’s no meaning to it. The world is crumbling down, it’s becoming a more evil and dark place every day, and I have no one.” She gestured at the muggy scene outside the window, devoid of any streetlamps, music, or moonlight, silence broken only by the rustling of damp leaves.
“You attach too much importance to other people,” Ito replied. They were both silent for a while, each unwilling to bend to the other.
“So what are you doing at the zoo?” she asked. Over the past few years, many animals had been starved to death. The inexpensive animals like the rabbits, dogs, and Jejudo horses were fed to the lions and the tigers, and their enclosures were melted down and turned into artillery. A few times, Jade brought a potato, an apple, or half a cabbage to feed the lone elephant, or the brother and sister half-moon bears. Afraid of getting too close, she tossed the food into the enclosure and watched them devour the lackluster vegetable. She thought that they’d looked at her with shockingly human eyes. Knowing, pleading, hopeful.
“Ah. I didn’t want to tell you at the restaurant, in case someone overheared and got alarmed,” Ito said in his smooth, unwavering voice. “There were orders from Tokyo to prepare for an American airstrike in Seoul in the near future. So the zookeepers are eliminating all the large and dangerous animals tonight, to prevent them from breaking loose.”
“But the poor things didn’t do anything wrong. So you’re going in order to watch them get killed?” Jade was gripped by anger, which returned with renewed force now that she felt more nourished and full.
“Watch them, yes, but mostly to recover what’s valuable afterward. I’m particularly interested in a tiger skin, two bear skins, and a set of ivory. The tiger, especially. We don’t have any such ferocious beasts in Japan, and we’re a far bigger country. How such enormous beasts have flourished in this little land is incomprehensible. I would have loved to hunt one in the wild—but they’re almost certainly extinct now.”
Jade remembered the long-ago nights in her village. The darkness had resounded with the cries of hungry animals, and on some snowy mornings she’d woken up to paw prints circling their cottage. But wild beasts had never frightened her—it was the humans who terrified her with their savagery.
“Why do you like death and killing so much?” Jade narrowed her eyes; if she wasn’t so dazed from constant physical and spiritual fatigue, she would have burst out crying.
“Oh no, I don’t take any special pleasure in watching a magnificent beast get poisoned inside a cage. It seems—unfair. Inelegant. But if it has to die, at least I can recover its hide. The zoo has said it will use the money to feed the remaining animals.”
The car rolled to a stop in front of Jade’s villa. In spite of her old hatred of Ito and his news about the zoo, she felt compelled to thank him for the food. He shrugged.
“Don’t thank me and just remember my advice. I’m leaving on Friday, so this is the last time we’re seeing each other . . . Fuck war, and fuck loneliness. Stay alive.”
She waited for him to press himself on her, but he merely sat there, smiling coolly. She realized that he didn’t want her, the same way he didn’t enjoy poisoning a caged tiger. It was not a matter of principle, but of taste. She bowed her head to hide her embarrassed flush.
The next day, Jade received a package from Ito’s driver. Inside, there was an envelope of clean bills—thousand won—and a small celadon vase, only slightly taller than the length of her hand, inlaid with dancing cranes over a beautiful shade of jade.
24
Lingonberries
1945
ON AUGUST 6, THE WHOLE WORLD WOULD CHANGE WITH THE DISCOVERY that man can ignite the fire of the sun upon the surface of the earth. But Yamada Genzo did not know this in July, when he arrived back in Manchuria to prepare for the inevitable. The troops were in the poorest conditions, ill-clad, ill-shod, and barely fed. They were given a set of ammunition that would last them a day of battle, and no more. Yet, unloosed on the grassy field on a summer’s day, they still joked around with each other, bartering cigarettes, washing their clothes, wading into the chilly lake and splashing like children. Here in the peaceful boreal forest, the soldiers were not drawn to the kind of depravity that Yamada had seen in previous campaigns. These troops were not inherently more innocent than any other, nor were his previous soldiers inherently bestial. The earlier troops would have also carved the names of their beloved on the trunks of these trees, if they were here now. These troops, given the same circumstances as in the past, would also slash the throats of women while inside them. In Nanjing Yamada had seen a lieutenant do just that and continue fucking the still-warm dead body. After finishing he turned around and said to Yamada, almost sheepishly, “It’s better.” Yamada considered killing the lieutenant on the spot, but that would have been treason. Rape and murder of the enemies of the Empire were just a natural part of war.