Hunt for the Bamboo Rat Read online

  The guards stopped and stood back.

  Nakamichi uncrossed his legs.

  Zenji hung limp.

  The colonel sighed. “One last time, Watanabe. What is your military rank?”

  Zenji said nothing.

  The colonel stared at him. “Unfortunate, and so unnecessary. You can end it all right now with one answer.”

  “Civilian.”

  “Ho-su mottekoi!” the colonel snapped. Get the hose!

  A guard left and returned with a hose. He tossed one end of it to another guard, who opened the window and dropped the hose outside.

  The third guard cut Zenji down, dragged him over to a plank and tied him onto it, then stuck a block of wood under one end so that Zenji’s feet were higher than his head.

  The guard called to someone outside.

  The hose came alive as water gushed through it. Now Zenji understood why there were holes in the floor.

  The colonel nodded and the guard stuck the hose in Zenji’s mouth.

  Water pulsed in. Zenji tried to spit it out, but it filled his throat. He gagged, couldn’t breathe. Water filled his stomach, backed up, refilled his mouth, poured out. Zenji was drowning.

  Today he would die.

  “Mou ii!” the colonel commanded.

  The guard pulled the hose out and tipped Zenji to the side. Zenji was coughing, heaving, spitting up water.

  They lifted the plank and stood him upright to face the colonel.

  Zenji’s eyes rolled back into his head.

  Nakamichi slapped his face until Zenji refocused. “Either you are telling the truth, or you are very stupid.”

  Zenji felt no urge to answer.

  Nakamichi stared at him.

  Zenji looked back.

  Finally, the colonel nodded, as if in some strange approval. “Rouya ni tsurete kaere.” Take him back to his cell.

  A guard jammed Zenji’s bent glasses back onto his face and dragged him away.

  He was never interrogated again.

  Months later—he wasn’t sure what month—he was taken to the prison director’s office in handcuffs. His burns had turned into shiny scars that would stay with him until his last day on earth.

  The director nodded for the guard to remove Zenji’s cuffs.

  Zenji stood, wanting badly to rub his wrists. Don’t show that they hurt you.

  The director motioned toward a neat stack of clothing on a table. “Put those on after you bathe.”

  Clean clothes!

  “Go on,” the director said.

  Hesitantly, Zenji picked them up and raised them to his face to breathe the clean deep into his lungs. He’d lived in filth for so long he knew he was holding something precious.

  He looked up, confused.

  “Be dressed and ready to leave in one hour.”

  “Leave?”

  But the prison director had turned away.

  The interview was over.

  Later that day, clean and in his new civilian clothes, Zenji was handcuffed and taken away from the prison. He was accompanied by a military driver and a guide named Manabu. Neither man said a word.

  Zenji’s cuffs didn’t bother him. He was spellbound, seeing life outside the mud-brown prison for the first time in months—people, colors, ponds, grasslands, weedy fields, bumpy roads, shacks with corrugated iron roofs, rickety corrals, water buffalo, people of all ages on rusty old bicycles. Free, ordinary life in the midst of war.

  Amazing.

  But freedom had nothing to do with him. Was he headed to some new kind of torture? If so, why dress him up?

  His destination, he soon discovered, was Japanese Fourteenth Army headquarters in Manila.

  Manabu got out and walked around the car, surveying the area. The driver’s eyes followed the guide in the rearview mirror.

  “What’s he looking for?” Zenji asked.

  The driver ignored him.

  Manabu opened Zenji’s door.

  Zenji slid out and stood in the sun. It felt so good to be back in Manila, even this way. He almost felt free.

  “Don’t get your hopes up,” he mumbled to himself in English.

  Manabu snapped, “Omaewa hanasuna!” You are not to speak!

  Zenji nodded. He’d keep quiet from here to Timbuktu if it would keep him out of prison.

  Manabu took Zenji’s elbow and pressed him toward the building. They made their way to an office on the third floor, the handcuffs drawing curious glances.

  Workers looked up from their desks as Zenji and Manabu walked in. Zenji made note: Nine men, two women. Two exits. No guards. The Bamboo Rat was still alive.

  “Susume!” Move!

  Manabu shoved Zenji past the gaping staff.

  A Japanese colonel stood when they walked into his office. Zenji almost laughed. The colonel was around Zenji’s size, but his desk was the size of a Ping-Pong table.

  Manabu snapped to attention. “Colonel Fujimoto.”

  Colonel Fujimoto answered with a lazy salute.

  Manabu placed the keys to Zenji’s handcuffs on the colonel’s desk and vanished.

  The colonel looked Zenji over, acting visibly annoyed by the intrusion. Zenji knew it was a ploy to establish superiority. He’d seen enough of this tactic to expect it.

  The colonel came out from behind his desk and examined Zenji from every angle.

  “How old are you?”

  Zenji hesitated. “Uh, eighteen … sir.” He’d forgotten his birthday.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I lost track of time … in prison.” What month was it anyway? “What’s the date, sir?”

  “February 1943.”

  He’d been in prison almost a year.

  “You are American?”

  “Yes, sir. Born in Honolulu.”

  Colonel Fujimoto grunted. “What’s your rank?”

  Nice try. “I have no rank, sir. I am a civilian.”

  “Uhnn. What is a civilian doing with the American military?”

  “They hired me to translate for them.”

  Even more ridiculous than the colonel’s monstrous desk was the way he wore his pants, halfway up his chest.

  But the colonel held all the cards.

  “You were charged with treason,” Colonel Fujimoto said. “You should have been executed.”

  Zenji said nothing. It was an argument he couldn’t win.

  “Fortunately for you, we are not a violent people. We are often forgiving, and in your case it seems those who have interrogated you believe your story. Therefore, all charges have been dropped.”

  Zenji blinked. “What?”

  Colonel Fujimoto gazed out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “Now that you have been exonerated, would you like to join the Japanese army?”

  “Uh, no, sir. I’m an American. Civilian.”

  The colonel said nothing.

  Zenji squirmed. Careful! Sound more grateful. You are at his mercy. His decisions are your only options. “I lack the temperament and military skills that you have, Colonel. I would not make a good soldier.”

  Colonel Fujimoto turned. “You will work for me, then.”

  Zenji was speechless. No prison?

  The colonel squinted, as if expecting some reaction.

  “Work, sir?”

  “Colonel Nakamichi is a personal friend of mine. It seems you have convinced him that you are an unfortunate civilian, forced to serve the American military. On his assessment, I believe you can be trusted to work for me.”

  “The colonel said that?”

  After burning half my body with cigarettes and trying to drown me?

  “He is a firm man, but fair. He was looking for a spy. He thought it was you.”

  “Me? A spy? That’s crazy … uh, sir.”

  “Indeed.”

  “When do I start?”

  “Right now.”

  The colonel grabbed the keys off his desk and removed Zenji’s handcuffs. “You will be my personal interpreter.”


  “But only for civilian matters, right?” He tried his best to sound grateful. “Uh … I would be honored to be your interpreter, sir. However, I can’t commit treason against my own country and bring irreversible shame upon my family.”

  That took the colonel by surprise. “Shame? You are Japanese.”

  “Yes, sir, but American Japanese. I cannot betray my country, nor can I shame my family. Surely you can understand that.”

  The colonel nodded gravely.

  Zenji pressed his lips tight. He should not have been so forceful.

  “Very well,” Colonel Fujimoto said. “You will do menial tasks in this office and also work at my residence as my houseboy. I can also use you to deal with the Filipinos in Manila. And here in this office”—he nodded toward a mimeograph machine—“you can run that thing … and make my tea.”

  Zenji couldn’t believe it. Working in the midst of the enemy? The Bamboo Rat is still alive. Eats the roots, kills the plant.

  He almost laughed.

  “Thank you, sir, for this fine opportunity. I will do my best, sir.”

  For the first time, Zenji allowed himself to think about something he’d assumed impossible: escape. Could he find a way?

  But where would he go?

  The island belonged to the Japanese.

  Colonel Fujimoto went to the door and nodded to a man in the staff room. “Sergeant, call my driver. Take this man to my quarters and have my staff acquaint him with the janitor’s closet.”

  The colonel’s chauffeur eased the black limousine up to a commandeered mansion on the outskirts of Manila.

  Ho! Zenji thought. These guys steal big!

  The grim-faced chauffeur opened the back door and stood aside as Zenji and Colonel Fujimoto’s sergeant got out.

  “The chauffeur isn’t too happy,” the sergeant said with a chuckle as they walked up the steps.

  “He doesn’t seem to like that I’m here.”

  “Correct. The colonel already has a houseboy, a cook, and that chauffeur. All Taiwanese. They’re territorial.”

  “Maybe you could tell him it wasn’t my idea.”

  The sergeant laughed. It lifted Zenji’s spirits to know that some Japanese military weren’t so serious.

  Inside, the rooms were spacious, immaculate. “The staff occupies the lower level,” the sergeant said. “The second floor is Colonel Fujimoto’s.”

  Zenji whistled, low. His whole house in Honolulu could fit into the kitchen.

  “Follow me.”

  The sergeant introduced Zenji to the cook and the houseboy. They nodded sourly. Zenji wondered if they got paid. Or had they been forced to work?

  “What are my duties?” Zenji asked the sergeant.

  The sergeant nodded to the scowling houseboy. “Ting will show you.”

  “I’m sure he will.”

  Zenji learned his duties by trial and error. The Taiwanese took great pleasure in Zenji’s clumsy attempts at serving the colonel. And they made him keep the house spit-shine clean. “You no clean good, I whip you,” Ting said.

  So at least one of them spoke some English.

  “I’m an excellent cleaner,” Zenji said. “I’ll keep this place spick-and-span.”

  “What?”

  “Spotless. I clean um good.”

  “You bettah.”

  For a bed, Zenji got a mattress in a large closet near the laundry room. The closet was about the size of his former cell, and he had it all to himself. It was dry and clean, with sweet-smelling blankets. Sleeping on the mattress was like sleeping on a cloud. And the wholesome food was unbelievably delicious. Zenji took every bite with enormous gratitude. Sometimes he would just hold a slice of fresh bread and stare at it.

  Except for silent meals with the others, Zenji kept to himself.

  Weeks turned into months. Some days he stayed at the residence and cleaned. Other days Fujimoto took him to the office.

  After a while, the colonel started giving Zenji captured American documents to translate. Most had no value—supply sheets, inventory lists, and other documents low on the list to be destroyed before the Japanese moved into Manila.

  But one particular communication startled Zenji, not because it was important, but because it had just come in, and it was dated: July 7, 1943. His birthday.

  Ho! I’m nineteen!

  Happy birthday, me. The last one he remembered he was eating watermelon in his yard with his family. Or was he? It jolted him to not know for sure. Was the watermelon the birthday before that? It even took him a moment to remember what everyone looked like.

  His heart sank. It all seemed so long ago.

  And now he was emptying wastebaskets.

  But at least peeking into those wastebaskets kept his mind from wandering to sad places.

  Once a secretary snapped at him. “What are you looking at? This is not for your eyes! If you look again I will report you to Colonel Fujimoto!”

  “Sorry, sorry.” Zenji bowed deeply.

  Careless.

  He couldn’t get any useful information. Too many people kept their eyes on him. And what would he do with it, anyway?

  When the Taiwanese learned that he’d been an American prisoner of war, their contempt deepened. He was lower than they.

  Ting began ordering Zenji to perform all the work he himself was supposed to do.

  Zenji didn’t mind, because he could explore every inch of the colonel’s bedroom. If there was important information anywhere in the house, he’d find it.

  The problem was, Ting watched Zenji tirelessly.

  “Hey!” Ting shouted when he caught Zenji running his hand between the colonel’s mattress and box spring. “Whatchoo doing? Looking for girlie magazine? Go out dis room!”

  Zenji raised his hands in surrender. “Just making the bed.”

  “Go! Out!”

  “Sure thing, hanakuso-brain,” Zenji muttered. Booger-brain fit Ting perfectly.

  “What that mean?”

  “It means, you da boss.”

  “You right, American dog.”

  Zenji soon gave up searching. He had no hope of contact, no post office box, no G2. But he didn’t stop thinking about escape. If he could ever work out a plan it would be simple to slip away from this house.

  One day, Zenji found the door to a locked room ajar. Careless, Ting.

  He glanced down the hall. No one.

  He slipped in. “Whoa,” he whispered.

  The room was packed with confiscated liquor, American cigarettes, U.S. Army rations, and other valuable items. He picked up a bottle to read the label.

  “Whatchoo doing!”

  Zenji snapped around.

  “Get out!” Ting shouted. “Now! I go whip!”

  Zenji put the bottle back and gave Ting a knowing grin.

  “I tell um, da co-nel! You in bad time. I tell um!”

  “Go ahead,” Zenji said. “Who cares? You’re the one who forgot to lock the door.”

  But Zenji did care. Snooping could get him sent back to prison.

  Colonel Fujimoto was enraged when Ting told him that Zenji had found his stash, but he didn’t punish Zenji. After all, nothing was taken, and Ting had been careless, which the colonel made note of.

  From that moment, Ting never missed a chance to berate Zenji.

  “You stupid American! No can do nothing! I see dog more smart than you! I see donkey!”

  Zenji stopped listening.

  Ting had no power over him, as long as he didn’t get caught snooping again.

  There was still much he could learn here.

  Time to be a better spy.

  The months passed into 1944.

  As far as Zenji could tell, the war was still going well for Japan. But Colonel Fujimoto was deeply concerned over the loss of an atoll called Truk, a key operational hub for Japan’s Central and South Pacific defenses.

  Though information was sketchy, Zenji was beginning to sense that the Americans were slowly getting the upper hand.

 
Colonel Fujimoto continued to have Zenji work at the office, which was more productive than searching the house. Still, Zenji had to be vigilant. One woman especially was always watching him.

  But the colonel was a trusting man, and he seemed to like Zenji.

  “You should join the Japanese army,” he said one day. “Your country needs good workers like you.”

  “Thank you, sir, but I am still an American.”

  “Yes, but you are also one of us. You could be helpful. You have nowhere to go. Powerless. You might as well make the best of it.”

  “True. I am powerless.”

  “Think about it.”

  Zenji nodded. “I will.”

  And Zenji hoped he could be helpful. Just not to Japan.

  But how could he get whatever he learned back to the army? The only Americans in Manila were POWs.

  There had to be some way. He would find it.

  By June 1944, he’d worked for Colonel Fujimoto for over a year. Ting remained suspicious, but he and Zenji had come to a mutual understanding that each was, in essence, a slave, and that there was not much they could do about it.

  Zenji’s time with Fujimoto had its good moments. The overworked colonel had come to trust him with sensitive chores. One was running papers from the colonel’s office to other military offices, some actually outside the building. Zenji could have just disappeared.

  But two things held him back: One, where would he go? Two, he still believed he could be of value to the U.S. by remaining where he was.

  Strangest of all—Zenji had come to like Colonel Fujimoto. The colonel had even brought a man in to repair Zenji’s glasses, and one evening, the colonel asked Zenji to join him for dinner at a nice restaurant. They talked of each other’s home and family, and Zenji was surprised at how much they had in common, as Japanese men. For a couple of hours Zenji felt as if they were simply friends, or neighbors—just people.

  It was good, and Zenji was glad that he’d waited.

  Two months after that dinner, his big break walked in Colonel Fujimoto’s door.

  She was a small woman.

  There was something about her, a focus that reminded Zenji of Aiko.

  When none of the colonel’s staff made any effort to help her, Zenji got up to guide her over to the colonel’s office, where she waited for permission to enter.

  Colonel Fujimoto ignored her. He was edgy that day. The U.S. had just taken Guam back, and that morning Zenji had overheard the office staff whispering about General MacArthur returning to the Philippines.