Int. Note: Transfer to Death Row
Following the trial, Oda Sotatsu was transferred from the jail where he was being held to an actual prison. Within that prison, he was placed on what is known as death row. Oda Sotatsu did not appeal the verdict of his trial, or the sentence of death by hanging. He merely continued in silence. His family did not visit him at the prison, with the exception of his brother, Jiro, who came as often as he could. There was one other visitor: Jito Joo. But that account will follow in the second section of this book. For now, we shall proceed through the last months of Oda Sotatsu. The information we have about this time comes from Jiro, and from interviews I have conducted with men who were guards.
Interview 10 (Brother )
[Int. note . In the meantime, Jiro had heard about my interview with his father, and had heard of the argument that had broken out (in his father’s estimation). It seems that by turning his father against me, I had obtained some measure of trust from Jiro. He was much more open and warm with me. He wanted actually to see the transcript of my interview with his father. This, of course, I could not allow. He did caution me that his father was considered by many people to be demented, and that I should not in any way take his opinions seriously, although certainly he understood that I was likely to include them in the account. He invited me to visit a house he owned in a different part of Osaka Prefecture. I could stay for some days and obtain the rest of the information I needed. He was to be there with his wife and children for three weeks, a vacation of some kind. He could be at my disposal. This enormous change was very moving. I felt immediately that I ought to have unintentionally offended his father long before, if this was the tangible result. This first (of the second session of interviews) interview took place outdoors in a pavilion on Oda Jiro’s land. The “house,” as he termed it, was rather a modest estate. There were two main buildings and several small outbuildings. A creek ran through the property and there was a fine garden as well as a curated wood with a walk set through it. In short, it was a magical place, designed by Jiro himself, giving a clear indication that his sister had perhaps paid her youngest brother short shrift when she accounted him a philistine. As I said, for this first interview regarding Sotatsu’s time on death row, we sat at an outdoor pavilion. Jiro’s daughter, who was six, had taken a liking to me and was repeatedly bringing me flowers — these are the interruptions in the tape, which I may or may not omit from the transcript in the book proper. In any case, as you can see, even as things became grimmer for Sotatsu, I had emerged into a place of sunlight. I felt full of hope: now I truly would be able to tell the whole story of this tragic life.]
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INT.
I wonder if you could speak at all on the subject of your brother’s starvation attempt, or hunger strike, as some have called it. As I understand the facts, you were unable to be in the courtroom for the trial, but you visited him during that period at the jail. Is that so?
JIRO
I visited him three or four times during the trial. My foreman at the plant where I worked had become frustrated with me and was looking for any excuse to fire me, which he eventually did. I could only manage to get time on perhaps seven or eight occasions, and on at least four of those I arrived at the jail only to be told I could not see him, that he was being exercised, fed, etc.
INT.
Do you know what these feedings consisted of?
JIRO
I do not. They found some way of forcing him to eat. I don’t know if they used a tube or held him and forced things down his throat. I don’t know. It could have been as simple as a priest with a spoon. My brother had an irrational liking for priests.
INT.
But you had seen that he was not eating? On your visits there, you had seen that?
JIRO
I noticed that he was thinner. His appearance was grim all along. At some point, he did seem very weak. You have to remember, we were no longer speaking at this point. There had been speech at that one time, when I brought the lawyer. Apart from that, we just stood and looked at each other. When he became very weak, he would just drag himself over to the bars and sit hunched against them, letting the bars press into his back as far as they would go.
INT.
And you couldn’t tell he was starving?
JIRO
You ask that now and it seems like a good question, a good clever question, but there’s no cleverness in situations like this. Could his spirit have been broken? Could his mind have broken? Could his nerves have broken? Could his body have broken? Any of these things could have been the case. All of these things were likely, even. So, it isn’t as clear as it sounds, not at all.
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INT.
I didn’t mean to suggest …
JIRO
Just continue.
INT.
Did you notice a change in him once they began to feed him again?
JIRO
He got more energy. He began standing again. They tell me he was carried into the courtroom on the day of his trial, that he was propped up on the chair, and that a bailiff had to stand by and keep him in it or he would fall out.
INT.
I hadn’t heard that.
JIRO
But you know what I believe?
INT.
…
JIRO
I think that the hunger strike wasn’t real. I think it was another tool they used to try to break him, to try to get him to sign another confession, confessing more.
INT.
Because the first confession wasn’t enough …
JIRO
It wasn’t enough. They wanted more from him. Maybe they started to starve him and he turned it around. Maybe he said to himself, fine, then I won’t eat. Then I’ll just die. I think he saw it as a way out. Things had become so bad, and there was no door. Then they showed him this door of not-eating.
(A minute of silence, tape running.)
INT.
And there would be no way to know, to know which it was.
JIRO
No way, a hunger strike imposed by the guards on a prisoner who won’t break would look identical to a hunger strike staged by a prisoner as a protest. No one could tell the difference.
INT.
But in this case they didn’t want to starve him to death. They wanted to execute him.
JIRO
Right, so they had to make him eat.
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