Free Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball

assault, certain types of fraud, in-house kidnapping, what is that called in English?
    INT .
    Home invasion.
    GARO
    Yes, home invasion, or rape and mutilation. These are all crimes that don’t get you too much time. But the guards know. We know which ones to watch out for.
    INT .
    You learn that?
    GARO
    I think you just know it. If you don’t, you don’t last long. So, it takes care of itself. In the long run, you get guards who know what they’re doing.
    INT .
    You met and dealt with Oda Sotatsu at that time? The man convicted of the Narito Disappearances?
    GARO
    Sure, I dealt with him. If walking back and forth, looking at him, talking to him, bringing him food, counts. I only spoke to him three times. Three times in the eight months he was there. And he liked me. He wouldn’t speak to anyone else.
    INT .
    Eight months? I was told he was on death row for only four months.
    GARO
    Not to my knowledge. Four months is awfully short, awfully short. Don’t think I’ve heard of that. Matter of fact, eight months is short for a capital case. Almost unheard of. We used to say someone must have wanted him dead for it to come so quick, his number to come up, I mean. Seems he skipped clear to the head of the line. Supposedly he had an enemy,some minister, didn’t like how things went, wanted an example, I can’t say. He was easy, though. Tell you that much. Made no trouble, not once.
    (Something indecipherable.)
    INT .
    I’m sorry, I couldn’t make that out. What did you say?
    GARO
    I said he was so good they let a girl in his cell, right before the end. Not that he knew it was the end, mind you. Execution’s always unannounced. Never know. They drag ‘em off through a series of rooms, one after another. We called it visiting the Buddhas because there are different statues, one in each room.
    INT .
    I have questions about that, but first …
    [
Int. note
. Here we lost the connection. It was a couple of weeks before I managed to speak to him again. That continuation will come shortly.]

Photograph of Jito Joo
    [
Int. note
. Watanabe Garo gave me a photograph that he claims had been in Oda Sotatsu’s death row cell. When I later met with Jito Joo, she admitted having given it to him. This strengthens Watanabe’s claims of having known Oda; it is also possible he recovered it from another guard, or from the cell, without having known Oda. Further conjecture on the exact degree of his reliability is likely useless.]

Interview 12 (
Brother
)
    [
Int. note
. This was somewhat later in the same conversation at the pavilion. Jiro and I had been drinking, and he had begun to tell me some stories from his and Sotatsu’s childhood.]

    INT .
    So your father refused to take you along on the fishing boat?
    JIRO
    He said it would be bad luck for me to come.
    INT .
    And why was that?
    JIRO
    He said it had to do with my birth date, that it was not an, what did he call it, not an auspicious day for a fisherman to be born. He wouldn’t even let me on the boat when it was out of the water.
    INT .
    But he would let Sotatsu?
    JIRO
    Yes, Sotatsu went with him on many occasions.
    INT .
    Did that divide the two of you? Did you feel that you were in some kind of competition for your father’s esteem?
    JIRO
    No, not at all. I have heard of families like that, certainly, but …
    (Laughs.)
    JIRO
    … not in the least. If anything it was always Sotatsu and me together against the rest of them.
    INT .
    You two had a special trick you would do, right? At school?
    JIRO
    Yes, sometimes Sotatsu would throw a stone through the window of my classroom. Then the teacher would go off trying to find who had done it and the class would end early. I also did this for his class.
    INT .
    But how did you manage to not be in school at that time?
    JIRO
    I would be using the toilet. Or, I would say so.
    INT .
    And was he ever caught doing this?
    JIRO
    He wasn’t. I did get caught, though, several times. As a matter of fact, I don’t think I ever got away with