Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
An ambitious, epic dystopian novel - part political thriller and part satire. From the Fatherland, with Love is set in an alternative, dystopian present in which the dollar has collapsed and Japan's economy has fallen along with it. The North Korean government, sensing an opportunity, sends a fleet of rebels in the first land invasion that Japan has ever faced. Japan can't cope with the surprise onslaught of Operation From the Fatherland, with Love. But the terrorist Ishihara and his band of renegade youths - once dedicated to upsetting the Japanese government - turn their deadly attention to the North Korean threat. They will not allow Fukuoka to fall without a fight. Epic in scale, From the Fatherland, with Love is laced throughout with Murakami's characteristically savage violence. It's both a satisfying thriller and a completely mad, over-the-top novel like few others. Translated by Ralph McCarthy, Charles De Wolf and Ginny Tapley Takemori, and published by Pushkin Press Born in 1952 in Nagasaki prefecture, Ryu Murakami is the enfant terrible of contemporary Japanese literature. Awarded the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1976 for his first book, a novel about a group of young people drowned in sex and drugs, he has gone on to explore with cinematic intensity the themes of violence and technology in contemporary Japanese society. His novels include Coin Locker Babies, Sixty-Nine, Popular Hits of the Showa Era, Audition and In the Miso Soup. Murakami is also a screenwriter and a director; his films include Tokyo Decadence, Audition and Because of You.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 1218
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
RYU MURAKAMI
FROM THE FATHERLAND, WITH LOVE
Translated from the Japanese by Ralph McCarthy, Charles De Wolf, and Ginny Tapley Takemori
CONTENTS
PROMINENT CHARACTERS
TOKYO
Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO)
Suzuki Norikazu, Deputy Leader, General Affairs Section, Cabinet Crisis-Management Center
Yoshida, Exchange Section, International Division
Kawai Hideaki, Korean Affairs Section, International Division
Iwata, Chief of Domestic Division
The Cabinet’s crisis-management room (located under PM’s official residence)
Kido Masaaki, Prime Minister
Shigemitsu Takashi, Chief Cabinet Secretary
Yamagiwa Kiyotaka, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary
Tsuboi, from Foreign Affairs Division of Foreign Affairs and Intelligence Department at Security Bureau, National Police Agency (NPA)
Katsurayama, from Security Division at Security Bureau, NPA
Ohashi, Minister for Foreign Affairs
Umezu, Minister for Economy, Trade, and Industry
Minami, Minister of Health, Labor, and Welfare
Araki Yukie, Minister for Home Affairs
Shimada, Minister of State for Defense
Oikawa, Commissioner General, NPA
Sadakata, member of National Public Safety Commission
Doihara, Minister for Land, Infrastructure and Transport
KaiTomonori, Director General of Local Government Wide Area Network (LGWAN), Home Affairs Ministry
Akasaka
Sanjo Masahiro, owner of bar in Akasaka
NORTH KOREA
Korean Workers Party, Building 3
Pak Yong Su, Professor of Japanese at Kim Jong Il Political-Military University
Jang Jin Myeong, Vice-Minister for Culture
Kim Gweon Cheol, Deputy Director of Fourth Section of KWP Secretariat’s Organization and Guidance Department
Kang Deok Sang, instructor in the General Political Bureau; training supervisor for the advance team commandos
Advance Team Commandos
Han Seung Jin (39), colonel and leader of commandos; political officer attached to People’s Army’s General Staff’s Light Infantry Guidance Bureau; Trusted commanding officer of Koryo Expeditionary Force (KEF). Right ear is clump of scar tissue
Kim Hak Su (37), major and deputy leader of commandos. Tall and powerfully built, with piercing gaze. Bayonet scar from corner of right eye to temple
Choi Hyo Il (32), captain. Master of the martial art gyeoksul. Head of KEF Special Police. Tall and ferocious-looking, with bulging muscles and knife scar on cheek
Jo Su Ryeon (33), first lieutenant. Heads propaganda and guidance section of KEF. Accomplished writer. Tall, slim, and handsome, with resonant voice
Jang Bong Su (29), first lieutenant. Serves in intelligence section of KEF. Scar on neck
PakMyeong (29), first lieutenant. In charge of day-to-day operations of KEF provisional government. Elite background. Tall and thin, with refined but mask-like features
Kim Hyang Mok (27, female), second lieutenant. Accomplished at languages, finance, commercial theory, and sabotage. Heads logistics and supplies section of KEF. Grandfather was killed by the Japanese in Manchuria. Petite and pretty, with mischievous eyes
Ri Gwi Hui (28, female), second lieutenant. Expert in electronic communications and sabotage. Serves in intelligence section of the KEF. Lithe and athletic, with even features
Cho Seong Rae (30), second lieutenant. Son of restaurant cook. Tall and gentle-looking
Koryo Expeditionary Force
Ri Hui Cheol, staff major. Second-in-command to Colonel Han. Specialist in international law
Ra Jae Gong, major. Responsible for economic administration; manages funding in Fukuoka
Heo Jip, captain. Army doctor with thorough knowledge of chemical warfare. Short and slightly stooped, with deep-set eyes, pointed nose, thin lips
Ri Gyu Yeong, female warrant officer and army doctor. Pretty eyes, plump cheeks, small nose
Kim Sun I, female warrant officer. Serves in electronic intelligence under Ri Gwi Hui. Fair-skinned and tall, with gymnast’s build
Pak Il Su, second lieutenant. Heads Squadron #2 of the Special Police
Choi Rak Gi, warrant officer. Serves in logistics and supplies section under Second Lieutenant Kim Hyang Mok
Ri Seong Su, warrant officer. Serves in the Special Police. In charge of First Lieutenant Jo Su Ryeon’s security
Tak Cheol Hwan, warrant officer. Heads Squadron #1 of the Special Police, second-in-command to Captain Choi Hyo Il
Ra Yong Hak, warrant officer. Renowned sharpshooter. Subordinate of Captain Choi Hyo Il, Squadron #1 of the Special Police
FUKUOKA
Local government and media
Yoshioka Masaru, governor of Fukuoka Prefecture
Tenzan Toshiyuki, mayor of Fukuoka City
Onoe Chikako, senior staff member of Public Facility Projects Section of Construction Bureau at Fukuoka City Hall. Mother of Risako and Kenta
Mizuki Nobuyuki, Onoe Chikako’s former boss, head of Ports and Harbors at City Hall
Okiyama Hiroto, chief of Kyushu Regional Police Bureau
Yokogawa Shigeto, reporter from city-news desk, Nishi Nippon Shinbun. Married to Yokogawa Naeko
Hosoda Sakiko, NHK Fukuoka announcer, cohosts TV program with Jo Su Ryeon
The National Kyushu Medical Center
Kuroda Genji, Deputy Director of Respiratory Medicine
Seragi Katsuhiko, honorary consultant. Specialist in autoimmune diseases
Seragi Yoko, dermatologist. Granddaughter of Seragi Katsuhiko
Koshida, head of security
Takahashi, Director of Respiratory Medicine
Tsuchiya, Deputy Director of Hematology
Criminals arrested by KEF
#2 Maezono Yoshio, charged with forced prostitution and loan sharking
#9 Otsuka Seiji, lawyer for crime syndicates, charged with moneylaundering and tax evasion
#10 Omura Kikuo, physician, charged with fraud and bribery
#12 Kuzuta Shinsaku, former prefectural parliamentarian, charged with smuggling
Speed Tribe
The Chief (37), head of Bosozoku group the Hakatakko Devils
Koizumi (33), Deputy Chief of the Hakatakko Devils. Son of bean-jambun maker
Ishihara Group
Tateno (16), master of lethally modified boomerangs. At the age of thirteen, witnessed his father, a building contractor, surreptitiously burying a body. Slight of build, long bangs
Shinohara (18), breeds large numbers of poisonous frogs and insects. Face as smooth as a hard-boiled egg
Hino (18), expert on ductwork and plumbing. When he was seven, his mentally disturbed mother stabbed his father to death. At thirteen, set fire to the institution he’d been placed in, killing four people. Face like that of a roadside Jizo statue—round and expressionless
Yamada (17), has tattoo of Mickey Mouse on left shoulder. At thirteen, discovered the corpse of his father, a proponent of “honest poverty,” hanging from suicide noose. Has rabbit-like features
Mori (17), has tattoo of Minnie Mouse on right shoulder. When he was thirteen, his older brother stabbed his parents to death. Resembles an owl, or an Ewok
Ando (18), at thirteen, murdered and dismembered female classmate. Lean and handsome
Fukuda (23), bomb-making expert. Claims to be only child of members of religious cult that carried out large-scale terrorist operations. At fifteen, blew up a “rub and tug” massage parlor. Pale and thin
Takeguchi (18), expert in high explosives. When he was ten, his father strapped dynamite to waist and burst into offices of the company that had just laid him off but succeeded only in blowing himself up. Pretty face
Takei (48), former bank employee. Makes use of connections with Islamic Yemen-based guerrilla group to smuggle weapons into Japan. Small, frail, and nearsighted
Kaneshiro (age and background unknown), obsessed with plans to commit terror on grand scale. Has countless suicide scars on both wrists. Thin face, penetrating eyes
Matsuyama (19), at fourteen, became convinced that radio waves were controlling his mind, burst into TV station, and murdered two with homemade pistol. Long hair, long face
Toyohara (17), at twelve, hijacked a bullet train, wielding grandfather’s antique samurai sword, and cut down conductor. Short, beefy, and hairy, with shaved head
Felix (age unknown), raised by homosexual hacker after parents were killed by armed robber in Colombia. Full-blooded Japanese citizen, in spite of this nickname. Shaved head, with build like a silverback gorilla
Okubo (20), committed forty-six acts of arson in hometown of Iwate. Was famous child actor until age of twelve or so. Skull-faced
Orihara (18), member of group of five so-called Satanists. Has brown teeth and face of old man
Kondo (17), member of group of five so-called Satanists. Thin and weedy
Sato (16), member of group of five so-called Satanists. Big eyes, sweet face
Miyazaki (17), member of group of five so-called Satanists. Expressionless, Moai statue face
Shibata (17), member of group of five so-called Satanists. Short and chubby, with lots of pimples
Ishihara (49), provides housing for all young men in the group. Accomplished poet and winner of Kyushu Prefecture Cultural Award for Literary Excellence
Nobue (55), Ishihara’s close friend. Previously lived in Fukuoka but currently homeless and residing in Ryokuchi Park in Tokyo
FROM THE FATHERLAND, WITH LOVE
PROLOGUE 1
THE BOOMERANG BOY
December 14, 2010 Kawasaki, Japan
NOBUE AWOKE on his American army-surplus cot to the squawking of a chicken. The bird was inside his tent, pecking at scraps of food on the ground. He took his time opening his eyes, then raised his left wrist to his face and squinted at his watch. The little hand pointed at eleven, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Ishihara had given him this watch more than twenty years ago, and even back then it had never kept time properly. Nobue couldn’t say how many hundreds of times he’d considered throwing it away, but buying a new one would have required more effort than he cared to expend, and besides, ever since he and Ishihara had gone their separate ways he’d come to think of it as a sort of memento. His memories of the time they’d spent together were intense, though usually as hazy as daydreams. When he focused on them they were clear enough, but for the most part they lay buried somewhere deep in his brain, like corpses sunk in the muck of a swamp. There had been other members of their little group as well. Sugioka, Yano, Kato… and one other guy. Nobue wasn’t much good at remembering names, but Ishihara’s was one he would never forget. The watch had been made half a century before, in Switzerland, and the silvery minute hand was stuck to the white dial. He felt a bit sentimental whenever he looked at the thing.
The blue vinyl tarp was lit with the pale glow of daylight outside. Nobue’s tent was of the most basic design—a tarp folded double, draped over a support, and staked to the ground at three points. There were no windows, of course, so he couldn’t see what the weather was like or what was going on outside. It was noisy, with people chattering away all around him, but that was always the case and no indication of the time or weather. What the hell’s a chicken doing in my tent? He tried to sit up, grunting as pain shot through his right shoulder. He couldn’t lift his right arm, and his left elbow was creaky and numb. He folded his arms protectively and rolled onto his side, then pressed his palm against the edge of the cot to ease himself up. The chicken was pecking alternately at a scrap of sweet-potato skin and a small wooden skewer to which were attached tiny bits of chicken meatballs. In the oilcan on the ground beside the cot, sticks of firewood still smoldered. That would account for the irritation in his eyes and throat. Lots of the homeless had died of carbon-monoxide poisoning recently, and the so-called non-profit organization that ran the place had issued a warning about leaving stoves burning inside tents and huts. Going to bed without heat in the tent would have been out of the question last night, however. December had been shockingly cold so far, and without a fire Nobue’s joints and lower back would have seized up completely. The pain would have forced him awake before dawn.
“Nobue-san, sorry to bother you. Did my Ken-chan come barging in here?”
A man folded back the double layer of vinyl at the entrance and smiled in through the flap, showing all four of his teeth. It was the guy everyone called Kuri, his real name being Kurita or Kuriyama or something. He’d once worked at a bank. Or was it a trading company?
“Who the hell is Ken-chan?” Nobue growled. “You don’t mean this chicken, do you?”
“Yessir, that’s him all right. I keep telling him he’s not to go into other people’s houses, but… Ken-chan, come on! You’re bothering Nobue-san. Come out of there.”
The man leaned in through the flap and reached for his rooster.
“You expect him to understand what you tell him?” Nobue said, coughing. “He’s a chicken, for fuck’s sake. And this isn’t somebody’s house. It’s a homeless guy’s tent.”
The man named Kuri tensed visibly. Everyone in the park was wary of Nobue, including the NPO staff, who were drawn from the ranks of the yakuza. He was, after all, something of a legend. There were stories about him killing several people with a reconstructed model gun, or building a thermobaric bomb and, partly for sheer amusement, blowing up a large section of Fuchu City. It had all happened a long time ago, and Nobue himself didn’t care one way or the other about his “legend.” But there remained a certain menacing power in his startling features and in the sound of his laughter—a hacking cackle that pulled the rug out from under everything the world deemed most important, like peace and happiness and security. It was his ability to project this menace—without ever seeming to try—that won him the respect of both residents and the tough guys in charge of them.
“Ken-chan, come here! Can’t you see you’re not welcome?” Kuri slipped his hand under the rooster’s breast, lifted him, and set him back down outside the tent. “I’m very sorry, Nobue-san. I’ll give him a good piece of my mind,” he said, glancing nervously at Nobue’s face as he backed out of the tent.
“Give him a good piece of my mind,” Nobue mimicked, chuckling to himself. “What’s a chicken going to do with a piece of your fucking mind?” The more he thought about it, the more hilarious it seemed. First came a pigeon-like ku-ku-ku-ku-ku-ku, and then laughter began to roll through him in uncontrollable waves. As he doubled over with it, holding his stomach, his face twitched and contorted and tears filled his eyes. It was laughter of the sort he’d often shared with Ishihara back in the old days, and it always helped him forget the pain in his joints.
When the laughter had finally run its course he stood up, his head pressing against the vinyl ceiling. He wiped away the tears, bent down to pick up the hand mirror that lay on the ground at his feet, and looked at his face, studying for the millionth time the scar on his right cheek—a ten-centimeter zipper that ran from the cheekbone down to the jaw. He used to think that with age and wrinkles the scar would become less noticeable, but several years ago the flesh bordering it had begun to cave in, making it all the more prominent. The mirror was the sort women use, an oval-shaped affair with a white wooden handle, and reflected in it was the face of a man in his fifties whose hair, skin, and general vitality were all beginning to sag. He hadn’t been to a barber in a decade or more, and what little hair still sprouted from the top of his head hung over his face like the unraveled threads of an old sweater, or cobwebs. His smile, both top and bottom, was missing approximately every other tooth. Those that remained were gray with tartar and decay, and his gums were nearly black. Though he inspected his face every day, this time Nobue couldn’t help thinking: What a kisser! No wonder I scare people. A scar like that on a mug like this… He draped himself in the long down coat that doubled as his blanket and stepped outside, absently stroking the scar with his finger.
The winter sunlight filtering through the branches of the trees cast a shifting pattern of shadows on his face. It was still well before noon, he reckoned. By afternoon this entire corner would be in the shade of the towering fence that separated the western edge of the park from the highway. The city had erected the fence, explaining that it was to prevent drunks wandering onto the highway and getting themselves killed. If that were really their concern, however, a simple guardrail would have done the job—no need for a fence six meters high. Ryokuchi Park was surrounded by massive housing developments constructed by a consortium of private railway corporations. No doubt the city had been pressured by local residents to hide from view the army of people who called the park home.
“Nobue-san!” someone called out from behind him. “Good morning!” Nobue grunted a non-reply without bothering to turn and see who it was. He’d been living in Ryokuchi Park for a year and a half now. It was a vast swath of ground straddling the border between Yokohama and Kawasaki, and was one of the more prominent of the nation’s designated “habitation zones” for the homeless. The six-meter-high fence stretched some three kilometers along one edge of a grassy space the size of three or four soccer fields and criss-crossed with walking paths and a cycling course. To the north and south, the park was bordered by woods, beyond which were the developments. Sports fields had covered the eastern section before the homeless took over, but now only vague outlines were left of them. All the goalposts and nets, ropes, and bolts had been liberated for use in the construction of huts and shanties. The eastern edge was a steep slope, at the top of which was a narrow stretch that had once been lined with benches to provide a scenic viewpoint. Now it was lined with the tents of the NPO staff supervising the homeless.
Nobue’s immediate plans were to visit a toilet and then get something hot to drink. He set off, sidestepping a Log who lay sprawled out on the grass. That was what they called the new arrivals who had no sleeping bags or tents or acquaintances here and had to spread cardboard or old newspapers on the bare ground to lie on—given that name, of course, because they lay around like fallen timber, ripe with the smell of decay and excreta, and displaying few discernible signs of life. There was a place in the park’s open market where you could buy the bare necessities for sleeping outdoors—cardboard and old newspapers and vinyl tarps—but the proprietor insisted on being paid in cash. The public restrooms required coins, and the portable toilets administered by the NPO and scattered throughout the park weren’t free either. All the same, people were still flocking to Ryokuchi. Right now the population was at about four thousand and rising fast. With the presence of the NPO, there was no danger of any trouble from outside, and at the so-called People’s Market you could buy anything you needed—provided you could come up with the money. The homeless living on the street or in other parks were often targeted by gangs of teenagers, and fatal attacks occurred almost daily.
Losing his balance as he swerved to avoid a turd in his path, Nobue accidentally stepped on a Log’s hair. But he (or she—it was impossible to tell) didn’t even move. Most people, shortly after arriving there, fell into a kind of unresponsive funk, their bodies and nervous systems shutting down from a combination of exhaustion and an odd sense of relief.
There were restrooms near what used to be the entrance to the park, and portable toilets had been placed alongside them. Close by were water fountains and two shops that served coffee and tea. As Nobue approached, a middle-aged man called out to him, asking if he had a minute.
“I was just on my way to your tent,” the man said.
He was one of the NPO staff in charge of the toilets. He was wearing a vinyl windbreaker, on the back of which were printed the words HARMONY AND SECURITY ARE UP TO YOU AND ME and a picture of two small animals shaking hands. The man’s head and eyebrows were shaved, and he had the English words LOVE & PEACE tattooed in red and green on one temple. The NPO staff at Ryokuchi were all associated with either yakuza or foreign mafia. In the beginning it had been a proper organization that provided the homeless with medical treatment and checkups, as well as employment services, but as the park’s population had grown to such massive proportions that even the police shied away, the underworld had begun moving in and taking over.
“What is it?” Nobue said irritably. “I just got up, dammit. Gotta take a shit.”
The middle-aged skinhead apologized, bowing deeply.
“I’ll wait for you here,” he said. “Take your time. Enjoy.”
The man turned to a youth with long hair, jerked his head toward the queue for the restrooms, and said, “Nobue wants to take a dump.” The longhair cleared a path through the queue, gruffly ordering people to step aside, and yanked open the door to one of the portables. A guy of about sixty was sitting on the toilet, coughing like mad. “Out,” the longhair told him. “Yes, sir,” said the coughing man in a timid voice. He was trying to pull up his pants as he stumbled out of the fiberglass stall. “Go ahead, Nobue-san, it’s all yours,” said the longhair. He was about to tear off a few sheets from the roll of toilet paper he was holding, when the skinhead shouted at him: “What’re you doing, asshole? Give him the whole roll!” The longhair apologized and handed it over. People waiting in line were watching all this with empty eyes. None of them complained or displayed any emotion. The man who’d been evicted stood bent over, still fiddling with his pants.
Nobue was pleased to find the just-vacated toilet seat still warm—cold seats always made his hip hurt. The cream-colored walls were covered with graffiti. Written neatly in felt pen was a poem that featured the word “terrorist.” He began reading it aloud in a low growl. Know ye the compassionate heart of the terrorist / Betrayed by the nation, deprived of wealth / Know ye, sheeple, that we are one / Know that those who robbed us of property and kin / Shall not go unpunished / Revenge is nigh / Know ye the broken heart of the terrorist. As he read, Nobue was thinking what an idiot the anonymous poet was—another fool who got relieved of his life savings. The more he thought about it, the funnier it seemed, and soon he was rocking back and forth with laughter. The laughter burbled up from his bowels and burst out of his throat with such force that the entire Porta Potti shook.
At about the time when that mentally challenged American president was compelled to admit that his attempt to force democracy on the Middle East had failed, the dollar had begun to fall precipitously. The yen rose for a while, then sank as rapidly as the dollar had. Municipal and semi-government bonds went into free fall, investors began dumping the yen, and finally national bonds went to hell, along with the stock market. An emergency was declared, and trading was suspended on the stock market. Soon banks were failing as well. Institutions with large holdings in national bonds went under, and debt decimated the economy. Further depreciation of the yen resulted in shortages of food and fuel, and it was openly declared that people would die that winter of cold and starvation.
Nobue believed it was back in the spring of ’07 when the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance had gone on television, bowing their heads as they tearfully delivered speeches to the effect that there was simply no other way to save Japan: all ATMs were being shut down, effective immediately. Limits were put on how much cash people could extract from their own bank deposits and savings accounts; they were allowed to withdraw only a minimal, predetermined amount deemed necessary for living expenses. Next a law was passed to prevent the yen from being freely traded for the dollar or euro. People with savings in these currencies ended up with assets they couldn’t use. Meanwhile, the sales tax was steadily increased until it topped out at 17.5 per cent. This was inevitable, according to the mournful explanations of the Minister of Finance, or the yen would become virtually worthless, the nation would face bankruptcy, foreigners would buy up the corporations and the land, and Japan would cease to be Japan. Before long, serious inflation set in, and the net result was that the nation succeeded in relieving its citizens of some forty per cent of their wealth.
At this point, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance had at least had the sense to resign. When the dollar began its steep decline, Japan held an enormous quantity of US Treasury bonds but was put under pressure not to sell them. Yet even as they wheedled Japan into keeping these, the Americans maintained a high-handed approach toward their creditor. They raised the price of corn, on which Japanese livestock depended, by nearly thirty per cent; brazenly sold weapons to China; and unilaterally began negotiations with North Korea toward a non-aggression pact. As a result, everyone in the country—the politicians, the media, the intellectuals, the masses—soon began to lose any lingering affection for the United States.
It was, many of them thought, as if the faithful old dog had not only been suddenly denied its daily dishful but beaten with a stick into the bargain. A long-harbored, vague antipathy toward the US quickly turned into a seething hatred. Impoverished, Japan came to despise and be despised by its neighbors, and only stumbled further down the road to ruin. Ultimately, it was of no consequence to these other nations whether Japan liked them or opposed them. Japan was simply ignored. Left to its own devices by Asia, America, and Europe, the nation grew increasingly bitter and insular. A growing number of politicians, cheered on by street-corner crowds, loudly argued that Japan had nearly forty tons of plutonium and that producing atomic weapons would be a breeze. Apparently this was true. Thanks to the eccentric method of atomic-power generation known as a “closed nuclear-fuel cycle,” the country had stored up mounds of weapons-grade plutonium.
Nations that are down on their luck and bitter about it are generally disliked and shunned by their neighbors, just as individual people in that position are. Those that are both impoverished and embittered tend to lose the ability to control themselves. They get angry easily. They snap and resort to violence or threaten to slit their wrists—or really do slit their wrists. When the NPO thugs found people like that here at Ryokuchi, they beat them half to death. People who couldn’t control themselves were dangerous unless you neutralized them by beating them hollow, beating them till they couldn’t stand or move. The targets of such attacks would end up unable even to obtain proper food. They had to scavenge for leftovers and grew steadily less careful about hygiene. Denied access even to the portable toilets, they had to relieve themselves in holes dug in the ground; and without paper to wipe themselves they soon gave off a stench that could be detected even at a distance. Body odor was like a badge of homelessness, but nobody wanted anything to do with people who also smelled of shit. When the NPO discovered real stinkers of this kind, they’d work them over mercilessly, until they were driven from the park for good. And what was true for individuals was also true for nations—once they lost control of themselves, they became objects of scorn, isolated and ultimately excluded from the world community.
Sitting on the toilet, Nobue reflected that he’d still been hanging out with Ishihara in Fukuoka when his fellow countrymen surrendered forty per cent of their money to the government. Straining his abdominal muscles exacerbated the pain in his hip, and his shoulder hurt when he reached down to wipe himself. Standing up slowly so as not to strain his lower back, he wondered how fast he could run the hundred meters now. From middle school up until the time he enjoyed those meaningless massacres in the company of Ishihara and the others, he’d been able to run the hundred in just over eleven seconds. He sure as hell couldn’t do that now. His hip, his shoulder, his elbow—all his joints were wobbly and barely functional; if he ever did manage to run as fast as he used to, he’d probably fall apart like a disassembled doll. He pictured his various limbs literally coming undone at every joint, an image that made him start laughing again.
The young NPO guy with the long hair was waiting for him outside and addressed him in a ringing voice as he emerged:
“Nobue-san! I hope everything came out all—”
Seeing Nobue in spasms of laughter, he swallowed the rest of the words and just held out a hot hand towel for him to use. Bent double with laughter now, Nobue took it and peered up at the longhair, his face contorted and his cobweb hair flapping in the wind. “You know what?” he said. “If I tried to run right now, I’d come apart at the joints! Like the old GI Joe doll!” He then grabbed hold of the guy’s shoulder for support and began cleaning himself with the towel in his free hand, wiping first his face, then his neck and under his arms, and finally his crotch, reaching inside his pants and scrubbing away. The hand towel went from white to brown to nearly black in the process. Nobue paused from time to time to inspect it, to sniff it, and to wave it about like a banner. The longhair, stunned by this performance, was still at a loss for words. People waiting in line to use the toilets watched the two of them in gaping silence.
“There’s a new one here who looks like trouble. I’m wondering if I can ask you to have a talk with him.”
The middle-aged skinhead was walking alongside Nobue as he spoke. “Whaddaya mean, trouble?” Nobue said. The two of them were crossing the fields toward the southern woods. They came to the section of land surrounded by paths and a cycling course that was known as the People’s Market. This, the lower half of the vast grounds, was packed with shops selling a variety of goods at cheap prices. Even people from outside Ryokuchi sometimes came here to shop. Merchandise was sold from open-air stands, tents, huts, and even a few prefab structures. And most of them had speakers in front blasting music and ads and what have you. Nobue loved the chaos of it all. The hubbub of people milling about made him feel as if he was on some undiscovered planet crawling with bizarre life forms. But the skinhead didn’t seem to enjoy the atmosphere: he began scowling the moment they arrived.
“Whaddaya mean, trouble?” Nobue asked again, leaning to one side to speak right into his ear.
“He won’t say anything. And he’s got these weird-ass weapons with him.”
“So throw him out.”
“We already beat the shit out of him twice, but he won’t leave. And he doesn’t even flinch when you hit him or kick him. It’s creepy.”
Strange characters did show up now and then. About two years ago, a pale, skinny kid named Shinohara had arrived with a large trunk. Inside the trunk were hundreds of poisonous centipedes and millipedes, and out of boredom he’d sometimes have one of them bite a homeless guy, just to watch him go into convulsions. Several of the victims came down with horrific rashes and high fevers and nearly died, creating a panic among health-department workers, who mistook the symptoms for the outbreak of some sort of epidemic. The NPO, led by this same skinhead, had wanted to kick Shinohara out of the park, but they were all too scared of his centipedes to dare even approach him. Shinohara was a kid with dead eyes who would occasionally snicker to himself for no apparent reason, but wouldn’t react at all when you spoke to him or asked him a question. But Nobue, simply by walking up and sitting beside him for a while, eventually elicited a boyish smile from the kid, who then began to open up about his parents and his upbringing. “They told me you wouldn’t talk to anybody—how come you’re talking to me?” Nobue asked him. “It’s that face of yours,” said the kid. “Anybody who looks that much like an alien has got to be all right.”
Shinohara had been living in Setagaya with his parents and his little sister, an aspiring cellist. His father was a scholar of some sort, his mother a translator. Since early childhood he’d been fascinated by poisonous creatures, and by the time he entered middle school he was using his allowance to buy frogs, spiders, and scorpions over the Internet. He began raising centipedes and millipedes and bringing them to school in his third year, and ended up being blamed for a classmate’s partial paralysis. Just before the police arrived at his house, Shinohara made an unsuccessful attempt to murder his own family. His parents had always doted on their daughter, the cello prodigy, and he felt ignored by the three of them. When he was released from the juvenile detention center he had nowhere to go. A probation officer was assigned to his case, but the man was afraid of insects and stayed away. Shinohara had been quite an expert on poisons even before being locked up, but inside he increased his knowledge to doctorate level by studying biochemistry and pharmacology. “They’re such buttheads in that place,” he told Nobue. “They won’t let you read books about poison, but pharmacology is just the flip side of toxicology—they’re basically the same thing. The morons don’t even know that much.”
“Why are there getting to be so many weirdos around?” the skinhead asked, but Nobue didn’t reply. The question made no sense to him. He’d always thought that people who blindly followed society’s norms and conventions were the weird ones. One of his friends back in the old days, a guy named Sugioka, in an extremely bad mood one morning from lack of sleep, happened to be walking along behind a fortyish divorcée whose jiggling ass, he said, was just begging to be touched. When he gave it a poke, however, he was rebuked by its owner in such an ear-splitting way that he’d felt compelled to use a commando knife he happened to be carrying. Everybody was capable of murder. The really strange ones were those who thought it strange that people like Sugioka and Shinohara existed. Human beings had the freedom and potential to do anything whatsoever; that was what made them so scary.
People like Sugioka and Shinohara were dangerous, no doubt about it. But they weren’t as big a pain in the ass as most of the inhabitants of Ryokuchi. Expelled by a society that found them an inconvenience, turned out of house and home, robbed by the nation of their savings, these people were still looking for something to believe in. Not because they wanted to believe, but simply because they were afraid of not having anything to cling to or lean on. Compared to people like Sugioka and Shinohara and Ishihara, the Ryokuchi crowd had a vacancy about them, something insubstantial about their faces and attitudes and behavior. The whole scene had the quality of a daydream.
“And he doesn’t have a code. It’s not that he sold it, either—supposedly he never had one. No telling what a nutter like that might do.”
The resident-register code was an eleven-digit number, programmed into a chip or encrypted in a mobile communication device, that was used to verify one’s identity. Some of the homeless at Ryokuchi sold their codes to members of the Chinese mafia in the NPO. The creation of the Basic Resident-Register Network—or Juki Net, as everyone called it—had been entrusted to a select number of private firms, some of whom outsourced the work to companies in China and India. Once in possession of an individual’s code, the Chinese mafia were able to enter the Juki Net and change the personal information. They could then sell the code for serious money to foreigners or people who wanted a new life. There were, however, some Japanese who didn’t have a code. Shinohara didn’t have one, and neither, for that matter, did Nobue or Ishihara.
It wasn’t because of their criminal records, however. You couldn’t lose your code by committing a crime, but some people were left out of the national system at the time it was created—those who’d been removed from their family registers, for example, or children of radical cult members who refused to register them; and if they had no desire to be let in, they effectively relinquished their codes. Nobue had never seen his. He’d been registered at his parents’ address in Hachioji, Tokyo, but after his arrest along with Ishihara for blowing up a section of Fuchu City, his parents had disowned him. He had no smart cards or credit cards or driver’s license or national-health card. And he didn’t even know his own code number, which was essentially the same as not having one.
“That’s him, Nobue-san. You talk to him, all right? Tell him he has to leave.”
The kid was sitting on a lawn chair some distance away, between a meat shop and a stand selling old newspapers and magazines. Nobue left the skinhead and walked toward him. All sorts of shops were crammed together here, and the spaces between them, when there were spaces, served as alleyways. Smoke rose from a stovepipe protruding from a dining tent with a sign that read UDON & SOBA. Noodles had been distributed here free as part of a food-assistance program until two years earlier, when the yakuza-connected NPO arrived. Nothing was free anymore, but prices in Ryokuchi were about half what they were outside. A bowl of udon noodles in broth was three hundred yen. A homeless couple was sharing a bowl now, carefully lifting one noodle to their mouths at a time with disposable chopsticks that had seen better days.
The noodle stall stood next to a place selling little camping lanterns and candles, and across from that was a tent where you could buy lamp fuel and gasoline. Next to that were stacks of used tires for sale, and then a little stand where a skinny man was refilling pre-owned disposable lighters. Squeezed into a space about two meters wide were four different shops, including a place that repaired portable generators, a used pantyhose emporium, and a stand where you could purchase handmade lip balm. Manning the pantyhose booth was a young woman with a bad complexion and the body of a baby dinosaur. Behind the hut that sold vegetables and pickles stood a pile of raw garbage, which an old man wearing about five sweaters was picking through. As Nobue walked along, the cold seeped into his bones; his hip began to hurt again, and he was conscious of a desire for something hot to drink. He remembered now that he’d been planning to get something right after taking that dump. The warm hand towel had felt so good he’d forgotten all about it.
“Morning, Nobue-san,” said a man who’d been bellowing through a loudspeaker, hawking Scotch whiskey—Two bottles, only ten thousand yen! He was in his late twenties, had a pretty face, and was wearing the same vinyl windbreaker the middle-aged skinhead had on, with the HARMONY AND SECURITY motto emblazoned on the back. He was half Japanese and half Colombian. “I need a hot drink,” Nobue told him. The man put the loudspeaker on top of the whiskey cabinet and stood at attention. “Yes, sir! What can I get you?” he said. “Anything’ll do,” said Nobue. “Cocoa or whatever. Two of ’em.” It had occurred to him that the kid might like some too. “What if they don’t have cocoa?” the pretty-faced half-Colombian said as he turned to go and fetch the order. “You deaf?” Nobue shouted, scowling. “I said anything’ll do, dammit. Anything’s fine, as long as it’s hot.” Noting the look of displeasure on Nobue’s face, the man dived into the crowd and came running back in a matter of seconds, panting for breath, with two paper cups full of steaming hot chocolate.
The kid was gazing off into the distance with unfocused eyes. There was a pink swelling on his lip where a cut had festered. The black-leather backpack on his shoulders was of a strange design—flat and L-shaped. Fine, soft-looking hair spilled over his forehead. His age was hard to determine—he could have passed for thirteen or, depending on the angle, late twenties. Nobue held out one of the paper cups, and the focus of the kid’s eyes shifted from far away to the cup, then to Nobue’s hand, and up his arm and shoulder to his face. He looked as if he couldn’t compute what was happening.
Across the way was a place selling batteries of all sizes, and scattered on the ground in front of it were dozens of pamphlets advertising a sperm bank and declaring, in big red letters: GRADUATES OF TOKYO UNIVERSITY, KYOTO UNIVERSITY, HITOTSUBASHI UNIVERSITY—GUARANTEED IN WRITING ¥30,000. About ten meters behind the battery shop, in the direction of the south woods, were some makeshift latrines that consisted of cardboard screens placed around holes in the ground, for people who couldn’t afford proper toilets. A fat woman with her hair bleached yellow was doing her business in one of them, struggling with her ragged knit skirt, her fleshy buttocks visible through a gap in the cardboard screen. After a while she stood up, exposing blubbery arms and legs to the world as she wiped herself, but none of the people milling around so much as glanced her way.
The kid took the cocoa. “Mind if I sit down?” Nobue asked. The kid peered at him for some seconds, then nodded.
“What’s up with that backpack?” Nobue asked him. “Strange shape. Whatcha got in there?”
The kid mumbled something, peering down at the ground. “I can’t hear you. Speak up a little, willya? Just a little will do,” Nobue said, and began to laugh, making the cocoa ripple in his cup. In front of the meat shop, pork cutlets, meatballs, and croquettes sizzled in a deep fryer, emitting a smell of boiling oil and scorched flour. Two middle-aged men were eating breaded-meatball sandwiches, crumbs falling from the corners of their mouths as they watched Nobue laugh. “Did I say something funny?” the kid asked. His voice was low and hoarse. “Hell, boy, nobody could understand a mumble like that. It’s like you’re shy or somethin’. No point in bein’ shy in a place like this, where a fat lady’s takin’ a shit right out in the open.” The laughter only seemed to swell with each word he uttered and continued rolling through him for some time. “I’m sorry,” the kid said when it finally subsided. Nobue wiped the tears from his eyes and said, “You don’t need to apologize. Just tell me what’s in the—”
“Boomerangs,” the kid said, speaking clearly this time.
“Oh yeah?” Nobue had only a vague idea what a boomerang was. The kid stood up and walked toward the woods, cutting through the alley beside the meat shop, and Nobue followed. Perhaps there’d been a frost: the ground was muddy, and the dew on the grass soaked his sneakers and the hem of his long down coat. From the marketplace to the south woods was vacant land, with only a garbage dump and any number of latrine holes surrounded by cardboard. No one set up tents or huts in the woods because the NPO didn’t allow it, and anyone who tried to was roughed up and sent packing. There was nobody else around, only a crow perched on the rim of an oil-drum garbage can. A crew of homeless people employed by the NPO were supposed to collect the excrement and garbage, but since it was winter they hadn’t bothered to do so lately. This was a service paid for by people who lived in the residential area beyond the trees. The woods were on a gentle slope, and at the top, where the vegetation thinned out, was a barbed-wire fence. The residential district began just on the other side. Sometimes residents out walking their dogs would linger at the fence and survey the park with binoculars.
The kid stopped short of the woods. He took off his backpack and extracted a crescent-shaped, silvery metal blade. From tip to tip it was about as long as a whiskey bottle. The grip was wound with thread, and the inner edge was honed to a gleaming razor sharpness. The kid adjusted and readjusted his grip and pointed at the oil drum off in the distance. So a boomerang’s something you throw, Nobue was thinking, when the air was cut by a sound like whistling wind, and the blade was skimming low over the grass and rising. It picked up speed as it went, until it was going so fast that Nobue couldn’t follow it with his eyes. All he could see was an occasional flash when the blade caught the sunlight, so that it seemed to be blinking on and off as it whipped across the field, making straight for the oil drum. Nothing flew like this—not birds or planes or bullets or arrows. The thing apparently gained speed from the way it rotated in the air. Something burst apart on top of the oil drum like a popped black balloon. The boomerang appeared to pause in mid-air, then came spinning and blinking back this way at what seemed even greater speed, to stab into the ground at the kid’s feet.
“It’s a weapon, then?” Nobue asked when they reached the oil drum, where the crow lay on the ground in two blood-drenched sections. “Correct,” said the kid. He wiped the gore and dirt off the blade before returning it to his backpack. His eyes were different now. They had the same look Sugioka’s had had after he murdered the woman with the jiggly ass. This kid probably only really feels alive when he’s bringing something down with that boomer-thang, Nobue thought to himself. Best to send him to Ishihara’s place down in Fukuoka. If he stays here, he’s sure to end up killing somebody.
PROLOGUE 2
FROM THE FATHERLAND
March 21, 2010 Pyongyang, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
PAK YONG SU had been told late the evening before that he was to report to Building 3, which housed the Party Secretariat’s Frontline Bureau for National Unification, the body responsible for operations directed against the South. To be given an order after ten at night was in itself a bad omen. Moreover, the summons had been delivered personally by Jang Jin Myeong, second-in-command at the Ministry of Culture. While Jang had been Pak’s classmate at Kim Jong Il Political-Military University many years ago, this was quite unprecedented. Over the thirty years that Pak had spent in the harsh world of politics, he had learned to be wary of anything out of the ordinary. Jang had specialized in Eastern European Art Theory, and after entering the Party’s Organization and Guidance Department had been handpicked for a position in the Ministry of Culture. For his part, Pak had studied philosophy and English before joining the General Political Bureau of the People’s Army. Attached to the Fifth Division of the Special Operations Forces Guidance Bureau, he had studied Japanese for sixteen years. For the past four years he had been teaching the language at his alma mater.
“It’s been quite a while,” said Jang as he entered the room. “You seem to be doing well.” These warm words of greeting were contradicted by the cold expression in the eyes behind his glasses. It had been perhaps as long as ten years since the two had last met. Jang was normally a man who never let down his guard, but Pak couldn’t remember ever having seen him so disconcertingly tense. His blue jacket was of the too-tight sort worn by film comedians, his polyester necktie was scarlet, and on his shirt, above a bulging belly that made him look a bit like the famous giant lizard in Pyongyang Zoo, was a yellow stain. He was mopping perspiration from his forehead and cheeks with a handkerchief, although the temperature in Pak’s office wasn’t nearly sufficient to make even a man as fat as Jang sweat.
When informed by a security guard via his telephone extension that Jang was on his way, Pak had hastily switched off the laptop computer on his desk. He’d been reading the homepage of the Japanese Cabinet Office, but though obviously entitled to do this, having official access to all such sites, he couldn’t assume that his colleagues were necessarily allies. It had recently become all the more imperative to be cautious about everything one did or said within the GPB. Over the last three years, the United States, under a Democratic administration, had softened its position toward the Republic; and with the rapprochement, political interests vis-à-vis the US had subtly shifted, resulting in the rise of a reformist faction and the fall from grace of the hardliners. Those advocating dramatic change and economic liberalization had likewise been purged.
There had been recurring rumors that the Dear Leader, Comrade General Kim Jong Il, might relinquish power, but handing it over to the hawkish military was out of the question, and among the reformist leaders there was no one with any charisma. Neither the Americans nor the Chinese wanted whatever shift occurred to trigger turmoil. Whether the reformists moved forward to take the reins or the hardliners staged a comeback, the replacement of Kim Jong Il by a collective leadership was still a distant prospect. The Dear Leader had himself stated twice, in the press and on television, that “the spring thaw is still far off.” He had also referred to the saying: “The mushrooms of March are poisonous,” meaning that acting or speaking prematurely could well be harmful to the body politic. Some had engaged in loose talk about it now being Japan and no longer the United States that was the national nemesis, but Pak needed no reminding how dangerous this could be. Aligning oneself with either the reformists or the traditionalists was equally hazardous. Maybe Jang had at this late hour, without going through their respective secretaries, come looking for a sacrificial goat, one that was stuck in the middle of the road; maybe he was there to ferret out from Pak’s work or attitudes some surreptitious link with the Americans.
“Comrade Pak, I apologize for my sudden visit at this time of night,” said Jang, still wiping his forehead as he looked at his watch. It was a silver Rolex, with the Dear Leader’s initials inscribed on the rim. Thanks to Jang’s contacts in the world of European cinema, the Fatherland had received technical assistance from a Swedish semiconductor maker, along with some Rolex watches.
“No trouble at all,” replied Pak. “As you know, I’m still a bachelor, even at my age. Besides, as they say, ‘winter butterflies are rare visitors.’”
Though this flattery was born of wariness, he felt a twinge of shame as he compared his visitor—fiftyish, fat, and ugly—to a butterfly.
“Thank you. And old acquaintances matter most of all. But what a splendid view you have of the Taedong River! The lights are finally back on Chungsong Bridge. They may still be a bit dim, but one should see them as a symbol of the last decade—and of the soundness of our Comrade General’s leadership.”
The curtains at the window were half open to the moist March air. From there Jang had a view of the gently flowing river and, hazily illuminated by the streetlights, the bridge that for ten years had languished in the dark. Recently there even seemed to be a modest increase in the number of boats plying the river during the day. Perhaps, as Jang suggested, the worst was over, even if this wasn’t because the economy had improved but because assistance had come from the United States and China, both concerned that the Republic was on the verge of collapse.
“By the way, Comrade Pak. Do you always work so late? I’ve heard your eyesight isn’t what it used to be.”
Was he teasing him for being unmarried and remaining at heart a sort of eternal student? Or was this veiled criticism aimed at his use of the computer late at night, despite a state of national destitution that included chronic power shortages?
Jang was a Pyongyang native, whereas Pak was from a small village at the foot of the Puksu and Paek mountains in the northeast. Since primary school, the hardworking Pak had not slept more than four hours a night. His reason for never marrying was Ri Sol Su, a classmate with whom he’d fallen in love, only to lose her to tuberculosis. Born in Kaesong, she had been a clearheaded, affectionate girl. The conviction that there was no one to match her had kept him single. It was true, as Jang had hinted, that Pak’s eyesight had rapidly deteriorated since he had begun using the computer. But the GPB had been providing him with costly lamprey-liver oil to combat the problem. Why was Jang, who was obviously aware of all this, probing the reasons behind Pak’s obsession with his work?
“I live on my own,” Pak replied with an artificial smile. “I have no other purpose in life.”
There was a knock on the door, and a security guard came in with tea. The cluttered desk left him not knowing where to put the cups. He nonetheless kept his gaze unfocused, aware that it was strictly forbidden to look around the room or pay any attention to visitors or the computer. Pak pushed some papers aside to make space. The guard put down the cups and slipped out of the room as soundlessly as a shadow on the wall.
Pak took a sip of his tea, then remarked, “Recently there has been an overwhelming amount of material to be read and analyzed.” This was true. Since the American presidential election, the situation in East Asia had drastically changed.
“I’d like to hear about your research,” said Jang, turning away from the window and looking at him with a serious expression on his face. “What should we make of trends in Japan?”
Pak could well understand Jang’s interest in the subject, but he was puzzled why it was necessary to conduct this discussion so late in the evening. Besides, wasn’t Japan’s ongoing collapse being constantly monitored by that country’s mass media? Perhaps, thought Pak, this was simply a leading question.
“I was just looking at the Japanese Cabinet Office’s homepage. This week their government has decided on a plan to raise the consumption tax by another 2.5 per cent, bringing it to 17.5 per cent. They also apparently intend to announce that a massive expansion of the military is possible without amending the Constitution. The opposition parties have come up with a slogan that calls for replacing US lapdog patriotism with anti-US patriotism. And this general mood is spreading, not only among the poor but also the hard-pressed middle class and even segments of the upper-class intelligentsia. The government is apparently feeling the pinch and so is desperately looking for a compromise with the opposition and its supporters by acquiescing on the constitutional issue.
“According to the Asahi Shinbun, right-wing members of the defunct Liberal Democratic Party, the core of that opposition, are calling for the sale of foreign reserves to finance the militarization effort, and that idea is also gaining widespread backing. But another major newspaper, the Mainichi Shinbun, holds the view that in fact Japan’s foreign capital, including bonds, has been exhausted by attempts to shore up the yen. The more pessimistic Japanese economists are saying that the government is already powerless to prevent a collapse, and this isn’t necessarily an exaggeration.”
Pak was speaking guardedly, saying only what was generally known to everyone.
“In my view—limited as it is—Japan, with its economy in ruins, stands at a major crossroads. The opposition, which is demanding a more powerful, nuclearized military, is gaining strength, while the liberal administration now in power is allowing its base to slip away. If Japan leans toward the hardliners, it will bypass the constitutional matter and immediately go nuclear. But even though the Japanese have the technological capacity to produce nuclear weapons, they lack a delivery system, a fact that the media have shut their eyes to. They’re seriously behind in rocket technology, and they have no long-range bombers. As a result, there’s been absolutely no discussion about the risks involved in possessing even deterrent weapons, to say nothing of a first-strike capacity.
“In any case, the effects of inflation have been severe, and financial resources, both public and private, have been decimated. Since the collapse of the yen, they’ve slapped a ‘Japan premium’ on imports not only of oil but of feed grain. The public are concerned that food and oil imports might run out altogether, and this concern only strengthens the hand of those advocating military expansion. On a calorie basis, Japan’s self-sufficiency for all foodstuffs stands at forty per cent, but for grain, including animal feed, it’s less than thirty per cent, lower than in the Republic. As the yen continues to fall, Japan will inevitably face food and energy shortages. And even as rumors of such a food crisis have spread, the US has raised the price of feed grain by a third. This has only goaded the major media into a unanimous outcry against America. The Yomiuri Shinbun said just today that many homeless people may freeze or starve to death in the coming winter.”
Jang Jin Myeong listened to this intently. He had still not explained the purpose for his late visit. Pak wondered whether it all might simply be a preliminary test, with the essential topic of the evening yet to follow.
“I would be interested to know your views on where relations between China and Japan are going.”
Perhaps now, thought Pak, bracing himself, we’re finally getting down to brass tacks. The Republic was in a quandary over its own ties to China, and Sino-Japanese relations were no less sensitive an issue. If the Democratic administration in Washington continued to move toward friendlier relations with the Republic—aid in food and fuel, for example, being offered in exchange for the dismantling of nuclear facilities—the roadmap to reunification might at last be revealed. China, however, would do whatever necessary to oppose the long-sought realization of that dream, as reunification would
