Sado island - toshiyuki ihira (cool books to read txt) 📗

“where should we go now.” Typical tourists. (“They don't look anguished. … They look like they are on a vacation! Are they, aren't they thinking about staying here?”) All of them are surrounded by media and well-wishers. I lose site of them in this crowd.
“I wonder what they will do now that they are here.” She is chipper. She is more excited than I am seeing them on TV. Seeing them, their faces and how they look, is remedial to her anxious imagination. These people aren't sad or in pain. They look more apprehensive than anything.
“You know North Koreans kidnapped Japanese women because of those Japanese Red Army knuckleheads. That's what I think. You know the ones that took hostage in a mountain cabin and demanded an airplane to North Korea. If Japanese government were tough enough with them and not let them escape, all of this wouldn't have happened. I heard these Japanese Red Army guys wanted women kidnapped.” I give her my smug - I know so much - look, expecting her to give me her retort in her usual - I hate politics - tongue lashing.
“Yes. And Japan has had no defense. Japanese Self Defense Force is kind of a joke, isn't it? North Koreans could come here and do whatever they want. It was 1978 when she was kidnapped, right? Just a few years back, a Soviet pilot flew his Mig fighter into an airport in Hokkaido and no one knew of him coming until his was already landing at the airport. I remember that. I agree with you on the incompetence of government officials.” … “All those kidnapped women. Their family must have complained. No one looked into those complaints. No one knew what was happening. That's incompetence.”
“No, no, no. They knew.”
“What?”
“They knew. The government officials. I covered a story right here in this town. A woman came forward with a complaint of being accosted with men with guns. That story fizzled out though. But, that woman could have been a potential victim of their kidnapping plan.”
“You covered the story? You never mentioned it to me.”
“That was before I met you. And, as I said, the story just fizzled out. I tracked it to 3 dead bodies in the morgue right here, in this town. We don't see young men dead with their neck broken often. Well, never. I couldn't find out who they were. Those bodies disappeared, too. They weren't buried here. If they were Japanese, they would have been buried here, right? They just disappeared. If they were North Koreans and trying to kidnap that woman but somehow they were killed and woman escaped, that make sense. Except who killed them. No one dies from a broken neck the way they died. All 3 of them at the same time. Accidental death is impossible. They had to be killed, … by someone. Right? What do you think?”
“You lost me when you mentioned 3 dead bodies. Why couldn't it be an attempted kidnapping story?” She is looking back and forth from TV to me. I can see she is trying to listen to me but … .
“3 young men. If they wanted to kidnap a woman, they could have done it easily, right. There is no way a woman can resist 3 men. She would have been kidnapped. But she wasn't and she came forward later, as I said.”
“You mentioned guns, too. If these men had guns, how anyone can fight them without getting killed himself? Your story has a hole, you know.”
“Yeah, I see that. … You know that's why that story fizzled out. It went to a fantastic place that defied reality instead of congealing into a concrete footing. But, she was real. So were 3 dead bodies.”
“Ha ha ha, … You see a conspiracy, don't you? I didn't know you were a conspiracy theorist.”
“I am NOT. If I were I would have submitted the story without second thought.”
“She could have been lying, you know. You have thought of it but you didn't think she was lying?”
“She wasn't a kind of woman who craves attention that way. Beside there was no such story to tie herself on to back then. A story has to be big and public before she even thinks about making herself a part of it. Right?”
“ … I guess.”
Crowd at the airport terminal is moving out. “They will stay at a hotel here in Tokyo. They are here for 10 days. … “
“I can't believe they are here for 10 days and going back to where they were taken after kidnapped. I don't think I can make myself at home where I've been kept a hostage. I can never forget that I am taken by force if something like that happens to me. What do you think they will do? You think they will stay?”
“No, I am not going to pretend I can think like them. I am just outside looking in. … It's only 10 days. We don't have to wait long, we can see how they choose. You know, whatever they choose I am not going to lay barbs or smirks on their decisions. That's I already made up my mind on. They spent more of their years in North Korea than here. They may want to go back now that they can see how things are here.”

10 days have passed. They are staying. People at the government started a negotiation to bring their families here. Hitomi Soga-san stated that she doesn't want to go back. Her husband, Charles Jenkins-san is worried about coming here. He has their two daughters with him.

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Sado island


Copyright © 2010 toshiyuki ihira

ISBN 978-0-9816760-4-3
Imprint

Publication Date: 01-04-2010

All Rights Reserved