After Darkness Read online

  Christine Piper’s short fiction has been published in Seizure, SWAMP and Things That Are Found in Trees and Other Stories. She was the 2013 Alice Hayes writing fellow at Ragdale in the United States. She has studied creative writing at Macquarie University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the University of Technology, Sydney, where she wrote a version of this novel as part of her doctoral degree. She has also worked as a magazine editor and writer for more than a decade. Born in South Korea in 1979 to an Australian father and a Japanese mother, she moved to Australia when she was one. She has previously taught English and studied Japanese in Japan, and currently lives in New York with her husband. After Darkness is her first novel.

  www.christinepiper.com

  After

  Darkness

  CHRISTINE PIPER

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  First published in 2014

  Copyright © Christine Piper 2014

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available

  from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 988 8

  eISBN 978 1 74343 771 1

  Typeset by Bookhouse, Sydney

  For Kris

  Contents

  South Australia: 1942

  Tokyo: 1934

  Loveday: 1942

  Broome: 1938

  Tokyo: 1934

  Loveday: 1942

  Broome: 1938

  Loveday: 1942

  Tokyo: 1935

  Broome: 1939

  Loveday: 1942

  Broome: 1940

  Loveday: 1942

  Tokyo: 1936

  Broome: 1941

  Loveday: 1942

  SS City of Canterbury and Kamakura Maru: 1942

  Tokyo: 1942

  Tokyo: 1989

  Acknowledgements

  South Australia

  1942

  The sun spread on the horizon, bleeding colour like a broken yolk. In the growing light, I watched the details of the landscape emerge. The leaves of the eucalypts became sharply defined. The ochre earth glowed.

  The carriage creaked, continuing its gentle sway from side to side as we trundled further inland. I was used to the wide spaces of Broome, but this was a different sort of vastness: acres of sun-bleached pasture and crops that stretched away as far as the eye could see. Here and there, fat-bellied cows and horses pulled at the yellow grass. In the sweep of land before me, not a single person could be seen.

  Sweat gathered on my back and the undersides of my thighs, making the seat cling. I reached out to unlatch the window and caught a glimpse of my reflection. Hollow, sleep-starved eyes. Black hair, unkempt and oily. The whisper of stubble on my chin. The last time I had showered was at the camp in Harvey, three days earlier. I hadn’t realised the journey to South Australia would take so long. My buttocks were numb from hours of sitting. Paraesthesia, I thought, remembering the word from one of my textbooks.

  I heard a rustling behind me as someone sifted through his belongings. I knew a few of the men in my carriage—those who’d accompanied me on the journey from Perth. I had met the others that morning at Adelaide central, where we had gathered so early that stars were visible in the sky. Guards surrounded us, rifles strapped to their shoulders, eyes darting to all corners of the terminal. On the deserted platform, we formed a strange group of forty men, united only by our nationality. After bowing and whispering greetings to each other, we fell silent. Judging by the newcomers’ deep tans and loose white clothing, I guessed they were from the Pacific Islands. At Harvey Camp, I had met many Japanese from New Caledonia who told me they had moved there decades ago to work in nickel mines.

  After we had waited half an hour, a train chugged into view. Japanese faces peered at us through the windows of the carriages. There must have been at least a hundred men inside. The guards corralled us into an empty carriage and then, with a loud hiss and billows of white steam, we set off, leaving the silhouettes of city buildings behind.

  As the light grew stronger, I began to relax. Watching the peaceful countryside put me at ease. An old man sat in the seat opposite me. Since our departure, we hadn’t exchanged a word. I stole a glance at him as he stared out the window. Wrinkles creased the skin around his eyes like wet paper. One of the soldiers standing at the end of our carriage began whistling a cheerful tune. Two people near me were murmuring. I caught fragments of their conversation. They spoke with an accent I couldn’t place.

  ‘. . . soldiers here are much kinder. Did you see one of them offered me a cigarette?’

  ‘Maybe our next camp will be as nice and clean as this train.’

  I settled back in my seat, enjoying the breeze on my face. As we turned into a bend, I glimpsed the contours of a wide river, its surface glittering white. Dead trees haunted its edges, their limbs stretching skywards, as if begging for forgiveness.

  The train began to slow as we approached the outskirts of a town. Farmland gave way to wide, dusty streets. The river coursed ahead of us, just out of reach. We pulled into a train station, stopping with a jolt at the platform. ‘Murray Bridge’ the sign read. A woman and small girl were sitting on a bench on the platform facing our carriage. The girl was about three—my niece’s age when I’d last seen her—fair-skinned and chubby, with brown curls pulled into bunches on either side of her head. Seeing us, her eyes flashed. She tugged her mother’s arm and pointed at us. The woman stared straight ahead. We were at the station less than a minute when the whistle blew. As the train lurched forward, the woman grabbed her daughter’s hand and dragged her towards our carriage. She came so close I could see a mole above her lip. She spat. A glob landed on the window in front of my face.

  ‘Bloody Japs!’ she said, shaking her fist.

  The train groaned as it moved away. The woman became smaller till she was no more than a pale slip, but I could still see her face. Eyes narrowed, mouth tight—her features twisted with hate.

  The train reached Barmera at six o’clock that evening. Despite the late hour, the sun beat down, casting everything in a copper light. Dust floated in the air. Aside from the soldiers waiting to escort us to camp, there wasn’t a soul around. A wide dirt road stretched ahead of us, framed on either side by swathes of green farmland. In the distance, the slate-grey roof and white walls of a cottage stood out among the greenery; the cottage’s open windows were the only sign of habitation.

  Four soldiers stood on the platform, plus two on horseback who waited on the track. They wore the same uniform as those who’d guarded us on the train, but everything else about them was different: the way they rested the butts of their rifles on the ground, their craggy faces and easy grins. ‘Next stop, Loveday!’ one of them yelled, motioning
for us to follow the path.

  On the train I’d pitied the other men with their scant belongings, but on the three-mile walk to camp, I envied them. As we followed the track, I listened to their conversation. ‘How hot will it be in the middle of the day?’ one wondered. ‘It can’t be worse than the ship. At least we have fresh air here,’ said another.

  The soldiers chatted to each other, and every so often they thrust their hands into the grapevines growing on either side of the path and pulled out bunches of ripe fruit.

  Burdened with my luggage, I fell to the back, where the older members of our group were walking. A guard on horseback brought up the rear. I was wondering whether I could abandon one of my suitcases when I heard a cry and a scuffle behind me. One of the men from New Caledonia was on his hands and knees, his head almost touching the ground. I dropped my bags and ran to him. His face was pale and his pupils were dilated, so I coaxed him to lie down.

  The guard on horseback called for the others to halt, and a crowd gathered around us. ‘Christ, he looks like death,’ said the guard.

  I pressed my hand to the man’s forehead. He was burning.

  ‘How long have you had a fever?’ I asked him. He looked at me but said nothing. I asked him again.

  ‘He doesn’t speak Japanese, only French,’ said someone in the crowd. A slight man with hollow cheeks stepped forward. ‘He was on the ship with me.’

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Probably ill from the ship. They gave us very little to eat—only one meal a day. Even I got sick. We weren’t allowed to go on deck. Many died, especially the older ones like him.’

  ‘He’s weak,’ I told the guard in English. ‘I don’t think he can walk. Is there something to carry him on—a stretcher?’

  ‘Nah, we’ve got one at headquarters, but that’ll take too long. He doesn’t look like he’ll last another hour . . . Hey, Jack!’

  The guard at the front of the group turned his horse around.

  ‘I have to take this one to hospital. Can’t have one cark it already. Can you give us a hand?’

  One of the guards and I eased the man up to standing, but we needed the help of several others to get him into the saddle. He was so feeble he could barely sit up, so we broke off vines to wrap around his body and secure him to the guard. They headed towards camp, silhouetted against the darkening sky. We resumed our walk and before long a white glow appeared on the horizon.

  ‘Is that the camp? Loveday?’ I asked the guard nearest to me.

  ‘Yep, that’s it,’ he said. ‘It’s always lit up like that at night. Bright as daylight.’

  I struggled along at the back of the group, stopping to adjust my load from time to time. By the time we reached camp, almost an hour later, my hands were blistered and weeping. We were told to line up outside a concrete building. Then, one by one, we were called by name to enter.

  Inside, three men sat behind desks strewn with paper. I approached one of the officers. He looked me up and down, stopping at the sight of my bags. ‘Four bags? Christ, did you bring your entire house?’

  ‘My medical equipment—I thought . . .’

  He lifted his eyebrows. ‘Occupation?’

  ‘Medical doctor.’

  ‘A doctor? Here or overseas?’

  ‘Both. In Japan I was a doctor, but more recently I was working at a hospital in Broome. Also at the camp in Harvey—they asked me to help. There were not enough doctors.’

  ‘Is that why you got here later than the others from Broome?’

  I nodded. ‘The military doctor at Harvey, Dr Mackinnon, asked me to stay behind. The camp commander approved the extension.’

  The officer turned his attention to the form on his desk. Still writing, he addressed me again. ‘I see you’re thirty-three. How long have you been here? Your English is good.’

  ‘I came to Australia in 1938. It has been almost four years.’

  The man beside me struggled to make himself understood. Linen factory, he said over and over in Japanese, referring to his occupation.

  ‘Marital status?’

  I was caught off-guard. I opened my mouth but nothing came out.

  The officer looked up. ‘Well, are you married or not? Got a wife?’

  ‘I—ah . . . Yes, I am married.’

  ‘Where is she? Here?’

  ‘No. She’s in Japan. In Tokyo. She’s never been to Australia.’ He looked as if he was about to ask something further, but then nodded briskly and returned to his notes. After a while, he paused, tapping one end of his pen on the desk.

  ‘I’m putting you in Camp 14C, where most of the other men from Broome are. But you can’t take any of this stuff with you.’ He motioned to my open suitcase. ‘Scalpels, scissors—it’s far too dangerous with some of the other internees. We’ll put it in a safety deposit box along with your valuables.’

  Before we were allowed to enter the camp, we were subject to a medical examination. Although I knew what to expect—I’d carried out the same procedure on hundreds of new internees at Harvey—I wasn’t prepared for the indignity of being probed while naked. The doctor’s long, thin fingers prodded me with surprising force while he dictated the condition of my lungs, heart, hair, teeth and genitals to his assistant in a voice louder than seemed necessary. He met my gaze only once, when I mentioned that I was a physician, too. By the time I’d been examined, it was almost midnight and many of the others had already entered camp.

  I joined the remainder standing beneath the floodlights outside the entrance to camp. Everything appeared too bright and too crisp. Even the whispers of my companions were amplified in the stillness of the night.

  ‘They’re watching us now, aren’t they? From that tower?’

  The nearest guard tower was twenty feet away, just behind the ring of floodlights. I squinted at the enclosure at the top of the tower. The barrel of a mounted machine gun jutted out against the sky.

  ‘They’re always watching us,’ another man said. ‘When we’re eating, sleeping and shitting. They have to. And even if they aren’t watching us, they want us to think they are.’

  ‘Will they shoot us?’ the first man said.

  ‘Only if we try to escape.’

  An officer strode down the incline towards us, his feet kicking up small clouds of dust. ‘Ready to enter?’ His voice boomed across the landscape. His face was red and shiny, as if he’d just emerged from a hot shower. ‘Thirty-two of you are in 14B and the rest are in 14C. All in 14B raise your hand.’ There was confusion around me, as many of the men didn’t speak English. ‘14B. Yes?’ The guard said more slowly, raising his own hand to demonstrate. ‘Right, you lot go first. Tell me your name before you enter the gate. Your name.’ He pointed at the clipboard he held in one hand, then signalled for the guard standing at the gate to unlock it.

  We farewelled the men leaving us. They were mostly Formosans and New Caledonians. Although I’d only been with them a day, I felt a strong kinship with them, having travelled such a long distance together. The old man who’d sat opposite me on the train was among them. He smiled at me before lining up to enter the rectangular wire enclosure. I never found out his name.

  After checking off their names, the officer locked the gate after them. ‘Say goodbye to freedom,’ he said under his breath.

  Several minutes passed before it was our turn to enter the gate. We squeezed into the space, which was just larger than an army truck, jostling and bumping each other. A wooden beam cut into the small of my back. I wondered how long we’d be kept like this, but the guard behind us called, ‘All in!’ and after a few moments a second guard opened the door on the other side. We spilled out onto a dirt road wide enough for four trucks to pass each other. It seemed to go on forever.

  ‘Welcome to Loveday Camp 14,’ said the second guard. ‘That’s the birdcage gate. There’s another one like it on the other side. You’ll get used to them soon enough.’

  We followed him down the road that bisec
ted camp, forming a procession of forty-odd men.

  ‘This is called Broadway, because of all the bright lights,’ the guard said, indicating the road. A wire fence ran along both sides. He pointed to a door built into the fence on our left. ‘That’s the entrance to 14B. They’re your neighbours. The entrance to your compound’s at the other end.’

  He began to whistle. Although the melody was cheerful, hearing it in that empty space filled me with sorrow.

  ‘Hey, look over there,’ the man beside me whispered.

  To our right, thirty feet away, a figure stood on the other side of the fence. An Occidental man in a light-coloured shirt and pants stared at us with dispassion, the way one would watch cars passing on the street. Although he probably meant no harm, his ghostly appearance perturbed me and I dared not look again.

  We passed a juncture where the road intersected a narrower track about fifteen feet wide that marked the start of the two other compounds.

  ‘This small road that cuts across the middle is what we call the Race. And this is your camp, 14C,’ the guard said, indicating the fence on his left. ‘But we haven’t made it to the entrance yet.’

  The low line of buildings beyond the fence appeared bleak in the unnatural light. The guard stopped whistling as we neared the end of the road. ‘Anyone there?’ he called into the space on the other side of the internal fence.

  ‘Yes,’ a voice responded from some distance away. Footsteps moved towards us. The guard unlocked the gate to the compound and we filed inside. Three men stood before us.

  ‘Welcome to Camp 14C,’ said the tallest of the men. The skin at his jaw was pulled tight. His round, wire-rimmed glasses reflected the glare of the floodlights. I self-consciously touched a hand to my head at the sight of his slick, neatly parted hair and unwrinkled clothes. ‘My name is Mori. I’m the mayor of this compound. Together with my colleagues I am responsible for maintaining order and ensuring all internees are treated fairly.’ He used the formal language of a native Tokyoite—words I hadn’t heard for years. ‘This is my deputy, Mr Yamada.’ He gestured to the man next to him, who had a broad, suntanned face and close-cropped grey hair. Mr Yamada nodded and smiled. ‘And the secretary, Mr Hoshi.’ The third man bowed deeply, his paunch pressing against the waistband of his trousers. Sweat shone on his balding pate. ‘If there’s anything you need, please come to us.