Interview 11 (Watanabe Garo )
[Int. note . Through a very peculiar and wonderful action of chance, the landlady who rented me the property on which I conducted many of the interviews had a friend whose brother had worked in the prison where Oda Sotatsu sat on death row. Apparently the high profile of the case had led to this brother’s stories of Oda becoming common anecdotes that were told and retold in that family, eventually reaching the ears of the landlady to whom I came. When she learned what I was writing about, she put me in touch with the brother. I spoke to him several times on the telephone and once in person at a ramen house in Osaka. He was an extremely vain man in his sixties and he boasted at every conceivable opportunity. Even the ramen house we met at, it was a personal connection . He would get us some kind of special service, he said. In fact, they did not know him at all. It is my belief that this man did not personally know Oda Sotatsu at all, but rather that he relayed all manner of prison lore and anecdotes about Oda Sotatsu, casting them in the first person as though he were the one having had the experiences. As anyone familiar with oral histories will attest, this is quite a common occurrence. His narratives of the time are quite compelling, however. Whether that is because he actually knew Oda, actually was there, or whether it is due to him repeating the anecdotes countless times, I can’t say. However it may be, he was an invaluable source of otherwise unobtainable data about this time period and I am grateful that he consented to speak to me.]
[This first interview occurred via telephone. The house in which I lived (the leased property) had no telephone, so I made use of the telephone situated on the property immediately adjoining.]
INT.
Hello. Mr. Watanabe.
VOICE
One moment. Garo! One moment, please.
(Noise of the phone being put down.)
(Perhaps thirty seconds.)
(Noise of the phone being picked up.)
GARO
Mr. Ball.
INT.
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. We are being recorded at this time.
GARO
I understand.
INT.
You were a prison guard at the L. Facility during the spring of 1978?
GARO
I was employed there from 1960 to 1985. Yes, you could say …
(Laughs.)
GARO
You could say I was there in 1978.
INT.
And you were a guard on what is called death row, with the most dangerous prisoners?
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GARO
The ones on death row aren’t always the most dangerous; that’s what people often think, but it isn’t always true. Quite the opposite sometimes. Certain types of 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 …
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[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.
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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 it. The schoolteachers were always suspicious of me, I don’t know why.
INT.
Do your own children take after you in that respect?
JIRO
How do you mean?
INT.
Well, that one seems to be trying to run away with my hat.
JIRO
Yes, nothing is safe around here.
Interview 13 (Brother )
[Int. note . Shortly after that, I asked him about his father’s reaction when he discovered that Jiro was still visiting Sotatsu. He had told me earlier that his father had been angry, but he hadn’t gone into detail. Later, when I asked again, he was more forthcoming.]
INT.
How did it come about that your father learned you were visiting Sotatsu?
JIRO
There was a photograph, an unfortunate photograph that was published in the newspaper, a photograph of the prison. Some photographer had visited there to take photographs of various inmates, my brother included. He passed me at the prison entrance and noticed my resemblance to Sotatsu. I tried to avoid it, but he took my photograph and sold it to the newspaper. He sold a photograph of me visiting my brother for money, and that photograph was seen by my father. He demanded that I come to see him. I did so. He was furious. He said that a decision had been made and we would all stand by it. He said that some of us were trying to continue to live, to continue with our lives, and that I wasn’t making anything easier for anyone. I replied that, in fact, I was. I was making things easier for myself and for my brother, Sotatsu. I told him that I didn’t believe Sotatsu had done anything wrong. I said I didn’t like any of it from the beginning to the end. He said that I was still stupid, and had always been so. That whether Sotatsu had done something or not was not the point and never had been. He said that you had a chance with each life, each person’s life, that there was a chance to get along without drawing the wrong kind of attention to yourself. That if you did, it was never good, it always ended badly, and the facts of the matter were nothing, were no good. He said I had a liar’s respect for the truth, which is too much respect.
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INT.
And that’s when he …
JIRO
He told me he didn’t want to see me again.
INT.
But he went back on that.
JIRO
He did. Later that same year he went back on it. But he was so changed then that it didn’t matter. He was a different person. As he is now. You can see, can’t you? There’s no satisfaction to be had from the person you met.
INT.
…
JIRO
Whether you will say so or not, you can see what a shell he is.
(Tape clicks off.)
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