Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [128]
I wandered through the courtyard, memories coming hard and fast: me, a virtual skeleton forced to run, stealing newspapers, beatings, depression, death, and the Bird—watching, never missing anything, grinning as he unburdened his rage on yet another prisoner. My chest tightened at how real it all seemed. Soon I would see my guards face-to-face. My forgiveness was so authentic and total that I looked forward to seeing each of them. I longed to look into their eyes and say not only “I forgive you,” but to tell them of the greatest event of forgiveness the world has ever known when Christ on the Cross, and at the peak of his agony, could say of his executioners, “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”
I took one more look as I left and to my surprise was overcome with a wave of…nostalgia? I had lived here. It had been my home. I missed my former buddies. Hell, I even missed the guards.
And the Bird? For so long I had wanted to kill him. Now only a mental picture of Watanabe as a lost soul remained. Maybe if the military would let me into Sugamo, I could find the Bird and talk to him. I had already helped myself; maybe I could even help him.
I crossed the bridge to the mainland and turned my back to the past. All that remained was the most difficult part, the test: Sugamo.
ENTRY TO SUGAMO was highly regulated. It was almost impossible to get a pass, since none but the captives’ immediate families and those who had specific and worthy business were allowed inside the wooden walls.
I called the GHQ chaplain again, and he told me my only hope was to appeal directly to General MacArthur at SAC headquarters. “That’s kind of ridiculous, isn’t it?” I said.
“Maybe,” he responded, “but he’s the one who asked for ten thousand Bibles and twenty-five hundred missionaries. Give him a ring.”
When the fellow I reached in MacArthur’s office gave me a little runaround, I played my best and only card: “I’m calling because my former guards are there,” I explained, “and because MacArthur asked for twenty-five hundred missionaries and ten million Bibles.” I let that sink in for a moment. “I know I’m only one, but I’m here and I’d like to get in.” MacArthur was apparently in the same room, and the guy put his hand over the mouthpiece and talked to him. I waited and waited. Finally he came back on the line and said, “Okay. Tomorrow at ten A.M. you can visit Sugamo Prison.”
ON A COLD, dreary morning I stood under the archway with the red letters SUGAMO across the top. Before I walked through the gate, my imagination ran wild. Who would be there? Sasaki? Shithead? The Weasel? Kono? The Bird?
The colonel in charge of Sugamo welcomed me cordially. “Your guards are here and the overseers of your prison camps are here,” he said, and assured me that he’d be pleased to have me speak to every prisoner, if possible. He said to talk openly and not hold back. He also told me a bit about the camp, which housed 850 prisoners, every single war criminal in one place. He said this was the only way to control them, and they had to be close to Tokyo because of the war-crime trials.
“The inmates vote for their own officers, and those elected run their affairs as a model village,” he explained. “Food is their own kind and there is plenty. We don’t practice physical coercion or punishment. All the prisoners are missing is their freedom and self-respect. But many are getting those back, too, month by month.”
A bell rang out, signaling the meeting. I stood on a platform and watched the men quietly file in. I wondered if those who knew me recognized my face, now older and fuller, but I couldn’t see their faces well enough in the stage-light glare.
I gave my usual talk but never with more conviction. When I came to the part about how I’d been treated in Japanese prison camps, I again thought to temper the details and emotions so as not to appear too angry, but I didn’t because otherwise my forgiveness would lack true meaning.