“My God! How could they treat you like that? You look like a skeleton,” he said. His wife burst into tears when I told her that people were really starving to death. She’d heard the rumors, but the reality was much worse than she’d thought.
I’d never experienced anything like the room where I was put up. It had two comfortable beds and an en suite bathroom. It was from a world I could never have dreamed of when I was struggling just to stay alive. As the days went by, my emotions were all over the place. I was still in a state of shock and disbelief that I’d made it, that this room I was in wasn’t just an elaborate hoax. And while I felt overwhelmed with relief at having made it this far, I was tormented by the thought of my children. All I could hear in my mind was them calling out to me, Dad! Dad! It was hard to enjoy the food that was put in front of me when I thought of them starving back in North Korea. I thought of how I used to sing with my children before bed each night. All three of them were very good singers. They could express their feelings when they sang. When they were singing a sad song, they sang it with tears. I can’t think of that even now without starting to weep myself.
Two weeks passed. I was shaving one morning and noticed that the color was returning to my face and my cheeks weren’t as hollow as they had been. For safety’s sake, I was confined to my room. The chefs and maids weren’t informed of my presence, as some of them could well have been undercover agents. There was also the possibility that someone might report me to the authorities. Because of that, we adopted a precautionary code. Five knocks on the door and I would open it up. Otherwise, I kept it locked. Only the Japanese staff knew anything about me.
The meals that were prepared for me were supposedly for the consul’s wife. She pretended to eat them but then secretly brought them to me. God knows what she ate herself. I still remember those meals—they were out of this world. Well, at least to me they were. They were full of vegetables and meat. If I’d been presented with such things in North Korea, I would have wolfed them down, but I was so worried all the time that my appetite was poor.
When I looked out the window during the day, I could see men across the street. I was convinced they were secret police watching my window. And then I heard footsteps on the roof. Or thought I did. I told Kusakari about it. After that, he boarded up some weak points he claimed to have identified. I imagine he did it just to calm me down.
The consul tried to settle my nerves. “Don’t worry! We’ll get you back to Japan,” he said. He sometimes took me to the recreation room after nine o’clock in the evening after all the staff had departed. The room had a karaoke machine and TV. He got ahold of a shogi board and said cheerfully, “Come on! Let’s have a game!”
I didn’t know what the consul and his staff were doing during the day because I couldn’t leave my room, but I was pretty sure they were negotiating with the Chinese government in some way. And then the First Secretary from the Japanese embassy in Beijing turned up, so I was fairly sure I was right.
The First Secretary was a scholarly type. I asked him a few questions in order to better understand my situation, but he just replied, “Don’t worry. Be strong!” Nothing more.
A few days later, he came to my room and gave me a document. “Read this and then sign it, please,” he said.
The document was a personal letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Do not tell anyone for a while that the Japanese government helped rescue you, it said. Of course, I signed the thing on the spot, and the First Secretary went back to Beijing.
About a week later, I was summoned by the consul, and a photo was taken of my face. I was told it was going to be used for a passport.
I was worried that something was going on behind my back. I mean, of course I was happy about the passport. It was a very promising development. But why were the negotiations taking so long? I was convinced that they had run into difficulties of some kind.
That night, when I was playing shogi with the consul, I asked him about it. He’d given me some expensive French cognac, so I may have been more direct with him than was appropriate. But I was worried about my family and getting increasingly anxious about the future.
“When can I go back to Japan? I think it’s time you told me,” I said.
He stopped his hand midmove and looked at me.
“The Chinese government hasn’t granted you an exit visa yet. But it’s just a formality. The First Secretary’s been trying his best to get it all sorted out. I’m sure the tide will turn in our favor soon. So don’t worry! Relax!”
According to the Japanese government, people like me who’d moved to North Korea but not changed their nationality were still Japanese citizens. But the North Korean government had other ideas. According to them, all Japanese people who’d immigrated to North Korea were now, ipso facto, North Korean. From their point of view, I’d effectively been kidnapped by the Japanese government.
The First Secretary and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been insisting that I, Masaji Ishikawa, was a Japanese citizen, so the Chinese government had no reason to deport me to North Korea. That was the crux of the negotiations. The key point was to ensure that the Chinese government could save face.
A few days later, I was talking to the consul when a call came in from the First Secretary in Beijing. As the consul picked up the phone, he turned the radio up and then explained to me, “If I do this, they won’t be able to eavesdrop.”
After the call, he summoned all the people involved with my case.
“The Chinese government will turn a blind eye to this case. To be precise, they’ve decided it doesn’t matter if Mr. Ishikawa leaves China without their permission. That’s the good news. The bad news is, if he gets caught by the secret police or a spy, the Chinese government can’t help him at all.”
The First Secretary estimated that it would take a few more days to arrange a plane and finalize the negotiations. He said he’d contact us again in four days, at which point we should move to Dalian City, from where I’d fly out.
I couldn’t agree with that. “If we move to Dalian after he contacts us and I get caught, the whole thing will fail. I really think we should move to Dalian now and wait for him to contact us there,” I said. I thought the Chinese government was tapping the telephone line in the consulate, so if we made a move, the police would be waiting for us at whatever time we had agreed upon on the phone.
The consul considered what I said, glanced at the clock, and said, “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s leave right now!” It was already after midnight.
The staff got busy with preparations.
The consul’s wife gave me one of the consul’s suits to wear. It was a beautiful garment. I’d never worn anything like it. Honestly, I’d never even seen anything like it. Though I realized later that it was not particularly stylish or top-of-the-line, to me, it felt like putting on a prince’s garb. After I got changed, she gave me a bag with some other clothes.
We went down the stairs arm in arm. Some policemen were guarding the building, so she acted as if I were her husband. We walked around the garden slowly, like a devoted couple enjoying the night air. She was humming a song I didn’t know. At first I wondered why she was singing, but then I realized it was because I was being too silent.
There weren’t any stars, and the night was very still. Consumed by the thought of what lay ahead, I couldn’t enjoy the moment. But I could see what she was doing. And she was brilliant. I mean, not only was she fooling the policemen; she was also trying to make me relax.
I was moved to tears.
On our second turn around the garden, she suddenly said, “Mr. Ishikawa, please go through to the garage. Safe journey!”