32



The Job of Making Others Use Their Imaginations
(The Story of Boris the Manskinner, Continued)

*


Boris kept his promise. We Japanese war prisoners were given partial autonomy and
allowed to form a representative committee. The colonel was the committee chairman.
From then on, the Russian guards, both civil and military, were ordered to cease their
violent behavior, and the committee became responsible for keeping order in the camp.
As long as we caused no trouble and met our production quo tas, they would leave us
alone. That was the ostensible policy of the new politburo member (which is to say, the
policy of Boris). These reforms, at first glance so democratic, should have been great
news for us prisoners of war.
But things were not as simple as they seemed. Taken up with welcoming the new
reforms, we were too stupid to see the cunning trap that Boris had set for us. Supported
by the secret police, Boris was in a far more powerful position than the new politburo
member, and he proceeded to make over the camp and the town as he saw fit. Intrigue
and terrorism became the order of the day. Boris chose the strongest and most vicious
men from among the prisoners and the civilian guards (of which there was no small
supply), trained them, and made them into his own personal bodyguards. Armed with
guns and knives and clubs, this handpicked contingent would take care of anyone who
resisted Boris, threatening and physically abusing them, sometimes even beating them to
death on Boris's orders. No one could lay a hand on them. The soldiers sent out on an
individual basis from regular army units to guard the mine would pretend not to see what
was happening under their noses. By then, not even th e army could touch Boris. Soldiers
stayed in the background, keeping watch over the train station and their own barracks,
iopting an attitude of indifference with regard to what went on in the mine and the camp.

Boris's favorite among his handpicked guard was a prisoner known as "The Tartar,"
who had supposedly been a Mongolian wrestling champion. The man stuck to Boris like a
shadow. He had a big burn scar on his right cheek, which people said he had gotten from
torture. Boris no longer wore prison clothes, and he moved into a neat little cottage that
was kept clean for him by a woman inmate.
According to Nikolai (who was becoming increasingly reluctant to talk about
anything), several Russians he knew had simply disappeared in the night. Offiially, they
were listed as missing or having been involved in accidents, but there /as no doubt they
had been "taken care of" by Boris's henchmen. People's lives sere now in danger if they
failed to follow Boris's orders or if they merely failed to please him. A few men tried to
complain directly to Party Central about the abuses going on in camp, but that was the
last anyone ever saw of them. "I heard they even killed a little kid -a seven -year-old-to
keep his parents in line. Beat him to death while they watched," Nikolai whispered to me,
pale -faced.
At first Boris did nothing so crude as that in the Japanese zone. He concentrated his
energies instead on gaining complete control over the Russian guards in the area and
solidifying his foothold there. He seemed willing for the moment to leave the Japanese
prisoners in charge of their own affairs. And so, for the first few nonths after the reform,
we were able to enjoy a brief interval of peace. Those were tranquil days for us, a period
of genuine calm. The committee was able to obtain some reduction in the harshness of the
labor, however slight, and we no longer had to fear the violence of the guards. For the
first time since our arrival, we were able to feel something like hope. People believed that
things were going to get better.
Not that Boris was ignoring us during those few honeymoon months. He was quietly
arranging his pieces to gain the greatest strategic advantage. He worked on the Japanese
committee members individually, behind the scenes, using bribes or threats to bring them
under his control. He avoided overt violence, proceeding with the utmost caution, and so
no one noticed what he was doing. When we did finally notice, it was too late. Under the
guise of granting us autonomy, he was throwing us off our guard while he fashioned a
still more efficient system of control. There was an icy, diabolical precision to his
calculations. He succeeded in eliminating random violence from our lives, only to
replace it with a new kind of coldly calcu lated violence.
After six months of firming up his control structure, he changed direction and began
applying pressure on us. His first victim was the man who had been the central figure on
the committee: the colonel. He had confronted Boris d irectly to represent the interests of
the Japanese prisoners of war on several issues, as a result of which he was eliminated.
By that time, the colonel and a few of his cohorts were the only members of the committee
who did not belong to Boris. They suffocated him one night, holding him down while one
of them pressed a wet towel to his face. Boris ordered the job done, of course, though he
never dirtied his own hands when it came to killing Japanese. He issued orders to the
committee and had other Japanese do it. The colonel's death was written off simply as
the result of illness. We all knew who had killed him, but no one could talk about it. We
knew that Boris had spies among us, and we had to be careful what we said in front of
anyone. After the colonel was murdered, the committee voted for Boris's handpicked can -
didate to fill his chair.
The work environment steadily deteriorated as a result of the change in the makeup of

the committee, until finally things were as bad as they had ever been. In exchange for our
autonomy, we made arrangements with Boris on our production quotas, the setting of
which became increasingly burdensome for us. The quota was raised in stages, under one
pretext or another, until finally the work forced upon us became harsher than ever. The
number of accidents also escalated, and many Japanese soldiers lent their bones to the
soil of a foreign land, victims of reckless mining practices. "Autonomy" meant only that
we Japanese now had to oversee our own labor in place of the Russians who had once
done it.
Discontent, of course, only blossomed among the prisoners of war. Where we had
once had a little society that shared its sufferings equally, a sense of unfairness grew up,
and with it deep hatred and suspicion. Those who served Bo ris were given lighter duties
and special privileges, while those who did not had to live a harsh life-if allowed to live
at all. No one could raise his voice in complaint, for open resistance meant death. One
might be thrown into an icy shed to die of cold and starvation, or have a wet towel
pressed over one's face while asleep, or have the back of one's skull split open with a
pick while working in the mine. Down there, you could end up at the bottom of a shaft.
Nobody knew what went on in the darkness of the mine. People would just disappear.
I couldn't help feeling responsible for having brought Boris and the colonel together.
Of course, if I hadn't become involved, Boris would have burrowed his way in among us
sooner or later by some other route, with similar results, but such thoughts did little to
ease my pain. I had made a terrible mistake.

Suddenly one day I was summoned to the building that Boris used as his office. I had
not seen him for a very long time. He sat at a desk, drinking tea, as he had been doing the
time I saw him in the stationmaster's office. Behind him, standing at attention with a
large-caliber automatic pistol in his belt, was The Tartar. When he entered the room,
Boris turned around to the Mongolian and signaled for him to leave. The two of us were
alone together.
"So, then, Lieutenant Mamiya, I have kept my promise, you see."
Indeed, he had, I replied. What he said was unfortunately true. Everything he had
promised me had come to pass. It was like a pact with the devil.
"You have your autonomy, and I have my power," he said with a smile, hold ing his
arms out wide. "We both got what we wanted. Coal production has increased, and
Moscow's happy. Who could ask for anything more? I am very grateful to you for having
acted as my mediator, and I would like to do something for you in return."
There was no such need, I replied.
"Nor is there any need for you to be so distant, Lieutenant. The two of us go way
back," said Boris, smiling. "I want you to work here with me. I want you to be my
assistant. Unfortunately, this place has a critical shortage of men who can think. You
may be missing a hand, but I can see that your sharp mind more than makes up for it. If
you will work as my sery, I will be most grateful and do everything I can to see that you
have as easy a time of it here as possible. That way, you will be sure to survive and make
your way back to Japan. Working closely with me can only do you good."
Ordinarily, I would have rejected such an offer out of hand. I had no intention of
selling out my comrades and securing an easy time of it for myself by working as Boris's
assistant. And if turning him down meant that he would have me killed, that would have

suited me fine. But the moment he presented his offer, I found a plan forming in my mind.
"What kind of work do you want me to do?" I asked.

What Boris had in mind for me was not a simple task. The number of chores waiting
to be taken care of was huge, the single biggest job being the management of Boris's
personal assets. Boris had been helping himself to a good forty percent of the foodstuffs,
clothing, and medical supplies being sent to the camp by Moscow and the International
Red Cross, stashing them in secret storehouses, and selling them to various takers. He
had also been sending off whole trainloads of coal through the black market. There was a
chronic shortage of fuel, the demand for it endless. He would bribe railroad workers and
the stationmaster, moving trains almost at will for his own profit. Food and money could
make the soldiers guarding the trains shut their eyes to what he was doing. Thanks to
such "business" methods, Boris had amassed an amazing fortune. He explained to me
that it was ultimately intended as operating capital for the secret police. "Our activity,"
as he called it, required huge sums off the public record, and he was now engaged in
"procuring" those secret funds. But this was a lie. Some of the money may have been
finding its way to Moscow, but I was certain that well over half was being transformed
in to Boris's own personal fortune. As far as I could tell, he was sending the money to
foreign bank accounts and buying gold.
For some inexplicable reason, he appeared to have complete faith in me. It seems not
to have occurred to him that I might leak his secrets to the outside, which I now find very
strange. He always treated his fellow Russians and other white men with the utmost
suspicion, but toward Mongolians or Japanese he seemed to feel only the most
openhanded trust. Perhaps he figured that I could do him no harm even if I chose to
reveal his secrets. First of all, whom could I reveal them to? Everyone around me was his
collaborator or his underling, each with his own tiny share in Boris's huge illegal profits.
And the only ones who suffered and died because Boris was diverting their food, clothing,
and medicine for his own personal gain were the powerless inmates of the camp. Besides,
all mail was censored, and all contact with outsiders was prohibited.
And so I became Boris's energetic and f aithful private sery. I completely made over
his chaotic books and stock records, systematizing and clarifying the flow of goods and
money. I created categorized ledgers that showed at a glance the amount and location of
any one item and how its price was fluctuating. I compiled a long list of bribe takers and
calculated the "necessary expenses" for each. I worked hard for Boris, from morning to
night, as a result of which I lost what few friends I had. People thought of me (probably
could not help but think of me) as a despicable human being, a man who had sold out to
become Boris's faithful bootlicker. And sadly enough, they probably still think of me that
way. Nikolai would no longer speak to me. The two or three other Japanese prisoners of
war I had been close to would now turn aside when they saw me coming. Conversely,
there were some who tried to approach me when they saw that I had become a favorite of
Boris, but I would have nothing to do with them. Thus I became an in creasingly isolated
figure in the camp. Only the support of Boris kept me from being killed. No one could
have gotten away with murdering one of his most prized possessions. People knew how
cruel Boris could be; his fame as the "manskinner" had reached legendary proportions
even here.
The more isolated I became, the more Boris came to trust me. He was happy with my

efficient, systematic work habits, and he was not stinting in his praise.
"You are a very impressive man, Lieutenant Mamiya. Japan will be sure to recover
from her postwar chaos as long as there are many Japanese like you. My own country is
hopeless. It was almost better under the czars. At least the czar didn't have to strain his
empty head over a lot of theory. Lenin took whatever he could understand of Marx's
theory and used it to his own advantage, and Stalin took whatever he could understand of
Lenin's theory (which wasn't much) and used it to his own advantage. The narrower a
man's intellectual grasp, the more power he is able to grab in this country. I tell you,
Lieutenant, there is only one way to survive here. And that is not to imagine anything. A
Russian who uses his imagina tion is done for. I certainly never use mine. My job is to
make others use their imaginations. That's my bread and butter. Make sure you keep t hat
in mind. As long as you are in here, at least, picture my face if you ever start to imagine
something, and say to yourself, 'No, don't do that. Imagining things can be fatal.' These
are my golden words of advice to you. Leave the imagining to someone else."

Half a year slipped by like this. Now the autumn of 1947 was drawing to a close, and
I had become indispensable to Boris. I was in charge of the business side of his activities,
while The Tartar was in charge of the violent side. The secret po lice had yet to summon
Boris back to Moscow, but by then he no longer seemed to want to go back. He had more
or less transformed the camp and the mine into his own unimpeachable territory, and
there he lived in comfort, steadily amassing a huge fortune, protected by his own private
army. Perhaps, too, rather than bring him back to the center, the Moscow elite preferred
to keep him there, firming up their foothold in Siberia. A continual exchange of letters
passed between Boris and Moscow- not using the post office, of course: they would arrive
on the train, in the hands of secret messengers. These were always tall men with ice-cold
eyes. The temperature in a room seemed to drop whenever one of them walked in.
Meanwhile, the prisoners working the mine continued to die in large numbers, their
corpses thrown into mine shafts as before. Boris did a thoroughgoing assessment of each
prisoner's potential, driving the physically weak ones hard and reducing their food
rations at the outset so as to kill them off and reduce the number of mouths he had to
feed. The food diverted from the weak went to the strong in order to raise productivity.
Efficiency was everything in the camp: it was the law of the jungle, the survival of the
fittest. And whenever the work force began to dwindle, freight cars would arrive packed
with new convicts, like trainloads of cattle. Sometimes as much as twenty percent of the
"shipment" would die on the way, but that was of no concern to anyone. Most of the new
convicts were Russians and Eastern Europeans brought in from the West. Fortunately for
Boris, Stalin's politics of violence continued to function there.
My plan was to kill Boris. I knew, of course, that getting rid of this one man was no
guarantee that our situation would improve in any way. It would continue to be one form
of hell or another. But I simply could not allow the man to go on living in this world. As
Nikolai had said, he was like a poisonous snake. Someone would have to cut his head off.
I was not afraid to die. If anything, I would have liked Boris to kill me as I killed him.
But there could be no room for error. I had to wait for the one exact moment when I
could have absolute confidence that I would kill him without fail, when I could end his
life with a single shot. I continued to act the part of his loyal sery as I waited for the
chance to spring on my prey. But as I said earlier, Boris was an extremely cautious man.

He kept The Tartar by his side day and night. And even if he should give me a chance at
him alone sometime, how was I to kill him, with my one hand and no weapon? Still I kept
my vigil, waiting for the right moment. If there was a god anywhere in this world, I
believed, the chance would come my way.

Early in 1948, a rumor spread through camp that the Japanese prisoners of war were
finally going to be allowed to go home, that a ship would be sent to repatriate us in the
spring. I asked Boris about it.
"It is true, Lieutenant Mamiya," he said. "The rum or is true. You will all be
repatriated before very long. Thanks in part to world opinion, we will not be able to keep
you working much longer. But I have a proposition for you, Lieutenant. How would you
like to stay in this country, not as a prisoner of war but as a free Soviet citizen? You have
served me very well, and it will be extremely difficult for me to find a replacement for
you. And you, for your part, will have a far more pleasant time of it if you stay with me
than if you go back to endure hardship and poverty in Japan. They have nothing to eat, I
am told. People are starving to death. Here you would have money, women, power-
everything."
Boris had made this proposal in all seriousness. He was aware that it could be
dangerous to let me go, knowing his secrets as I did. If I turned him down, he might rub
me out to keep me from talking. But I was not afraid. I thanked him for his kind offer but
said that I preferred to return to Japan, being concerned about my parents and sister.
Boris shrugged once and said nothing further.
The perfect chance to kill him presented itself to me one night in March, as the day of
repatriation was drawing near. The Tartar had gone out, leaving me alone with Boris
just before nine o'clock at night. I was working on the books, as always, and Boris was at
his desk, writing a letter. It was unusual for us to be in the office so late. He sipped a
brandy now and then as he traced his fountain pen over the stationery. On the coatrack
hung Boris's leather coat, his hat, and his pistol in a leather holster. The pistol was not
the typical Soviet Army-issue monster but a German-made Walther PPK. Boris had
supposedly taken it from a Nazi SS lieu tenant colonel captured at the battle of the
Danube Crossing. It had the lightning SS mark on the grip, and it was always clean and
polished. I had often observed Boris working on the gun, and I knew that he kept it
loaded, with eight shells in the magazine.
For him to have left the gun on the coatrack was most unusual He was careful to have
it close at hand whenever he was working, concealed in the drawer of the right-hand
wing of his desk. That night, however, he had been in a very good, very talkative mood
for some reason, and because of that, perhaps, he had not exercised his usual caution. It
was the kind of chance I could never hope for again. Any number of times, I had
rehearsed in my mind how, with my one hand, I would release the safety catch and send
the first cartridge into the chamber. Now, making my decision, I stood and walked past
the coatrack, pretending to go for a form. In volved in his letter writing, Boris did not look
my way. As I passed by, I slipped the gun out of the holster. Its small size fit my palm
perfectly, its outstanding workmanship obvious from its heft and balance. I stood before
Boris and released the safety. Then, holding the pistol between my knees, I pulled the
slide with my right hand, sending a cartridge into the chamber. With my thumb, I pulled
the hammer back. When he heard the small, dry sound it made, Boris looked up, to find

me aiming the gun at his face.
He shook his head and sighed.
"Too bad for you, Lieutenant, but the gun isn't loaded," he said after clicking the cap
of his fountain pen into place. "You can tell by the weight. Give it a little shake up and
down. Eight 7.65-millimeter cartridges weigh eighty grams."
I didn't believe him. Without hesitation, I pointed the muzzle at his forehead and
pulled the trigger. The only sound was a click. He was right: it wasn't loaded. I put the
gun down and bit my lip, unable to think. Boris opened the desk drawer and took out a
handful of shells, holding them on his palm for me to see. He had trapped me. The whole
thing had been a ruse.
"I have known for a long time that you wanted to kill me," he said softly. "You have
imagined yourself doing it, pictured it in your head any number of times, am I right? I am
certain I advised you long ago never to use your imagination. It can only cost you your
life. Ah, well, never mind. There is simply no way that you could ever kill me."
Boris took two of the shells from his palm and threw them at my feet. They clattered
across the floor to where I stood.
"Those are live shells," he said. "This is no trick. Put them in the gun and shoot me.
It will be your last chance. If you really want to kill me, take careful aim. But if you miss,
you must promise never to reveal my secrets. You must tell no one in the world what I
have been doing here. This will be our little deal."
I nodded to him. I made my promise.
Holding the pistol between my knees again, I pressed the release button, took out the
magazine, and loaded the two cartridges into it. This was no easy feat with one hand -a
hand that was trembling all the while. Boris observed my movements with a cool
expression on his face. There was even the hint of a smile there. Once I had succeeded in
thrusting the magazine back into the grip, I took aim between his eyes, forced my hand to
stop trembling, and pulled the trigger. The room shook with the roar of the gun, but the
bullet only passed by Boris's ear and slammed into the wall. White, pulverized plaster
flew in all directions. I had missed from only six feet away. I was not a poor marksman.
When stationed in Hsin-ching, I had done my target practice with a great deal of
enthusiasm. And although I had only my right hand now, it was stronger than that of
most people, and the Walther was the kind of well-balanced pistol that let you take
precise, steady aim. I could not believe that I had missed. Once again I cocked the
hammer and took aim. I sucked in one deep breath and told myself, "You have to kill this
man." By killing him, I could make it mean something that I had lived.
"Take steady aim, now, Lieutenant Mamiya. It's your last bullet." Boris was still
smiling.
At that moment, The Tartar came running into the room, his big pistol drawn.
"Keep out of this," Boris barked at him. "Let Mamiya shoot me. And if he manages
to kill me, do whatever you like."
The Tartar nodded and pointed the muzzle of his gun at me.
Gripping the Walther in my right hand, I thrust it straight out, aimed for the middle of
Boris's contemptuous, confident smile, and coolly squeezed the trigger. The pistol kicked,
but I held it steady. It was a perfectly executed shot. But again the bullet grazed Boris's
head, this time smashing the wall clock behind him into a million pieces. Boris never so
much as twitched an eyebrow. Leaning back in his chair, he went on staring at me with

his snakelike eyes. The pistol crashed to the floor.
For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Soon, though, Boris left his chair and bent
over to retrieve the Walther from where I had dropped it. After a long, thoughtful look at
the pistol in his hand, he returned it to its holster on the coat-rack. Then he patted my
arm twice, as if to comfort me.
"I told you you couldn't kill me, didn't I?" Boris said. He took a pack of Camels from
his pocket, put a cigarette between his lips, and lit it with his lighter. "There was nothing
wrong with your shooting. It was just that you couldn't kill me. You ar en't qualified to
kill me. That is the only reason you missed your chance. And now, unfortunately, you will
have to bear my curse back to your homeland. Listen: Wherever you may be, you can
never be happy. You will never love anyone or be loved by anyone. That is my curse. I
will not kill you. But I do not spare you out of goodwill. I have killed many people over
the years, and I will go on to kill many more. But I never kill anyone whom there is no
need to kill. Goodbye, Lieutenant Mamiya. A week from now, you will leave this place for
the port of Nakhodka. Bon voyage. The two of us will never meet again."
That was the last I ever saw of Boris the Manskinner. The week after that, I left the
concentration camp behind and was shipped by train to Nakhodka. After many
convoluted experiences there, I finally reached Japan at the beginning of the following
year.

To tell you the truth, I have no idea what this long, strange story of mine will mean to
you, Mr. Okada. Perhaps it is nothing more than an old man's mutterings. But I wanted
to- I had to- tell you my story. As you can see from having read my letter, I have lived my
life in total defeat. I have lost. I am lost. I am qualified for nothing. Through the power of
the curse, I love no one and am loved by no one. A walking shell, I will simply disappear
into darkness. Having managed at long last, however, to pass my story on to you, Mr.
Okada, I will be able to disap pear with some small degree of contentment.
May the life you lead be a good one, a life free of regrets.