We Are The Ones

Lawrence F. Farrar

 

It was winter in Japan, the darkest hour of early morning, and when the phone rang, 70-year-old Professor (Emeritus) Frank Selden turned onto his side and tugged a quilt over his head. Just a little more sleep, just a little more. But when the ringing persisted, he slid out of bed and, still in his underwear, went to the phone in his study.

“Selden Sensei,” the caller said, using the honorific form for a professor or teacher, “this is Okamoto. I am sorry to call at such an hour, but I must come to your house.”

“Okamoto?” Selden sifted through the vaporous images of students come and gone. “Oh, yes … my class on the Romantic poets. Last year, was it? But, why … ?”

“It is a matter of great urgency,” the caller said.

“I’m afraid it’s quite late. Are you in some sort of difficulty?” Reared in Japan, immersed in Japanese literature, and resident in the country for decades, Selden conversed easily in Japanese.

“Yes. There is some trouble … But, you are right; it is late.” Okamoto’s voice quavered. “Perhaps it is better if I do not come.”

Although inclined to suggest the young man wait until the next day, Selden said, “It’s rather irregular. But if I can be of some help, I will leave a light.”

“No. Please, no light. I will explain.”

The call left Selden bemused—and vaguely disturbed. Okamoto came to mind as an unexceptional student, crew cut and round-faced. Selden pictured him as a serious fellow with horn-rimmed glasses; indeed, Selden could not recall ever seeing him smile. What could bring Okamoto to his home at 2 o’clock in the morning?

While he waited to discover the answer, Selden dressed, went into the kitchen, and put on a kettle. They’d likely want some green tea before the night was out.

▱

Professor Selden was a tall man, slim, and with a full head of white hair he kept trimmed short. Although fragile looking—and fragile feeling—the one-time rower and runner worked at keeping fit with long walks. Set above a strong nose, his gray eyes homing in on you across his reading glasses could intimidate, as many a former student could attest. Those eyes, however, could also twinkle after delivery of yet another of Selden’s famous (or infamous) puns, most of which left his Japanese English lit students mystified. Professor Selden loved to read passages aloud, and, when he did, his soft but precise diction, with allowance for a bit of dramatic excess, was a pleasure to the ears. He favored navy blue suits—in summer tan ones—always with a handkerchief nestled in the breast pocket.

He had lived alone in the large Kamakurayama house since his wife, Yasuko, died three years before. Often as not (as he had this night) he slept on a cot in the study; he felt more comfortable there than in the empty bed he and Yasuko had shared upstairs for fifteen years. She’d been nearly ten years his junior, yet she had gone first, leaving him to poke around in the old villa.

When he retired, Yasuko had wanted to move back to the house where she’d grown up. So, they abandoned their Tokyo flat and moved an hour south to Kamakurayama, just north of the temple- and shrine-studded ancient capital of Kamakura. Originally built by Yasuko’s grandfather, a member of the peerage, their spacious two-storied Japanese house had undergone several modifications over the years, the result being a hodgepodge of Western- and Japanese-style rooms.

Books, in English and Japanese, overwhelmed the untidy study. All in disorderly order, they packed the shelves, spilled off the desk, and stood in random places in precariously stacked pillars. Scattered documents, correspondence, newspapers, magazines, and detritus of all sorts contributed to the disarray. Because he was a teacher of English literature and a translator of modern Japanese writers, books had been the stuff of Professor Selden’s life. They constituted the physical manifestation of his experience. He treasured them.

For Selden, this hilltop place was a tranquil retreat, separated from a bustling modern Japan he didn’t much like. Cherry blossom trees lined the road up in spring and red-brown maples asserted themselves in autumn. In the garden, flowers—mostly white, pink, or violet— harmonized with pines, maples, and bamboo and blossomed in sequence as summer came and went. Hollyhocks, morning glories, peonies, and wisteria all took their turn. And as the transit of summer concluded, chrysanthemums and camellia came alive into the autumn. Yasuko had ministered to them all, but now the garden was falling into disrepair, just like him, Selden thought. It was his private, internal joke—just like him.

He could sometimes hear his neighbor, Mrs. Kimura, practicing somber Noh drama chants in her house below his garden. At other times, the plaintive notes of her son’s Japanese flute wafted up to the villa, as if adrift on a melodic stream. Selden avoided Kamakura in summer when beachgoers thronged the roads and at New Years when swarms of people in their traditional finery crowded the roads to Hachiman Shrine.

Selden liked winter best. He would linger with a cup of tea and watch white flakes big as flower petals fill up his garden (he felt a kinship with Frost and his woods) and pile snowy hats atop the old stone lanterns there. He missed Yasuko terribly, but he was otherwise content.

▱

Before bed, Selden had watched the NHK television news. Using a homemade mortar, student radicals had staged another of their attacks, this one targeting the Defense Agency Headquarters. While the attack itself produced no damage—they rarely did—a sweet potato vendor had been struck and killed by a misfire. Selden shook his head. It was all so meaningless.

Public tolerance for 1960s-style student radicals had long since evaporated and now, in 1975, a spate of bombings and robberies in Tokyo had outraged the public. A police spokesman on the newscast vowed the authorities would bring the miscreants to justice.

A missionary son reared in Japan, a believer in the Social Gospel, and an active progressive in his university days, Selden initially sympathized with the aims of the student movement. He shared their view that the government was corrupt and marching backward, toward the bad old days that fostered the disaster of the Pacific War. And, like the students, he deemed the American military bases in Japan a malign presence.

But, as student idealism yielded place to violence, and as the struggle degenerated into an intramural competition for power among radical groups, Selden challenged the activists. He declared that the students were misguided. He argued that good motives did not exculpate them from responsibility for harmful results. And, most grievous sin of all in the eyes of the radicals, he counseled moderation.

Consequently, despite expressed sympathy for the broader aims of the movement, Selden became a target of the hard-core leftists. Harassing phone calls made sleep difficult; he lectured to near-empty classrooms (his students yielding to threats); and, finally, he was completely locked out of the campus during a four-month student strike. In the end, he gave up—he retired.

▱

Selden inclined his head and listened to the soft idling of an automobile engine outside in the darkness; a car door closed, and then another. It had snowed the previous day and the slopes opposite the villa glowed blue-white beneath a thin half moon. Squinting through the window, Selden made out three spectral forms moving toward the house.

He responded to a quiet rapping and slid back the entry door, surprised to see not only Okamoto, but two other young people, a male and a female. The males were outfitted with long coats, like the great coats once worn by soldiers. The girl had on a nondescript ski jacket.

“Leave your things here.” Selden gestured toward a shelf in the entryway. “Then please come in and have some tea.”

Okamoto put down a duffle bag and the other two doffed rucksacks. They dutifully removed their boots before stepping up into the Japanese-style parlor with its straw-matted tatami floors.

“This is Yamada,” Okamoto said, referring to the other male student by his last name. Nodding toward the young woman, he said, “She is Muro.”

Disheveled and worn-out looking, all three appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties. All three wore jeans and bulky sweaters. They were grim-faced, the girl especially, her eyes like pieces of black ice. Her close-cropped hair, lack of makeup, and brusque manner left the impression of a cold, young woman bearing, for whatever reason, a heavy burden of resentment.

They seated themselves at a low table on the floor, absorbing the warmth of an electric space heater. Professor Selden poured tea in a room dimly lit, at Okamoto’s insistence, by a single small lamp.

“How can I help you?” Selden said. “Has there been trouble at the university?”

His excitement barely restrained, like a child with a secret to share, Okamoto replied, “No, it is bigger trouble.”

“What is it, then, that brings you here? As I told you on the phone, I hope I can help,” Selden said.

This was a natural response for Selden, a kind person committed throughout his adult lifetime to aiding fellow human beings. He exuded goodness and peace.

“We are the ones,” Okamoto said.

“The ones?” A genial look of puzzlement transited Selden’s face.

“The ones the police are looking for, the ones who … caused the sweet potato seller to die.”

“The ones who attacked the militarist headquarters.” Muro corrected him, her voice stitched with hostility and anger. “It is unfortunate that man died. But we all die sometime.”

“It is very sad. He was an innocent person. I am sorry. Very sorry,” Yamada said. “I am the one who made the mortar.”

Head down, Yamada twisted his hands. Selden realized the student was afflicted with a racing case of nerves. Slope-shouldered and slight as a bamboo shoot, Yamada sported a straggly chin beard that made his longish face look longer. His comrades had dubbed him “Horse Face.”

“Yes, it was unfortunate; he was a working-class person,” Muro said. “But you cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.” Each of her words was delivered with a cutting edge.

“But, why have you come here?” Professor Selden experienced a wash of concern.

“Just to rest. We will leave soon,” Okamoto said. “We were nearby. I remembered you as a goodhearted person who understood our cause. Also, the police would not think to look for us in the home of a foreigner. Our friend who brought us in his taxi will return tomorrow night.”

“But, Okamoto-san, you know I have never supported these violent attacks. You should give yourselves up to the authorities. You should …” It was all rushing by like a Kyoto-bound bullet train.

“We do not need your advice, teacher.” The girl produced a silver-plated revolver from under her sweater and placed it on the table. “We are revolutionaries. Do you understand?” She sounded like a character from a bad Russian film.

“We mean you no harm,” Okamoto added. “But you must cooperate. We are quite serious.”

“You’ll be found out. Let me contact the police; arrange for your safe surrender.”

“We will never surrender,” Muro said. She laid her hand on the pistol. “Fighting the capitalists and militarists is the only way.”

Selden wondered if he was their host, albeit a reluctant one, or a hostage?

▱

Selden dragged out quilts from a closet, and the two males, after greedily consuming some rice balls and multiple cups of hot tea, plunged into a deep sleep on the parlor floor. Muro, however, pledged to remain awake, alert for any sign they had been discovered and to keep an eye on Selden who, after all, might betray them. Foreigners could not be trusted, even ones who spoke Japanese—perhaps especially ones who spoke Japanese. Seated on the floor, her back against a sofa, Muro declared she would sleep later.

Admonished by his young warder not to touch the telephone, Selden retreated to his study, hoping for a little sleep. But sleep eluded him as he engaged in a hundred mind games, none of them promising good outcomes. The three radicals—he questioned the characterization, but supposed it fit—had set out on a course that would likely lead to a devastating denouement. In some respects, they were still children, or at least childlike. He smiled sardonically, with no one there to see the smile, recalling they had played scissors-paper-stone to determine which of them would replace Muro when it came her turn to sleep. He must, he told himself, persuade them to act with reason before their situation worsened. His burdened mind wandered and, fully dressed, at last Professor Selden dozed off on his cot.

The morning dawned clear and crisp. Wakened by sunlight filtered through a sweated window, Selden padded down the corridor in stocking feet, rested a hand on the frame of the open door, and surveyed the dimly lit parlor. The students had closed and secured all of the shutters from the inside. Mouths agape, scattered across the floor, like middle schoolers on a field trip, the three snored in chorus. Chin down, Muro remained propped against the sofa. Selden could easily have walked out of the house, the rational thing to do. But, his eyes fastened on some hard-to-make-out objects on the floor at Okamoto’s side. Adjusting his glasses, Selden identified the objects—three fused sticks of dynamite. It struck him as more imperative than ever that he dissuade these revolutionaries from doing something even rasher than what already had them on the run. How could he win them over? How? His mind felt empty as an old sake jug.

He fished out his pocket watch. 8 o’clock. His cleaning lady would soon be plodding up the hill from her bus stop. Somehow he had to fend her off, or so he thought until he drew back a drape and his vision fell outside the window. Everywhere it traveled Selden’s gaze came to rest on blue- and gray-clad policemen. The low-hanging sun glinted off their helmet visors. They had soundlessly surrounded the villa. As motionless and as erect as the snow-covered pines above them, they stood in massed ranks, like a samurai army awaiting battle before a castle.

Suddenly awake and pistol in hand, Muro came up behind him. “Did you call them?” she said. “If you did …”

“No. You must believe me. I had no idea they …”

“It must have been that traitor, Shimizu, the one who drove us here. I knew he was weak.”

Muro roused the other two. “The police are here,” she said matter-of-factly. However much bravado they might muster, Selden thought, it had to be a disconcerting spectacle for them.

“We have to give up. It’s over,” Yamada said. Unable to remain still, he began pacing about the room.

“Be strong,” Okamoto said. “No surrender. Perhaps when night falls, we can …”

“Can what?” Selden said.

“Shut up, teacher,” Muro said. She glared at him. “Do you know what the cops will do to us? Okamoto is right; we must resist and make these running dogs pay a price.”

Standing to one side, Okamoto opened a shutter. “Good morning, policemen,” he shouted. “Do not try to come in. We have a hostage—the American who lives here.”

An officer stepped from behind a police car and, hands on hips, faced the house. “You cannot escape. Give up now,” he called out. “It will only go worse for you if the professor is harmed.”

Before Okamoto could respond, in a single rippling movement Muro jostled by him, leveled her pistol, and fired. She missed badly, the slug burying itself in the patrol car, and the policeman burying himself in a snow bank.

“Why did you …?” Okamoto was incensed. But it was too late.

“Now they’ll show us some respect,” Muro said with a smirky grin.

“This is madness,” Selden said. “You’ve only provoked them.”

Muro trained her pistol on him. “I told you, stay out of our business or I will shoot again. And this time I will not miss.” Selden believed she would.

As the morning crept forward, the police repeatedly appealed over loudspeakers for the trio to give up. They tried the same thing by telephone until the students disconnected the ringing instrument. Meanwhile, word of the standoff flew around in media circles and an insistent crowd of reporters and cameramen pushed up the hill and jockeyed for position. Like participants in an ersatz press conference, they called out questions to those inside. This comic effort elicited no response.

At midmorning, an armored vehicle approached the gate, setting in motion a wave of speculation on what the police were up to. Policemen crouched behind trees and spread across neighboring rooftops. The authorities evacuated local residents and tension mounted in the neighborhood.

Edging forward behind their shields, the police ringed the villa in an ever more constricting net. Clouds roiled in from the west obscuring the bright sunshine that had begun the day. Sky and earth alike seemed brushed from a pallet bearing only two colors, murky gray and dreary white. And the temperature plummeted.

The radicals busied themselves trying to gauge what the police were up to and monitored coverage of the siege on Selden’s television set, laughing and commenting when their own images popped up. They ignored reports of man-in-the street denunciations of their earlier attack and this hostage-taking. They spoke confidently, but Selden doubted they truly grasped the seriousness of their situation. Perhaps it was all a bluff, and, after enough publicity, they’d give themselves up.

But, if so, had they missed the signals that the police must be under intense pressure to end the siege? Selden likened them to youngsters playing at war. Pretending; a kind of game. If only he could reason with them. Perhaps Yamada would listen; he seemed the most vulnerable. But, when Selden approached him (The game is ended, Mr. Yamada. Turn yourself in.), Yamada jerked away and refused to hear him. Okamoto and Muro had apparently stiffened their comrade’s resolve. Like a religious apostate returned to the ranks with renewed zeal, he echoed their vow to hold out as long as possible.

At one point, Okamoto said to Selden, “Even if people think our revolution has failed, it is better that we die for our cause.”

Selden found this mindless sentiment disheartening and said, “But that is exactly the sort of thinking the militarists urged during the war. You cannot believe it is right.” Selden had grown weary of lost causes and pointless sacrifice. The Japanese notion of noble failure, sticking to principle in the face of all odds, held no appeal.

“There is no revolution. You are deluded,” he said and sank onto the sofa where he’d spent much of the day watching the others roam about like caged creatures in the Ueno Zoo. From time to time they foraged in his pantry, declaring, among other things, that English toast with orange marmalade was tasty fare. Selden nibbled a few crackers and polished off some miso soup retrieved from his refrigerator.

Like Yamada, Okamoto refused to hear Selden’s appeal. “Our comrades are dead or in jail or have left the country,” Okamoto said. “It is better we die here. Others will carry on.”

Selden became more disheartened when Okamoto produced a shotgun that had remained inside a bag he’d carried into the parlor. Okamoto emptied the bag, and lined up six or eight shells on the low table where they had eaten.

“We will stay here and die,” Muro announced. “We are fighters for …”

“The window!” Yamada shouted.

Muro spun and, clutching her pistol in both hands, fired directly at a police ranger attempting to push through. He cried out and toppled backward into the garden snow. Okamoto rushed to close and secure the shutter. Selden peered through a crack alongside an adjacent shutter, relieved to see the wounded man struggle to his feet and stagger off.

“You must stop. It can only get worse,” Selden said. “You must stop.” The boys ignored him; Muro said nothing but sent him a look of undisguised belligerence.

Outside the house those inside could hear the hum of vehicle engines and indecipherable voices. At 3 in the afternoon, the police made another loudspeaker appeal for Selden’s release. The three students huddled together. After much discussion, Okamoto said, “Sensei, we have decided to release you. It is too dangerous here. It is only a matter of time until the police attack. I was not a good student, but you treated me with kindness. And you have been kind to us today. We meant you no harm.” From the scowl shadowing Muro’s face, it did not appear to have been a unanimous decision.

They might have been self-styled Leninist revolutionaries. But, like their Japanese countrymen, they had grown up imbued with a tradition in which favors received from superiors, such as teachers or parents, imposed a heavy burden of indebtedness. This meant special awareness of the need to return favors to those who had done favors for them. Selden, it seemed, merited such reciprocity.

The temptation to be out the door and gone intoxicated him. Whatever he did, the public mood would not tolerate much more police delay in resolving the situation. Wasn’t it a lost cause of the sort he was not inclined to support? Hadn’t he done enough? He answered his own question. No. He had not. Selden clung to the hope, a precarious one he knew, that he might still dissuade the students from their folly. Moreover, he thought, his presence continued to provide a modicum of protection against an immediate police assault and, therefore, some time to find a way to avoid further bloodshed.

His decision made, Selden stepped to a window, pried open a shutter, and called out, “I am staying here of my own free will! Please, let us find a peaceful resolution.”

Selden assumed the students believed he would go over to the police at first opportunity. Now, he suspected, the police would conclude he was in league with the students. He did not know they calculated he had likely been coerced into claiming he remained voluntarily. Nor did he know an American Embassy representative had arrived and urged the authorities to proceed with caution. With Selden’s safety paramount, the police waited.

At 3:30 in the afternoon, the police cut off the electricity, the first casualty being the space heater, the second being access to television coverage. The lights also went out, and soon it would be dark.

“It’s just as well,” Okamoto said. “They might be able to see us if we mistakenly turned on a light.” He sought to put the best face on things. But, his posturing and the meager heat from the small charcoal brazier did little to offset the damp chill enveloping the rooms they occupied.

At around 4 o’clock, while foraging for something to eat in the kitchen, Yamada called out that the water had stopped flowing. It occurred to Selden that their isolation was now perfect.

Okamoto said to Selden, “If they enter in force we will go to the second floor. It will be our last redoubt, like a castle keep.”

“And you will go with us, teacher. You had your chance,” Muro said.

Selden disregarded her. “Castle keep? This is no samurai movie, Okamoto-san. Just give me your weapons—or at least unload them. I will talk to the police.”

Okamoto folded his arms and, still as a freeze-frame photo, looked straight ahead, showcasing his determination.

In the evening, the radicals and their reluctant host slurped down buckwheat noodles scrounged from the pantry and cooked on the small hibachi brazier using water drained from faucets. Seated on the floor of the darkened parlor, faces barely visible in the faint charcoal glow, the students sought to buoy each other’s spirits with chatter about the rightness of their cause and duty to the people. Revolution, they assured each other, offered the only solution to the nation’s ills. They spouted one cliché after another and, like a band of hungry street urchins, swallowed their own propaganda. Selden listened with sadness; he’d once spouted many of the same sentiments.

“You have no support. This resort to violence is foolhardy. It is simply proof of your failure and—and of your defeat.” Selden refused to give up on his mantra.

“Baka! You old fool! Baka! Baka!” shouted Muro, jumping to her feet, and striking Selden across the forehead with a plate she seized from the table. Okamoto quickly intervened to prevent a second blow. Selden slumped against a wall and sat there disconsolate, his pain greater for his inability to communicate with these young people than from the laceration on his head.

Evening became night, and the police illuminated the building with floodlights. No one would be afforded an opportunity to slip out under cover of darkness. But, still unable to confirm Selden’s status, the police maintained their watchful waiting. Around midnight, a sudden shotgun blast slashed through the snowy silence, startling those both inside and outside the villa. Kneeling at a second-floor window, Okamoto had thought he detected movement toward the house and fired a shot. This third shot from the house, Selden reckoned, would convince the police chief to authorize members of a select squad to load their pistols. It would be a decision not lightly taken, the use of deadly force by Japanese police being tightly restricted.

At 7:30 in the morning, a fury of noise erupted, and the shivering occupants of the house were shaken by the crashing of axes and sledges. The police quickly smashed through the shutters and broke out a half-dozen windows. When they finished, all fell silent. Ten minutes passed. Then, for the first time since the previous day, over a squealing loudspeaker the distorted voice of the police chief assaulted the ears of those inside.

“This is your final warning. Send out the sensei and give yourselves up. You have no hope. Five minutes.”

Huddled in the corner of the room, Selden roused himself for one more effort. Haggard and dark-eyed from lack of sleep, he approached Okamoto, who sat cross-legged on the floor like a temple acolyte—an acolyte cradling a shotgun.

“There is nothing left for it, Okamoto-san. You know it. Think of your parents.”

Okamoto would not look at him. “We are doing the people’s will,” he said. But, the conviction had drained away. The well once spilling over with ideological slogans and brave words of resistance had gone dry.

“Why die?” Selden said. “If you survive, you can tell your story. Carry on your struggle.”

“They will hang us.”

“No. You are young. What you did was not premeditated. No one will be hanged.” Selden, in fact, had no idea what fate might befall them.

“He is right. The old professor is right,” Yamada said excitedly. “We can continue the struggle—even from prison,”

“Yes, perhaps …”

“Cowards! Traitors!” Muro screamed. She snatched up a stick of dynamite from the floor. “Don’t listen to him. He stayed here to deceive us.”

“No, he’s right. It is better that we …”

Whoosh. Whoosh. A sudden volley of tear gas canisters clattered through the broken windows and rolled about on the floor, quickly filling the room with clouds of noxious fumes and igniting a small fire near the study entrance. At the same time, shouting rangers pounded away at the barricaded front and rear entrances with battering rams. The police had launched an all-out onslaught on the villa in an effort to free Professor Selden and capture the radicals.

“My books. My books.” Coughing and gasping, Selden turned toward the crackling flames threatening the study.

But, before he could take a step, Muro shouted, “Second floor,” and pressed her pistol into Selden’s back. “Go.”

Eyes burning and with a handkerchief pressed against his mouth and nose, Selden staggered up the stairs to the landing and corridor beyond, with Muro and Yamada close behind. Throwing open a window, they sucked in fresh air.

“Where is Okamoto?” Yamada cried out. Their leader had not come with them. “Okamoto-kun!”

Then, in a tumult of crashing and shouting and breaking on the floor below, they heard a shattering blast from the shotgun. As the police pushed in, Okamoto had instinctively wheeled, and squeezed the trigger, instantly killing a 40-year-old police sergeant leading the charge through the front entrance. Surging past their fallen leader, the police knocked Okamoto to the floor, pummeled him with clubs, handcuffed him, and dragged him out of the house.

Meanwhile, when two other officers hazarded the stairs, Muro, concealed on the landing above, fired her pistol twice. The police fell back, one of them bleeding from the thigh.

Police rangers easily extinguished the small fire and, after a room-to-room search, by 9 o’clock declared the ground floor of the villa secure. Muro and Yamada, with Selden in tow, remained holed up on the second floor. A disquieting silence pervaded the villa.

In the corridor at the top of the stairs Selden lay face down, exhausted and frightened. The students, equally exhausted and frightened, crouched beside him. Selden knew further appeals would be meaningless. They all lifted their heads in involuntary response to the sound of footsteps on the roof above them. Pounding and chopping soon followed as the police worked to punch a hole through to a second-floor room.

At 10 a.m. the police initiated a final assault. Muro and Yamada sensed movement by the police at the foot of the stairs. Muro pulled the dynamite stick from her waistband. She shoved a pack of matches into Yamada’s hands.

“When I tell you, light it.” At the sound of boots on the steps, she urged him. “Now. Now.” Hands trembling, Yamada managed to strike a match and touch it to the fuse. As the police clambered up the stairs Muro sent the stick of dynamite with its sizzling fuse bounding down. The horrified police fell back down the stairs trying to avoid the blast. But, as newspaper accounts had it later, catastrophe was averted—the fuse sputtered and died.

“It is over,” Yamada said, still gasping from the effects of the tear gas. “I can’t go on.” He whirled, ran, and, like a runner finishing a race, threw up his arms and plunged through a window at the end of the corridor, arcing to the ground two stories below. Injured, but alive, he lay moaning in the snow as police swarmed over him.

“The bastards won’t win,” Muro said. She raised the pistol to her throat, but before she could take her life, with one last adrenaline rush Professor Selden launched himself from the floor and knocked her arm away. “Let me die,” Muro shouted while they grappled, unwilling partners in an unwanted dance. A foot slipped and they tumbled down the stairs locked in an unwieldy embrace. Somewhere in that mad descent the pistol discharged sending a slug straight through Professor Selden’s brain.

When the police swept forward, Muro tried to fire one more time, but the weapon jammed. As they had her compatriots, the police hauled her off in handcuffs. By 10:15, all three students had been arrested and the entire house occupied, searched, and declared secure.

The police could not determine if Selden had been shot intentionally or simply struck by an inadvertent discharge of the girl’s weapon. In any case, he had died instantly. Watching attendants load Selden’s body into an ambulance, a Reuters correspondent said, “Don’t you suppose he was one of them?”

“Perhaps,” a reporter from The Japan Times replied. “Perhaps. Who Knows?”

 

Lawrence F. Farrar is a former Foreign Service officer with multiple postings in Japan and Washington, DC. Farrar holds a Stanford MA in Japanese history. His stories have appeared in more than sixty literary magazines.