The Narrow Road to the Deep North

He throws himself through the hole in the wall and strikes the boy in the head with the crowbar, killing him. Nakamura stuffs the dumplings into his mouth and watches the girl. She takes off her clothes and lies down on a mat. He ignores her and kneels over the American. He puts the crowbar into the corpse’s hand. He crawls back through the wall after stealing $50 from the girl, which he can use to buy false identity papers. He leaves on a train for Kobe as Yoshio Kimura. Kobe is no better than Tokyo, but he feels as if he has put a safe distance between himself and the dead American.

He thinks of all the times he has been beaten in the military and cannot comprehend that beating can be classified as a war crime: “What was a prisoner of war? Nothing, that’s what” (282).

A Korean man named Choi Sang-min (the Goanna) is sitting in the dark. He is condemned and despises the Americans. They want him dead, so he does not understand the show and rituals of their justice system. His trail in Australia had lasted two days. He is sentenced to death by hanging for killing POWs. He learns that Kota’s testimony has secured his conviction. His sentence is commuted for four months through the efforts of his lawyer. Each convicted Japanese man has had the same question: They serve the will of the Emperor, so then why does the emperor not hang? Why are the Americans not executing the Emperor? The Goanna ruminates on these questions and on his own actions: “His only regret was that he had not killed many more” (287). He had always been angry when the POWs died because it wasn’t his fault that there was disease or a war.

He had felt like more of a man whenever he had reduced the manhood of someone else. He had enjoyed seeing the large Australians helpless before him. When the judge had pronounced his sentence, he had looked for a way to escape: “But there was none, and there never had been” (290). His part in the war had been fated. 

In the future, the men involved in the Line have troubled lives. Many of them commit suicide. Their marriages fail and their children have severe emotional problems. More than anything, however, they drink. Bonox shoots his oven with a shotgun. Rooster becomes obese and lies about sustaining a bayonet injury: “They drank to make themselves feel as they should when they didn’t drink, the way they felt when they hadn’t drunk before the war” (292). 

One night some of them meet at a pub called the Hope and Anchor to talk about the war. They remember Darky talking about Nikitaris’s fish shop. 

Jimmy Bigelow’s dreams of becoming a musician do not happen. The big band era ended while he was away, and he does not like the bebop age of music. He works as a storeman: “He didn’t fit with his own life anymore, his own life was breaking down” (294). He leaves the pub where the men were talking, and they go to Nikitaris’s. The shop is closed. They watch fish swimming in aquariums through the windows. Jimmy “felt himself all appearance with nothing inside. He had trouble feeling” (295).

Jimmy throws a rock and cracks one of the windows. They all begin throwing rocks. Inside, they get two buckets, scoop up as many fish as they can. They carry the buckets to the ocean and set the fish free.

The next night they return to the shop to make it right. Jimmy confesses to Mr. Nikitaris and tells him about Darky. Mr. Nikitaris invites them to stay for dinner and cooks for them. He listens to their stories and then tells them about his own life. He has three daughters and a son who died in the war. They talk all night. Jimmy thinks “there was nowhere else in the world he wished to be” (299).

In the autumn of 1948, Dorrigo lands in Sydney. The war ended in 1945, but he put off returning home because he did not want to face civilian life, which seems meaningless to him: “He could never admit to himself that it was death that had given his life meaning” (300).

Ella is there to meet him. He remembers proposing to her his final night before leaving for the war, because she would not stop asking why he hadn’t proposed. He had thought only of Amy, even that night. He marries her three weeks after returning to Sydney, hoping that having someone arrange his life will bring him some relief.

At the reception, he lies about having dreamed of Ella for seven years and expresses amazement at the survival of their love. He compares himself to Ulysses, and Ella as Penelope. He would sleep with her best friend a month after their honeymoon and would never stop having affairs.