After Darkness: Chapter 1: South Australia, 1942 Summary & Analysis

The protagonist, Dr. Ibaraki, travels inland in a carriage. He describes the unfamiliar landscape. He is traveling through widespread farmland, seeing crops and animals but no people. He sees his reflection in the window and notices that he looks unkempt and sleep-deprived—he hasn’t showered since he was at Harvey Camp three days prior. Dr. Ibaraki remembers gathering with 40 other Japanese men early that morning in Adelaide to board the train to their new camp in Southern Australia.

At the Murray Bridge train stop, Dr. Ibaraki sees a white woman with her three-year-old daughter, who reminds him of his niece. As the train pulls away, the woman spits on the window and utters a hateful slur against Japanese people. Dr. Ibaraki notes the hate in her face.

The train arrives at the Barmera stop that evening. Soldiers greet the men and lead them to Loveday Camp. Dr. Ibaraki has more luggage than most of the other men and falls to the back of the group. One of the men falls to the ground, and Ibaraki rushes to examine him. Another man who knows the sick man tells Dr. Ibaraki that almost everyone got sick on the ship and that many died. One of the guards takes the man who fell to the hospital. The group arrives at Loveday Camp. When an officer interviews Dr. Ibaraki, he tells the officer that he is a doctor and that he has been in Australia since 1938. When the officer asks the protagonist about his marital status, the protagonist hesitates and then tells the officer that his wife is in Tokyo.

Dr. Ibaraki is subjected to a medical examination before entering the camp. He finds the examination unnecessarily humiliating, as he is naked. After the medical examination, as Dr. Ibaraki and a group of men wait outside the camp, they notice the guard towers on the edge of the camp and discuss how they are always being watched. An officer leads the men through the camp to their compound. There, they meet Mori, the mayor of the compound, and Mr. Yamada, the mayor’s deputy. Mr. Yamada leads Dr. Ibaraki to his quarters. Mr. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki that Harada Yasutaro told him about Dr. Ibaraki. The doctor is pleased to hear that his friend Harada is at the camp. Yamada shows Dr. Ibaraki to his bed in Yamada’s tent and tells him that he is glad to have another educated man around.

Dr. Ibaraki wakes early the next morning, sweating from the heat. He walks around the camp, examining its layout. He gathers that, aside from the Japanese men in two sections of the compound, there are Italians and Germans in the other two sections. He remembers a letter that he received the week before from his mother giving him news of the family, though censors had blocked out some of the information about his brother, Nobuhiro, in the army. Before the doctor was arrested, his mother had urged him to return to Japan. Dr. Ibaraki finds a Buddhist altar in the camp and kneels before it.

At breakfast, Mr. Yamada introduces Dr. Ibaraki to the other men in their tent, who had also previously worked with Mr. Yamada at a rubber production company. Mr. Yamada recalls the harm that the Dutch embargo on Japanese business did to their company. Dr. Ibaraki looks around the dining room for Harada but instead sees Johnny Chang, a young businessman of both Chinese and Japanese descent whom Dr. Ibaraki knows from his time living in Broome before his arrest. Johnny exclaims the injustices of the camp hierarchy, calling out Mayor Mori for taking special treatment. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki, who doesn’t let on that he knows Johnny, that Johnny has been a troublemaker in the camp. Many men in the dining room begin to yell racist remarks at Johnny.

Yamada takes Dr. Ibaraki to Harada’s tent. Dr. Ibaraki comments on how thin Harada has become. The guards call the men for a head count. Major Locke, the head of the camp, announces that the guards will begin to give the internee’s tents surprise inspections. During Major Locke’s speech, Harada collapses. Dr. Ibaraki advises the guards to take him to the hospital and accompanies them. Dr. Ashton, the physician at the headquarters, examines Harada and diagnoses him with tuberculosis.

Dr. Ashton invites Dr. Ibaraki to work at the infirmary. Mr. Yamada tells Dr. Ibaraki that many of the inmates who have jobs at the camp periodically sabotage their jobs in protest of being underpaid. Dr. Ibaraki shows up for his first shift at the infirmary, and Shiobara shows him around the hospital. Dr. Ibaraki completes his first shift and reflects that it reminds him of his hospital internship back in Tokyo eight years ago.