Lady Joker, Volume 1

by Kaoru Takamura

  And so he ruled out each and every possibility in the twenty-two-year-old university student’s small circle—including family, university, friends, fishing buddies, and so on—Hatano’s suspicion deepening all the while that there was something else going on in his son’s life. The only thing left was Hinode Beer. For whatever reason, his son had actively sought to join this company, and yet decided to leave in the middle of his second interview. Perhaps then he felt like he couldn’t even show his face at the lab, considering that his professor had written a recommendation for him.

  The name of the company at the source of all this was branded on Hatano’s brain, he couldn’t get it out of his mind. Even so, what sort of problem could there be? Hinode was a trillion-yen business that ranked among the twenty most profitable firms in Japan. During their corporate recruiting process, was it really possible that the company had made the kind of blunder that would force an applicant to abandon the process mid-interview?

  And then suddenly, a voice had arisen from deep within his gut that told him: yes. If he was trying to imagine the company’s point of view, there was just one issue to consider.

  Until the age of four, Hatano’s permanent address had been in a district within the city of Kobe that included a number of segregated buraku communities, and that was where his father had been born. He knew that such matters no longer caused a stir in Japan, and he knew full well how unlikely it would be for a company to look up the lineage of an applicant’s parents during the screening process for new employees, but once he had latched onto this thought, Hatano’s mind began to circle around it. This world to which he had had no connection for more than forty years now had not come looking for him, but rather, he had called it forth on his own. With no sense of reality, he started to follow the scent of his memory, and without feeling any actual pain, he begin to think: discrimination. Though it was nothing more than a linguistic concept without substance, he continued to cradle it in his arms until it gradually grew warm and began to give off an odor, and the odor further expanded the concept, until an even stronger smell of something rotten began to rise.

  It was at this time that Hatano wrote his first letter to Hinode Beer. Suddenly, almost as soon as he had picked up his fountain pen, he began to write as if on auto pilot: I have an issue with the way that my son, Takayuki Hatano, was evaluated during your screening process for new employees, and as a bereaved parent, I am deeply anguished.

  Ten days later, a businesslike reply arrived from Hinode’s human resources department, stating that the screening process had been impartially conducted, and even then the thinness of the single-page typewritten letter had provoked a strong reaction in Hatano. The stink of discrimination became even more pungent, and as it continued to intensify, he immediately sent out a second letter. This time, instead of his own name he assumed the name of the Tokyo chapter of the Buraku Liberation League, typing out the words on different stationery. He did not think much about his language. And then, on November 2nd he dropped off the letter at the Shinagawa post office . . .

  No, hold on. He had sent the letter on the second. It would have arrived at Hinode on the third. But the third was a holiday so the offices were closed. The fourth was a Sunday. So then, the day the person in charge of mail in the human resources department opened the letter would have been Monday the fifth—which was today. This afternoon’s call from that Nishimura would mean that Hinode had opened the letter this morning, then immediately judged its content and contacted the BLL. That was a startlingly swift response from the company. The rotting stench emanating from Hinode Beer was stronger than ever. It was like a tooth secretly decaying beneath the white resin with which it had been beautifully restored. Like the anaerobic bacteria decomposing the pulp, melting it into putrid, dark red mash—what else could this be other than the rot hiding deep within the trillion-yen corporation?

  Hatano allowed the involuntary twitching of his facial muscle to work his mouth into a sneer. He continued to drink for a while longer, until nine o’clock came around. The doorbell rang and, getting up from the sofa and slowly making his way to the front hall, he opened the door. He saw the faces of two men.

  “I’m Nishimura. I called earlier.”

  The dark-skinned man who introduced himself in the doorway looked to be about fifty years old. On the right side of his jaw, punctuating a smooth, expressionless face with otherwise unmemorable features, was a mole about ten millimeters in diameter. That mole was what Hatano saw first, and more than anything else about the man’s appearance, it left a lasting impression. The second man was about forty with an unimpressive countenance and somber eyes. They both wore plain off-the-rack suits, gave off a strong smell of hair product, and beneath the too-short hem of their slacks, casually showed off their expensive Armani and Gucci shoes. Hatano, however, was of no mind to judge what this hodge-podge signified.

  “We won’t take too much of your time.”

  As the man who called himself Nishimura spoke, Hatano stared at his face with its peculiar lack of emotion, his eyes scarcely moving as he spoke, and wondered what type of man he was—he really had no idea. The two men sat down on the sofa without so much as a glance at the disorderly apartment, each of them placing their respective business cards on the table and sliding them toward Hatano with a single finger. Both bore the title, “Buraku Liberation League, Tokyo Chapter, Executive Committee.”

  “What line of work are you in?” Hatano asked.

  Relaxing only his mouth, Nishimura responded, “Shrewd eye. I should have known you’d ask, doctor,” and presented another card. It read, “Look, Inc., Managing Director.”

  “What kind of company is this?”

  “Manufacture and wholesale of women’s shoes. Since you were born in Kobe, doctor, you probably know it. We are based there.”

  Hatano looked at the delicate fingertips of Nishimura’s hand, which he had placed on his knee. Recalling from his youth seeing the hands of the people working in Kobe’s small factories, and then thinking of the Armani shoes Nishimura had just taken off on the concrete floor of his entryway, he thought, No way. Nishimura may or may not have been a shoemaker, but Hatano nevertheless recognized the feeling that was slowly being restored within his own skin. At the same time he was aware of the sort of tediousness exhibited by self-proclaimed activists whose motivation had been reduced over time to a fixation on being descendants of a segregated buraku community. Even as he tried to decipher all this, Hatano’s interest in Nishimura’s identity had already waned.

  “What do you want?”

  “First, regarding the recent loss of your son, no doubt you are quite disheartened. I want you to know that we fully understand that.”

  “I’d like you to get to the point quickly. If I’ve caused you trouble, I’ll pay what I need to pay.”

  Nishimura paused briefly before continuing. “Even wearing a lion’s pelt, a fox is still a fox,” he said. “By the way, doctor, your mother seems to be doing well.”

  “If you have something to say, make it quick.”

  “I hear these days hospitals with fewer than a hundred beds are all having trouble managing, but privately run clinics, on the other hand, are going strong as long as they have the trust of the local community. Business also seems to be flourishing at your mother’s practice in Kamakura.”

  “This doesn’t involve my mother. Please tell me what you want.”

  “Why don’t we start by you taking off that lion’s pelt? Doctor, you shouldn’t forget the circumstances under which you and your mother left Kobe in 1947. Not that I’m suggesting you engage in class warfare.”

  The man’s implication was clear. During the war, Hatano’s mother, a doctor and the second daughter of a wealthy physician’s family in Kamakura, had taken a post as at the central municipal hospital in the faraway city of Kobe, where she fell in love with a patient. The awkwardness of this talk of the distant past tum
bling unexpectedly from the mouth of a stranger had the converse effect of numbing Hatano’s surprise.

  The man with whom his mother had become infatuated—Hatano’s father—had been temporarily conscripted to work in the Kobe steel mill, and though he was handsome enough to call to mind a Japanese Rudolph Valentino, because it was wartime and because he came from a district where there were many segregated buraku communities, Hatano was born out of wedlock. After the war, Hatano’s parents were finally legally married, but his father had become caught up in the swell of the rising democratic movement and transformed into a passionate buraku liberation activist. Meanwhile his mother, a young lady brought up in comfort, was held up as a poster child for the adage that there was no sin greater than ignorance. Dragged day after day to liberation committee gatherings and drowning in leaflets, it wasn’t long before she called it quits. Ultimately, the marriage did not last five years, and with a suitcase in one hand and her small son in the other, his mother fled back home to Kamakura on a jam-packed Tokaido Line night train. Hatano could still faintly recall the crowded cars of that slow-moving train.

  “I don’t remember anything about Kobe,” Hatano responded simply.

  “Even if you have forgotten, doctor, people like to poke around for all sorts of old wounds. I’m sure this business with Hinode comes down to just that as well. It’s too bad for you, doctor, but that’s the way of the world.”

  From his breast pocket, Nishimura took out a sheaf of paper and gently waved it at Hatano. The bundle was slightly smaller than letter-paper size and looked to be about twenty or thirty pages thick, but for the time being it remained in the man’s hand and was not presented to Hatano.

  “Your wife’s maiden name was Okamura, wasn’t it? Do you have a relationship with her family?”

  “Barely.”

  “Does the name Seiji Okamura sound familiar?”

  “No.”

  “He would have been your wife’s uncle.”

  “My wife’s maiden name is Monoi.”

  “Seiji Monoi was adopted and became Okamura. I’m sure you’ve heard the name Okamura at least.”

  “No. I hardly see anyone from the Monoi side of the family.”

  “I guess this is what they call an amazing coincidence, because it turns out that Seiji Okamura also used to work for Hinode’s research lab. He was a graduate of Tohoku Imperial University and seems to have been quite accomplished. He started working for Hinode in 1937 and left in 1947, but the letter he wrote to Hinode just after he resigned from the company still exists. This is it, right here.”

  “Why would you have a letter addressed to Hinode?”

  “As for its source, well, let’s just say Hinode lost track of it forty-three years ago. Now, what’s crucial about the contents . . .” Nishimura said and slowly waved the sheaf of paper in his hand. “How can I put this? Okamura himself may not have had an ulterior motive, but from the company’s perspective, the nature of this letter is not something they can simply ignore. Depending on how you read it, it can be interpreted as libel or blackmail.”

  Who was this relative of his wife he had never heard of? This stranger who worked for Hinode half a century ago and sent them a threatening letter? Deep within Hatano’s mind, now loosened and relaxed from the whisky, new and unaccustomed thoughts began to percolate.

  “In the letter Okamura-san refers to four of his colleagues at the company. All four of them were from a segregated buraku community. One of them left the company of his own accord while the other three were wrongfully terminated, but the liberation committee at the time had researched the case and there’s a record of them submitting a claim to Hinode—so what Okamura-san writes is true. Anyhow, Hinode, learning from the experience of being justly suspected of wrongdoing, henceforth became especially sensitive to problems of this nature.”

  Hatano stared absent-mindedly at the man’s lips as they continued to move. With each passing moment, his words seemed to lose their meaning and disintegrate, as Hatano felt his memories of the buraku village—memories that had been brewing in his own head for the past five days—gradually becoming meaningless as well. At the end of the long and dark tunnel of prejudice in which the history of this country was created, people still used the barriers that remained in some places as an excuse—but what did they really want? If the barriers were taken away, these same people were likely to denounce the widespread ignorance and indifference outside the tunnel, then proceed to erect a new barrier so that they could stubbornly cling to defending their reason for existence. Equality and prejudice—wasn’t the role of each of them, complementing the other, simply to guarantee this small sector of humanity their raison d’être? On the other hand, his twenty-two-year-old son had no connection to any such conversation about equality or discrimination, nor did he play any part in the world that they were discussing . . .

  Hatano poured more whisky into his glass and continued to gulp it down. It seemed to him that Nishimura’s languid drawl shouldn’t be considered critical or threatening. It sounded more and more like static noise that had nothing to do with himself or his son, and it was only the alcohol that gave him the strength—barely—to keep listening.

  Meanwhile, Nishimura continued to run his mouth. “By the way, Hinode has another delicate external matter pending. Have you read today’s Nikkei?”

  Nishimura’s companion took out two photocopied pages from the breast pocket of his suit and placed them on the table. Both of them were non-boldface newspaper articles from below the fold in the business and financial columns. One read, “Chunichi Mutual Savings Seeks Bank for Settlement Approval,” while the other was titled, “Ogura Transport Announces Management Changes.”

  “I’m sure you’ve at least heard the name Ogura Transport. They are a major player in land transportation. Chunichi Mutual Savings is the Ogura Group’s leading bank. These two articles are related. You know the old proverb, ‘When the wind blows, the coopers prosper’? One event can have an unexpected effect on another. What’s more, Hinode is also connected . . .”

  Hatano glanced over the articles to stave off his lassitude. During an inspection by the Bank of Japan, several obscure points were discovered in the management of Chunichi Mutual Savings Bank. Of their ¥850-billion loan balance, ¥280 billion had insufficient security. They were suspected of dispersing loans to avoid hitting the maximum allowable real estate loans and broker loans, and the investigation by the Ministry of Finance was ongoing, the article said. Meanwhile, Ogura Transport suffered a ¥50-billion stock loss and, seeing as they would likely be in the red this quarter, current management would take responsibility and step down. Having reading as much, Hatano tossed back the copies.

  “First, Chunichi Mutual Savings Bank. They’ve got a hefty trillion yen in total deposits. According to our sources, we know that half of their total loans, meaning five hundred billion, is irrecoverable, but their biggest problem is that the few city banks that are their biggest shareholders are standing ready to take over their hundred branches. First thing next year, they will announce their absorption and merger. After all, the major city banks and the finance ministry have been plotting together to make sure this will happen.”

  “What does this have to do with me?”

  “Now, just listen. As for Ogura Transport, the stock blunder that’s mentioned in the article is just a front. In reality, a certain group of corporate raiders has bought up the majority of Ogura stock on the market, and now they are demanding that Ogura and its main bank, Chunichi Mutual Savings Bank, buy back the stocks they’ve snapped up. In short, the corporate raiders have something on both Ogura and Chunichi that makes them unable to refuse the demand. For example, there’s a twelve-billion-yen loan that Chunichi has made to Ogura Development, a subsidiary of Ogura, in the guise of a land purchase. From what we’ve heard, three billion of that has disappeared into politico pockets. In any case, the story is that the nonba
nk that has funded the group of corporate raiders that’s driving Ogura into a corner is said to be affiliated with a certain major player in those city banks that have tried to take over Chunichi.”

  “I’d like you to get to the point.”

  “This is the point. Early next year that certain city bank that will have absorbed Chunichi will set out to save Ogura. At that time, Hinode Distribution, currently a designated shareholder in Ogura, will also send their members to Ogura’s board of directors. This is the scenario that’s been planned out. Hinode Distribution is of course Hinode’s subsidiary. And that same city bank is Hinode’s main bank. What do you think? That’s corporate society for you.”

  “I’m just a dentist.”

  “To speak plainly, if anyone were to make a peep about the situation with Ogura, it would immediately trigger a secret investigation by law enforcement. That’s what this is all about. There is already a talk that a journalist based in Osaka is sniffing around. Bringing charges of financial crime is tough as it is, and with politicians involved, who knows what will happen next. Oh, and by the way, that journalist also makes an appearance in this letter too. I mentioned before—he’s one of the three who had been wrongfully terminated by Hinode long ago. Though the letter doesn’t mention him by name.”