Falling From the Floating World

by Nick Hurst

  The faces around the table gave nothing away.

  ‘The next thing to say is I know this is unusual. Clarence-san arrived with us quite suddenly. He hasn’t served an apprenticeship and he hasn’t gone through the normal rites. I understand you may have reservations about his lack of experience and quite rightly so. I’d like to explain and put your minds at rest, but unfortunately, I can’t. There are things happening I can’t expound upon yet.’

  He looked around the table.

  ‘So instead I must ask you to trust me, to hold on to whatever faith I’ve built with you over the years, and to believe me when I tell you he’s going to be incredibly important to us. In return I give you a guarantee, a promise that you’ll have cause to look happily upon this day before the year is out.’

  Heads bowed to him as he scanned the table again. I wondered what they were really thinking, if any of this made more sense to them than it did to me. They certainly didn’t look convinced.

  ‘We have a slightly unusual situation in that it was me who proposed Clarence-san. Fortunately, Kurotaki has kindly offered to act as guarantor.’

  Kurotaki made an attempt to arrange his features in a way that suggested he’d volunteered.

  ‘So unless there are any objections we’ll move on to the ceremony itself.’

  No one voiced the numerous objections coursing silently through the room.

  I followed Takata to the shrine and we knelt in seiza opposite each other, our feet tucked under our legs. When Kurotaki and another brute-faced man were satisfied with the arrangement of dishes, they poured sake into the unglazed cups; Takata’s near to the brim, mine much lower. Then they scraped some scales from the fish and sprinkled them in each.

  With the preparations complete, Kurotaki handed Takata his cup. The other man held out mine. As prepped by Kurotaki I lifted it with both hands to my mouth after Takata had done the same.

  ‘From now on, you have no other occupation until the day you die. Takata-sama, your oyabun, is your only parent. Follow him through fire and flood.’

  I bowed my head and placed my cup in front of Takata. He put his in front of me. We picked up the other’s and sipped again.

  ‘Having drunk from the oyabun’s cup and he from yours, you now owe loyalty to the ikka, your family, and devotion to your oyabun, your father. Even should your wife and children starve, even at the cost of your life, your duty is now to the ikka and your oyabun.’

  And that was it. I was now a yakuza. Part of a select group of extortionists, murderers, people-traffickers, fraudsters, thieves, pimps and thugs. Bring a wife into this and then betray her for it? It seemed more likely I’d just signed up as a bachelor for life.

  We rose and returned to the table just before the blood was lost permanently to my legs.

  ‘Now, everyone: eat, drink,’ said Takata. ‘I hope you’ll find it satisfactory.’

  We got down to eating and drinking and the rising levels of noise and enthusiasm suggested it was up to scratch. This meant everyone was well lubricated by the time it was announced that some of us would be going to karaoke.

  ‘Mm, my darling tell me when!’

  You earn respect in Japanese karaoke from a good voice or enthusiastic participation. I was warmly received for the latter by an audience of drunken, boisterous yakuza and skimpily clad hostesses pouring drinks or pawing at their clients’ chests.

  When I started, Kurotaki had given a happy cry, grabbed the two closest girls and started swinging them like ragdolls in a drunken dance. He now discarded his partners and gave me a nod as I went back to my seat.

  ‘Good choice. Humperdinck let his talent breathe more than Tom Jones.’

  The ‘breathability’ of the singers’ talents had had surprisingly little impact on my choice of song, but I sensed an opportunity to bond with my ‘buddy’, the guardian of my life.

  ‘Er, yeah. You can’t beat “Quando Quando Quando” for a party vibe.’

  He continued to sway as a hostess sang Utada Hikaru’s ‘Automatic’ surprisingly well. I sat down and tried to deflect the attentions of another as she attempted to clamber on me for a literal interpretation of a lap dance.

  I’m not sure what I’d have done in normal circumstances. It’s likely temptation would have convinced me that in the scheme of things a lap dance wasn’t outrageously wrong. But with Tomoe missing and the memory of our parting still playing through my mind, it felt like betrayal, despite the agonising betrayals I’d discovered came before. So instead of provoking a desire to get even, my thoughts of her ensured any amorous urges were lost to the room’s febrile air. I even felt a sense of relief when Kurotaki plonked himself down and swotted the girl away.

  ‘I can train my dog to fetch my newspaper, but he’s still a dog and I wouldn’t let him fuck my wife.’

  Having explained honne and tatamae, Kurotaki had moved on. This was his explanation for why he could enjoy foreign music but still see gaijin as inferior, unworthy and unwelcome in Japan.

  ‘Fetching a newspaper and writing songs you like, inventing things you use – they’re different. The argument doesn’t hold.’

  Retrospect showed this to be an unwise line of conversation but after twelve hours of drinking it had made sense at the time. I have a vague memory of thinking I might get through to him.

  ‘All right then, what about you and the blacks?’

  ‘What do you mean “me and the blacks”?’

  ‘You like their music and you rip it off, sometimes very well. But you think they’re at a lower level to you. That’s why you discriminate against them.

  ‘No, don’t worry,’ he said, cutting me off as I was about to erupt. ‘I agree. It’s just that for us you’re one and the same.’

  ‘That’s absolute bullshit!’ I exploded, the alcohol emboldening me. ‘I don’t see anyone as being on a lower level to me. Obviously, there’s still racism in the West but you can’t say everyone black is suppressed. Look at the last president of the United States.’

  ‘He’s not black.’

  ‘What do you mean he’s not black?’

  ‘His mother, what race was she?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I know one of his parents was white.’

  ‘Which means he’s as much white as he’s black.’

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘So why don’t you? You don’t like someone with negroid features even if he’s got as much right to be called white as black? What, you find his hair too curly, is that it, is that what causes you offence? You’re just like the Boers in apartheid.’

  I stared at him open-mouthed.

  ‘You know what they’d do? They’d stick a pencil through the hair of someone they couldn’t classify. If it fell out they were white, if it stayed in they were black.’

  He picked up a chopstick.

  ‘Come to think of it, Matsumoto has very dark skin.’

  He turned around to a man I assumed was Matsumoto, who at that moment was sitting in a booth with his back to us as a near-naked girl writhed on his lap. Kurotaki stuck the chopstick through the back of his thickly styled hair. It stayed.

  ‘Hey, Africa-san!’

  ‘Africa-san’ was still not aware of the conversation or the fact there was a chopstick in the back of his head. He was preoccupied with other concerns on his lap. Not to be defeated, Kurotaki grabbed its mate, leaned around Matsumoto and prodded it in his cheek.

  ‘Hey, Africa-san. We’ve just given you a race test. It turns out you’re black.’

  At this point, Matsumoto became very aware of what was going on around him. He roared and sprang to his feet, propelling his dancer across the booth into another doing her dancing with her mouth. There was a scream from her client, higher-pitched than you’d expect from such a burly man. But I didn’t see what happened after. My view was blocked by Kurotaki’s head as it cracked into my face, presumably the result of a punch.

  He struggled up from where I’d cushioned his fall and drove back into the
crowd. The room was soon a writhing mass of brawling yakuza, splintered furniture and hostesses fleeing the scene. I felt someone lift me by the arms. I looked up to see the deep-voiced gangster I’d learned was called Sumida ushering me to the door.

  ‘Welcome to the yakuza,’ he said.

  PART TWO

  ONE

  ‘So, you had a good time the other night?’ Takata asked. ‘It certainly looks like it.’

  I assumed he was referring to the colourful array of bruises offered up by the others. My own facial rainbow was mainly the result of prior events.

  ‘Yes, it was very interesting,’ I said, bowing. ‘Thank you very much.’

  He waved my appreciation away.

  ‘You certainly have a knack for making things happen around you,’ he said, looking like he was working through the end of a chess game I’d yet to start.

  His voice became businesslike again.

  ‘But anyway, I want to talk to you about what you’ll be doing for us.’

  I’d been dreading the moment. My hungover anxiety only made me feel worse.

  ‘As I mentioned previously, you’re not much use to us in our traditional activities. I need you to work on a side project instead. We don’t have anyone else on it but if you need support at any time just let Kurotaki know. He’ll either help you himself or press the right buttons to ensure someone else does.’

  The thought of Kurotaki ‘pushing buttons’ made my stomach go tight.

  ‘Understood,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, but could I ask exactly what it is you want me to do?’

  ‘Energy. We’re taking an interest in the energy industry. I need you to head an NGO we’ve set up.’

  I stared at him blankly. I knew nothing about energy.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll do my very best. But I should probably point out I’m not vastly experienced in the field. Are you certain you want me to lead it? Perhaps I’d be better providing support?’

  ‘No, you’re going to lead it. So if you don’t have the requisite knowledge I’d suggest you acquire it quickly. Like I said, we can get you the very best help. You need to be proactive and make use of it.’

  At the ceremony, Takata had suggested I was going to be at the centre of a transformational event. I was deeply concerned about how I could conjure it from this. For if I failed – as I had no doubt I would – my prospects seemed dim. The rest of my skillset had already been considered and dismissed.

  ‘I’ll do my very best,’ I said again with a bow, while every curse I knew ran through my head.

  ‘You’re to start with nuclear,’ Takata went on. ‘I want you to get a good understanding – you’ll need to know about its development, its pros and cons, major events, that sort of thing. That’s the generic part. I then want you to look at its history in Japan, the when, where, why and so on. Who’s been involved, who’s still involved, what are the stories, what’s behind them, who’s been steering them and why. The KanEnCo AGM is in a fortnight’s time. I want you prepped and ready by then.’

  I kept my face a perfect mask to conceal the panic rising inside me. Two weeks to go from knowing nothing to sticking my oar in at an energy conglomerate’s AGM?

  ‘You look concerned, Clarence-san,’ he said. ‘Don’t be – this is an opportunity.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll do everything in my ability to take it.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. Like I said, don’t worry. Do as I tell you and do the best that you can. Everything else will fall into place.’

  I nodded, trying to look upbeat and proactive.

  ‘You never know. It might even help you find your girlfriend.’

  That got my attention.

  ‘Tomoe’s disappearance is related to nuclear power?’ I asked, failing to see any connection.

  ‘Not directly. But sometimes the players in one game get involved in another. Before you know it, pieces start tumbling all around. When that happens some fall down that should have stayed up.’

  I tried to return his look with one that didn’t reveal this was too cryptic for me.

  ‘If I look into the energy industry, I’ll get close to the people who pushed the first piece?’

  ‘There is that chance.’

  A cryptic chance was better than none.

  After an afternoon spent trying to develop some expertise, I started to wonder whether death would be preferable to nuclear research – science was never my thing. I decided the AGM wouldn’t end up as a debate on physics and changed tack to look at the industry’s Japanese history instead.

  Initiated just nine years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan’s nuclear power industry had had its share of controversy from the start. The Fukushima disaster meant the entire nuclear sector was facing calls to be shut down. It seemed unlikely Tomoe’s abduction was related to these events so I decided to look at others in-between. I was surprised to find a litany of near-catastrophes and cover-ups that combined the corruption and incompetence of a banana republic and the transparency of a Soviet regime. One scandal in particular caught my eye. The Kamigawa reactor.

  Commissioned in 2003, it had suffered a scare almost immediately when an earthquake measuring 7.5 on the Richter scale occurred just miles offshore. This was a problem. The reactor had only been designed to withstand shocks of up to 5.5 as it was built in an area that wasn’t thought to be on a major fault.

  KanEnCo ran the reactor and their readings showed the earthquake had only measured 5.5 in its grounds – something particularly fortuitous given its maximum resistance and the fact all other local readings had it at 7. Their post-shock investigation concluded the plant had withstood the earthquake without ill-effect. The national inspection agency concurred and normal service quickly resumed.

  However, the story didn’t end there. The first sign of trouble came when reports emerged that two workers had been rushed to hospital on the quiet. This led to the first postscript. It turned out a number of barrels containing radioactive material had been upturned during the quake. The workers had endeavoured to repair the damage but they were poorly trained and didn’t take the precautions necessary to safeguard their health. They died within a month.

  Then came stories that radioactive water was leaking from the site. These were first denied and then admitted, with the caveat that readings were so low they didn’t warrant concern. But offshore tests by an environmental group forced the plant to admit contamination was at multiples of safe levels and far more water had escaped than first thought.

  With the situation unravelling, the plant shut suddenly for ‘planned maintenance’ and remained closed for a year. At this point, the inspection agency, the one that had passed it previously, gave a new, glowing report and activity resumed once more.

  Shocking as it was, this was the fifth scandal I’d read that day and it seemed pretty much par for the course: a pattern of negligence, leading to incidents, followed by cover-ups and lies. But at this point the story veered in a different direction.

  Within a few years, rates of childhood leukaemia suddenly spiked. Distressed parents wanted to know the cause of their children’s plights. They looked to the plant for answers but received an unenthusiastic response. After six months’ silence, the plant abruptly changed tack and the president agreed to meet. He presented reams of data that proved the barrel incident’s effects were restricted to one room and the water leaks had not affected the local supply. Beyond that there had been no damage and the surrounding area had borne no ill-effects. He expounded on other possible causes – a mobile-phone antenna in the area and a recently banned fertiliser that had been used in local farms.

  The parents remained suspicious but they were compelled to look into the alternatives. At least until a leaked report blew the president’s story apart. It revealed there had been damage to two reactor buildings. This had resulted in significant radioactive emissions in the weeks after the quake – the weeks the company had declared the plant safe and resumed operations.

  Predictably, the parents w
ere livid but they responded in a most unpredictable way. On the premise of delivering a letter of protest they were granted entry to the plant. They proceeded to force their way into the president’s office and dissuaded security from following them by holding a knife to his throat. When a negotiator doubted their conviction they sliced off a piece of the president’s ear.

  Then, in the ultimate act of protest, one of the parents committed seppuku, the ritual act of suicide that mostly died out with the Meiji Restoration in 1868. It took an astonishing amount of bravery even in the days of the samurai, when there were world-renowned swords for the incision and, when the agony became too much, a second to slice off your head. A sushi knife and the time it took to bleed out were all the protestor had.

  I turned from the report when confronted with this. I’d always been impressed by Fathers4Justice scaling landmarks dressed as superheroes in order to make their point. Their audacity suddenly seemed meek.

  Until this time, the press had been strangely quiet. But the kidnap and maiming of a plant president, followed by the self-administered gutting of a small-town accountant, made it a story that was impossible to ignore.

  Pressure mounted until both the plant and KanEnCo presidents resigned. Yet this wasn’t the same as accepting liability. They stood down ‘because of unfortunate circumstance and errors that resulted in the regrettable communication of information not wholly accurate’. The company still denied responsibility and the pace of the Japanese legal system meant a ruling would be at least a decade away, the final decision after appeals, most likely two.

  So the parents came at them from a different angle. Collectively they bought single shares in KanEnCo, a move that granted them entry to the shareholders’ meeting. Blindsided, the board was berated and humiliated for over an hour.

  This finally led KanEnCo to action, but not the action the parents’ group had hoped. Suddenly they started to fall victim to more ‘unfortunate circumstances’. One parent was maimed in a hit-and-run, another mugged and beaten close to death. They suffered random vandalism – bricks through windows, faeces in letterboxes. They were trailed by footsteps as they walked home at night. Still they persevered.