Lady Joker, Volume 1, Kaoru Takamura [best affordable ebook reader TXT] 📗

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 tumbling 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