Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura (lightest ebook reader .txt) 📕

When it came down to it, this Okamura was but one of the many former employees who, though one day they were encouraged to resign and indeed left Hinode, still couldn’t cut their ties to the company. What’s more, the poverty of his family, the company, the war, his illness—all of it was simply reduced to his personal experience, not once did he try to place himself in the context of society or history. For this reason, the writer himself could only barely make out the miserable workings of his life that were apparent to the reader of the letter. And, in contrast to the hundred million Japanese people of his generation who frantically struggled to survive each day, he was nothing but a pallid, highbrow man who had been left behind by the changing times. When Hatano sketched this vague portrait of the author of the letter in his mind, he was shocked to realize that his own perspective fell on the side of the activists like his father and Noguchi. This was something he never would have imagined. It stood to reason that the blood of those born in the segregated buraku communities and socialists coursed through his veins, while the blood of this aimless Okamura flowed through his wife’s. What a joke!

But wait. Didn’t this also mean that this Okamura’s blood ran through his dead son’s veins too? Faced with a glimpse of discrimination for the first time in his life, had Takayuki been simply confounded, lacking any opinion about society whatsoever? And then, swept up by external forces, did he lose his way, his solitary thoughts languishing in confusion, until he sped off in his car and crashed to his death?

No, hold on. Perhaps Hatano himself was the one who resembled this pathetic invalid Seiji Okamura. Despite the location of his birth in Kobe, he himself held no such historical or societal opinions, and even after losing his son, when he first recognized all this to be “discrimination,” he had kept his distance, and then the ineptitude with which he had sent those libelous letters, not even knowing his own intentions—were his actions not exactly like Okamura’s . . . ?

Hatano set down the sheaf of pages and turned it over. Starting afresh, he emptied his mind and, one by one, reexamined each new piece of information that had come his way during these past few hours.

First, there was the fact that a letter addressed to Hinode from forty-three years ago, which had been copied repeatedly, still remained in the hands of a stranger. The existence of this version of the letter, which the company never would have released, could only indicate either sinister intent or criminal behavior.

Next was the question of whether or not this issue with Noguchi and the three wrongfully terminated employees in the letter still held any significance. If Nishimura, who claimed to be associated with the BLL, was right and Hinode still considered one of those three men to be persona non grata, that would mean that the contents of the letter were still very relevant.

Furthermore, had Hinode truly hesitated to hire Hatano’s son because of this letter? Nishimura had implicitly advised him to use this letter from the past to blackmail Hinode, but what Hinode had actually done to his son had yet to be established.

And finally, where and from whom did Nishimura hear about the two letters Hatano had sent to Hinode, or the fact that his son left in the middle of his second interview? Nishimura’s business card said he was an executive of the Tokyo chapter of the BLL, but he had not made a single claim for the BLL itself. He wasn’t that kind of associate. There was no shortage of people out there who claimed to be a part of an organization for social integration or working to end discrimination against burakumin—the caste of descendants of segregated communities—but that wasn’t it, either. Just who was he? Where did he come from, and what had he come here for?

Hatano mulled this over for about five minutes, but ultimately failed to reach any conclusion. After all, for Hatano, whose world consisted only of universities, academic conferences, dental societies, and tennis, five minutes was enough to ponder one thing or another, and once he was at an impasse there was nothing else to do. His apathy resurgent, Hatano glanced once again at the bundle of paper and now wondered what could have happened to Seiji Okamura, a man whose blood may have coursed through Takayuki’s veins.

Hatano suddenly sprang up from his seat and went to look for the phone book. He searched for a telephone number he himself had never once called in the past twenty-some years. It wasn’t until he had already picked up the phone and dialed that he glanced at the clock. It was three minutes before midnight. As he wondered if it was too late to be calling, the phone had already started ringing, and someone answered right away.

“Yes, this is Monoi.” A raspy voice. In the background, there was the sound of the television.

“I’m sorry to call you so late. This is Hatano.” Once he identified himself, the voice on the other end of the line responded with a note of surprise.

There was a momentary pause, as if they each needed to picture the face of the other. Even though they were in-laws, prior to the funeral they were barely acquainted with one another. Then Seizo Monoi asked, “Have things settled down for you?”

“Ah, yes, thank you. I’m surprised you are awake at this hour.”

“Yes. Well, when you get older, you drift off while watching TV . . .”

“I’m sorry for the rude question so late at night, but is Seiji Okamura your older brother?”

“If you mean Seiji Okamura of Okamura Merchants in Hachinohe, then yes.”

It was Hatano’s turn to be at a loss for words. “The dental association had a social gathering, and a couple of older doctors