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

the next day. He eventually invited her fiancé’s family for a formal gathering at a hotel in the city, and the whole matter was put to rest after that.

No doubt a dentist made an incredibly good living. Monoi gathered as much from his occasional encounters with his daughter. She would frequent places like the spa and the gym to refine her figure, have her hair done at the beauty salon every three days, and even when just dropping by her father’s home, she would wear haute couture suits that cost a million yen. Normally, were she not in mourning, she would be further decked out in diamond jewelry the size of tiger beans. Before his grandson’s demise, she’d rarely ever stopped by anyway, but since the funeral, whenever she appeared in these ensembles on some errand, Monoi had trouble knowing where to look, and he simply cast his gaze downward in discomfort.

If her so-called high ambitions were ultimately to lead a life of affluence and to adorn herself in luxury, there was no question her father never could have provided that for her. Being forced to look upon such wealth, which she paraded in front of him as if out of spite, Monoi couldn’t help but feel that his entire life was being denied.

In 1947, Monoi had come out to Tokyo after being released by the foundry in Hachinohe in Tohoku. For a year and a half he had pulled a junkman’s cart around Ueno, until he managed to get a job as a lathe operator at a small factory in Nishi-Kojiya in the Ota district, where he slept in a corner of the factory floor. One thing led to another and he ended up marrying Yoshie, who had a four-year-old child in tow, and amid her incessant complaining that they had no money, he made it to age sixty, frugally shaving away steel day after day in the factory. To send his daughter to college on a machinist’s pay required rather considerable effort, so he worked overtime every night and got by with a meager allowance for himself, just enough for a pack of Peace cigarettes each day and two or three hundred-yen horseracing tickets every Sunday. Back then he used to seriously consider how his death would at least generate some life-insurance money. When he was fifty he sold off their house in Nishi-Rokugo and spent all his savings to buy a pharmacy that had been run by a distant relative of Yoshie’s, but the pharmacy turned out to be a shell that had been used as collateral on a loan—they had basically been swindled. Unable to complain about a relative, though, he now worked desperately to pay off the loan. He wondered how all these things appeared in his daughter’s eyes.

It was not something he was ever conscious of now, but Mitsuko was Yoshie’s daughter from a previous marriage, so she and Monoi were not related by blood. When he and Yoshie got married, he was too busy making ends meet to have a child, but by the time he could afford to have one Yoshie was already past forty-five, and the doctor said she could no longer give birth.

He wouldn’t dare say he was good at living, but he did harbor a mild affection for the life that resulted from his working the way he had. Though if it were to be compared with the good fortune and resourcefulness of others, Monoi had no words to defend it—his modest confidence and pride would all but disappear. Even as he contemplated that Mitsuko must be on edge, having just lost her son, Monoi cast his gaze down out of longtime habit, and could not bring himself to look his daughter in the face. To grow old was to lose patience.

And so Monoi crept back into the warmth of the kotatsu, sitting at the low table with its inbuilt heater, his back hunched as he sipped from his mug of tea, which had turned cold.

“Are you listening?!” Mitsuko’s shrill voice hailed down upon his head.

“I’m listening,” Monoi mumbled, moving only his lips.

Mitsuko had arrived unexpectedly half an hour ago, and abruptly launched into the story of how the police had been to see her husband, Hatano. Unable to accept that their son, Takayuki, had been rejected by Hinode Beer, Hatano had apparently sent a few accusatory letters to Hinode. As a result, Hinode filed a complaint against him with the police, and it was on the verge of becoming a criminal case.

Whatever had happened, sending harassing letters to a company was so far out of the ordinary that if Hatano, who had always seemed so conscientious, had actually done such a thing, Monoi figured he must have had a compelling reason. But as he listened further, Monoi understood there was much more to this complicated story. His grandson had had a girlfriend whom he intended to marry, but the engagement was suddenly broken off because her parents objected. Could the shock from this have caused Takayuki to have an accident? His girlfriend’s parents were not explicit, but wasn’t it likely that the reason for their objection was where Hatano’s birthplace was registered? Mitsuko relayed all this. Then the conversation took a sudden leap. “It’s because you were so irresponsible, Dad,” she reproached.

“I’ve thought about it long and hard over this last month. Everything is definitely Hatano’s fault. It’s a crime of conscience that he hid his birthplace. His wife and his son were completely in the dark, and the reason why suddenly one day we’re faced with this is because Hatano never gave us the explanation he owed us. But go back even further—when a daughter says she’s going to marry someone, every parent knows to check out the other family. But you didn’t do anything.”

“What’s the big deal about his birthplace . . . ?”

“What’s the big deal?! It’s common sense!”

“But didn’t you marry Hatano because you loved him . . . ?”

“That’s why I’m saying you’re