The Briefcase (12 page)

Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to get ideas in your head, I muttered softly to myself in the backseat of the taxi. But I was well aware of what would be likely to go wrong in the aftermath. Maybe Sensei was by himself at Satoru’s place. Perhaps he was eating salted yakitori. Or else he was cozied up with Ms. Ishino, at the
odenya
or somewhere.

Everything felt so far away. Sensei, Kojima, the moon—they were all so distant from me. I stared out the window, watching the streetscape as it rushed by. The taxi hurtled through the nighttime city. Sensei, I forced out a cry. My voice was immediately drowned out by the sound of the car’s engine. I could see many cherry trees in bloom as we sped through the streets. The trees, some young and some many years old, were heavy with blossoms in the night air. Sensei, I called out again, but of course no one could hear me. The taxi carried me along, speeding through the city night.

TWO DAYS AFTER the cherry blossom party, I saw Sensei at Satoru’s place, but I was just paying my bill when he walked in, so all we said was hello and then parted.

The week after the next, our paths crossed at the tobacco shop in front of the station, but this time Sensei seemed to be in a hurry. All we did was nod at each other and then we parted.

And then it was May. The trees along the streets and the copse next to where I lived grew flush with fresh green leaves. There were days when it seemed hot even in short sleeves, and then there were chilly days that made me long to huddle under the
kotatsu
. I visited Satoru’s place several times, and I kept assuming I’d run into Sensei, but I never saw him there.

Sometimes from across the counter, Satoru would ask something like “Tsukiko, do you miss having your dates with Sensei?”

And I would reply, “We never had any dates.”

“Is that so?” Satoru would sniff.

I could do without his sniffing. I picked at my flying fish sashimi indifferently. Satoru watched with a criticizing eye as I decimated it. Too bad for the flying fish. But it wasn’t my fault. Satoru shouldn’t have been the one to go sniffing, “Is that so?”

I continued mistreating the fish. Satoru went back to his cutting board to prepare another customer’s order. The flying fish’s head shone on the plate. Its wide-open eyes were limpid. With a cry of resolve, I seized a piece of the fish with my chopsticks and dunked it in gingered soy sauce. The firm flesh had a slightly peculiar flavor. I sipped from my glass of cold saké and looked around the bar. Today’s menu was written in chalk on the blackboard. MINCED BONITO. FLYING FISH. NEW POTATOES. BROAD BEANS. BOILED PORK. If Sensei were here, he would definitely order the bonito and the broad beans first.

“Speaking of Sensei, the last time I saw him here he was with a beautiful lady,” the fat guy in the seat next to me said to Satoru. Satoru barely looked up from his chopping block and, without replying to the guy, he shouted to the interior of the bar, “Bring me one of the blue platters!” A young man appeared from where the back sink was.

“Hey,” the fat guy said.

“He’s the newbie,” Satoru said by way of introduction.

The young man bowed his head and said, “Nice to meet you.”

“He looks a bit like you, boss,” the guy said.

Satoru nodded. “He’s my nephew,” he said, and the young man bowed his head once again.

Satoru heaped sashimi onto the platter that the young man had brought from the back. The fat guy stared for a moment at the retreating figure of Satoru’s nephew, but soon turned his full attention to his bar snacks.

 

 

SHORTLY AFTER THE fat guy left, the other patrons settled up too and the bar was suddenly empty. I could hear the sound of the young man running water in the back. Satoru took a small container from the refrigerator and placed what was inside on two small plates. He set one of the plates in front of me.

“My wife made this recipe, if you care to try it,” Satoru said, scooping up some of the other plateful of “his wife’s recipe” with his fingers and tossing it in his mouth. The “recipe” was
konnyaku
, which had been stewed with a stronger flavor than the way Satoru made it. This
konnyaku
was piquant with red pepper.

It’s good, I said to Satoru, who gave me a serious look and nodded, then scooped up another mouthful. Satoru flipped on the radio that he kept atop a shelf. The baseball game was over and the news was about to start. Advertisements blared one after another for cars and department stores and instant rice with green tea.

“So has Sensei been in here much lately?” I asked Satoru, trying to be as lackadaisical as I could.

“Well, you know,” Satoru nodded vaguely.

“That guy who was in here before, he said Sensei’d been here with a beautiful lady.” This time I was going for the pleasant, bantering gossip of a regular customer. I’m not actually sure how successful I was, though.

“Um, let’s see, I don’t really remember,” Satoru replied, keeping his head down.

Hmm, I murmured. Hmm, I see.

Both Satoru and I fell silent. On the radio, a reporter was expounding on a theory about a random serial killing spree in another prefecture.

“What kind of person . . . ?” Satoru said.

“What is the world coming to?” I answered.

Satoru listened carefully to the rest of the report and then said, “People have been wondering the same thing for over a thousand years.”

Laughter from the young man in the back rang out softly. We could hear him chuckling for a moment but we couldn’t tell if he was laughing at what Satoru had said or at something completely unrelated. Could I please have my bill, I said, and Satoru tallied it up in pencil on
a piece of paper. Satoru thanked me as I parted the curtain and headed outside, where the nighttime breeze braced against my cheeks. I shivered as I flung the door closed behind me. The wind carried a dampness that smelled like rain. A drop fell on my head. I quickened my pace and headed home.

 

 

IT RAINED FOR the next several days. The color of the young leaves on the trees suddenly intensified—when I looked out the window, everything was green. There was a cluster of still-young zelkova trees growing in front of my apartment. Their green leaves shone glossy and lustrous, battered by the rain. I got a phone call from Takashi Kojima on Tuesday.

“Do you want to go to the movies?” Kojima asked.

Sure, I replied, and I heard him sigh on the other end of the line.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m just nervous. I feel like I’m back in school,” Kojima said. “The first time I asked a girl on a date, well, I actually wrote out something like a flow chart of how the conversation might go.”

Did you make a flow chart today? I asked.

Kojima answered, “Oh, no,” in a serious tone. “But I will admit that I thought about it.”

We made plans to meet on Sunday in Yurakucho. Kojima seemed like a classic type. After the movie, we could get something to eat, he had said. By which he undoubtedly meant a fancy Western-style restaurant in Ginza. One of those great places that have been there forever and serve things like tongue stew or cream croquettes.

I thought I might get my hair cut before seeing Kojima, so I went out on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps because of the rain, there weren’t as many people out as usual. I walked through the shopping district, twirling my umbrella. How many years had it been that I’d lived in this neighborhood? After I left home, I lived in another part of the city but,
like a salmon that returns to the stream of its birth, at some point I ended up back here, in the neighborhood where I grew up.

“Tsukiko.” I turned around when I heard my name and saw Sensei standing there. He had on black rain boots and was wearing a raincoat with the belt fastened neatly.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

Yes, I replied. It’s been a long time.

“You left early, that time at the cherry blossom party.”

Yes, I said once more. But I came back again, I added in a quiet voice.

“After the party, I brought Ms. Ishino to Satoru’s bar.”

He seemed not to have heard me say that I had come back again. Oh? You brought her there? Isn’t that nice, I replied dispiritedly. Why was it that when I talked to Sensei I suddenly felt depressed and indignant and strangely sentimental? And I had never been one to wear my emotions on my sleeve.

“Ms. Ishino is quite a genial person, you know. Even Satoru warmed right up to her.”

Well, that’s Satoru’s job, to be nice to the customers, isn’t it?
But I swallowed my words. Wouldn’t this seem to suggest that I was, in fact, feeling jealous toward Ms. Ishino? But that was not the case. I’d be damned if it was.

Sensei held his umbrella completely upright and started walking. I could sense from his gait the tacit but full expectation that I would follow after him. However, I did not, and stood rooted to the spot instead. Sensei walked a ways by himself without turning around.

“Well?” At last realizing he was alone, he turned in my direction and called out leisurely.

“Tsukiko, what’s the matter?”

No matter. I’m on my way to the hairdresser’s. I have a date tomorrow, I said, unable to help myself.

“A date? With a man?” Sensei asked with interest.

“That’s right.”

“Really?”

Sensei came back to where I was standing. He peered at me closely in the face.

“What sort of man is he, this man you’re going out with?”

“Does it really make a difference?”

“Yes, in fact, it does.”

Sensei held his umbrella at a slant. Drops of water trickled down the ribs along the top of the umbrella. Sensei’s shoulders got a little wet.

“Tsukiko,” Sensei called my name in an extremely serious voice, still staring at me.

“Wh-What is it?”

“Tsukiko,” Sensei repeated.

“Yes?”

“Let us go to the pachinko parlor.” Sensei’s tone was even more grave.

Now? I asked. Sensei nodded solemnly.
Do let’s go, right this moment. If we do not go to the pachinko parlor, the world will surely fall apart
, he seemed to suggest.

Yes, I replied, disconcerted. Yes. Do let’s, uh, go to the pachinko parlor, then. I followed after Sensei as he went down a side street off the main shopping district.

Inside the pachinko parlor, a traditional battleship march was playing. It was, however, a rather modern rendition. A bass guitar played over the soft sound of wind instruments. Sensei threaded his way between the rows of pachinko machines like he knew just where he was going. He stopped and stood in front of one machine, scrutinizing it carefully, and then moved on to the one next to it. The parlor was crowded. But I imagined it was just as crowded on rainy days as it was on windy days and on sunny days.

“Tsukiko, please choose a machine to your liking.” Sensei seemed to have decided upon which machine he was going to sit at. He took out
his wallet from the pocket of his raincoat and withdrew a card. Slipping the card noiselessly into a contraption on the side of the machine, he got ¥1,000 worth of balls, and when the card was ejected, he put it away in his wallet.

“Do you come here often?” I asked. Sensei nodded, without saying a word. He seemed completely focused. Sensei carefully manipulated the handle. One ball was launched, and then more balls followed, one after another.

The first ball went in one of the slots. A number of balls flowed out into a dish. Sensei gripped the handle even more assiduously. Several of the balls went into one of the holes along the side of the board, and each time more balls would sputter into the dish.

“You’ve won so many, Sensei,” I called out from behind him, but he just shook his head, not taking his gaze off the board.

“Not quite yet.” The moment he said the words, a ball went into a hole at the center of the board and the three symbols in the middle started spinning around. The symbols on the board spun on their own. Keeping his spine completely straight, Sensei calmly continued launching balls, although now it seemed more difficult than before to get the balls to go into the openings.

“They’re not going in, are they?” I said, and Sensei nodded.

“I get nervous once this thing starts up,” he said.

Two of the symbols matched up. The third and last symbol was still spinning precariously. Just when it seemed like it was about to stop, it would suddenly start spinning wildly again.

“Does something good happen if all three match up?” I asked.

This time, Sensei looked back at me and asked, “Tsukiko, have you never played pachinko before?”

No, never. When I was in elementary school, my dad took me along, so I have played on those old-time machines where you flick each ball. I used to be pretty good at those, actually.

The moment I finished speaking, the third symbol stopped spinning. This last one matched up with the first two.

“Customer number 132 has just won a ‘Lucky Chance’! Con-gratulations!” An announcement came over the loud speaker, and Sensei’s machine began flashing wildly.

Without a second glance my way, Sensei remained completely focused on his machine. Quite out of character, his posture was now somewhat rounded. He launched the balls in rapid succession, and they were swallowed up by a large blooming tulip in the center. When that happened, the dish underneath the machine began to overflow with the clinking of pachinko balls. A parlor employee brought over a large square receptacle. Sensei opened the lever at the bottom with his left hand while still gripping the handle with his right hand. The containers were deftly switched, with attention being paid not to allow any more balls to fall into the tulip.

The larger square receptacle was soon full of balls.

“I guess that’ll be all,” Sensei murmured. When the container was filled just to the brim, the tulip closed and the machine suddenly fell silent. Sensei straightened his back once again and released his grip on the handle.