The Nicholas Linnear Novels (109 page)

Carefully, Ōda put down his cup. “It seems to me, Nangi-san,” he said, “that Shimada-san was most generous in transferring you into my purview.”

“Perhaps, but he was also stupid,” Nangi said with uncharacteristic candor.

Ōda shrugged his shoulders. “It is said that the Chinese cannot believe that a foreigner can speak their language so that on those occasions when one does, he is not heard. Vice-Minister Shimada reminds me of the Chinese.” He refilled their cups. “He may not have acute insight but he has many friends and allies.”

Nangi knew what his minister was obliquely implying. “None of them have enough power to save him from his own blunders. Hiroshi Shimada has been a very greedy bureaucrat.”

“Not the American way.”

“Oh, no,” Nangi said, getting into the spirit of the play. “Not in the least.”

“Good. Perhaps we may even experience some help from that quarter.” Torazo Ōda rubbed his hands together. “As for the, er, business aspects, I trust we have come to a mutually satisfactory agreement.”

“Pardon me, sir, but I believe we have one more matter to decide.”

Ōda, in the midst of rising preparatory to dismissing Nangi, paused. His face was calm. “And what might that be? You have my permission to continue.”

“With all due respect, sir, my own position has yet to be worked out.”

Ōda laughed as he sat back down, his great belly shaking as if with convulsions. Behind him the first gusts of rain began to bead the windowpane, obscuring the hurrying pedestrians far below. “Young man, I do believe I have the measure of you now.” He chuckled. “I shall not underestimate you again. Let’s see.” He tapped a pudgy forefinger against his pursed lips. “It is clear that you are far too clever to remain here at the BOT.

“You will be my eyes and ears at the new ministry. Makita-san will appoint you chief of the Secretariat. There you will weed through all of the applicants to the new ministry, approving those who are loyal to Makita-san’s—and my—policies.

“Slowly we will transform the face of the entire bureaucracy. Slowly we will melt away those who oppose us, those who do not understand the nature of trade number one-ism. It will be the two-hundred-year Tokugawa Shōgunate reborn!”

Nangi recognized the fierce, cold light of the fanatic turning the minister’s eyes into beacons, and he found himself wondering what it was Ōda had occupied himself with during the war.

Makita-san and I will have to treat this one carefully, he thought as he rose and bowed formally. “Thank you, sir.” He turned to leave, but Oda-san’s voice stayed him.

“Nangi-san, you were quite correct about Vice-Minister Shimada. He was twice a fool. Once to underutilize that fine brain of yours. Second to send you of all people to spy on me.”

MCI did not disappear as Nangi had suggested, but the Ministry of International Trade and Industry’s creation did sound its death knell.

Nangi and Makita pored over the
mabiki
file and, as had been planned, Makita took Nangi’s information officially to Ōda. Because Shimada was a vice-minister and this did have at first whiff the scent of a major scandal, Ōda felt obliged to pass on all the damning evidence to the Prime Minister. Six days after Yoshida received the documentation of Shimada’s transgressions, which included manipulation of ministry funds, use of ministry classified information to obtain jobs for several of his family, and the unearthing of a mistress, a
geisha
, as well as a wife, he was forced to dismiss the vice-minister and make the circumstances of his firing public. SCAP demanded such a procedure in order to ensure continued public support for the government and in order to bring home to the Japanese populace at large that they were indeed living in a democracy where nothing was concealed.

Yoshida was, of course, against such a public humiliation and fought it, knowing what the end result would have to be. He was overruled by members of the Occupation Forces, and at last, after stalling long enough to return to him most of his lost face, he released the documents to the press.

Less than twenty-four hours later, Hiroshi Shimada, kneeling on a fibrous
tatami
, clad in a kimono of ash gray field and smoke wheels, directed his
wakizashi
toward the muscled ridge of his lower belly, slashing left to right, then upward, his body quivering with effort, control, and face. His wife, Kaziko, was found by his side, pools of their already browning blood amassed and mingled, their last and only testament.

“I wonder how much Colonel Linnear hated Shimada.” Yoichirō Makita knelt on the
tatami
while across from him Nangi reclined in a minimum of pain, his spine against a folded
futon.

Nangi was surprised. “You mean the
gaijin
who depurged you? How is he involved?”

Makita looked far better than he had in Sugamo. His body had begun to fill out, while his face had most of its former bloat. He now appeared much as he had in the newspaper photograph Nangi had seen years ago, a figure of almost iconic proportions, an aggressive and powerful
samurai
-bureaucrat.

“During my long weeks with the English Colonel he revealed much to me,” Makita said thoughtfully, “though far less than many other
gaijin
would. He has the gift of patience, that man.”

“You sound as if you admire him.”

Makita smiled. “Oh, nothing so strong as that, surely. But still…for a
gaijin
…” His voice trailed off for a moment, and his gaze retreated to an inner stare.

“You think he knew Shimada personally,” Nangi asked after a time, “as you did?”

Makita’s eyes snapped back into focus and he was with Nangi again. “Oh, there was something between them, all right. I have no doubt about that. Colonel Linnear was the man on MacArthur’s staff who most vociferously fought to have the facts in the scandal made public knowledge.”

“Just like a
gaijin.
”

“On the contrary, Nangi-san. Just like a Japanese.”

Nangi shifted position to ease the stiffness coming into his muscles. “I don’t understand.”

“Unlike most of the
iteki
in SCAP, who had no concept of the lethal consequences of their planned public humiliation—for they saw it only as a revealing of the truth—Colonel Linnear knew what Shimada must do. Oh, yes, Nangi-san, he wanted Shimada dead almost as badly as I did.”

“What is another Japanese life to an
iteki
?”

Makita heard the bitterness in his friend’s voice and wondered at the innumerable kinds of rationalization the human mind could unearth in order to protect itself from psychic trauma. It was apparently easy for Nangi to believe someone like Colonel Linnear would engineer the death of a Japanese merely because he was a barbarian. Did it occur to Nangi that he himself was the minister of justice in this case, meting out Shimada’s death sentence in order to help speed Japan’s high growth through the direct control of MITI. Now who is rationalizing? Makita asked himself.

He had no doubt about Nangi’s brilliance, however. The man had been dead right with his prediction of the Korean War. America had put Japan on a war-materiel manufacturing blitz, and many of the nascent companies dragooned into gearing up were helplessly undercapitalized.

SCAP saw this immediately and allowed the Bank of Japan to step up its loan rate to the twelve city banks, who then passed the money on to the companies in need. For weeks Makita had been thinking of a way to capitalize on this development, for he saw that a lack of adequate financing would leave many companies open to foreign takeover. This he felt quite strongly must never be allowed to occur, and he was in the process of extending MITI’s power in this area so that all foreign investors would have to come to MITI to seek permission to approach a company.

“How is our friend Sato-san making out?” he asked.

“Quite well,” Nangi said, reaching for one of the
mochi
, concentrated rice cakes that Obā-chama had baked for them. They were three days into 1951 and these were traditional new year’s fare. “He has managed to rise to the vice presidency of his mining
konzern,
overseeing all coal operations.”

Makita grunted. “Take care you drink plenty of water with those,” he observed. “My brother was a doctor and he used to dread the first two weeks of every new year because he was constantly running from patient to patient, trying to unblock intestines clogged with indigestible
mochi.
”

“I wouldn’t let Obā-chama hear you say that,” Nangi said, taking another bite. “But just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll have some more tea.” He leaned forward.

“She misses him, you know,” Makita said after they had drained their cups. “Sato-san. He’s making a great deal of money and a solid name for himself. But he’s up north and he rarely gets a chance to see Obā-chama. Now if only his
konzern
had an office here in Tokyo. But they’re much too small on their own. It wouldn’t be profitable. Only the city bank that subsidizes them is located here.”

A warning bell went off in Nangi’s mind. On the surface there seemed no relation to what Makita had just said and the problem he had been working on. And yet he trusted his senses enough to know that if he took the time to probe beneath the surface, he would find the link.

The problem revolved around money and who had money other than banks. For a moment Nangi’s mind was blank, and then the meshing of ideas hit him with such dazzling force that he was rocked back on his buttocks. Yes, of course!

His eyes cleared. “Makita-san,” he said softly. “May I have your assistance?”

“You have it gladly. You have only to ask.”

“Here is what we must do, Makita-san. MITI must resurrect the
zaibatsu.
”

“But they were our enemy. At every turn they sought to draw power away from the ministries. And in any event the Occupation Forces have banned
zaibatsu
forever.”

“Yes,” Nangi said excitedly, “the
old zaibatsu.
But what I am speaking of now is something new,
kin-yū keiretsu
, financial linkages. As a base, we will take a bank because only a bank has enough capital to finance such a setup. Its capital will finance several industrial firms, oh, say, steel, electronics, and mining, and a general trading company. In times of expansion, as we have now, the bank will be able to underwrite its own companies and, conversely, during times of economic recession, which must surely hit us, Makita-san, the trading company will be able to import raw materials on credit and promote the
keiretsu
’s products overseas, thus avoiding any stockpiling in a contracting domestic market.”

Makita’s eyes were shining and he rubbed the palms of his hands together. “Call Sato-san immediately. We’ll start with the bank underwriting his company. We’ll elevate him and in the process bring him home.

“Oh, this is brilliant, Nangi-san. Brilliant! By next year SCAP will be gone and MITI can do whatever it feels is necessary to propel Japan to the forefront of international trade.”

“What about control?” Nangi asked. “We must ensure that what happened with the
zaibatsu
never happens with these new
keiretsu.
We must bind them to the ministries as part of their charter.”

Makita smiled. “And so we shall, Nangi-san. Because MITI directs policy, because we can issue write-offs in certain areas and not in others, because we can authorize sizable payouts as insurance against bad debt trade contracts, we can totally control the trading companies. And without the trading companies the
keiretsu
is useless. Any bank will see that reasoning.”

“Ah, even the Prime Minister will see the pureness of the
keiretsu,
since it is a perfect way to direct what capital is available into the right economic channels.” They were like two children wonderingly examining a marvelous new toy. “It’s the perfect long-range plan. Because the individual companies within each
keiretsu
are totally financed by the bank, they can concentrate on market penetration, developing the best possible product, and not on shareholders’ demands for short-term profitability.”

Makita sprang up. “This calls for a celebration, my young friend! Tomorrow is soon enough to speak to Sato-san. Tonight, we are off to a place I know in
karyukai.
A night in the willow world will do us both a great deal of good. Come, we are off to
Fuyajo
, the Castle That Knows No Night, where the sakē flows until dawn and we will lie on pillows that breathe with infinite softness and create patterns of eternal delight!”

An exaltation of larks clung to the flame-decorated branches of the stately maple that grew on one side of the garden that had originally attracted Nangi and Sato to this house near Ueno Park. Brisk October winds had scoured the sky, vaporizing the stringy clouds near the horizon and turning the air to crystal.

As Nangi watched, clad in a padded kimono, a black field with a pewter design, the larks burst from the maple in a fine spray as if he were on the bow of a ship churning through the Pacific. Then, like the Occupation Forces, they were gone, swallowed up in the enormous cerulean sky, the color as translucent as the finest Chinese porcelain.

Though this was the end of 1952 and Japan was once again a free country, purged of
iteki
, there was no joy in Nangi’s heart. He knelt by the open
fusuma
, his hands folded in his lap, gazing with blind eyes out at the near-perfect beauty of the garden. It would never be perfect, of course. As the nature of Zen dictated, one must spend one’s life searching for that perfection.

Behind him Nangi could hear the soft voices of Makita, Sato, and his new wife, Mariko, a gentle doll-like woman with a core of courage and an open soul Nangi could admire. She had been good for Sato, fulfilling a void in him that had been apparent to Nangi almost since the two had first met.

It was Nangi who mourned Obā-chama’s passing the longest. Makita, of course, knew her only peripherally. To Sato, she had been mother and father both, and he had been unwell for almost a week following her funeral.

But Obā-chama had died more than a month ago and Nangi still felt the absence of her spirit like a void in his own soul. She had been more than mother to him, she had been his confidant, his
sensei
even when he needed it. They had shared the joys of his successes, the bitter sorrows of disappointments. She had counseled him wisely in perilous times and had had enough strength to kick him when he thought he had no more stamina to press onward.