She applied for a loan and started browsing other properties. She found a modest building near Waseda and bought it with the money from the bank. In a short time, that value shot up, too. Prices were going up so fast that the interest rates were barely a concern.
Now she borrowed again, using the second property as collateral. At this point, the loan officer suggested that she start a company. It would be easier to manage her finances that way. This was the birth of “Office Little Dog.”
Harumi was convinced. The Namiya General Store’s prediction had come true.
Through the fall of 1987, Harumi flipped apartment buildings. In some cases, property values tripled in a year.
As her stocks increased in price, her portfolio of assets began to swell and expand. She bid farewell to working at the club, but she cashed in on the contacts she had made there and turned her focus to event planning. She came up with ideas for events and dispatched party hostesses. The world was bubbling with prosperity, and somewhere every day someone was hosting an ostentatious soiree. She had no shortage of work.
In 1988, she assessed her holdings. She had buildings, stocks, equity memberships. The prices were hovering at what seemed to be a ceiling. The conditions were still favorable, but she had better play it safe. Harumi trusted Mr. Namiya’s word. He was spot-on with his comparison between investing and Old Maid. It would be far stranger if the boom went on forever.
There were only a few months left in 1988. What would the new year bring? Wondering endlessly, Harumi fell asleep.
7
The Christmas cruise turned out to be a huge success. Harumi toasted with the staff till morning, popping open more bottles of Dom Pérignon Rosé than she could count. The next morning, when she woke up at her place in Aoyama, she had to admit she could feel the wisps of a lingering headache.
She crawled out of bed and turned on the TV. The news was finishing a story. A building had caught fire. She had been watching in a daze, but when she saw the letters run across the bottom of the screen, her eyes went wide. “Flames Cripple Children’s Home Marumitsuen,” it said.
Startled, she listened closely, but the segment was over. She changed the channel, but no one else was running the story.
She dressed in a hurry to go down and get the paper. The automatic locks of her building added an extra layer of security, but they meant she had to go down to the ground floor herself to fetch the newspaper.
It was Sunday; the paper was thick. Thicker with the flyers. Almost all for real estate.
She looked through every article, but there was nothing on the fire at Marumitsuen. Maybe because it had happened outside the city.
She called Hideo to see if she had heard anything, assuming it would at least have made the local paper. She was right. Hideo said there was an article in the Local News section.
The fire broke out on the evening of December 24. One fatality, ten wounded. The deceased wasn’t someone from the building but an amateur musician who had been hired to play at their Christmas party.
She wanted to drop everything and go, but she held off, unsure how things would be there. If she barged in on an already chaotic scene, it would only make things worse.
Harumi had moved out of Marumitsuen when she graduated elementary school, but she’d been back to visit several times. She went to say a few words when she entered high school and after she had graduated and found a job. But ever since starting as a hostess, she had kept her distance. Something about her, some look or tone, might have betrayed her involvement in the industry.
The next day at the office, Harumi got a call from Hideo. The morning paper had more to say about the fire. The staff and children had taken refuge in the gymnasium of the nearby elementary school.
Living out of a gymnasium in late December… The very thought of it sent shivers down her spine.
She quit work early and drove her BMW to the scene. Along the way, she stopped at a pharmacy and bought a box of disposable hand warmers and some bottles of cold medicine. The kids were probably getting sick. There was a supermarket in the same lot, where she bought armfuls of prepared meals. The staff must have been stressed out trying to keep all of those kids fed with no kitchen.
She packed her shopping bags into the trunk and drove off. “Everyone’s Song [Minna no uta]” by Southern All Stars was playing on the radio. The chorus was supposed to be uplifting, but it wasn’t working. This had been a year of almost entirely good things, one after the other, only for this to happen at the very end.
The trip out to the building took her about two hours. The white walls of her childhood home had been reduced to blackened rubble. The police and fire departments were still conducting their investigations, preventing her from getting any closer, but from a distance, she could smell the reek of quenched flames and soot.
The gym was about half a mile away. The director, Yoshikazu Minazuki, was startled and effusively appreciative of her visit.
“Thanks for coming all the way out to see us. I never would have expected to see you today. You’ve grown into a fine young woman.” Mr. Minazuki kept looking at the business card Harumi had given him. “A self-made woman, at that.”
Mr. Minazuki looked much skinnier than she remembered. The fire must have taken its toll. By now, he had to be somewhere in his seventies. Last time they met, his white hair had been fluffy, but it had thinned out.
He gladly accepted the hand warmers, medicine, and food. She had guessed right about their being in need.
“If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know. I want to do everything I can to help.”
“Thank you. It’s reassuring to hear that.” His eyes were moist.
“Please don’t hesitate to ask. I want to take this opportunity to give back for all you’ve done for me.”
“Thank you,” he repeated.
On her way out, Harumi ran into someone from her past: Hiroshi Fujikawa. He had been at the home the same time as she had been, but he was four years older and left right after graduating middle school. He was the one who made her the carved wooden dog she carried everywhere as a good-luck charm. The namesake of Office Little Dog.
Hiroshi had become a professional woodworker. He said he heard about the fire and rushed over, just like Harumi. He was just as she remembered him, still reticent as ever.
After saying good-bye, she realized there were probably lots of people like them who had heard the news with great concern.
In the first days of the new year, the emperor crossed the great divide, ushering in a new imperial generation—the Heisei era. The days that followed were far from normal: The usual programming was suspended from television, and the first sumo match of the year was delayed by a whole day.
Once things settled down, Harumi took another trip to Marumitsuen. Outside the gym, they had set up an office, where she met with Mr. Minazuki. The children were still living in the gym, but a temporary dormitory was under construction, and once it was done, the kids would move in while a proper structure was being rebuilt on the ruins of the old one.
The police and fire department had determined the cause of the fire: a gas leak from an antiquated pipe in the cafeteria. They assessed that the air was so dry that static electricity could have sparked the flame.
“We should have renovated before this ever happened,” said Mr. Minazuki ruefully.
He seemed particularly grieved by the death of the musician. He had gone back in after one of the children, but the rescue was a beat too late for him to escape himself.
“It’s a shame that man had to die,” she tried to console him, “but with everything that happened, it’s fortunate that all the children came out safe.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Mr. Minazuki agreed, nodding. “Since it happened during the night, most of the kids were asleep when the fire started. One misstep, and it could have been catastrophic. That’s why I was saying to the staff, I think our old director was watching over us.”
“I think I re
member her. It was a woman, right?”
Harumi vaguely recalled the former director, a petite old woman with a tranquil smile. At some point, she disappeared, and Mr. Minazuki took over.
“She was my older sister. She’s the one who started Marumitsuen, you know.”
Harumi looked at the wrinkles on his face. “I didn’t realize.”
“Really? I guess you were pretty little when you came to live with us.”
“This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why did she start a children’s home?”
“Long story short, she wanted to give back.”
“She did?”
“I don’t mean to brag, but factually speaking, our family used to have a lot of land and some decent assets. When our parents died, my sister and I inherited everything. I invested my portion in a company I started, but my sister used hers to create a space for kids who weren’t so fortunate. She had been a teacher during the war, and it hurt her to see all those children lose their parents.”
“When did you lose your sister?”
“Nineteen…no, I guess it would be twenty years ago now. She was born with a weak heart. Everyone was with her in the end. When she died, it was like she just fell asleep.”
Harumi nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. In her will, she asked us not to tell the children. We announced that she had gotten sick and was recuperating. I had my son take over my company, and I took over for my sister. For a while, we changed my title to interim director.”
“What did you mean about your sister watching over you?”
“Before she died, she turned to me and whispered something. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll pull some strings up there and make sure you’re taken care of.’ When the fire happened, those words came back to me.” Mr. Minazuki gave her a bashful smile. “Maybe I’m just being superstitious.”
“No, I think it’s a wonderful story.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Did your sister have any family?”
He sighed and shook his head. “She never married, single her whole life. You might say she devoted her existence to the cause.”
“Wow. What a strong woman.”
“If she heard you up in heaven, I think she’d disagree. She saw it as living life on her own terms. And how about you? Do you have any plans to marry? You seeing anybody?”
Harumi faltered when he turned the conversation to her. “No, I don’t have anyone like that.” She waved her hand at the idea, totally dismissing it.
“Is that so? If a woman focuses too much on work, she’ll miss her chance at marriage. Running your own business is all well and good, but you ought to try to find a decent man.”
“I’m afraid I might wind up like your sister. I’m living life on my own terms.”
Mr. Minazuki laughed. “Sounds like you’re the strong one. But prioritizing work wasn’t the reason why she didn’t marry anyone. You know, in fact, when she was very young, she was involved with a man, and they almost eloped.”
“Really?”
Things were getting interesting. Harumi scooched forward in her chair.
“The man was ten years older than her and worked at a small factory in town. They met when he fixed her bicycle for her, the story goes. They must have sneaked off together on his lunch breaks from the factory. Back then, the mere sight of a man and woman in public together was enough to set the rumor mill in motion.”
“Were they trying to elope because your parents didn’t approve?”
He nodded. “There were two main reasons. First off, my sister was still in high school. That wasn’t so terrible, since time would have solved that problem. The other reason was the big one. As I mentioned earlier, we came from a family of considerable means. Once you have money, the next thing you want is respect. My father wanted her to marry into a good family. He wasn’t about to pawn her off on some nobody mechanic.”
Harumi’s expression tensed. She drew in her chin. Back then, over sixty years ago, this sort of thing was probably not such a rare occurrence.
“So what happened when they ran away?”
Mr. Minazuki shrugged. “It didn’t go so well. Her plan was to stop by the shrine on her way home from school and change out of her school clothes.”
“Change into what?”
“There were a number of maids working at the house. One of them was almost the same age as my sister, and they were good friends. She asked the maid to bring a change of clothes over to the shrine. One of the maid’s kimonos, since her fancy school clothes would attract too much attention. The mechanic was waiting at the station, in his best attempt at a disguise. If she had made it to him, they would have hopped aboard that steam engine and made a grand escape. Their strategy was pretty well thought out.”
“So what went wrong?”
“It was awful. When my sister made it as far as the shrine, she didn’t find the maid, but two men my father had hired to catch her. The maid had originally agreed to help my sister, but she got scared and asked an older maid for advice. You can imagine what happened next.”
Harumi could see where the maid was coming from. Considering the time, you really couldn’t blame her for spilling the beans.
“What happened to her boyfriend, the mechanic?”
“My father had a messenger take a letter from her to the station. The letter said: ‘Forget I ever existed.’ It was signed in her name.”
“He had somebody forge her handwriting?”
“No, she had to write it herself. She didn’t have a choice. My father had decided to let the man run, but he had an in with the police. If he had wanted to, he could have had him thrown in jail.”
“What did the man do when he read the letter?”
Mr. Minazuki cocked his neck to the side.
“All I know for sure is that he left town. He wasn’t local, you see. People said he went back to wherever it was he came from, but there’s no way of knowing if that’s true. But I did see him one more time.”
“Really? What happened?”
“It was three years later. I was still a student. I left the house to go to school, and I’m walking along, when someone calls me from behind. I turn around, and there’s this man, looks like he’s maybe thirty. I had never seen the mechanic, only heard about him, so I had no idea who this guy was. But he holds out a letter and says, ‘I want you to give this to Akiko.’ That’s my sister’s name. Akiko.”
“Did he know you were her younger brother?”
“I don’t think he could have known for sure. I guess he followed me from the house. I hesitated, and he said, ‘If you have any suspicions about its contents, by all means read it first, or show your parents, as long as you deliver this to her.’ So I took it. To be honest, I wanted to see what it said.”
“Did you read it?”
“Of course! It wasn’t even sealed. I read it on the walk to school.”
“What did it say?”
“Well…” He looked at Harumi. He appeared to be deciding something. He slapped his knee. “Know what? I’ll let you see for yourself.”
“You still have it?”
“Should be somewhere. Just a minute.” Mr. Minazuki opened one of the boxes in the pile next to him and started rifling around. The box had Director’s Office written on the side of it in black marker.
“My office was a fair distance from the kitchen, so there was hardly any damage from the fire. I had them bring all my files down here, and now that I have a little time on my hands, I’m going to try to get myself organized. A lot of this stuff was left to me. By my sister. Ah, found it. Here it is.”
Mr. Minazuki pulled a square tin from the box. He opened it in front of her so she could see inside.
There were several notebooks with photographs scattered among them. From the pile, he extracted an envelope and put it down in front of Harumi. It was addressed to “Ms. Akiko Minazuki.”
“Are you sure?”
; “Absolutely. He wrote it knowing she wouldn’t be the only one who read it.”
“Okay, let’s have a look, then.”
Inside the envelope were several folded sheets of ivory stationery. Harumi smoothed them flat on the desk. The handwriting was exact and fluid. The product of a fountain pen. Not the script she was expecting from a mechanic.
Salutations.
Please allow me to begin with an apology for my intrusive method of delivery. I was afraid that if I sent the letter via the mail, it would be thrown away upon arrival without ever being read.
Akiko, I wonder how you are. This is Yuji. The Yuji who used to work at Kusunoki Machinery. Perhaps you’ve forgotten me already, but I would be grateful if you would read this letter to the end.
I’m writing to you for one reason alone: to extend an apology. I’ve tried to do this several times before, but I’m afraid I’m skittish by nature, and I couldn’t get myself to do it until now. I’m so sorry for everything that happened. I know it’s too late now, but I need you to know how deeply I regret the stupidity of my own actions.
You were still in high school, and I led you astray. When I look back now, I can see I was wholly in the wrong. What was I thinking, encouraging a girl like you to leave her family behind? There’s simply no excuse.
You were right to call things off. I’ve often wondered if maybe your parents pressured you to do it, but if they did, I owe them my sincerest gratitude. You stopped me one step shy of a grave, unforgivable error.
I’ve moved back to my hometown, where I’m working in the fields. Not a day passes when I don’t think of you. Our days together were few, but they were the best times of my entire life. And not a day passes when I don’t feel regret. When I think about how that episode must have scarred your young heart, it’s hard for me to sleep at night.
Akiko, I wish you a happy life. That’s the only thing I can ask of you. I’m praying that you meet someone deserving of the person you are.
—Yuji Namiya
Harumi looked up and met eyes with Mr. Minazuki.
The Miracles of the Namiya General Store Page 26