Yuriko was surprised when Tetsuyuki bought tickets at the movie theater, but she followed him inside and sat next to him. The movie had been heavily advertised, but it turned out to be nothing more than a trivial love game among American adolescents. Pretending to need to use the restroom, he went to a pay phone next to the concession stand and called Tsuruta.
“You’re on night shift today, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“You once mentioned, didn’t you, that whenever Nakaoka was on the night shift, he made you work it too?”
“Yeah, but not tonight.”
“After making you change your schedule and work on the night shift, did he ever treat you to meals or take you out for drinks?”
“What’s up? Did something happen that you’re calling me all of a sudden and asking off-the-wall questions?”
Tetsuyuki said he would explain everything tomorrow, and pressed him to answer.
“Well, he took me out for a drink two or three times.”
Reminding Tsuruta never to tell anyone about this conversation, Tetsuyuki added, “No matter what errand Nakaoka gives you, you absolutely must not go down to the basement tonight.” Tsuruta kept asking why, but he finally sensed the gravity of the situation from the tone of Tetsuyuki’s voice.
“Okay, I won’t go down to the basement tonight. I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ll do as you say. But tomorrow you’ve got to explain all of this to me.”
With that, he hung up. Judging from Tsuruta’s reaction, Tetsuyuki was certain he was not the culprit. As he sat in the smoking area, the thought came to him that this affair was about to become more complicated. It was unlikely that Nakaoka would ever again steal into the import shops in the basement, and the hotel would settle the matter by paying for the stolen goods rather than reporting it to the police.
But whether the ruse used by that gangster last night, or Nakaoka’s scheme to set Tsuruta up as a criminal—both were childish. People end up making fools of themselves as soon as they let their fears run ahead of them. It was odd that even Nakaoka, reputed to be a prodigy among the younger employees, did not understand that if Tsuruta were to be arrested tonight by a guard lying in wait, it would rather serve to expose his own guilt.
At first, Tsuruta would be treated as guilty, but after hearing him out and once again checking the attendance book, Nakaoka’s name was bound to come up. And if they checked it back thoroughly to a year ago rather than just six months, then Tsuruta’s name would vanish and Nakaoka’s would remain.
As he was pondering these things, it occurred to Tetsuyuki that perhaps Yuriko and Nakaoka were in a deep relationship, and that moreover Yuriko knew of Nakaoka’s guilt. Or perhaps the two were complicit in the crime. If that were the case, then what was the meaning of the look she gave him? The lustful feelings he had felt for her vanished without a trace.
Tetsuyuki tried mapping out in his mind the factional strife within the hotel as far as he had been able to grasp it. The company president was already seventy-nine years old, and was for the most part confined to his home in Ashiya as his chronic ailment of sciatica worsened. According to rumors, a replacement would be appointed at next year’s stockholders’ meeting. There were two vice presidents, and both were his sons, but the president did not have much confidence in the business acumen of the elder of the two, and wanted to be succeeded by the younger one, who had more of a knack for practical affairs. Ever since summer a bitter battle had ensued behind the scenes between supporters of these two. Most of those occupying the senior positions were on the side of the younger brother: the manager, Imoto, the head of personnel, Shimazaki, head of dining services . . . all directly connected with the practical affairs of the hotel. Opposing them, such parties as the chief of the business office, the chief of the general affairs office, and the like were carrying the banner of support for the older brother. Tetsuyuki sighed and stood up, recalling that he had once heard Tsuruta say, “Nakaoka works at the front desk, but he’s the pet of the head of the business office.”
“I get it. Nakaoka isn’t so stupid that he’d pilfer bracelets and handbags.” Tetsuyuki unconsciously mumbled these words aloud. Was it a big gamble to wave a flag of righteousness at the stockholders’ meeting after piling up black marks against responsible parties in the faction supporting the younger brother? Well, that was the only hand they had left to play in order to make the older brother president, Tetsuyuki told himself. He thought that glance of Yuriko’s was probably suggested to her by Nakaoka. If it could be shown that someone whom Section Chief Shimazaki had recommended for employment without even being formally tested for the position—who before even formally being employed—had seduced a female employee, then it would disgrace not only Shimazaki but those over him as well. And if a bellboy were committing theft and gangsters were extorting money, then the responsibility would lie with the manager.
Tetsuyuki returned to his seat.
“What’s wrong? You were gone a long time, weren’t you?” Yuriko asked in a low voice. Keeping his eyes on the screen, Tetsuyuki leaned over to Yuriko’s ear.
“I just called Tsuruta to warn him not to go down to the basement tonight, or he’ll fall into Nakaoka’s trap. And Tsuruta warned me not to get carried away and touch you, or I’d fall into the same trap.”
The image on the screen was reflected with distortion in both of Yuriko’s eyes. Grabbing her by the wrist, Tetsuyuki hurried back to the bench in the smoking area.
“I don’t care if it spoils my chances for employment at the hotel. I feel I’d like to take you to some cheap hotel and sleep with you, but do you think Nakaoka is going to marry you? You made a bad bet. You’ll let a milksop like Nakaoka have his fun with you, and then you’ll be dumped.”
Yuriko glared at him for an uncannily long time, finally saying, “I have no wish to marry Nakaoka. I’m the one who’s having fun with him. If that weren’t the case, then I wouldn’t have told you what’s going to happen tonight.”
Ignoring her, Tetsuyuki began to walk down the hallway of the theater. Behind him came Yuriko’s voice, “I’ve really come to like you.”
Unfazed, he continued walking.
“I’m going to go to the hotel right now and tell everyone that you raped me.” Tetsuyuki came to a standstill and turned around. “Even if it’s a lie, everyone will believe me because I’m a woman.”
“I’m not bluffing. I really don’t care if it turns out that I can’t get hired there.” Tetsuyuki was overcome with a strange sense of wretchedness as he spoke those words.
“I really do like you, and I was waiting for you to ask me out. That has nothing to do with Nakaoka. He knows nothing about our date today.”
Tetsuyuki was about to respond, but just said “Goodbye” and walked out of the theater. A gentle rain was falling. Perhaps Yuriko really meant what she said. But the more he sensed that she meant it, the more his feelings for her withered. And so did his feeling that she had been nothing more than a prop in his scheme for revenge on Yōko. And so did his fear that one misstep might have resulted in a new object of his love.
That night, Tetsuyuki took the Hankyū Line to Mukonosō Station. He was so impatient that he misdialed three times, and finally said to Yōko, “I surrender. There’s no way I could ever claim victory over you.”
“Where are you now?”
“At Mukonosō Station.”
Five minutes had not passed before he saw her running toward him.
“What do you mean that you ‘surrender’?” Yōko asked as she tried to catch her breath.
“I was fighting a unilateral war.”
“With . . . ?”
“With myself.”
Yōko took him to the two-story house she had rented, unbeknownst to her parents. Both the bathtub and the toilet had been polished to a shine, over the windows were hung curtains she had sewn herself, and a small chest of drawers had been placed in the upstairs six-mat room. Yōko crouched down behind hi
m.
“Say you’re sorry!”
“What for?”
“For dredging up that stuff about the summer . . .”
“No.”
“Why?”
Tetsuyuki brought her around in front of him and, with her in his embrace, lay down on the floor as he pressed her to talk. “You explain to me everything that happened during those few weeks of the summer. How many times did you meet with Ishihama?”
“Two or three times.”
“That’s all?”
Yōko nodded.
“And it’s true that nothing went on between you?”
Suddenly shaking her head furiously, she pushed him away and, retreating to a corner of the room, tears welled up in her eyes.
“I don’t like you when you ask me things like that.”
“Because there’s something you don’t like to be asked about?”
“Idiot!”
“Well, then tell me in a way that will persuade me.”
“No matter how many times I say it, you won’t give up.”
“Then nothing went on between you?”
“Nothing!”
“I don’t like the way you say that. As if you find saying it a bother. How about putting your heart into it when you say it? This is the only thing you’re inconsiderate about.”
“Nothing went on. We didn’t even hold hands.”
Tetsuyuki got down on all fours and, like a puppy, nestled his head against Yōko’s breast.
“I have a feeling that even after we’re married, you’re going to keep bringing this up.” Mumbling those words, she began to bite his lips.
10
The New Year arrived. Many families were spending the holiday in the hotel, and both the full-time and the part-time bellboys were on duty, lodging in the napping room between December 30 and January 3. There were no vacancies, and the grill, the coffee shop, the bar, and the room service staff were all frenetically taking orders and working longer hours than usual.
In the early afternoon of January 3, Tetsuyuki finished carrying all the luggage of the guests who checked out en masse. Returning to the bellboy room, he found Tsuruta indicating by the way he held the cigarette in his mouth how impatiently he had been waiting. Motioning for him to come closer, Tsuruta’s eyes glinted as he whispered in Tetsuyuki’s ear. “They’ve decided to fire that bastard Nakaoka.”
Taken aback, Tetsuyuki gave Tsuruta a hard look. He grabbed him by the sleeve of his uniform and pulled him to the passageway between the kitchen and the laundry room.
“Did you blab? You promised to keep it a secret, didn’t you?” Tetsuyuki was suppressing his anger. It was, after all, only his personal inference that Nakaoka was the probable culprit, and he had reminded Tsuruta never to tell anyone about it.
“Yeah, but there was no way I could avoid talking about it, was there? You’ll be all right, because you had nothing to do with it. But I was under suspicion. The only way I could defend my innocence was to have them check the attendance record once more. Your suspicions turned out to be right. My name was cleared, and Nakaoka’s was the only one remaining. It was a lifesaver. Without that, I’d have remained under suspicion and would’ve lost my job here. That idiot Nakaoka! He got what he had coming.”
To be sure, Tsuruta’s excuse was reasonable, but Tetsuyuki somehow felt like a criminal as he leaned against the overheated concrete wall of the passageway. His forehead was perspiring. Tsuruta continued.
“That bastard Nakaoka was cocky at first. Even when he was being grilled by the head of personnel and the manager and had the attendance book shoved in his face, he was cool as a cucumber. I suppose he thought the fatso party would come to his aid.”
Of the company president’s two sons, the elder was corpulent while the younger was tall and lean, and so in private the employees referred to the two factions as the “fatso party” and the “beanpole party.”
“The beanpole party pulled off a major stunt while Nakaoka was in a situation where he couldn’t get in touch with anyone in the fatso party. The beanpole phoned the fat guy’s home, and placed the call directly himself. They had pressed the beanpole, saying that Nakaoka had confessed that the fatso put him up to it, and asked, ‘Is that true?’ But he replied that his older brother couldn’t possibly do anything like that, and if it were true, the hotel would have no choice but to request that the police conduct a thorough investigation, and brace itself for the disgrace to its reputation. And this was the fat guy’s measured response.”
Rivulets of sweat were running down Tsuruta’s forehead. As if he were a cop who had busted a criminal, he continued. “‘We can’t very well keep a thief like that. Let’s sack him. What possible reason would exist for me to have an employee enter my own hotel and steal goods from a shop? Nakaoka’s not only a thief, but appears to be insane as well.’ And so that was the end of the Nakaoka affair.”
“You’re really in on all the details, aren’t you? How is it that a bellboy like you knows all the dealings of the top brass in this company?”
Looking up at Tetsuyuki, Tsuruta twisted his lips in a laugh. “Since you helped me out, I’ll tell you, but don’t mention this to anyone.” Thus prefacing his remarks, he proceeded slowly. “I have a very surprising source of information.”
“Who?”
“Yuriko, the grill girl.”
“Yuriko!”
“I’ve slept with her many times,” Tsuruta said with a note of pride, then added, “but she’s this to the head of the business office, who’s with the fatso party.” Tsuruta extended and retracted several times the pinkie he thrust in front of Tetsuyuki’s face—a suggestive gesture. “You pretty much get what I mean, don’t you?”
“Get what?” Tetsuyuki asked indifferently. He no longer cared. He just wanted to get out of that hot passageway as soon as possible.
“That the head of the business office only pretends to be with the fatso party, but is really a spy for the beanpole party.”
Tetsuyuki thought to himself as he smiled at Tsuruta: This guy may look like a dope, but he’s pretty shrewd. So then it was Miyake Minoru, the good-looking head of the business office, who deserved the greatest credit for getting the idiots of the fatso party to approve of the execution of this childish plot, using roundabout means to make Nakaoka into his stooge and putting the beanpole party in control to determine the next company president. Even this guy is able to understand that much.
Tsuruta was puzzled by Tetsuyuki’s silent smile. “What’s so funny?”
“No matter which way this turns out, there’s no more hope for your career advancement.”
“Why’s that?”
“Yuriko’s the kind of woman who’ll sleep with anyone: with Nakaoka, with you . . . and with the head of the business office, who knew a long time ago that she was sleeping with Nakaoka and you. And that’s why he devised this tactic of turning Nakaoka into a thief and then casting suspicion on you. Even if Yuriko was nothing more than a convenient receptacle for his physiological discharge, she’s a cute and charming receptacle. Miyake is human and male, so there’s no way he could be free of jealousy toward you and Nakaoka. The whole scenario has become clear to me. At this year’s stockholders’ meeting, the beanpole will become company president, and in time Miyake will be promoted to a suitable position. But you’ll be a bellboy until you retire.”
As he watched Tsuruta’s face gradually grow rigid, a strategy came to Tetsuyuki’s mind, though he had no idea whether it would work.
“Miyake’s a fool too. A guy who has a wife and children yet gets involved with an employee of his own company—a young unmarried woman at that—and then at the end of this bed talk blabs about the beanpole party’s game plan . . . Doesn’t he understand that if this were to get out, no matter how he had distinguished himself as victor in the factional warfare, he wouldn’t be able to remain in this company? If the fatso party got wind of this, in spite of its confidence about winning, the beanpole party would be tossed out
of the ring at the last minute.”
His inchoate rage turned into a malevolence that wished to see both of them—Tsuruta, who was right in front of him, and Miyake, who was no doubt gleeful about the success of his tactic—vanish from this hotel. Tetsuyuki did not stay to see the effects of his words, but proceeded down the dimly lit passageway.
His anger gradually came to be tinged with a bit of sorrow. When for the first time in five days he changed from his uniform into his own trousers and sweater, he found himself feeling pity for Yuriko, whose peculiar “feminine aspect” could only be described as pathological. Nevertheless, he set off to meet Yōko, who was waiting at the ticket gate of Osaka Station, with a strange cheerfulness of heart.
“You’ve never been on time, have you?” Unusually for her, Yōko kept on sulking. In the train car on the Kanjō Line, she took a registered-mail envelope out of her purse and held it out.
“Your portion is in here too, but I’m not going to give it to you anymore.”
“What’s that? What do you mean ‘my portion’?”
“Who knows?”
“I was only ten minutes late. Don’t get so bent out of shape.”
“If I keep you waiting ten minutes, you go on sulking for about an hour.”
In order to humor her, as he grasped the strap in the railcar, Tetsuyuki pressed his elbow against her breast through her coat and put on a pleased expression. “You’ll be staying tonight, won’t you?”
“Don’t do such obscene things in public!” But the end of that reproof was mixed with some laughter. Once again she took the registered-mail envelope out of her purse and handed it to him. The sender was Sawamura Chiyono. “It’s New Year’s gift money, for both of us. It came this morning, and I immediately phoned to thank her. But no matter how many times I called, the line was busy. As soon as we get to Suminodō I’ll try again.”
Enclosed were two gift envelopes each containing 20,000 yen, and a letter written in brush calligraphy:
Lately I have been finding it very troublesome to see people, and even when guests come by I pretend to be out. Are both of you well? Even though I’ve become misanthropic, I’ve wanted to do something for people, and have been giving away things that have been valuable to me. Please accept this without reservation. I tried to think of what would be good to send to you, but was unable to come up with any ideas. Please use this to enjoy some good food or something.
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