“I’m so sorry to have taken your time,” he said, and with a casual nod of the head he left the room.
He walked through the dark corridors and climbed the stairs. The young reporters were gathered in the break area, apparently waiting for him to return. His eye met Sayama’s.
It must have been written all over his face. Sayama turned and strode away. Immediately Hanazawa moved to block Yuuki’s path.
“How did it go?”
“Hang in there.”
That was all Yuuki could say. He set off back toward the newsroom. He heard a disapproving voice behind him.
“We expected more of you.”
The newsroom was filled with pre-deadline commotion. Yuuki didn’t head for his desk. He went straight for the blackboard.
JAL desk chief: Yuuki
He ran his palm through the chalk letters until they were obliterated.
15
Well into the night, it was as humid as ever.
Yuuki had left the office as soon as the morning edition had gone to press, but it was half past midnight by the time he arrived home. He was disappointed to see there were no lights on in the house.
Everyone was fast asleep. The warm, muggy air in the corridor was a cocktail of all the smells of the house, but the air in the living room was pleasantly cool. Yumiko must have only just gone to bed. He headed to the kitchen, where the dining table had been cleared. The pan on the gas stove had just a little curry stuck on the bottom. When he’d called in at home earlier, he’d told his wife he’d probably sleep over at the office, so there wasn’t even a beer in the fridge, or snacks to nibble on.
Yuuki went back to the living room with a glass of barley tea, threw the proofs of the next day’s paper on the table, and, without taking off his work shirt, sprawled out on the sofa. He turned on the TV. Right away the screen was filled with footage from Mount Osutaka. The news program was running late due to the earlier extended broadcast of the evening’s professional baseball game. The female newsreader, in her somber suit and matching expression, was reading from a long script. There was nothing in it that Yuuki hadn’t heard before.
As he stared absentmindedly at the screen, he began to regret coming home. He could hear the chairman’s voice in his ears.
“Are you trying to lose your job?”
He’d given in to the intimidation. He’d failed, and now he felt ashamed. He’d failed to protect Sayama’s article and betrayed his junior reporters. He let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. He’d been clinging to hope when he’d set out for home—afraid of being alone, he’d wanted to see the faces of his family. But he couldn’t.
Now that feeling of hope began to fade again.
A failed family. The phrase ran through his mind. A family was something he had tried to make for himself. His own dream garden. He’d tried to arrange these human beings in his miniature garden, but they hadn’t grown together as planned.
He wasn’t thinking this way just because he was alone at this late hour. Even if he’d returned to find the house bathed in warm light and Yumiko, Jun, and Yuka all sitting there ready to engage in lively conversation, nothing would have changed.
He suddenly had difficulty breathing. He realized he’d always been this way. Whenever he was at home, he couldn’t wait to leave and get back to work. Despite the challenges that faced him there, he always felt more at ease, at home, in the workplace, because he could lose himself in the chaos.
He heard a hoarse voice. It was the TV. The newscaster had tears in her eyes. Just over her shoulder, an extremely shaky camera was showing a close-up of the bereaved families in tears in front of the Fujioka Municipal Sports Center.
Yuuki stared at the newscaster’s face for a moment, then snatched up the remote and turned off the TV. He continued to stare at the dark screen. He imagined the staff at the TV station winding up the broadcast and cheerfully wishing one another good night. And the young newscaster staying frozen in her seat, turning down invitations to go for a drink or something to eat, crying her heart out alone in an empty studio.
“Crying’s the relatives’ job, not yours,” he snapped.
He suddenly saw an image of Anzai lying in his hospital bed. Persistent vegetative state. In other words, a vegetable. He’d told Sayuri and Rintaro he was sure that Anzai would wake up, but it was merely to console them. He knew it was very rare for anyone to regain consciousness after being in that state.
“Oh, Daddy!”
Yuuki sat up quickly. In the doorway of the living room stood Yuka, in her pajamas. She was rubbing her sleepy eyes and looked painfully young. She was one of the tallest kids in the fourth year of primary school, but he’d heard that she wasn’t considered quite tall enough yet for her sports club volleyball team and was a perennial benchwarmer.
“You okay? Just going to the toilet?”
His voice automatically took on that high tone it always did when he talked to his children.
“I wanted a drink of water … I was surprised to see you. When did you get home?”
“Just now.”
“It’s nice to see you. You must be working so hard.”
She gave him a formal bow, just like they practiced in school. Yuuki felt tears pricking his eyes. He was a little slow to smile back.
“Yes, I’m back … No, I mean, thank you.”
“Did the Tigers win?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure. No, hang on … Yes, I heard they lost today.”
“Oh, what was the score?”
“No idea, sorry.”
“Huh.”
While he struggled to think of something else to say, Yuka’s eyes were covertly watching to check out his mood. Ever since she’d been able to walk, Yuka had seen her father raise his hand to Jun. Her first-ever school report card had read, “She tends to observe the emotions of the stronger children, and adjust her behavior accordingly.” It had given Yuuki a jolt to read it.
“Did Mayumi get a hit?”
“Sorry, love. I don’t know.”
“How about Bass?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know any of the details.”
“That’s right, you’ve been really busy with that plane crash.”
“Yes, I have.”
“Lots of people died, didn’t they?” Yuka asked, wrinkling her brow in a very unchildlike way.
“Yes, very many. Five hundred and twenty.”
“That’s terrible.”
“Right.”
Yuuki put on the saddest face he could. He wanted to convey the true seriousness of the accident. To his daughter, at least.
“But there was a little girl who was saved, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, there was. Daddy was so happy.”
“Me, too.”
“I see. You’re a very kind girl.”
“I’m not really,” she answered, turning red.
Yuuki glanced up at the clock on the wall.
“It’s really late, you know. Did you get something to drink?”
“Yes, I had some barley tea.”
“Right, you’d better get back to bed now. You have to get up in the morning.”
“Okay. Good night, Daddy.”
“Night. Sweet dreams!”
Yuka waved a little hand to him as she climbed the stairs. Yuuki lay back down. The big smile he’d plastered on his face was beginning to make his face ache.
He’d noticed that Yuka hadn’t taken a single step into the living room.
Yuuki stretched out both sides of his neck and loosened his tie. But he didn’t take it off. He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he go back to the office and sleep in the on-call room? That voice in the back of his mind was growling at him with growing ferocity even now. Already it was urging him up off the sofa.
16
It was the morning of August 15.
In the office of editor in chief Kasuya, Oimura and Todoroki had been joined by the chief copy editor, Kamejima, and other key figures from the management team. No one spoke to Yuuki when he
walked in. Even the habitually cheerful Kamejima looked stern. Yuuki’s authority as JAL crash desk chief was about to be revoked. Yuuki knew that the moment Todoroki opened his mouth to speak, that’s what would happen, and he was prepared for it. He was even considering resigning the position before Todoroki got the chance to ask him to step down.
However, it turned out that the topic of the meeting was something completely different.
“Let’s put our heads together and come up with some good ideas for today’s layout.”
Kasuya looked around the room. The editor in chief was desperate for some good ideas. Tomorrow morning’s paper needed to include three major stories.
First, there were follow-up articles marking the fourth day since the Japan Airlines jumbo crash. Then there were the events to commemorate the critical fortieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. And on top of that, Prime Minister Nakasone’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine to honor the war dead.
The problem was the Yasukuni visit. How were they going to balance the space allocated to the Pride of Gunma, Prime Minister Nakasone? How were they going to portray his decision to visit? Good or bad? It was a headache for the paper of the PM’s hometown. Since the day of the plane crash, Kishi’s superior, chief political editor Moriya, had stayed in the background, but today he and Kishi at the political news desk were at the head of the table. It was Moriya who spoke.
“I think we should put Nakasone at the top right now,” he said, deliberately jumping in to forestall the others’ opinions.
Catching a whiff of the political section’s maneuvering, Todoroki at once put on his chief local news editor’s hat.
“You mean to take the JAL crash off the top page? It’s only been three days since it happened.”
“Let’s make it the second story for today. Let’s lead with YASU NAKASONE: THE LOCAL TIMBER DEALER’S BOY being the first postwar leader to pay a visit to Yasukuni Shrine. From the paper’s point of view, this has to be the headline.”
“No need to get so excited about it,” said Todoroki bluntly.
“What do you mean, ‘excited’?” replied Moriya.
The two colleagues glared at each other.
“It’s nothing like the same thing as covering the prime minister’s first visit back home, you know. We can’t extol his virtues for visiting a shrine dedicated to war criminals. It’s not only the opposition parties and religious groups who are going to kick up a fuss. What about China and Korea?”
“Why would they do that? They’ve no right to meddle in Japanese domestic affairs. What’s wrong with a head of state offering prayers to his country’s war dead?”
“What’s happened to the separation of church and state? You can’t deny that there’s a suspicion of unconstitutionality when you suddenly change the rules of worship like that.”
“I don’t think you can lump all those issues together like that. This story compares favorably to the JAL crash.”
“Five hundred and twenty people died in that!”
“And how many people died in the Maebashi City air raid?”
“Don’t talk such shit!”
“Todoroki, aren’t you the one that’s getting excited?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The fact that you are rejoicing at the size of the accident. For all that you’re going on about it being the world’s largest air disaster, it’s still just an inherited accident, after all. Don’t forget that Japan Airlines isn’t a Gunma Prefecture story.”
Yuuki looked at Moriya.
It’s still just an inherited accident. Yuuki knew someone had been bound to say it eventually, but he’d never imagined it would be tossed out like that in the middle of a turf war between the chief local and political news editors.
He looked away again. He’d recoiled at Moriya’s words, but that was all. The JAL crash had been made light of. It had been trampled on. Yet he didn’t feel any strong emotions welling up inside him.
Whatever happened, Yuuki believed that if the headline spot was conceded to Prime Minister Nakasone’s visit, then the passion in the Editorial Department for the plane crash would quickly cool off. They were high on the sheer scale of the accident. Moriya had been spot-on when he’d said it. That described the mood in the newsroom perfectly. Getting excited about it wasn’t so far off the mark, either.
Nobody in the Editorial Department had dared to think of the crash as an inherited accident. Quite the contrary—they’d used the fact that it was the world’s largest to keep themselves enthusiastic and alert when they really should have been catching up on lost sleep.
Moriya and Todoroki’s argument eventually died down. It had all been just for show. Unlike the big-name national newspapers, at the small, more simply structured papers such as the North Kanto Times, there was no deep-rooted antagonism between the political and local news sections. A born-and-bred local news reporter such as Yuuki was a rare thing—usually the people who made it to management had spent time in both sections.
At the NKT, most of the infighting was between the news-related and business-related departments. Then there were the two factions: the one that supported the chairman and the one that supported the managing director. But there was also another feud that was normally dormant but occasionally raised its ugly head. It related to the various managers’ views of the famous rivalry between current and ex–prime ministers Nakasone and Fukuda. Sometimes, if someone was perceived as being a Fukuda or a Nakasone supporter, it would add extra fuel to the fire of an office dispute.
Kasuya had been fast-tracked to the position of editor in chief in part due to his skills in diplomacy, but also because he wasn’t overtly political. However, the internal problems at the newspaper notwithstanding, the fight between the ex–prime minister and the current one, and the reality of the feud between both of the lower house representatives from Gunma Prefecture’s Third District, still occasionally influenced the day-to-day makeup of the paper. To say nothing of the Liberal Democratic Party leadership election, which had been central to an earlier feud between the same Takeo Fukuda and another ex–prime minister, Kakuei Tanaka. Ever since Nakasone had betrayed Fukuda by suddenly switching allegiance to Tanaka in that election thirteen years ago, any reporter covering any aspect of the Fukuda-Nakasone rivalry had to tread ever so lightly, and be meticulous, cautious, and circumspect in their approach. Everyone present at the meeting knew that the current topic, the prime minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, could not be discussed without consideration of the Fukuda-Nakasone situation.
With a deep sigh, Kasuya issued a warning to all assembled.
“Moriya, if we lead with Nakasone’s visit, how are we going to approach it? It’s all about the content. As Todoroki has pointed out, we can’t just extol his virtues. It’s no puff piece.”
“Of course we’ll include comments from the opposition parties.”
“Then we’re just going to look as if we put the story up there as an excuse to take a swing at him. If our stance is the same as the Asahi and Mainichi newspapers, then that’s how the Nakasone side is going to see it.”
“True, but…” Moriya thought for a while, then continued. “The overall impression will be that Nakasone did something huge. If we’re careful about the headline, I don’t see any problem.”
Kasuya folded his arms.
“If we do lead with it, how will the Fukuda side feel about it?”
“Well, of course, if we appear uncritical of Nakasone, they’re bound to get their panties in a twist.”
“Well, there’s no hope of that…”
The North Kanto Times had a bitter taste left in its mouth after the Tanaka-Fukuda feud. Under the direction of Chairman Shirakawa (then editor in chief), they had avoided all criticism of Nakasone’s actions and, as a result, their circulation figures had plummeted in Gunma’s Third Electoral District. And that wasn’t the end of it. In the December general election of the same year, Fukuda had won the seat in a landslide, with
an unprecedented 178,281 votes, destroying Nakasone. That figure was close to the total circulation of the North Kanto Times at the time. The top brass at the newspapers realized at that point what a terrible idea it would be to piss off Fukuda supporters.
Kasuya turned to the current managing editor.
“What do you think?”
“I think it should be fine to lead with it.”
Oimura was lacking his usual self-assurance. He was a hater of the Self-Defense Forces, so it followed that he was anti-Nakasone. Chairman Shirakawa was pro-Nakasone, so he was caught in quite a dilemma. Kasuya had put the question to Oimura, sounding him out as a closet Fukuda supporter, but Oimura had neatly dodged the question. Kasuya sighed again.
“I guess we’ll have to ask Iikura-san,” he murmured, as if talking to himself.
A wave of tension ran through the room.
Until the year before last, managing director Iikura had also held the post of “editorial director.” It was strongly suspected that he’d been released from that duty by Chairman Shirakawa under pressure from the local prefectural political and business community. There was no way of verifying this story, but the rumor that followed his being deposed was credible. Nowadays he was busy drumming up support within the company. He was reportedly consolidating his support base in Circulation and consequently stirring up trouble in that department. He had his eye on the chairman’s position and it was rumored he was poised for an opportunity to attack. The rumor had gathered strength six months ago when Shirakawa had had his accident and been confined to a wheelchair. It had even reached the ears of Yuuki, who was usually completely out of touch with the internal machinations at the paper.
With the outward appearance of a true gentleman, managing director Iikura was frequently nicknamed the Clever Yakuza and was Takeo Fukuda’s closest ally at the North Kanto Times.
Kasuya now turned to Moriya, with his Conciliator expression.
“Iikura-san had nothing to say about this upcoming Yasukuni Shrine visit?”
“Er, no. He never even called.”
Despite being removed as editorial director, Iikura still liked to call the newsroom now and again to let them know “Fukuda’s viewpoint” or “Fukuda’s reaction.” It was to unsettle them, a form of retaliation, or reverse intelligence gathering. The Editorial Department had tried to deal with this in several ways, but in the end their “Iikura inside information” was responsible for their clear coverage of the Fukuda side, and they weren’t willing to give it up. The reporters assigned to Fukuda were able to get a far clearer insight into the politician’s true opinions than they would have ever gotten from interviewing his private secretary.
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