Seventeen

by Hideo Yokoyama

  “Putting the crash into the second slot.”

  Kishi’s expression was dead serious.

  “It’s not my decision.”

  “So it seems.”

  Just as they broke eye contact, Nozawa’s sharp voice pierced the air.

  “Hey, they can’t just come in here like that!”

  By the entrance to the newsroom stood a woman in her early thirties with a forced smile on her face. She held the hand of a little boy. They appeared to be mother and son. Nozawa got to his feet and marched over to them.

  “Outsiders aren’t allowed in here. You’ll have to leave.”

  “I’m sorry,” said the mother, bowing nervously. “I wondered if you had any spare newspapers.”

  “You’d better try downstairs.”

  The mother had a slight accent that wasn’t familiar to Yuuki. She was very plainly dressed, but from a distance it looked as if she’d had a heavy hand with her eye makeup. Her little boy was about five or six, and he must have thought his mother was being bullied because he was glaring daggers at Nozawa.

  The boy turned his gaze on Yuuki. Yuuki tried to smile back at him, but all the muscles in his face suddenly froze.

  “It’s down the stairs on the right-hand side. There’s a newspaper vending machine. You can put coins in.”

  “Thank you so much. That’s very kind of you,” she replied, bowing to Nozawa. The boy took his eyes off Yuuki.

  Yuuki felt a frisson of fear. He knew that look. There’d been a time when he’d had the same look himself. I’m going to look after my mom. That painful day when he’d sworn that oath. The day he’d understood that his father was never going to return.

  A wave of something rushed over him, and he snatched all the copies of the North Kanto Times up off his desk—today’s, yesterday’s, the day before yesterday’s … a total of thirteen days’ worth of papers—and stuffed them into a large envelope. His eye fell on the headline he’d been preparing: AIR CRASH DEAD RETURN HOME.

  He ran wildly down the stairs and caught up with the mother and son at the bottom.

  “Here,” he said, holding out the envelope. The mother, who had been on the point of opening her purse to use the vending machine, turned in surprise.

  It was as Yuuki had thought. What had looked at a distance like heavy eye makeup was in fact the dark circles of someone who had been constantly weeping. Yuuki looked down at the floor.

  “Here are the papers from the last thirteen days. You’re welcome to take them.”

  A huge teardrop rolled from the woman’s eye.

  “Thank you … so much…”

  She opened her purse with a trembling hand. As she did so, it was spattered by several more teardrops.

  “You don’t need to pay for them. Here.”

  Yuuki handed her the envelope. Through the glass doors of the lobby, he could see a black hearse parked outside. The woman bowed her thanks several times and left. The little boy had scowled at him the entire time.

  Yuuki went back upstairs, but he couldn’t bring himself to go into the newsroom.

  “Crying’s the relatives’ job, not yours.” It didn’t matter how many times he told himself that. He turned and went back downstairs, taking the steps slowly, one by one, and then he noticed the big North Kanto Times signboard. That was why she’d told the driver to stop.

  What part of the country was that accent from? Every prefecture in Japan had its own local newspaper. There’d certainly be one in whatever area she was from. But the accident had happened here in Gunma. She must have figured that this newspaper would have more details about the crash than the others. That was why she’d asked the driver to stop at the office of the North Kanto Times. The plane crash that had robbed her of her husband—she believed she would get the most informative stories here.

  Yuuki looked down and used his tie to dry his eyes. Then he bounded back upstairs.

  This time, he returned to the newsroom. Kishi and Nozawa watched him in silence. Ignoring them completely, he went over to his desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a photograph. Then he headed over to the editor in chief’s office and pushed open the door.

  Editor in chief Kasuya, managing editor Oimura, senior political editor Moriya, chief copy editor Kamejima—they all turned to look at him.

  “Let’s lead with the JAL crash.”

  The room remained hushed for a few moments. Kasuya finally broke the silence.

  “No, we’re going with Nakasone—”

  Yuuki didn’t let him finish.

  “That’s just to keep the Clever Yakuza quiet, right?” he said, placing the photo in the center of the table. It was the photo of the makeshift morgue with the two wreaths. And the two names.

  “I’ll print it in this size. This way, Fukuda and Nakasone will both stand out.”

  He seemed to have taken everyone by surprise. Yuuki looked at every face in turn.

  “The crash has to remain our top story. Five hundred and twenty people lost their lives, and it happened here in Gunma.”

  Of course, it was the man seated at the lowest spot at the foot of the table who was the first to nod in agreement—Kamejima.

  20

  Six in the evening.

  The layout for the next day’s paper was finally done. The top story was the continued coverage of the Japan Airlines crash. There was a much shorter article about Prime Minister Nakasone’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, over to the left-hand side of the front page. It had been less of a decision and more of a settlement. Thanks to one single photo, the balance between the Fukuda and Nakasone factions had been preserved. Yuuki’s ingenious plan had delighted Kasuya; and Oimura and Todoroki, unable to roll out any of their usual objections, had mournfully acquiesced.

  “The crash is top again today!” Kamejima called out. A fair number of people in the newsroom applauded. Most of the Editorial Department was absorbed by the accident. It was gratifying that the big story about their “hometown” prime minister visiting Yasukuni was no longer headlining. It felt as if the North Kanto Times had shown some guts, developed a backbone.

  When Yuuki had left editor in chief Kasuya’s office, Chizuko Yorita had been waiting at his desk to get his dinner order.

  “Yuuki-san, what are you having today?”

  “Hmm … I think I’ll have cold Chinese noodles from Raku-raku Tei.”

  “Cold noodles?”

  Chizuko glanced over her order sheet. She was obviously checking to see if there was anyone else having the same thing.

  “Am I the only one?”

  “Yes. Everyone else is too chilled from the air conditioner.”

  If there were too many different orders, it would delay the delivery.

  “What’s the most popular?”

  “Um … today the top order is gomoku fried rice. There are eight others who’ve ordered it.”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  Yuuki sat down and began to look over the latest wires. He’d only been in Kasuya’s office for twenty minutes but during that time the world’s biggest single-aircraft airline disaster had not taken a break. News articles were being churned out in massive numbers. Time for the red pen again …

  Exhaustive search for remaining bodies

  Uenomura residents prepare to assist

  NTT communications sets up 340 temporary phones for relatives

  Two reporters in critical condition from fatigue, dehydration

  Ministry of Transport orders all four airline companies to inspect tail assembly

  U.S. investigation team arrives at Mount Osutaka

  He could still feel the burning behind his eyelids.

  Hugging the bundle of newspapers to her chest, the woman had pulled her little boy along by the hand and climbed back into the hearse. It would be a long time before Yuuki would be able to forget the image of that mother. As she’d accompanied the remains of her husband’s body back to her hometown, she’d stopped off at the North Kanto Times to buy some copies of a local new
spaper. Because the accident had happened on their turf, she’d been convinced that they would have the best coverage. Naturally, they must have …

  Naturally …

  She’d taught him something. Detailed, informative articles. Beyond any doubt, that was why local newspapers existed.

  He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to see the back of Kamejima’s head as he hurried away, a spring in his step. Yuuki chuckled, then remembered something. He looked up at the clock—half past six.

  His mood, which had been somewhat softened, now became tense again. The feature article series—he still hadn’t received the manuscript from Wajima. He’d told him to have it done by five. He’d paged him several times, but there’d been no response. Maybe Wajima wasn’t going to write it. But if he didn’t, he’d be fired.

  He got back to his reading.

  Gunma police question assistant cabin crew manager

  Nodai Niko baseball nine pledge to win second round for teammate

  3:30 p.m.: rain forces halt of recovery operation

  Third regional coast guard HQ delivers Sagami Bay tailpiece to Gunma police

  He skim-read all the articles, then turned to the man on his right.

  “Kishi?”

  “Huh?”

  Kishi’s pen kept moving, but he was listening. Aoki’s commentary piece on the Yasukuni visit was already covered in red ink. Yuuki spoke more sharply to distract him from his work.

  “Is there any space in international news?”

  “Why?”

  Now he had Kishi’s full attention. He picked up several of the articles.

  “These articles are about the U.S. investigation team and Boeing. Could you fit them in?”

  “Shouldn’t they be on the front page?”

  “I want to make the front all about the bereaved families. If you’ve got space, I’d like to use it.”

  “Just a sec.”

  Kishi glanced over the papers on his desk. He was normally in charge of the front page but, ever since the crash, Kishi had been handling both the national and international political pages.

  “Hmm. I think I could fit in two or three, if they’re short.”

  “Please. And this one? It’s about the Ministry of Transport. Can you put it on the national page?”

  “Huh?”

  Kishi looked amazed.

  “Why do you want to scatter them all over the place? Put them all together on the local news pages.”

  “Unless we increase the number of pages, I can’t fit everything in,” said Yuuki, sorting through his papers. “Every day I have to discard at least a third of what I have.”

  Kishi gave a wry smile.

  “Yuuki, you can’t use everything. We have enough articles here to open a shop. We can only fit so many columns on a page.”

  “I’m not trying to use everything. Just as many as I can.”

  “But the other pages have their own agenda.”

  Kishi sounded as if he were complaining, so Yuuki threw him a stern glance.

  “I’m just saying you’d better give it your best,” Kishi continued.

  “What the hell?”

  “The Asahi and the Yomiuri are putting out huge, flamboyant spreads. And here we are, putting odds and ends here and there.”

  “Really? I thought we were holding our own pretty well.”

  He didn’t really know the truth of the situation. Every paper was scrambling for information, and it was impossible to grasp who was ahead in terms of volume of information, or how substantial the content of that information was. The scale of the accident was just too big. Three whole days after the plane came down, the continuing, very real problem was how to deal with the enormous wave of information that poured from Mount Osutaka like a tsunami. The North Kanto Times’s staff had no time to analyze the pages of the other publications, to sort through the mixture of the brilliant and the mediocre and scrutinize it piece by piece.

  However, the one thing that Yuuki did know was that they were not winning the fight. The national newspapers had any number of reporters permanently stationed at their local branch offices. In a local turf war, the regional papers could capitalize on their geographical advantage by using human wave tactics to overwhelm them. However, when it came to the journalism related to the JAL crash, there was no guarantee that the North Kanto Times would be able to dominate by numbers. If you added the number of journalists from Kyodo News Service to those from the North Kanto Times, the total was impressive, but this massive, unprecedented accident had set off less of a local battle and more of a full-scale war. The national newspapers had gone all out and sent in troops not only from Tokyo but from all other prefectures throughout Japan. And it wasn’t only personnel they’d sent. They’d provided backup in the form of helicopters, communications equipment—everything the modern reporter needed. It may have made it look like war, but it was obvious that, if it turned out to be a long, attritional struggle, the North Kanto Times, with its lack of resources, equipment, and personnel, was eventually going to be defeated.

  “We’re not going to give up without a fight,” said Yuuki, jumping to his feet and dumping a pile of papers on Kishi’s desk. He called out across the room in the direction of the regional news desk.

  “Yamada?”

  Yamada raised his head to respond, his untidy hair shaking with the movement.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you get this onto your regional news pages?”

  Yamada came running over.

  “What do you need?”

  “A story from Uenomura. Can you put it in the northwest section?”

  When Yamada saw the running title of the story that Yuuki gave him, he became agitated.

  “But, Yuuki-san, this is an article to do with the JAL crash.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s about how the village office and the local fire department are playing an active role in things.”

  Yamada scratched his disheveled scalp. The regional section was divided into five different areas and was a compilation of neighborhood events and soft stories such as A RARE FLOWER HAS BEEN DISCOVERED.

  “I’m so sorry. The northwest region is already finished.”

  “Has it gone to press?”

  “No. It hasn’t gone down yet.”

  “Then you can redo it.”

  “Come on, Yuuki!” Kishi pitched in. “If you’re going to make him change it, you’d better at least run it by the bosses.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll talk to them tomorrow,” he said dismissively.

  Yuuki checked the clock once more. Picking up the phone, he dialed Wajima’s pager number again, then got to his feet.

  “If Wajima calls back, come and get me,” he said to Kishi, and walked over to the copy team’s island. He handed a pile of papers to Yoshii, who was in charge of the front page.

  “You did it, Yuuki-san. This was the way to go.”

  Yoshii was in an excellent mood, thanks to the JAL crash retaining the headline position. He had the proofs of the page spread out on his desk. He’d drawn the rough layout with a pencil and written some possible headlines at the top. Scraps of paper with ideas scribbled on were scattered about: “ID-ing the dead rough going”; “Sorrow of the silent homecoming”; “The flight path of the crash—toward an explanation”; “Body recovery continues night and day”; “Relentless rain on Mount Osutaka.”

  “Have you decided on the headline?” Yuuki asked.

  Yoshii tapped his forehead with a ruler.

  “Give me fifteen minutes. I can’t quite find the right phrase.”

  “No hurry,” said Yuuki affably. But then he leaned in to whisper in Yoshii’s ear.

  “I can’t say anything for sure, but there might be a late scoop coming in.”

  “About…?”

  Yuuki could see Tamaki’s face and the word “bulkhead.”

  “The cause of the crash.”

  Yoshii went pale.

  “In that case, the whole page will have to
be redone.”

  “It’s a long shot. It’s probably not going to happen, but just keep it in mind.”

  “Got it.”

  “And don’t tell a soul.”

  “Understood.”

  On his way back to his desk, Yuuki’s eyes met those of Inaoka, who was in charge of the North Kanto Times’s letters-to-the-editor page, titled Heartfelt. He’d been writing for the arts and culture pages for many years and was due to retire next year. Inaoka called him over.

  “Wow, Yuuki. You’ve got a tough job there.”

  “Not really.”

  “We’re getting heaps of letters about the crash.”

  Yuuki was reeled in by Inaoka’s words: How about using readers’ contributions as part of his feature series?

  “What kind of letter’s the most common?”

  “There are all sorts.”

  Inaoka flipped through a pile of letters and postcards.

  “First, you’ve got the people who were impressed that four people survived. Next, the ones who talk about the importance of improving air safety. And then the words of encouragement to the police and fire rescue teams. But the biggest group are the ones sending condolences to the families. Mostly from our regular readers.”

  Regular contributors to the column writing condolence letters to the bereaved relatives? Yuuki felt gloomy just thinking about it. He didn’t mean that there was anything wrong with the contributors. These people were the newspaper’s most fervent and reliable supporters, but there was also a malicious element among them. This particular group was the kind who only put pen to paper to express their outrage about something or other—in other words, they were the ones who were out to cause trouble. They were always on the lookout for a good topic to moan about. They borrowed freely from others’ opinions and writing styles and categorized every event under the heading of “Love” or “Justice.” The Japan Airlines crash was perfect fodder for them. The death of five hundred and twenty people and the misery of thousands more bereaved relatives and friends. They were bound to seize the opportunity to demonstrate their boundless goodwill by strenuously wielding their pens.

  No. He had seen that woman’s tears with his own eyes and vowed to write detailed, informative articles. These readers who want to be seen as “good people”—perhaps they were not so different from Yuuki himself.