Seventeen

by Hideo Yokoyama

  “Dad went to the city office to record the birth, but when he came home two hours later there was a different name on the birth certificate. It was my dad who changed it to Rintaro. That’s what Mom told me.”

  Yuuki was dumbfounded.

  “I don’t get it. How can that be?”

  “I guess my father spent those two hours thinking it over,” said Rintaro sadly. “And he decided that he wouldn’t be taking his son to the mountains, that he would never teach his son how to climb.”

  “Oh.”

  Yuuki suddenly understood. Mitsugu Endo—the man whose death Anzai had caused. Three months after that terrible accident, Anzai had a son. He must have struggled with the decision of whether to keep on climbing or to stop. Rintaro’s name was testament to his final decision.

  Very quietly, Rintaro began to speak.

  “I think my father must have been in a lot of pain. I don’t think he had any idea how to behave around me. Probably the only way Dad would have known how to show affection would be by teaching me how to climb.”

  It seemed he couldn’t make up his mind what to call Anzai—Father or Dad.

  “I suffered, too. My father was so awkward around me that I remember always being anxious. I never understood his pain, but I could see that it was hard for him to handle.”

  “Anzai really loved you,” said Yuuki.

  He’d spoken spontaneously, and Rintaro humbly nodded his appreciation.

  “I believe he did. But he never found a way of showing it. And then he passed away without ever being able to. I was completely lost after that. I ended up not being close to my mother, either.”

  Yuuki thought back to that time. He recalled that day at the hospital when Sayuri had seemed so cheerful.

  The husband and wife had been a match made in heaven. But Anzai’s job in the Circulation Department of the North Kanto Times involved going to parties and receptions at night. On weekdays, he would drink; Sundays, he would lead the hiking club on trips to the mountains. Their loving relationship had already turned into something to reminisce about, relegated to memories in old photo albums. The man she had eloped with was shut away somewhere in her heart. After the accident, the sadness could be let out.

  With Anzai sleeping, she had a second chance, an opportunity to revisit the early honeymoon period of their marriage. Along with despair came a new kind of warmth. For the first time in a long while, Sayuri had her husband by her side all day every day. Anzai wasn’t dead, just asleep, and now Yuuki realized that Sayuri had been free to love him to distraction.

  “Back then, you were the only person I could rely on, Yuuki-san. Every time we had a date to meet up, I could barely wait to see you.”

  There wasn’t a hint of sadness or bitterness in Rintaro’s words. Just nostalgia.

  “Today I’m going to rely on you,” said Yuuki, looking up at the awe-inspiring face of Tsuitate.

  The first phase: the overhang that seemed to cover them completely. It jutted out like the eaves of some giant’s castle in the sky; the feature was known in the climbing world as a “roof.” This would be the first obstacle they would need to overcome on Cloud Ridge route number 1. Once they’d surmounted this hurdle, they’d continue up the vertical wall. This was the very same route that Mitsugu Endo had taken when he was killed by a falling rock.

  Yuuki gulped loudly.

  “You’ll be fine as soon as you can feel the rock with your hands.”

  Yuuki nodded wordlessly and reached up. The rock was cold to the touch. The texture of something mineral, inorganic. Something about it felt different from the rock faces he had scaled at the ski resorts. The feel of atmospheric pressure on a three-hundred-meter vertical wall, perhaps? Or was it just nerves at his first-ever encounter with this formidable rock face?

  No, it wasn’t just fear. The solid rock beneath his palm gave off some sort of energy. As he stood there, his hand on the rock, a strange thing happened. His mind became calmer, and then clearer.

  “Let’s do it!”

  The words came out, unforced.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  Rintaro looked amicably at his climbing buddy.

  There was a gust of wind. Yuuki took his hand off the rock face and looked up one more time at Tsuitate. His fear was now turning to something more like anticipation. Those were the same emotions he had felt back then, on the fifth day of the Japan Airlines crash story.

  August 17, 1985. That was the day that a local newspaper in Gunma boldly competed for the world’s biggest scoop.

  27

  As he gripped the steering wheel, Yuuki could still feel the squishiness of the rubber ball. Slipping into a parking space, he glanced at the dashboard clock—ten past two—and his pager began to buzz again.

  He bounded up the stairs and into the newsroom. He arrived at his desk to a very shocked look from Kishi.

  “Hey, were you caught in a shower or something?”

  Yuuki’s shirt was soaked through.

  “I was playing catch.”

  “In the midday sun?”

  Looking at Kishi’s stunned expression, Yuuki realized that he hadn’t even noticed how hot it was. He had started out playing as a way of making Rintaro feel better, but he’d ended up so focused on the game that perhaps it had been as much for himself as for the boy.

  “Anyway, what’s all the paging about?”

  “That,” Kishi replied, gesturing to Yuuki’s desk.

  He hadn’t spotted it right away because of the mountain of papers that dominated the work surface, but stuck underneath a paperweight were about ten sheets of paper from a company memo pad. The memo on top had Tamaki’s name on it.

  Urgent. Please call.

  The accident investigation. Pressure bulkhead. Ruptured.

  The words lit up like neon signs in his head.

  Yuuki dialed Tamaki’s pager number, immediately followed by Sayama’s. He put down the phone and began to look through the rest of the memos. The sight of one name made him freeze. He glanced at the next desk. Kishi was working on some draft copy, his red pen occasionally moving across the paper.

  “Kishi?”

  “Yeah?”

  The face that turned to Yuuki was without expression.

  “Sorry that you had to take my calls.”

  “Just don’t go out again. They’re lining up to get in touch with the JAL crash desk.”

  Kishi’s expression and tone were perfectly normal. But he couldn’t quite hide that there was something wrong.

  Yuuki guessed it was the fallout from the previous night’s events. Yuuki had dared to voice the view that during the Okubo/Red Army era the North Kanto Times had been totally outperformed by Japan’s national newspapers. Those words had been intended to pierce the armor that protected Todoroki’s reminiscences, but the intensity of Kishi and Nozawa’s reaction had surprised Yuuki. Their memories of their days as reporters had been sullied, and many of these memories were ones they shared with Yuuki. It was going to be hard for Yuuki to clear the air and convince his two colleagues that he hadn’t meant to insult them.

  His phone began to ring.

  “This is Sayama. Did you call me?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  He’d been sure that Tamaki would call back first, so, to start with, he stumbled over his words.

  “Are you … you’re at the police press club right now?”

  “That’s right.”

  Sayama’s tone was just as cold as yesterday.

  “I need to talk to you. Can you get back here?”

  “They’re still announcing the identified remains.”

  “Is there no one else who can cover for you?”

  “There’s only Moriwaki.”

  Only. Well, it was too bad. Moriwaki was a rookie reporter who had just started to go on assignments this last month.

  “Moriwaki’ll be fine for that. Get him to take over, and get out of there.”

  “Is it something you can’t tell me over th
e phone?”

  “Right. Not over the phone.”

  He said it with as much force as he could.

  “Try to get here in twenty minutes. I’ve got a meeting at three-thirty.”

  “… Okay.”

  While Yuuki had been talking to Sayama, a large heap of new Kyodo News wires had been deposited on his desk. One headline caught his eye.

  BODY RECOVERY FINALLY AT 60%

  Yuuki divided the wires roughly into piles. He looked back over the memos as he paged Tamaki one more time. His neck stiffened when he got to a particular piece of paper. That one name was enough to cause his body to react involuntarily: Ayako Mochizuki.

  The note said she’d like him to call back. There was a phone number with a Takasaki City area code. She’d called at one o’clock that afternoon. There was nothing to say what it was about.

  Yuuki guessed it must be something to do with Ryota Mochizuki. A feeling of apprehension came over him. A car accident. He had never been able to shake the belief that it had been suicide. And Yuuki had pushed him toward it. He couldn’t deny that fact.

  He was sure that Mochizuki’s mother was called Kuniko, so the next possibility was the woman Yuuki had run into at the cemetery the other day, the young woman of around twenty who might well have been Ryota Mochizuki’s cousin. The one who had glared at Yuuki. She was probably Ayako. The incident felt like something that had happened a long time ago, but the monthly observance of Mochizuki’s death had been only four days earlier. That same evening, Flight 123 had come down. All sense of time seemed to have become completely skewed since then.

  But what could she possibly want?

  Yuuki craned his neck to look over toward the editorial administrative section. He’d recognized the handwriting on that particular memo as belonging to Chizuko Yorita. Even if she didn’t know what the call was about, she might be able to tell him something about the tone of the caller’s voice.

  But there was no sign of Chizuko, and the surface of her desk was immaculate.

  “Kishi, where’s Yorita?”

  “What? Oh, yes, Chi-chan’s at the Maebashi branch office this afternoon.”

  Yuuki had seen her this morning when he’d woken up on the sofa. He’d appreciated her cheerful smile.

  “I thought she was transferring at the beginning of September.”

  “Kudo-san came and insisted to managing editor Oimura, said he needed her to transfer early. Tamaki and others have been assigned to the JAL crash, so when she’s not too busy she’s been helping out at Maebashi.”

  Yuuki nodded. Kudo, the Maebashi branch chief, was something of a panicker. He was about to turn fifty, but still, anytime the workload got a little too much, he’d lose it completely and come crying to headquarters.

  It’d be too awkward to chase her down with a call to the branch chief.

  Yuuki sat for a while, tracing the other number with his thumb before finally calling.

  He got the answering machine. The message on the tape wasn’t the prerecorded one, but Ayako’s own. It was a clear, strong voice, without warmth.

  He gave the paper’s name and his own in a monotone, promised to call back again, and hung up. He was afraid that she might call again at an awkward moment, so he’d decided it was better to say he’d call her.

  The breeze from the air conditioner felt stronger than usual, probably because his shirt was still damp with sweat. Or maybe because Chizuko Yorita wasn’t there. She always brought a cover for her knees and would turn the air conditioner to a higher temperature as soon as she arrived at the newsroom.

  Yuuki held the front of his collar closed with his left hand while he checked through the rest of the memos. Over half of them were from Tamaki. He began to regret having played catch with Rintaro for so long. He’d been so late back to the office that he and Tamaki had completely missed each other. There was still no reply on his pager, but Uenomura was pretty remote. It was the kind of place you would normally assume had poor reception.

  Yuuki thought about it. If Tamaki had called him four or five times in quick succession, it must mean that he had succeeded in making contact with a member of the investigation team and must already have managed to get evidence supporting his bulkhead theory.

  This didn’t necessarily mean Yuuki’s confidence in Tamaki as a reporter had increased. For now, all Yuuki could do was wait for him to call back. In the meantime, he decided to deal with the rest of the memos.

  There was nothing urgent. Miyata, the hiking club member from Advertising, had left a message asking if Yuuki had managed to meet Suetsugu, the rock climber who knew Anzai.

  Yuuki couldn’t forget his conversation with Suetsugu. Kyoichiro Anzai’s climbing partner had died on Tsuitate. Anzai had blamed himself for the accident and retired from the climbing community.

  Yuuki felt something nagging at him. He lifted himself out of his chair and pulled Anzai’s diary out of his pocket. On the black leather cover, “1985” was embossed in gold lettering. He opened it to find every single page covered in black ink. Every day was filled with fine writing, detailing Anzai’s schedule.

  He checked August 12. First thing in the morning, Anzai had taken some client or other golfing. A memory from that day suddenly came rushing back—the red T-shirt with the sweat stain in the shape of a baby’s bib. Even his mustache had been glistening with sweat. That day had been a scorcher. Anzai hadn’t mentioned that he’d had to play a round of golf out at the prefectural course that morning before he’d turned up at the staff cafeteria. But it wasn’t only golf. That same afternoon, up until evening, he’d visited five different newsdealers. And on the same day, the twelfth, there was something written in very tiny lettering in the margin. Yuuki concentrated on trying to read it. It looked like “LH.”

  Yuuki blinked hard several times to try to get his eyes to focus. LH? Or, possibly, the first letter was a C…?

  He turned the page. August 13. The only page on which Anzai had used blue ink instead of black. “New attempt on Tsuitate.” The lettering was bold and clear and circled several times over.

  He remembered something Sayuri had said.

  “He was really looking forward to it … Going climbing with you.”

  Yuuki shook off the sentimental feelings and moved backward through the diary. Most of Anzai’s schedule involved variations on entertaining newsdealers and other shopkeepers. Yuuki couldn’t help grumbling out loud when he saw what the average working day consisted of for an employee of the Circulation Department. Drinking alcohol, playing mah-jongg, singing karaoke; rounds of golf, hot-spring resorts, fishing trips. Riverside barbecues, bowling competitions—they were all there in his schedule. On every page, he spotted the name of some famous—or infamous—bar or club. The same “LH” turned up regularly. It appeared first on June 7, and then with more frequency, until, by August, it was scribbled in about every other day. It must have been a bar or some other place he used to entertain clients. However, unlike any of the other places, the annotation “LH” was always written in the margin, outside the allotted space for each date. Yuuki guessed it was some sort of special code.

  But his interest in LH soon faded when he discovered several totally unexpected entries in the diary for August: “Okuma,” “Isozaki,” and “Oribe.” These three names were known to anyone connected to the North Kanto Times. These men were three of the most prominent business owners in Gunma Prefecture, and also external members of the paper’s board of directors, holding consulting and supervisory roles at the company. Judging by Anzai’s notes, Yuuki could guess that, along with the head of Circulation, Ito, they’d made the rounds of several high-end hostess clubs.

  It was a huge discovery. There had long been a rumor that managing director Iikura’s faction was meeting night after night to lay the groundwork for overthrowing Chairman Shirakawa. They were aiming for a majority at the next board meeting. Here was Iikura’s oily-voiced right-hand man, Ito, along with Anzai, the man who idolized Ito and saw him as some kin
d of great benefactor. Their job had been to butter up and win over the external directors, one by one. And here it was recorded—dates, places, names. The scene brought to vivid life by notes on a page.

  However, rather than feeling disgust at this revelation, Yuuki thought he might have caught a glimpse of what had led to Anzai suffering a subarachnoid hemorrhage. His schedule had been packed, particularly the past three or so months. Every day, every night, he’d been charged with entertaining clients and conducting behind-the-scenes negotiations. However fond of drinking he might have been, staying out into the early hours for someone else’s benefit, flattering and wooing them, must have been a huge burden on Anzai. He’d had one day off a month. Sayuri had let slip the words “I think it’s terrible how hard they made him work!” And now, suddenly, Yuuki saw how right she was. But at the same time he realized that Anzai had used that precious day of rest for his trips into the mountains with the hiking club.

  He thought back again to Anzai’s behavior that day in the office cafeteria. According to his diary, he had been out the previous night schmoozing somebody, then spent the whole of the following morning playing golf in the blazing heat. Despite all that, he hadn’t seemed tired in the least. He’d never breathed a word about his work or the behind-the-scenes maneuvering. His eyes had had their usual twinkle, and he’d chatted happily about the next day’s climb. About taking the 7:36 evening train out of Gunma-Soja station. After promising to meet at the station, they’d gone their separate ways. But somehow or other, Anzai hadn’t gone to the station at all. Instead, he’d collapsed at 2:00 a.m. on the streets of Jotomachi, with its wall-to-wall bars.

  LH snuck back into his head. If it was a bar, then he could assume that was where Anzai’d been. But if that was the case, something jarred. If he’d been planning to go drinking that evening, then how could he possibly have managed to meet Yuuki at 7:30 at Gunma-Soja Station? Perhaps he was just going to drop by the bar early and then go on to catch the train. Or perhaps Anzai never had any intention of climbing Tsuitate? No, it was more likely that he’d always intended to climb but, when suddenly faced with the reality of it, he’d lost his nerve. And so, after parting from Yuuki at the cafeteria, he’d headed off to LH instead. Maybe he’d planned to apologize to Yuuki later by inventing a story about suddenly having to work.