“That’s right.”
“Lucky. All those hot springs.”
It was strange, but Ito’s oily voice didn’t bother Yuuki anymore. And it even seemed possible that he might be a little envious of Yuuki being sent to the countryside.
“Pity, though. We all had great hopes for you.”
“I haven’t given up, you know.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t put out a newspaper with blank pages. I plan to fill them with articles from Kusatsu.”
Yuuki looked Ito straight in his narrow eyes. He wasn’t sure if he should say it, but then he decided he had nothing to lose.
“Ito-san, when you were a child, did you have a happy home?”
Ito went pale. He tried to laugh it off, but instead his face just twisted into an ugly, pained expression.
Of course. That was it. A father who is always out visiting prostitutes does not make for a happy family life. Ito’s heart had its own dark storage shed of memories.
“Look after Anzai for me,” Yuuki said, without bowing his head.
And with that, he hurried after Rintaro, who had gone on ahead.
56
He imagined himself plunged deep into the heart of Tsuitate.
He could see the way over the edge of the overhang. He grabbed the rock in front of him and pried himself up. His head moved above the “eaves” of the roof, and his field of vision opened up. Not the rock face, but bright, open sky. A blue sky with autumn clouds floating carelessly by. He pulled himself up a little farther and the rock face came into sight. And on that vertical wall, balanced on his aider, as he secured the rope, the figure of Rintaro. He was grinning.
“You made it, Yuuki-san!”
Yuuki was overcome with emotion. He’d climbed it. He’d crossed the first roof, the most difficult obstacle of the whole climb. He’d done it on his first try at the age of fifty-seven. And Jun had helped.
He pulled himself up to where Rintaro was waiting and checked his watch. He was surprised to see that it had been two hours since he had begun his assault on the overhang.
“The view is great from here,” said Rintaro, as if he were showing off his private residence.
Yuuki followed his gaze. The clouds were floating across the Yubiso River and along the mountain ridge that ran from Shiragamon to Kasagatake. It was beautiful—enough to make him feel a little dizzy.
The events of the last seventeen years ran through his mind, all that it had taken for him to reach this point. All the faces, too.
This last spring, Sayama had been picked to be managing editor. He had experience, talent, popularity. It was a decision that everyone had supported.
Chizuko Yorita had become Chizuko Sayama and the couple had three sons. Chizuko would have liked to come back to her reporter’s job after giving birth to the first, but it was too difficult to balance the life of a reporter with parenting. She’d made a rather sad goodbye speech at her farewell party. “There are as many job opportunities as there are stars in the sky, but I only have one family.” It sounded as if she’d had to force herself to speak the words. Perhaps she’d made the speech in the hope that hearing the words coming from her own mouth would help her to believe them. Still, she seemed to be genuinely happy now. Sayama, too, was very comfortable in the role of father. The youngest boy was named Yuuzo, using the same character as Yuuki’s name. Sayama and Chizuko had thought it would be fun to name him after “Yuu-san.”
Hanazawa stuck with the Japan Airlines crash. He pulled one brilliant scoop after another: ANOTHER SEARCH OF JAPAN AIRLINES PREMISES TODAY or TWENTY EMPLOYEES OF THE MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT FACE CHARGES.
After the coverage of the crash was completely over, he took a recruitment test for Kyodo News Services and was offered a job. “I want to be able to write about world cases, worldwide,” he used to say, shortly before leaving the North Kanto Times. He was usually blind drunk at the time. He was trying to fill the vacuum left in his life after the JAL crash was over. He was in Sapporo now. Still single, so he probably chased after news stories even in his sleep.
Three years after the crash, Ayako Mochizuki came to work at the North Kanto Times. Her attitude was exceptional from the start. She quickly grew into a highly competent reporter who could strike fear into the heart of the NKT’s competition. She became the first-ever female lead police beat reporter at prefectural police headquarters. Although she was always extremely well-informed, she used to drop in occasionally at the Kusatsu branch office to ask Yuuki questions about working with the police. But her rather pure way of thinking never changed. Even now she was concerned about the gap between big lives and little ones.
There were major changes at the North Kanto Times. Shirakawa was deposed, and his successor, Iikura, also left the company, under a cloud of suspicion over misappropriation of construction funds for a new office building. And so it was Kasuya, the Conciliator, who quietly avoided all the infighting and was eventually rewarded with the top position. It was said that Oimura continued to strut arrogantly around the executive boardroom, but Todoroki went down a completely different path. He took a post as lecturer at Gunma Prefectural University. Kishi stepped into Kasuya’s shoes as editor in chief; Nozawa, ironically, became head of General Affairs, spending every day dealing with personnel issues. Yuuki would receive letters from both of them at the change of every season: “Why don’t you come back?”
Yuuki had spent the last seventeen years at the Kusatsu branch office. He put down roots in the region. After Yuka went off to university in Tokyo, they sold the house in Takasaki City and Yumiko moved up to Kusatsu permanently. She became a real country type. She also really liked the hot springs.
Next year, Yuuki would be eligible for early retirement. He thought he’d be happy to stay on part-time if it meant he could still be a reporter. He imagined growing his own vegetables while reporting from time to time on the daily events in the village.
“I climb up to step down.”
He could still hear Anzai’s words. But he also thought that the life he’d spent without stepping down had not been wasted. As long as you kept running from birth until death, falling down, getting hurt, no matter how many times you suffered defeat, you got up and started running again. Personal happiness came from all the things and people you came across, ran into by chance along the way. Climber’s high. Climbing with all your might, concentrating completely on moving up, never being distracted by the meaningless stuff around you. He’d begun to think it was a fine way to lead a life.
The wind blew through his graying hair.
“You promised.”
“Huh? What?” Rintaro answered.
“You promised, if we got to the top, you’d tell me something. Don’t you remember?”
“Ah. You’re right—I did. Okay, then. Next year, I’m going to climb Mount Everest.”
Yuuki nodded. It wasn’t surprising that a real climber would long to stand on the highest point on the planet.
“And?”
Yuuki hadn’t missed the way Rintaro had blushed earlier, back at the Two-Person Terrace.
Now Rintaro’s face turned just as red as before. In fact, redder—this time his ears and neck were crimson, too.
“When I get back from Everest, may I have your permission to marry Yuka?”
He’d already heard from Yumiko that Yuka was madly in love with Rintaro.
“Will you let me be the lead climber now?”
“What?”
“I’d really like to try. To climb lead.”
“Ah … All right. That’ll be fine, but…”
Yuuki grabbed the rope. He felt a new strength rush through him. Anzai! He called the name silently.
“So, let’s go!”
As Yuuki reached up for the rock wall, Rintaro hurriedly cut him off.
“Yuuki-san? About Yuka…?”
“I’ll tell you when we reach the top.”
It seized them both at the exact same time.
Peals
of laughter carried on the pure, clear air and reverberated around the mountain peaks of Tanigawa.
ALSO BY HIDEO YOKOYAMA
Six Four
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in 1957, Hideo Yokoyama worked for twelve years as an investigative reporter with a regional newspaper north of Tokyo before becoming one of Japan’s most acclaimed and bestselling fiction writers. Seventeen is his second novel to be translated into English. You can sign up for email updates here.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Louise Heal Kawai was born in Manchester, England. She has spent the past twenty years in Japan. Her translations include Tamaki Daido’s Milk and Shoko Tendo’s bestselling autobiography, Yakuza Moon. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Preface
Cast of Characters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Also by Hideo Yokoyama
A Note About the Author and Translator
Copyright
MCD
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
175 Varick Street, New York 10014
Copyright © 2003 by Hideo Yokoyama
Translation copyright © 2018 by Louise Heal Kawai
All rights reserved
Originally published in Japanese in 2003 by Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo, as Kuraimāzu hai (Climber’s High)
English translation originally published in 2018 by Quercus Editions Limited, Great Britain
English translation published in the United States by MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
First American edition, 2018
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yokoyama, Hideo, 1957– author. | Kawai, Louise Heal, translator.
Title: Seventeen / Hideo Yokoyama; translated from the Japanese by Louise Heal Kawai.
Other titles: Kuraimāzu hai. Engish
Description: First American edition. | New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. | “Originally published in Japanese in 2003 by Bungeishunju Ltd., Tokyo, as Kuraimāzu hai (Climber’s High)”
Identifiers: LCCN 2018006845 | ISBN 9780374261245 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PL877.5.O369 K8713 2018 | DDC 895.63/6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006845
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eISBN 9780374719166
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Seventeen Page 36