Fishing for Stars

by Bryce Courtenay

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘No, Nick, I cannot continue! I must go away from you. I cannot be your woman. I am useless! I must let you go. You must find another woman to love you. But only understand, no one can love you as much as I do. It is not possible.’

  Anna Til, Coffee Scald Island

  SEATED IN THE BACK seat of the big Mercedes with the four Toyotas front and back we merged into the Ginza traffic. I’d left instructions at the front desk that Anna wasn’t to be disturbed by either the phone or the maid, and asked them to slip a note under the door. Not wishing to worry her, I didn’t mention the yakuza surprise in my note, but simply said my butterfly swap mate had invited me home and that I expected to be back by late afternoon. I added that the Apollo 13 capsule had splashed down and the crew were safe, adding several XXXs so she’d know I was no longer angry about the previous evening.

  Our Toyota escorts added to the traffic noise with their constantly blaring horns, which did nothing to speed us up. The Ginza seemed locked into an unvarying pace, perhaps because the traffic congestion appeared to remain constant, even in the small hours when, waiting for Anna to return, I had stared disconsolately down at the swarming vehicles from my hotel bedroom window.

  Though the constant din was muffled in the interior of the big automobile it was still difficult to talk, and it was not until we’d left the Ginza strip and moved into a comparatively quieter street – Tokyo has few quiet streets – that Fuchida-san did more than simply point out landmarks and features.

  ‘Duncan-san, you will now realise I am yakuza. I hope you are not too surprised.’

  ‘Very,’ I answered. ‘How else should I be?’

  ‘Ah, an honest man,’ he laughed. ‘What do you know about the yakuza?’

  ‘A little. My father is a Japanese scholar and amateur historian. I was born here, so he kept up my language and we often discussed Japan. Although the little I know about the yakuza is mostly from before the war.’

  ‘Then you are Japanese!’ he joked. ‘I also like to think I am the historian of the yakuza, but only since the war. Is there anything you wish to know about us, Duncan-san?’ He grinned. ‘Some things I cannot tell you, but others . . .’ he shrugged, ‘it’s okay,’ he said, using the English word to add a casual, throwaway and, perhaps to him, sophisticated effect.

  ‘Well, you personally, you are obviously not wakagashira, a lieutenant.’

  ‘No, I am oyabun. I run the Kanto, the greater Tokyo district and the area surrounding it.’

  I whistled. ‘But not just oyabun?’

  He laughed. ‘I control many oyabun. I am like the godfather of lots of mafia godfathers. There is only one oyabun above me,’ he explained. ‘In your country I am a criminal boss; in Japan, no . . . yakuza are part of our system.’

  I was conscious of not wanting to question him too closely, but my natural curiosity and the fact that I would probably never again be as close to a senior yakuza made me persist. Besides, he seemed willing, almost anxious, to talk to me. ‘In what ways are the yakuza different?’ I immediately qualified this by saying, ‘As I mentioned, I am aware of the Samurai origins, the tradition of honour and compassion, giri and ninjo−, and of noble deeds. Do they still pertain? Is that what you mean?’

  He laughed, although I sensed a slight embarrassment. I was to learn that Fuchida-san laughed a lot to cover a multiplicity of circumstances and evasions. When his twelve lieutenants – his wakagashira – were with him, they would echo his laughter, even when plainly they hadn’t been able to hear the cause of his mirth or follow his conversation. It was a Japanese version of canned laughter, sycophantic cackling. ‘We are more like a service business today,’ he replied.

  ‘Business? What, based on helping people?’

  Again the laughter. ‘More often persuading them, calming them down,’ he said with surprising honesty, then added, ‘The war . . . the Americans, they taught us a lot.’

  ‘By bringing democracy to Japan?’

  This time Fuchida-san’s laughter seemed genuine, but he thought for a while before answering. ‘No. They organised the yakuza. Before, we were just rival gangs fighting each other for territory, but they turned us into a united force.’

  ‘The Americans organised the criminal element? You mean, like the mafiosi?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Well they not only wanted to introduce democracy to Japan, they also wanted the Japanese people to understand and embrace it. At the time the various yakuza gangs were making huge profits on the black market by hijacking aid supplies handed out by the Americans. The Americans saw us as the enemy; they thought the people would associate democracy with criminal activity, making us rich while Japan starved. So they attempted to use conventional means to stop us – police, their own forces, the FBI,’ he shrugged, ‘but without any success.’

  ‘They didn’t stop the black-market activity?’

  ‘No, it didn’t stop. Not at first. But they realised then that while we were separate gangs we shared a Samurai tradition. They saw the potential of a covert unified force and they needed one to fight communism. The Communist Party was growing in leaps and bounds among the Japanese working classes. It was backed by the Soviet Union and the Americans saw this as a major threat to a young and, to the Japanese, alien democratic system. They needed a force that could,’ he smiled, ‘discourage communist and leftwing activity, a force that wasn’t directly associated with a democratic government, because democracy is supposed to embrace competing ideologies. Remember, Russia had recently been America’s ally in the war and it wasn’t so easy to paint communism as an evil force to a defeated and hungry Japan.’

  I was beginning to realise that Fuchida-san wasn’t simply a thug who had risen from the ranks of the yakuza by brutal force. Despite the comic-opera scene in the Imperial Hotel, I was dealing with a clever, informed and articulate man.

  ‘How did they go about this unification?’ I now asked.

  ‘Well, they needed someone who would work with US Intelligence, the rightwing political parties and big business, and they found Yoshio Kodama who, at the time, was in prison as a Class A war criminal.’

  ‘Why this man, Yoshio Kodama?’

  ‘He had all the right connections to all the forces that needed to be united. He was imprisoned before the war by the Japanese government for his involvement in several ultra-nationalist assassination plots. But he was too valuable to keep in prison, so they released him and he started working for intelligence in Korea, Manchuria and in Japanese-occupied China as a spy.

  ‘After this he worked freelance for the military industrial complex that was running Japan and preparing for war. He organised raw materials from other countries, China, Korea, any neutral country willing to trade with Japan . . .’ Fuchida-san laughed. ‘Also, before your war with Germany, pig iron from Australia.

  ‘The military government paid him commissions on all purchases and turned a blind eye to his control of the drug trade between Japan, China and the remainder of the Japanese empire. When we declared war he joined the navy, and by its end, at the age of thirty-four, he was a rear admiral. He had continued to control drugs in Japan and to all the regions throughout the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, where the Japanese forces used them to calm the local population. At the time of his arrest by the Americans as a war criminal it is said that he was worth one hundred and seventy-five million dollars US!’

  ‘Thirty-four! He was still a young man. Is he still alive?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘He was my mentor when the yakuza were brought together. He chose me and some other young kobun. I was twenty-three years old and just making my way in the yakuza when he made me one of his wakagashira, his lieutenants. Later he sent me to Tokyo University. I didn’t have the necessary qualifications, but he had influence and I studied logic and political science.’

  ‘I’m interested – how did Yoshio Kodama
go about it?’

  ‘It wasn’t all that difficult. Yoshio Kodama was a longstanding member of a powerful yakuza gang, although he was too young to be the oyabun. We, all the gangs, had great admiration and respect for him. He was the one man in Japan who could unify us by promising us a share in kuroi kiri [black mist].’

  ‘Kuroi kiri? What is that?’

  Fuchida-san spread his hands. ‘Duncan-san, there are aspects of every society where the government and the army cannot be seen to be involved. They are necessary and practical aspects of government influence such as paying bribes to ensure the right result, making sure that politicians see the national interest in the right way, making sure the right company gets the government contract. Sometimes a certain amount of persuasion of one kind or another is needed. That is the meaning of the black mist. Apart from violence, kuroi kiri is what gives us our power. We, the various yakuza organisations, agreed to unify and, through Yoshio Kodama, to work with the US Army Intelligence arm, G2.’

  ‘To do the government’s dirty work?’

  The yakuza boss nodded. ‘Of course. But first we had to be trained. The Americans are very thorough, and to let us loose against the communists and some of the new unions would look too obvious. I was chosen with Yoshio Kodama’s other lieutenants and taught how to find locally plausible excuses to break major strikes, to disrupt leftwing party meetings and to use violence to the best effect.’ He grinned. ‘To break all the right heads or kneecaps, to hurt without leaving marks. It was a natural progression for the yakuza – we have always been ardent nationalists. We were serving our country and we were proud patriots.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Do you believe you’re serving the best interests of Japan?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Yes, but now perhaps it isn’t so clear-cut . . . things have changed, the Americans have gone home. It is 1970. Japan begins to prosper as a democracy and is becoming a world power. Its government no longer faces imminent danger from leftwing forces.’

  ‘So, how have you adapted to these changing circumstances?’

  ‘You said your father studied our history. Then you will know that Japanese society has always done everything by strictly observed rules of behaviour. Traditionally there is a way to behave in every situation. But that is old Japanese history and now there is new Japanese history. We are a people who have had to adapt to new ideas, those that our old history may not have accommodated.’

  ‘No doubt old history includes your social mores?’

  ‘Yes, traditional behaviour has developed throughout our history. Since the defeat of Japan by America, traditions have changed more quickly than at any other time in our history and so the old ways have been replaced with new rules that have no historical basis and have not yet stood the test of time.’

  ‘I guess most people are slow to embrace change.’

  ‘Ah, to understand the Japanese it is important to realise that we must have a set of rules to follow in our daily lives.’

  ‘Do you mean morality? What is regarded as right and wrong?’

  He sighed. ‘You see this is precisely what I don’t mean. Japanese society doesn’t have a concept of individual morality or guilt, only collective behaviour that has evolved over generations. What one does, all do. Morality is a group experience and so is guilt. In the West you talk much about Japanese atrocities during the war. To us these were not individual atrocities. They were a collective way to wage war, common practice against any enemy. There was no individual conscience or guilt. When you hanged our leaders for war crimes you were punishing all of Japan, you were challenging our entire belief system. You were threatening us with change we did not understand, change without the benefit of practice or precedent.’

  ‘What about the young people? They are always the ones prepared for generational change,’ I suggested.

  ‘Not in Japan. Our young men were exhausted by the war; they thought of themselves as a collective failure.’

  ‘Are you saying there is, or was, mass confusion? People, even the post-war generation, didn’t know how to respond to the new world they inhabited?’

  ‘In the West it is the individual who has a set of behavioural rules. Guilt, morality, ethics are all personal standards, the individual is responsible for his own behaviour. Our religion does not teach individual guilt or morality. In Japan collective behaviour is safe behaviour and correct behaviour, whereas individual behaviour is dangerous and leads to trouble. So the people collect into groups and it is these groups that make the rules and teach them, especially to the young, about how they must behave. And so we are able to embrace the new ways necessary to prosper and compete with the outside world while maintaining the essential character of our own culture.’

  ‘And the yakuza as a power group is not alien to Japanese society, but a part of it.’

  ‘Yes, you have it. For instance, the yakuza group I belong to is part of the Yamaguchi-gumi. We are the Inagawa-kai, part of an alliance created by the honourable Yoshio Kodama. When we speak it is not one voice but four thousand voices in my region alone, and in all of Japan, many, many more. In this way we are seen as a legitimate power group by other power groups – banking, industry, manufacture, politics, agriculture, fishing and all the other sections of Japanese society. If there is a legitimate need for violence we supply it, or the threat of violence, then we prevent it. We will act in the name of the yakuza power group for whichever organisation requires our services.’

  ‘Legitimate need for violence?’

  ‘If one power group feels it has the need to discipline or exert its authority over a section of its own group, and it does not possess its own disciplinary force, it calls on us, the yakuza, to act on its behalf.’

  ‘But what if the section of the group that is being “disciplined” by you still feels aggrieved and wants to retaliate? Who do they call upon?’

  ‘Us.’

  I laughed. ‘But now you are acting for both sides? In effect disciplining yourselves?’

  ‘Ah, that is a good Japanese question, Duncan-san. That is my job, or the job of my honourable leader. He or I will decide which section of the group is to be supported.’

  ‘And that decision will be accepted by the disaffected group?’

  ‘That is the Japanese way. If they continue to object we will “persuade” them that it is pointless to resist.’

  I was receiving a valuable insight into the yakuza, but perhaps more importantly into Japanese society. We, that is the West, always assume that democracy is a logical idea and its ways can be grasped without effort, particularly the rights of individuals, whereas this simply isn’t the case. The concepts of individual freedom and equal justice for all can seem quite bizarre to the Japanese.

  ‘But what about the conventional justice system, does it not play a part?’

  ‘It is there to interpret the law. We will always cooperate with it.’

  ‘As a criminal organisation, isn’t cooperating with the law a contradiction in terms? For instance, what about conventional crime – prostitution, sex bars, pinball and pachinko parlours, drugs, extortion?’

  Fuchida-san shrugged. ‘Those things, yes, they are always with us. They are a part of any big city. We control them. Crime is not for amateurs; we are professionals and the police are professionals. We negotiate. There is room for both.’

  I must have looked puzzled because he went on, ‘Duncan-san, we try to maintain what you in the West would call the status quo, only it is more complex than that.’

  ‘But what if the status quo is not to the advantage of the group as a whole?’

  ‘Ah, another good question. If the status quo is not going to benefit Japan, the government must bring about change. The yakuza do not get involved at this level.’

  ‘But government and industry, it seems to me, are closely entwined. We have just negotiated a deal with Mitsubishi, and I understand that the present government has a strong working relatio
nship with the shipping industry, almost a controlling influence.’

  ‘Yes, shipbuilding is a vital national industry.’

  ‘So, if there was a strike in the shipyards, would the yakuza be brought in?’

  ‘At the beginning, under the Americans, yes, that would happen, but not now that we are a strong democracy. The government will send the police or the military, unless it does not wish to be seen to be involved in limiting the democratic right of unions to protest, then the shipping company would call on us.’

  ‘With the government’s approval?’

  ‘Unspoken.’

  ‘And government and opposition parties, do the yakuza play a part in deciding who will be in power?’

  Fuchida-san seemed alarmed by such a notion. ‘No, Duncan-san, we are now a democratic nation! Of course, we have influence in every political group and do them many favours in return, as long as they are not communists or leftwing parties who encourage disruptive labour unions and cause strikes and interrupt our national progress.’ The yakuza boss paused for emphasis. ‘Japan must be competitive with the rest of the world. Every power group must accept this. We would never interfere with responsible and progressive government. But it is our duty to control those disruptive forces that want to endanger our prosperity.’

  ‘But labour unions are meant to be the free voice of the workers, their way of being heard.’

  ‘Legitimate unions are acceptable, but if we had allowed the communists and their followers to control the unions, Japan would never have risen from its knees. If you receive a scratch or a cut you treat it immediately, you do not allow it to fester and make you sick.’