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participants? Is that what you are saying?”
“That would be handled, uh,
‘case by case,’
as they say in English,” Ushikawa said
with apparent difficulty. “I am not the one who decides, so I can’t say specifically, but
some steps will have to be taken, I should think.”
“And your arms are both long and strong.”
“Exactly.
Very
long, and
very
strong, as I mentioned before. So, then, Mr. Kawana,
what kind of answer can we hope for from you?”
“Let me first say that for me to accept money from you people is out of the
question.”
Without speaking, Ushikawa reached for his glasses, took them off, carefully
wiped the lenses with a handkerchief he produced from his pocket, and put them back
on, as if to say that there might be some sort of connection between his vision and
what he had just heard.
“Do I understand this to mean that you have rejected our offer?”
“That is correct.”
Ushikawa stared at Tengo through his glasses as if he were looking at an oddly
shaped cloud. “And why would that be? In my humble opinion, it is by no means a
bad deal for you.”
“In the end, all of us connected with the story are in the same boat. It’s out of the
question for me to be the only one who runs away”
“I’m mystified!” Ushikawa said, as if truly mystified. “I can’t understand it. I
maybe shouldn’t say this, but none of the others are the least bit concerned about you.
It’s true. They throw a little spare change your way and use you any way they like.
And for that you get dragged into the mess. If you ask me, you’d be totally justified to
tell them all to go to hell. If it were me, I’d be fuming. But you’re ready to protect
them. ‘It’s out of the question for me to be the only one who runs away,’ he says!
Boat schmoat! I don’t get it. Why won’t you take it?”
“One reason has to do with a woman named Kyoko Yasuda.”
379
Ushikawa picked up his cold café au lait and winced as he sipped it. “Kyoko
Yasuda?”
“You people know something about Kyoko Yasuda,” Tengo said.
Ushikawa let his mouth hang open, as if he had no idea what Tengo was talking
about. “No, honestly, I don’t know a thing about a woman by that name. I swear,
really. Who is she?”
Tengo looked at Ushikawa for a while, saying nothing, but he could not read
anything on his face. “A woman I know.”
“Would she, by any chance, be someone with whom you have a
… relationship
?”
Tengo did not reply to that. “What I want to know is whether you people did
something to her.”
“Did something? No way! We haven’t done a thing,” Ushikawa said. “I’m not
lying. I just told you, I don’t know a thing about her. You can’t
do
anything to
somebody you’ve never even heard of.”
“But you said you hired a capable ‘researcher’ and investigated every last thing
about me. He even hit upon the fact that I had rewritten Eriko Fukada’s work. He
knows a lot about my private life, too. It only makes sense that he should know about
Kyoko Yasuda and me.”
“Yes, it’s true, we have hired a capable researcher. And he has been finding out
about you in great detail. So it could be that he has discovered your relationship with
Kyoko Yasuda, as you say. But even assuming he has discovered it, the information
has not reached me.”
“I was seeing Kyoko Yasuda for quite some time,” Tengo said. “I used to see her
once a week. In secret. Because she had a family. But suddenly one day, without
saying a word to me, she disappeared.”
Ushikawa used the handkerchief with which he had wiped his glasses to dab at the
sweat on the tip of his nose. “And so, Mr. Kawana, you think that, in one way or
another, we have something to do with the fact that this married woman disappeared,
is that it?”
“Maybe you informed her husband that she was seeing me.”
Ushikawa pursed his lips as if taken aback. “What possible reason could we have
for doing such a thing?”
Tengo clenched his fists in his lap. “I keep thinking about something you said on
the phone the last time we talked.”
“And what could that have been?”
“Once you pass a certain age, life is just a continuous process of losing one thing
after another. One after another, things you value slip out of your hands the way a
comb loses teeth. People you love fade away one after another. That sort of thing.
Surely, you must remember.”
“Yes, I remember. I did say something like that the other day. But really, Mr.
Kawana, I was just speaking in generalities. I was offering my own humble view of
the pain and difficulty of aging. I certainly was not pointing specifically to What’s-
her-name Yasuda.”
“But to my ears it sounded like a warning.”
380
Ushikawa gave his head several vigorous shakes. “Nothing of the sort! It wasn’t
even remotely meant as a warning. It was simply my personal view. Really, I swear, I
don’t know anything at all about Mrs. Yasuda. She disappeared?”
Tengo went on, “And you also said this: if I go on refusing to listen to you people,
it might have an undesirable effect on everyone around me.”
“Yes, I did say something like that.”
“Isn’t that a warning too?”
Ushikawa stuffed his handkerchief into his jacket pocket and let out a sigh. “True,
it might have sounded like a warning, but there, too, I was speaking strictly generally.
I’m telling you, Mr. Kawana, I don’t know anything about this Mrs. Yasuda. I’ve
never even heard the name. I swear to all the gods and goddesses of heaven and
earth.”
Tengo studied Ushikawa’s face again. This man really might not know anything
about Kyoko Yasuda. The expression of bewilderment on his face certainly looked
like the real thing. But even if
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