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The vice principal was a petite woman in her mid-forties, slim, attractive, and
nicely dressed.
Vice principal?
Ushikawa was puzzled. He had never heard that term
before. But it was ages ago when he graduated from elementary school. Lots of things
must have changed since then. The woman must have dealt with many people over
the years, for she didn’t blink an eye when faced with Ushikawa’s extraordinary
features. Or perhaps she was just a very well-mannered person. She showed
Ushikawa to a tidy reception room and invited him to take a seat. She sat down in the
chair across from him and smiled broadly, as if wondering what sort of enjoyable
conversation they were about to have.
She reminded Ushikawa of a girl who had been in his class in school. The girl had
been pretty,
got good grades, was kind and responsible. She was well brought up and
good at piano. She was one of the teacher’s favorites. During class Ushikawa spent a
lot of time gazing at her, mainly at her back. But he never once talked with her.
“I understand that you’re looking into one of the graduates of our school?” the vice
principal asked.
“I’m sorry, I should have given you this before,” Ushikawa said, and passed her
his business card. It was the same card he had given Tengo, the one with his title on
it: Full-time Director, New Japan Foundation for the Advancement
of Scholarship and
the Arts. What he told the woman was the same fabricated story he had told Tengo.
Tengo Kawana, who had graduated from this school, had become a writer and was on
a short list to receive a grant from the foundation. Ushikawa was just running an
ordinary background check on him.
“That’s wonderful news,” the vice principal said, beaming. “It’s a great honor for
our school, and we will do everything we can to help you.”
“I was hoping to meet and speak directly with the teacher who taught Mr.
Kawana,” Ushikawa said.
“I’ll check into that. It’s more than twenty years ago, so she may be retired
already.”
“I appreciate that,” Ushikawa said. “If it’s all right, there’s
one other thing I would
like you to look into, if you would.”
“And what would that be?”
“There was a girl in the same year, I believe, as Mr. Kawana, a Miss Masami
Aomame. Would you be able to check into whether she was in the same class as Mr.
Kawana?”
The vice principal looked a bit dubious. “Is this Miss Aomame in some way
connected with the question of funding for Mr. Kawana?”
“No, it’s not that. In one of the works by Mr. Kawana, there is a character who
seems to be modeled on someone like Miss Aomame, and I have a few questions of
my own on this topic that I need to clear up. It’s nothing very involved.
Basically a
formality.”
“I see,” the vice principal said, the corners of her lips rising ever so slightly. “I am
sure you understand, however, that in some cases we may not be able to give you
information that might touch on a person’s privacy. Grades, for instance, or reports on
a pupil’s home environment.”
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“Of course, I’m fully aware of that. All we are after is information on whether or
not she was actually in the same class as Mr. Kawana. And if she was, I would
appreciate it very much if you could give me the name and contact information for the
teacher in charge of their class at the time.”
“I understand. That shouldn’t be a problem. Miss Aomame, was it?”
“Correct. It’s written with the characters for green and peas. An uncommon name.”
Ushikawa wrote the name “Masami Aomame” in pen on a page on his pocket
notebook and passed the page to the vice principal. She
looked at it for a few seconds,
then placed it in the pocket of a folder on her desk.
“Could you please wait here for a few minutes? I’ll go check our staff records. I’ll
have the person in charge photocopy whatever can be made public.”
“I’m sorry to bother you with this when you are obviously so busy,” Ushikawa
said.
The vice principal’s flared skirt swished prettily as she exited the room. She had
beautiful posture, and she moved elegantly. Her hairstyle was attractive too. She was
clearly aging gracefully. Ushikawa shifted in his seat and killed time by reading a
paperback book he had brought along.
The vice principal came back fifteen minutes later, a brown business envelope
clutched to her breast.
“It turns out that Mr. Kawana was quite the student. He was always at the top of
his class as well as a very successful athlete. He was especially good at arithmetic and
mathematics, and even in elementary school he was able to solve high-school-level
problems. He won a math contest and was written up in the newspaper as a child
prodigy.”
“That’s amazing,” Ushikawa said.
“It’s odd that while he was
touted as a math prodigy, today he has distinguished
himself in literature.”
“Abundant talent is like a rich vein of water underground that finds all sorts of
places to gush forth. Presently he is teaching math while writing novels.”
“I see,” the vice principal said, raising her eyebrows at a lovely angle. “Unlike
Tengo, there wasn’t much on Masami Aomame. She transferred to another school in
fifth grade. She was taken in by relatives in Adachi Ward in Tokyo and transferred to
a school there. She and Tengo Kawana were classmates in third and fourth grades.”
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