Bob van Laerhoven - Return to Hiroshima

And slowly slips downwards.

Dr Adachi opens his eyes with caution. He has the feeling that his father is close by, the dismal weight of his disapproving gaze burdening him. He looks out of the window. It’s already light. For a moment Adachi feels lost, as if he’s detached from his own body. For a brief second the feared sensation casts its merciless light over his life: that night, before he went to bed, he had knocked back a half bottle of whiskey. Adachi the drunk, Adachi the faggot.

“The genie is out of the bottle,” says someone standing in the doorway. “Metaphors can be so pretty, don’t you think Dr Adachi?”

Adachi turns his head.

The man in the doorway isn’t his father, but for some reason he feels the same fear as he did when he was thirteen and his father was standing by his bed.

The man comes inside, sits down on the bed and does something unexpected. He stretches out his hand and rests it on Adachi’s forehead as a parent might do when a child has a fever.

“How do you feel?”

“Lost,” says Adachi. The skin on the shovel-like hand is dry and scaly. Psoriasis, the police doctor automatically assumes.

“We’re all lost, Dr Adachi, from the moment we’re born,” says Rokurobei.

Aformal Mr and Mrs Shiga are sitting opposite one another at the breakfast table.

“What did we do wrong, Akane?” says Nagai Shiga.

His wife looks up at him. His wife has always had something furtive about her. “We did the best we could,” Nagai Shiga continues. “We’re no different from other parents. What else could we have done?”

“Perhaps he felt something in my belly,” his wife mumbles.

“Please, Akane. Don’t start…”

“My loneliness. My sadness. The life I no longer wanted.”

“You’ve turned that episode into…”

“Reizo was always such a lonely boy.”

“We did our best! Some things are beyond your control.”

“You were never there.”

“I had to work hard, all the hours of the day, to get us to this, to where we are now.”

“And where are we now?” his wife asks, her voice brittle. “That student you couldn’t keep your hands off when I was pregnant…”

“Stop this!” the economist barks stiffly.

In the corridor, ready to leave for the university, Nagai Shiga calls his wife to the door. Their long marriage has evolved its rules and rituals and they still have to be obeyed. The illusion of everyday calm is important to him. His wife comes to him, refined and unruffled, as he prefers.

“I gave him a copy of the photograph.”

“Who?”

“The inspector.”

“When?”

“When I walked him to his car.”

“Why did you do that?”

Nagai Shiga hesitates: “For strategic reasons. I wanted to find out what he already knew. One thing is clear: the inspector’s visit wasn’t only about our son. He knows part of the truth. I tried to throw him of the scent.”

“Why didn’t you want me to be there?”

“I was afraid of your reaction. I didn’t tell him everything, Akane. I only told him that my brother had given me the photo on his last birthday and asked me to look after it.”

“And what if he puts two and two together?”

“I might not have sounded very convincing, I know, but I didn’t have much time to think about it. People do the strangest things in the heat of the moment. It happens all the time. The inspector asked me why my brother was being so secretive. He doesn’t know that Tomio confessed everything to me.”

“If they find out that your brother was using his bank to launder Golden Lily money by investing it in Hong Kong it’ll be a national scandal, especially with the crisis. Then the name Shiga will become a synonym for shame.”

“That’s why I tried to make sure they’ll keep looking for the treasure. If they don’t find it in the Abukama-do caves then they’ll think it was moved or that the whole story was just a myth after all. The authorities will think that Tomio died because he refused to divulge its location. You know how careful the government is these days with the banks. There isn’t a single minister who would dare insist on an investigation into the Dai-Ichi-Kangyo Bank. Maybe, they’ll conduct some kind of inquiry, but it’ll only be symbolic.”

“But if I’m not mistaken the oyabun who ordered Tomio’s execution knows better.”

“The yakuza leader wanted to launder money by buying up companies in difficulty across the country. He was planning to borrow the money officially from Tomio’s bank, but he wasn’t planning to pay it back because it was revenue from the Golden Lily treasures. Result: laundered money.”

“Why did Tomio decide to steer his own course if it was all so dangerous?” He notices, and not for the first time, that her lips are thin. They’re now pressed together, narrow and disapproving.

“Rokurobei would have ended up controlling an important chunk of Japanese business output after the economy picked up. The international business world has known for years that our banks have close links with the yakuza and their criminal economy, but so much power in the hands of one oyabun was a step too far. Not to mention that fact that some consider him a psychopath …” Nagai Shiga shakes his head. “But Tomio had other reasons for not following Rokurobei’s instructions. Hong Kong is the biggest money laundering hub in Asia. By investing the Golden Lily’s money in Hong Kong he was convinced it would generate more revenue. Tomio was certain he was doing the right thing. He was thinking like a banker , Akane. He had faith in the power of numbers and presumed Rokurobei would see that his plan was better.”

“The oyabun was clearly not convinced,” his wife responded dryly.

“Tomio told me that Rokurobei is extremely nationalistic,” said the economist resignedly. “Tomio made a serious error of judgement. And sooner or later the mafia boss’s minions are going to be knocking on our door wanting to know what kind of relationship I had with my brother. You know the yakuza don’t like loose ends.”

“What’ll you do then?”

“Tell them what I did last night.”

“Are you mad, Nagai?”

“The best approach is to seed the truth with lies, Akane. I’ll tell them I received the photo from Tomio and I passed it on to the inspector. As far as I’m concerned the treasure still has to be found. If the yakuza figure that the police know about the Golden Lily, even if it’s bogus information, they’ll think twice about hurting us. They managed to camouflage Tomio’s death with a bank raid. They clearly want to be discrete, in their own way. But the death of another Shiga after he handed over a photo to the police with the location of the Golden Lily? Not even the yakuza would stick their necks out that far.”

His wife doesn’t look convinced. Nagai Shiga smiles: “Do you remember how I predicted economic growth all those years? It was only when the recession seemed inevitable that I changed tack. The scandal lasted two whole months. I stuck to my guns in every interview: people had misquoted me, had been selective in what they heard me say. I had warned about the recession after all. Now they see me as one of the first to predict the economic crisis and they call me a visionary. It’s all a question of perception , Akane.”