Yasushi Inoue - Counterfeiter and Other Stories

Kagebayashi did not correct her when she referred to him as the company president. Instead, naming a northside tea house, he said, "Toyama, shall we go to Wakimoto's?"

It was harvest moon, but it was cloudy and the moon did not show its face. At Teruko's words, both Kagebayashi and Toyama were peeking out of the car window, and only the driver was impervious to the moon. He was demonstrating his indifference — because there wasn't the slightest tremor in his body.

II

GOING to Wakimoto's had the character of going on to another party. Up until now, Teruko used to call Kagebayashi Mr. Managing Director or Kage-sama , but in the car and from then on she used the term shacho-san liberally and without exception. The probability of a personnel shakeup at S —Industries had reached her ears some time back, but when she watched Kagebaya-shi's manner as he saw Otaka off, Teruko knew that the shakeup had definitely occurred today. Then, on sensing through a well-calculated guess that Kagebayashi might have become president of the company, she had taken a stab at calling him shacho-san . Since it was apparent that she had not missed completely, she continued to employ this new appellative even after they arrived at Wakimoto's. Toyama, however, had been more discreet and had not called him shacho . Nevertheless, as Teruko persisted in saying "Shacho-san, Shacho-san Toyama was finding it impossible to continue calling him "Mr. Managing Director."

After getting to Wakimoto's, Kagebayashi, possibly because he felt relieved and relaxed, drank excessively — more than usual. Among his colleagues, he had the reputation of being someone who never became intoxicated, but tonight he got a little drunk, and he himself became aware of this by the wobbling of his legs when he got up to go to the toilet.

When Kagebayashi emerged from the toilet, he thought about the man who had exerted the greatest effort in getting him named to the office of company president and who had been happiest about the final result. This was a Director named Kitazaka. Kagebayashi felt that he just had to invite Kitazaka to this joyous place — today, right now. He had the rather sentimental feeling that he wanted to shake this man's hand and drink a toast with him.

Kagebayashi lifted the receiver of the telephone in the hall and called the southside restaurant. It was the proprietress of the restaurant who answered.

"The party is all over and everybody's just leaving," she said. Kagebayashi, heedless of all the other people there, had her call Kitazaka to the phone and told him where he was.

"Celebrating already?" Pretty fast! said Kitazaka. Then he lowered his voice to a near-whisper and added, "I'm coming right over."

A half hour later there was the sound of a car pulling up, and Kitazaka's flushed face appeared at the door of the room. He looked as serious as usual. On seeing Toyama there, Kitazaka looked at him as though he thought Toyama was out of place there, but otherwise ignoring him, he said, "Pretty fast, huh? Celebrating your presidency, I mean."

Toyama now knew definitely from what Kitazaka had said that Kagebayashi had really been made president of the company. Yon see, anything at all can happen . From then on Toyama also, without compunction, called Kagebayashi shacho.

At about that time, the moon appeared for the first time. When the moon came out, a maid opened the sliding doors of the veranda. Various forms of Japanese pampas grass were ornately arranged in a flower vase. Although the other people did not move from their places on the tatami , Teruko went out onto the veranda and sat down there to gaze at the moon. At this moment Teruko became clearly aware that she was really in love with Toyama and that she had slipped away from the southside restaurant just to be alone beside him.

The party was getting lively. Four or five young geisha appeared and surrounded the new company president. The woman who owned the tea house also went over and sat beside him. Kagebayashi was being called shacho by everybody. At some point along the line he began to get used to it, and it even began to seem natural for him to be called shacho.

"When a man makes money, he starts to want power and rank; after that, women; and when he finds no pleasure even in women, then it's prestige and decorations and honors, huh? What makes me think so is that even a man like President Otaka went blindly after decorations," said Kitazaka.

Kitazaka had joined the company five or six years after Kagebayashi, and in actual age he was in his mid-forties, ten years younger than Kagebayashi, but he looked older than the new shacho . He was of a sincere and outspoken nature and never frivolous.

Kagebayashi chimed in with, "Man is a very curious beast," but deep down in his heart, he realized that he — Kagebayashi — actually had always played a role in getting Otaka what he wanted — money, power, women, and decorations. How I suffered in secret because I tried to protect that man! It was no common ordinary task to be Otaka's wet nurse! The weight of all those long years of working like a horse under Otaka was suddenly bending the body of the reeling, drunken Kagebayashi.

"Um-h!" Kagebayashi unwittingly let out a little grunt as though he were groaning.

"What are you groaning about?" the proprietress laughed. But Kagebayashi found nothing to laugh about in what had caused him to let out a grunt.

Kitazaka was talking. Kagebayashi's attention was caught when he heard Kitazaka's words vaguely drifting toward him: "So, it ends up that this year's moon-viewing party at Kagiya's has been canceled."

It had been the custom every year for some twenty-odd officers of the company to get together with Otaka and hold a moon-viewing party on the evening of the full moon either in September or October. Kagebayashi would not entrust the management of these banquets to any of the young Division Chiefs or Section Chiefs but always undertook the responsibility himself. There was a reason for not simply fixing the date in either September or October. If it happened to rain on that day, they would certainly incite the displeasure of Otaka. As he did every year when September rolled around, Kagebayashi sent someone to the Weather Bureau to investigate the probable weather conditions; if he found out that it would definitely be clear around that time, they would go ahead with the preparations, but if there was the slightest danger of rain, he would postpone the moon-viewing till October.

This year too, the same as every year, Kagebayashi had turned his attention to the moon-viewing party. When inquiries were made at the Weather Bureau ten days before, they were told that it probably would rain in September around full-moon time, so they had given up and had decided to postpone until October. As it turned out however, instead of raining, it was a beautifully clear day. But it was on that very day that it was unexpectedly decided that Kagebayashi was to become the President of the Company.

Kagebayashi left his place and went out onto the veranda. To Kagebayashi's eyes, the hair at the nape of Teruko's neck, illuminated by the white moonbeams, was mysteriously tantalizing. This was a curious thing for Kagebayashi who had never before permitted his heart to be captured by women.

Then suddenly he heard Toyama's voice. Toyama, who had been talking with Kitazaka, called over to him. " Shacho , from now on, to commemorate this night, let's go moon-viewing every year. It would be a pity if the parties came to an end with the end of the Otaka era. So we ought to make a special point of seeing that they continue. What do you say?"

At that instant there suddenly flashed into Kage-bayashi's mind a vision of Otaka at Kagiya's in the big hall with its doors removed, majestically holding court at the head of the table at a moon-viewing banquet.