Chapter 201 - Name and Reality 124 {152 Solo} (361-362: Details of the First Contact with Sada Minoru)
"First, I'm looking at it as everything starting fifteen years ago in Shouwa 62—1987 in the Western calendar—during the Obon season, when Sada Minoru happened to appear at Boss's place, Yusen. That's correct, isn't it?"
"Nishida-san, you tracked it down that far?"
As he said this, Boss leaned back slightly.
"Back when Nishida-san and Yo-chan were in Engaru, Sada—the one who was just found as a corpse—happened to come to our place, and it all started when I spoke to him... A customer I'd never seen before, who'd never been here, started sipping his sake and the snacks he'd ordered with a gloomy face at the counter. I couldn't help but be curious, thinking there must be something going on... You understand, right?"
Continuing his statement, Boss sought agreement from Nishida, but at that time, Sada should have been in a situation where he was cornered in various ways regarding the cash flow of the company he managed. Furthermore, even in 'this land' where he had gone out of his way to visit, he didn't know at first whether the contents of the deed and the letters were true. This was because he couldn't perform an on-site confirmation due to the sudden heavy rain near the Jomon Tunnel where the Maeda couple had taken him. In other words, it could be inferred that his state of mind was the same as before he came. These inferences are likely correct, even looking at the testimony of the owner of the inn, Shinoyama, regarding his impression of Sada. There must have been a background that gave Boss such an impression.
"So, do you remember what you said to him?"
Yoshimura asked.
"To be honest, my memory is patchy, and I don't remember well what I said first, but it was probably something cliché like, 'Customer, I don't recognize your face, where did you come from?'... Regardless of what I asked first, I'm sure he told me he came from Sapporo. But after that, I think I asked, 'Why our shop?' though I don't know for sure. I feel like he dodged it with something like 'personal business.'"
"While you were talking about that, Sada asked about Boss's name, didn't he?"
When Nishida followed up with the question,
"Oh, yeah, that's right! Did Sada give a brief self-introduction first? After that, he asked for my name and was surprised, saying something like, 'Izumi is rare even for a woman in your generation, so it's precious to be given that as a man.'"
He answered with a bit of excitement. To be honest, as Boss himself had already described it as a "justification for misdeeds," he had probably heard from Sada about the gold dust being taken by Isaka and the others, so no particularly deep sense of guilt was visible from this series of statements.
"And after that, he even asked about the origin of Boss's name, right?"
When Yoshimura confirmed further,
"Exactly! You know the whole sequence of events, but how?"
Boss seemed quite surprised once again.
"Actually, regarding the origin of Boss's name, Takeshita heard various things from your cousin during an interview, though it was brief. And by chance, from other things, we happened to learn later that in the Ainu language, 'memu'—though the accurate pronunciation is probably 'men'—means 'a place where water wells up' or just straight-up 'izumi' (spring). Well, a lot happened, and it all connected within us..."
Nishida was using a roundabout way of speaking, but it seemed to get through to Boss.
"It was also a big hint that we heard from the bereaved family that Sada had a habit of making the other person's name a topic as a conversation starter. To conclude, Boss's name was taken from the surname 'Mende' of the person who is your real father, Mende Shigeyoshi, wasn't it?"
Nishida then struck the core of the matter. Then Boss said,
"I'm beat... You've even seen through the matter of that name! Is there even anything left for me to talk about one by one?"
He was exasperated in a way, but,
"No, no, I want you to tell us the accurate story properly,"
Nishida urged him, and he began to speak in detail.
"I said it a bit earlier, but that guy Mende, who's my biological father... you probably know anyway, but my mother is Ainu, and it seems he abandoned her and went somewhere while I was in her belly. It seems it was the result of him not getting along with my mother's father—my maternal grandfather. Apparently, Grandpa had pride as an Ainu and didn't like his daughter being with a Wajin (T/N: ethnic Japanese). But even so, leaving a pregnant woman behind is the lowest of the low, right? ...But it might be a stupid story, but my mother apparently still had lingering feelings for that good-for-nothing father, and she tried to give me a name derived from his name. My mother was really a fool..."
After Boss said that, he gulped down his tea and continued.
"However, a name associated with Shigeyoshi... For example, if she gave me Shigeichi, Shigetarou, or Yoshiharu, even if Grandpa wasn't fluent in Japanese, it could be found out from the shape of the characters and cause a lot of trouble. And even if she just changed the characters and used the reading to name me Jutarou, it would be found out by the sound, so she decided to give it a twist. So, she thought of giving me a name associated with the surname Mende instead of the given name Shigeyoshi... And, as Nishida-san said earlier, in Ainu, 'memu' means 'a place where water wells up' or 'spring,' and the pronunciation is almost 'men.' I don't know much Ainu and can't speak it well, so I don't know if it's true... But since you can also say 'Mende' with the Japanese kanji for 'to come out' (de) added to the Ainu 'memu,' the two together become the very 'spring' (izumi) where water wells out, right? My mother also thought that for me, born between an Ainu and a Wajin, 'Izumi,' which combines the meanings of both, was perfect... In that case, the stubborn Grandpa was bad at Japanese to begin with, the characters didn't match, and the reading was different, so she changed it in various troublesome ways. Since taking it from a surname was also unthinkable, it went as my mother expected and wasn't found out. Well, even so, a name like Izumi isn't that rare now, but when I was little, it was a name that even women wouldn't be given, just like Sada said. So, along with this face that doesn't look Japanese, I was teased quite a bit by my peers... Fortunately, I was blessed with school teachers, and I was quite strong in a fight, so I wasn't bullied or anything... Depending on the person, just having Ainu blood seemed to lead to various things back then... You understand that part, right?"
Nishida and the others were in a situation where it was hard to either affirm or deny, so they gave an ambiguous response to Boss's question. Boss understood the atmosphere, went silent for a moment, and then said,
"Well, anyway, my mother told me all sorts of things like that, belatedly, on the night before I graduated middle school and finally left home to go to an apprenticeship at a small restaurant in Abashiri. I knew that my real father was someone else, but that was the first time I heard about it in detail, about my father's name, and about the reason my name was given. Well, there were no photos, so I never did get to know what his face looked like... Regarding the name, since I was teased by those around me, I think I complained a few times as a kid, like 'Why did you give me a name like this?' but my mother didn't say anything then... Well, anyway, after that, my mother, who had a kid in tow, happened to meet my stepfather, Inazo-no-tou-chan, who was on duty at the Engaru Station, and they apparently fell in love. But since both sets of parents wouldn't approve, they remained in a common-law relationship. Inazo-no-tou-chan took good care of both my mother and me, but he died in a naval mine accident after being stationed at a residential police box... Grandpa had died before that, and my mother lost the head of the household and continued to struggle as a single mother. Being able to show a bit of filial piety at the end of her life was a small mercy in the midst of misfortune."
He continued. Hearing Boss's story, both Nishida and Yoshimura well understood his feelings about immediately using the large sum of money he extorted from Isaka Daikichi to get a new tombstone for Boss's mother, Michi.
"When you told that story to Sada, wasn't he considerably surprised?"
"Yo-chan, that's certainly how it was. At first, he was listening normally, but toward the end, he was leaning over the counter, and at that time, I must have thought, 'Why is he so excited?' That's natural, right? Because a customer I met for the first time was getting that serious about my trivial life story."
Answering Yoshimura like that, Boss had distant eyes, as if remembering that time.
"So what did he do, Sada?"
Nishida took a turn as the listener this time.
"While still excited, he persistently asked, 'Is that story true?' so I think I said something like, 'Customer, give me a break. There's no point in telling a lie like this, is there?'... Then this time, he confirmed the kanji of my father's name and my age, and as a result, he was extremely happy. I didn't really know what was what at the time, but he even asked for a handshake, saying, 'I'll come again soon. I might be able to bring good news'... Leaving his snacks and sake as they were, he took the matchbox for customers we put out at the shop, left ten thousand yen saying he didn't need change, and walked out."
He recounted.
From Sada's perspective, the unexpected orphan of Mende had suddenly appeared before his eyes, and that very existence clearly backed up the credibility of that letter and deed. Thus, the fact that his gloomy state of mind up to that point had completely changed was a very easy-to-understand event. And the "good news" probably meant that in the matter of the gold dust being snatched away, he would make Isaka return that portion to Boss or pay compensation.
Just as Boss had donated a portion of the extorted money to a charitable organization, for Sada as well, tracking down the person to whom the gold dust should have originally gone and making Isaka atone for it must have been a kind of penance, or something that would thin his sense of guilt. Also, Nishida speculated that Sada had taken the shop's matchbox because the shop's address and phone number were listed on it.
However, ironically, although he had tried to betray him once immediately after obtaining the gold dust after the war, Isaka Daikichi had continued to keep the gold dust without exchanging it for the sake of Mende and Mende's orphan. And when he changed his own name after the war, he had gone out of his way to take one character from Mende Shigeyoshi, changing Tasuke to Daikichi. This was a point that neither Sada nor Boss should have known.
"After that, when did Sada come here?"
To Nishida's subsequent question,
"However, (Sada's visit) that was the first and last time... Thinking back later, it's a natural story since he had been killed before he could come."
Unexpected words were told from Boss's mouth.
"Eh? He didn't come at all?"
Yoshimura shouted involuntarily, but Nishida felt the same way. If that were the case, the assumed plot would go awry. This was because Nishida thought Boss had been told by Sada that he would meet Isaka and settle the matter. As far as hearing Boss's current testimony, such a story should not have been revealed at the time of the first contact. The two were quite perplexed. However, that reasoning was not completely wrong.
"It's certain that the man himself didn't come. But, you see, after a short interval, a letter came instead."
"A letter!?"
"Yeah, that's right."
While the two were surprised, Boss slowly stood up from the low table, took a somewhat large envelope from a dresser drawer nearby, placed it on the low table, took out what looked like stationery from inside, and lined them up in front of the two. Then,
"Including the story about the snatching earlier, with Sada's letter and a copy of a letter Sada's older brother wrote long ago that Sada sent, you should be able to understand the general circumstances."
He explained.
On the envelope, the fact that "Express Mail" was printed in red ink first caught the eye, but Nishida tried to pick up the contents of the envelope that had been put out for the time being. But Yoshimura restrained him and, while taking the envelope, pointed this out to Nishida.
"Section Chief Assistant! Look at the postmark on the envelope!"
At Yoshimura's words, Nishida looked at the place where the stamp was pasted. Then, the postmark was printed as "Kitami 62.9.25 18-24." And, whether the insufficient amount for the stamp was paid separately at the post office, a revenue stamp issued by the Kitami Post Office was pasted in addition to the stamp, and "Kitami KITAMI 62 87.9.25" was also printed there (Author's Note: The meaning of these will be explained collectively later).
"Oh! You noticed well!"
Nishida praised Yoshimura, but with this, the reason why there was witness information (foreshadowing later) that on September 25, Shouwa 62 (1987), after finishing a dinner at a different hotel's kappou restaurant with Isaka Daikichi and former Prefectural Assembly Member Matsushima, and returning to his own hotel room, he went out again after 10:00 PM and asked the front desk "Where is the mailbox?" while carrying a large envelope, became clear.
Almost certainly, the Sada Minoru of that time asked for the location of the mailbox in order to send this envelope to Boss. However, perhaps he became worried about the insufficient postage, or perhaps he decided to make it express mail to ensure it was delivered by hand; in reality, it should be that Sada went not to a mailbox but to the Kitami Post Office, a collection and delivery office that is open even late at night, and sent this envelope.
"With this, the meaning of that action of Sada's has been clarified."
Yoshimura showed a slight smile at the result of his discovery, but that smile soon vanished. That was natural. Because from here on, even more painful things were waiting...
While thinking that, looking further at the back of the envelope, the accurate address of Sada Minoru's house was written. It seemed he had no intention of faking not only his name but also his address.
"Umu. Then, shall we check the contents of the envelope?"
Saying so, Nishida again took the contents in his hand and checked. There was no mistake: a letter in what seemed to be Sada Minoru's fine handwriting, and a copy of the letter left by Sada Toru to the Sada parents, which described the circumstances of the deed's creation. And he decided to first look at the letter in Sada Minoru's own handwriting.
Author's Note: Mentioned later
I think it's easy to understand the postmarks and the revenue stamps issued by the post office (things like stamps attached to mail, issued when presented at the counter and stamps are not pasted or the insufficient amount is paid in cash) by looking at the images on this other person's site.
https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/goi279/GALLERY/show_image.html?id=33512261&no=0
The thing like a white stamp pasted on the upper right of the envelope is the so-called (postal) revenue stamp, which I think many people have seen. The issuing office (sending office) and the date of issue are recorded on it, and it also serves as the postmark.
In addition, the postmark pressed so that the stamp cannot be used again naturally itself becomes a print proving the date of mailing, and the numbers such as "18-24" at the bottom of the round type postmark represent the "time period of mailing."
Normally, the Japanese calendar is used for postmarks, but for the date on the revenue stamp, it is also a normal pattern to have the Western calendar notation written together in the upper row.
Foreshadowing later
Revised Edition: Light and Shadow 27 (Position about two-fifths from the top with the scroll bar)
http://ncode.syosetu.com/n5921df/48/