One Man's Justice by Akira Yoshimura

Author:Akira Yoshimura [Yoshimura, Akira]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9781847677150
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2009-11-08T13:00:00+00:00

It was raining the next day.

Takuya left the house with the simple map that Fujisaki’s father had drawn for him. Rain dripped steadily off the peak of his cap, and he could feel the collar of his shirt becoming uncomfortably damp from the water trickling down his neck. His glasses kept clouding over, but he felt exposed without them, so there was no way he would take them off just for the sake of being able to see properly.

Fujisaki’s father had mentioned a temporary office, but the factory chief was obviously just renting the premises of a vacant shop, whose old wooden sign above the door, paint flaking off at the edges, proclaimed it to be a fish shop. A desk was placed squarely in the middle of the concrete floor.

When Takuya stepped inside and announced himself, the glass door at the back of the room slid open and a diminutive man with close-cropped grey hair poked his head out to peer at Takuya. When he explained that he had come on the introduction of Fujisaki’s father, the man, who was maybe fifty-five or fifty-six years old, stepped down on to the concrete floor and sat at the desk, pointing to a low stool for Takuya to sit on.

When asked about his background, Takuya said that he had been born in Okinawa and that after finishing high school he had joined the army, first being posted to Manchuria and then moving on to Kyushu as part of an air defence unit. He said he had finished the war as a lance-corporal and was twenty-six years old.

‘Where are your parents?’ the man asked.

Takuya replied that they were still living in northern Okinawa. The central and southern areas of Okinawa had been the scene of intense fighting, so he thought that saying his parents were alive, but in the north, seemed a more natural response.

The man explained that the preparations for rebuilding his factory in Himeji were all but complete. ‘I’ll give you a job. We’re taking all the stuff I’ve collected here back to Himeji tonight by truck. Might be a bit rushed, but there’s space for you on the truck. Can you go with us?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I can,’ replied Takuya, without a second’s hesitation.

‘OK. Then be back here by late this afternoon. Regarding your wage, we’ll feed you, so how does six yen a day sound?’ he asked.

‘That’s fine,’ said Takuya. It was more than enough, he thought. His younger brother was getting almost four hundred yen a month, but had said that he was doing pretty well if he had more than one hundred and fifty yen left after food costs were covered.

Takuya expressed his gratitude, bowed and left the ‘office’. The man seemed likeable. He might be running a factory, but he seemed quite down-to-earth, much more humble than Takuya had expected for a man in his position. The fact that Himeji wasn’t as big a city as Kobe meant that food would probably be more readily available, and being able to leave that very day was a stroke of luck.

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