That Man

That Man

by Tadami Yamada

　When I came across that man I was seventeen years old, an academic boys' high school student. It was the beginning of summer vacation.

　I lived alone in a local city Aizuwakamatsu where my high school was. My family, parents and two younger brothers, lived in an another local city Sapporo in Hokkaido. I would go back home twice a year. For summer vacation and winter vacation. In those days, the trip of between Aizuwakamatsu and Sapporo would take about twenty hours to transfer from the train to the steamer and again to the train.

　But, at that time, I decided to use an airplane for Sapporo. Because both express trains and special express trains booked up in advance.
　For using an airplane I had to go once to Tokyo.

　The express train for Tokyo which was the first train from Aizuwakamatsu was not so crowded. However It was the first class coach. The other coaches were filled to the limit. I took a seat in the first class.

　As the train stopped at the Inawashiro station of which the lake town, passengers were crowded much more. All of them were sightseers or summer visitors who were staying at lake hotels.
　A young man came the next seat of mine. Although he got once aboard the second class coach, as those were filled to the limit, he seemed to change his ticket from the second class to the first class.
　He talked in whispers with a passenger conductor for a while.
　He was in the company of a young woman who got hurt in the left foot. It looked very painful. It was obvious to everyone that she was hard to keep standing in crowd.

　To get new tickets the young man sat next to me. The young woman sat next to him with an aisle between.
　" Are you OK?" the young man asked her.
　She nodded without saying a word.
　They talked something for a while. Then he turned on the face, and lit a cigarette.

　And as almost finished his smoking, the young man came to talk first to me. At that time, I also first looked at his face directly. The face was common, but well-proportioned with a shapely nose.
　" Where are you going?" he said.
　His asking was unawares for me.
　" To Tokyo."
　"Have you been doing sight-seeing all this while?"
　" No," I smiled, "As my school's set in summer vacation, I'm going back to my home."
　" Where? Your school is not in Tokyo, is it?"
　" Yes, the high school in Aizuwakamatsu."
　The young man had an expression with inquiringly.
　It was a matter of course. But I didn't like to talk on myself, and I was reluctant to talk on myself. If a casual acquaintance would ask me about myself, then I wouldn't be impossible to talk. I was a little troubled by the strange young man.
　However, I thought in my mind that I would have to talk him in a word.
　" My parents live in Sapporo------."
　"Sapporo?"
　"Yes."
　"Well, are you alone------in boarding?"
　"An apartment. In cooking my own meals."
　"Oh it's hard! " he said, "------Me too as I rent the room in Tokyo,------Pardon me, but what is the rent on the room for a month?"
　"One bed room, one spare room, the kitchen and the lavatory------this is my apartment. And------."
　I told him the rent. It was the surprisingly inexpensive for city dwellers who were suffering from a housing shortage. I was sure that everyone would be quite a tempting cost. And the rooms were big enough for only one school boy to live.
　"Reeeally?"
　The young man said with a exaggerated intonation.
　"Very, very economy! I wonder I'll be in Aizu," he said as if the joke, and he wanted his companion, the young woman, to chime in with his remarks, "You know?"
　And he said to me, "My room costs fifty thousand yen a month," and to the young woman, "You know?"
　The young woman nodded in no any sounds.
　I thought it was too much expensive. But I didn't know a standard cost in Tokyo.
　So, I said, "You do."
　The young man looked about twenty five years old or so, maybe he was not past thirty yet. In such age, it was incredible that he could live the room which costs very expensive.
　Who ever can it be? What is he? ------I thought so.

　"Have you good times in the school?" the young man said for a change of the subject.
　"Oh yes, It is interesting and at least more pleasure than to be shut up in the house."
　"I haven't such experiences though, but I suppose it may be pleasure."
　I gave him to nod.
　"However you have hard things," he said, "You couldn't go back home if you wasn't in the long vacations, summer vacation or so, could you? And as so far."
　"Yes, indeed. But if I can think it is like another sight-seeing, I'll be------."
　"I see. ------Sapporo! It is fine, is't it?" he said, and after that, giving the young woman a poke in her right arm he said to her, "What do you think about just starting for Sapporo? But your foot will not do. But I want to go. Don't you think so?"
　The young woman nodded without any sounds again. She seemed to be too lazy to speak possibly for a pain.

　After a little while, he looked like to be bored, and talked to me again.
　"Why are you going to Tokyo?"
　"I think I will take an airplane."
　"Wow, airplane. How long does it take to Sapporo from Tokyo? That is------, it takes about two hours, isn't it?"
　"You do. If it were a jet-liner, it would take about one hour."
　"I want to go more and more. What is the fare?"
　"Er, ------ twelve thousand yen."
　"Hey, let's go to Sapporo by an jet-liner," he again called out to the company. But not to wait her answer, promptly he turned his face to me. And he asked me, "If your father rans the hotel in Sapporo, don't he?"
　"What?"
　"Hotel. Your father rans the hotel?"
　It was an unexpected inquiry.
　"No," I said.
　"I see. I guessed that if your father or your family rans the hotel, I want you to introduce there. ------But now I have hardly money. ------We have traveled, you know, around the Tohoku district. It was rather good."
　" The Lake Inawashiro yesterday?"
　" We planned to stay Inawashiro for several days, but we have only stayed for three days. This woman got hurt in the foot," he pointed at her left foot, "of a fragment of glass."
　I stared at her left foot in a bandage.
　"In the day as we had arrived, at the Lake Hibara, ------I couldn't observe that, maybe he did swim, and he got hurt maybe in the fragment of bottle or so, there had came the very man who was carried, whose borne cropped up. That looked ghastly. And, however, only one doctor was not there, you know, everyone was simply powerless. No one could touch for the worst. It was cruel to keep him in shedding blood. ------And then, the next day, this woman got hurt in the foot in the water, but it was nothing serious," he said.
　The young woman smiled. The white bandage wrapped up even above the ankle.
　"I have troubled that she said that she couldn't walk," he said.
　" But ------," she said first with the voice which I could here of, "It's a pain."
　The young man studied her left foot.
　"Last night, as I was bored, I provoked her to go to dance, but she couldn't go. I deserted her in the room, and I went to dance by myself," he said, and to her, "you know?"
　"But I was rather lackey," the young woman said, "That injured man turned pale. We did say how poor man we could."
　"It's difficulty doctor was not especially like that mountain sight-seeing. At least, if there is like a clinic, it would be good, wouldn't it?" I said.
　"As I observed the injured man the day before, and as it was awful injure, I was terrified this woman got the hurt."
　"And you left me alone behind in the room, went to dance quickly," she said.
　"Ha-ha," the young man laughed, and said, "Another thing."
　"What is another thing?" The young woman played to glare at him.

　Then, I guessed little by little that if they were a married couple or not. Because I saw them as a married couple till now though, considering that something outrageous atmosphere lay along them between. They were certainly a young couple. However a thinking of outrageous became a stubborn stain in my mind. On the other hand I felt self-scorn for thinking and observing of that, because I was so younger than they were.

　I said, "Where did you like in the Tohoku district?"
　"Well, the Rikuchu coast is good."
　"Talking of the Rikuchu coast, It is such as Kamaishi, Miyako or so, isn't it?"
　"There are black-tailed gulls, you know, ------if you’ll look down at there from an airplane, I guess the coastline would be beautiful. ------I was impressed by the magnificent Rikuchu coast."
　"Speaking of staying Inawashiro for three days and making a round-the-Tohoku district, ------Was it for a month?"
　"No, for two weeks we have been."
　"It's good," I said as if to myself.
　"But we are short of money, you know?" he said to the young woman.
　"Yet you want go to Sapporo," she said, and laughing, "Nothing yet."
　"Well, I don't care." he said.
　And there was a pause in the talk.

　The young man leaned his back against the seat, and pushing his head against the seat, closed his eyes.
　I turned my eyes toward out of the carriage window. I suddenly felt the vibration sounds of a diesel engine through my body.

　"Hey, have you some matches?" the young man said.
　I turned to him as I supposed I was called.
　But he didn't care of me, and was playing a empty match-box in his right palm.
　The young woman looked for her black leather, thin-sized handbag.
　"No?" he said.
　"Wait. Maybe I have."
　The young man tapped his shoe on the floor.
　"Got it." she said.
　She lit a match, and presented its fire to the young man. He put on fire to the cigarette in his mouth with half-closed eyes. And then she handed the small red match-box to him. He slowly smoked toward the ceiling. A column smoke formed a ring, and disappeared slowly, as if languidly into the sunlight through the carriage window.
　Whenever the young man made his eyes half-closed, in the blow one furrow would appeared. It was black and deep.

　Then, keeping to look at the ceiling he abruptly asked me, "Are there hoodlums in Aizuwakamatsu?"
　That was a unexpected word for me. So, I puzzled a moment what he said.
　"Eh?" I said.
　"Well, it's a none of your business," he muttered as if to talk to himself, and asked me again, "Hoodlums in Aizuwakamatsu?"
　" Hoodlums?"
　"Don't you know? About it?"
　"------Well, I can't tell------."
　"In the school or so, you know------"
　"Well,------."
　I was unconsciously guarding against him. Although I said "Well" to feign calmness, I asked myself in my mind what he was thinking about, what he want to find out of me. And I repented I was next to him. At least, this first class car with reserved seats was comparatively not so crowded, and had some vacant seats.
　But, at the same time, I was conscious of some enthusiasm to be coming in my mind. I watched the young man.
　He knocked the ashes of his cigarette once and twice. I stared at his hand, and stared a black, deep furrow to run in the blow of his well-proportioned face.
　"That's none of business, it is," he muttered. It was what he didn't talk to me.
　And he changed the subject.

　"In what line are you going to study in a university?"
　"I think I will to study the law."
　"Gee! the law------," he said, and grinning, "Well, I see, hoodlums, none of your business."
　I smiled ambiguously.
　"The lawyer, or the prosecution, you want to be?"
　I didn't give him any answer. I hadn't yet any concrete purpose. I felt as if I wish I could to draw solemnly a line between to study the law and to become a parson of judicial concerned. After distinguished those, if I was asked the reason to study the law, I mightn't be able to answer. I dreamed the art. Only the art that overwhelmed others drew close to before me. However it was a mere dream yet. As it was a dream, it allowed me to take this first opportunity to study the law. I made to behave cunningly.
　"If you will graduate from a university and if you will manage to passe the examinations, you can't become the lawyer at once, can you? I mean, how shall I explain it, ah, for example, the case of medical doctor once ought to become an intern for a while. Because the job requires a lot of experience. You know?" the young man said.
　"Sure, ------but I know a little," I said.
　"To carry out your study under some great lawyer, ------ well, I can guess it is so. If not so, I can't trust them too, you know. I can't feel at ease, you know. Don't you think so?"
　"Sure."
　"If you want to be in judicatories, it is better for you to become a lawyer ------ than a prosecution."
　"The prosecution is not good?"
　"Somehow, the prosecution is------," he said, and laughed, "Ha-ha, ha-ha."

　The young woman next to him seemed to have been half-asleep. As being surprised at his laughing, she looked at him with guilty eyes. But she turned away at once.
　In the carriage window, the monotonous scenery droned on and on.
　"I had been in trouble with them," the young man said.
　"What?" I asked back.
　The young woman turned back to him.
　There was a short silence.

　I was conscious of myself going down into some oddly sense. It might be because of the heat. The surroundings was somehow whitish. I felt as if I kept standing vacantly in a glare white sunny place; nevertheless, I watched clearly the row of the white covered seats, the young man, and the young woman. I watched them though, I couldn't guess how the young man felt, and what he talked about.
　I wondered I fretted over trifles. No, it was not. It might be what we talked about was not connected with each feeling at all.

　The young woman looked bored. She was blankly seeing the young man's mouth as if waiting indefinitely his next word.

　"Men was not hopeless without living seriously." the young man said bluntly.
　The young woman watched his mouth with an anxious look.
　Me too stared his mouth.
　Then the young man's mouth began to work like a machine which was poured into, or like a heart-lung machine which was working without loose.

　"My home town is Maebashi of Gunma Prefecture. My dad keeps pawnshop in the town. His shop is considerably big. He seemed to have me succeed his shop. But I ran away from home when I was fifteen, a junior high. I didn't go to junior high satisfactory. I had longed the society of yakuza. I thought there was not any contradiction in that society. At least, the yakuza society might have some firm, you know, without unfair treatment, it was different from the commonly world, you know, I thought that. So I left home. My dad disowned me.
　"But the yakuza society was a lot of conflicts, you know. Although I didn't recognize like that at first, but now, I strongly think it has many contradictions.
　"Even if I had come to realize it, I couldn't go back to dad's. I guess dad might show me into the house. Nagging about me doing. That's what is called a dad, I don't know though. I dare say. Nevertheless I couldn't go back. It would be good if I could go back at dad frankly. I couldn't. It would be good if I could.
　"------I murdered a man. For five years I've been in a prison. Though I am twenty five years old now, for five years in a prison, I've just released in this May. Even it is three months since. Within five years the outside's completely changed. My five years, I thought, that was the most important and the most necessary period for man. You know?
　"Those years never return to me. Never. I don't know if what I'll be able to do. A man like me, even if who was released, people wouldn't take. If they know what I am, I can't get a job. An ex-convict, an ex-convict, you know. I understand what I did. The fact that I had committed murder doesn't disappear though, even if I've released, there is not my place in the world. However I have to get meals, have to make a living, you know, It is possible I'll go back to yakuza society. Although I hate yakuza, I might go back to there. I think so recently. It's fanny, you know? It's a surely fanny thing, because It is what I should't think about. Even if I think it, I can't be helped. There is any people who try to listen to me.?　"You listen to me now, but maybe your suspicious is aroused. To know about me to leave a prison, thinking this man might hurt me, to make listening of worthless stories by this man, you might look down on me.
　"Pardon my speaking rudely. But I can imagine what others have in mind. Even if I'll hazard guess, It'll come true.
　"For five years I thought about many subjects. After leaving the prison, for three months I have thought again. It may be that I only want to speak too much, because everyone doesn't want to listen to me, and of course every yakuza doesn't talk about those subjects, you know.
　"I am writing every things on a note-book. Those note-books accumulate several now. Things I want to talk I wright entirely. Maybe there will be not any reader though, I don't stop to wright.
　"Do you like literature, or music, or art? ------You like it. ------Me too. I like Kahu Nagai. I just can't forget that mood, you know. The Kahu's complete volumes publish now, you know. I decided to buy that. And I also like, aha the name of author escaped, which was entitled "In the heavy stream". ------Rinzo Shiina? ------Did you read it? ------I was deeply impressed. That copy, and Kahu's novels.
　"But, sometimes, I think I shouldn't read them. I had better I rushed and I was heedless of danger without any knowing. Maybe it was on good terms with my feelings. Of course, it is fun to indulge in literature, you know. But that's all for me. In my situation I can't get out anything from literature to real world. In my inside, myself break up into two ways.------I hate the way of my speaking. ------This is only the problem of myself. Moreover, having problems, I am a man who is neglected by the world.
　"After the day that I had murdered others, I had become a man without any relations to the general public. Because I can't dream to make me to develop, you know, ------."

　The young man and the young woman got out the train at the station before Tokyo.
　I didn't know where they were going for.
　I turned my eyes toward out of the carriage window, and caught sight of the young man's back and the young woman who limped.

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Copyright(c) 2012 Tadami Yamada. All Rights Reserved.