“I’m afraid that’s not clear.”
“Do you know what year he left the school?”
Imanishi scratched his head. “Actually, that isn’t clear either.”
The principal looked perplexed. “That’s a problem. Then we’ll have to go by his age. What year was he born?”
Imanishi told him the date of birth.
“That means he attended this school under the prewar system of education, when it was a middle school. That
“What, here, too?” Imanishi felt dejected. “Was it the March 14, 1945, air raid?”
“No, this city was bombed earlier. A munitions factory was located here, so we were an earlier target. There was a massive air raid on February 19, 1945. It was then that the major part of the city was reduced to ashes. Our school was then located in the center of the city, so it was destroyed as well.”
“Then the directories of graduates and students during the middle school era were…”
“Yes, they were all lost. We are in the process of trying to reconstruct the records, but the older the record, the harder it is.”
“That’s a shame.” It was unfortunate for Imanishi as well.
“Yes, it is a shame. The school was founded around nineteen twenty, so it is a blow to us to have lost those records.”
“Is there any way that I might find out? I mean, regarding the person I’m inquiring about?”
“Let me see. You gave me his birth date, so one way might be to figure out when he entered the school.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have a fairly good idea of where the graduates from that time are now. There might be some classmates around who remember him.”
That sounded hopeful.
“Would there be someone like that in this neighborhood?”
“Yes, there is. He’s a sake brewer now. I think he was a student at just about that time.”
Imanishi retraced his steps to the city. The downtown area was made up of newer buildings. The outlying areas, however, retained the older houses. There was a clear demarcation as to which areas of the town were razed and which had remained standing. Following the high school principal’s suggestion, the destination Imanishi headed for was a sake brewery called Flower of Kyoto. He could see the sake warehouses from outside the wall. The front entrance was decorated with latticework common to traditional Kansai-style shops. A large “Flower of Kyoto” sign topped the roof.
Entering the shop, Imanishi asked to see the owner. Imanishi explained that he had been referred here by the high school regarding a possible classmate of his, one who had left partway through.
“Wait a moment,” the young brew-master said, crossing his arms and looking up at the ceiling. He made an earnest effort to recall. “I’ve got it.”
“Do you remember? Was there such a person?” Imanishi looked intently at the young man’s face.
“Yes, I’m sure there was. Yes, yes, he quit partway through. I think it was during the second year,” he said.
“Do you know where this student lived?”
“Let me see… I think he was boarding somewhere in town.”
“Boarding?”
“Yes. He said that his family lived in Osaka, so he was boarding here.”
“Do you know where he boarded?”
“It’s not there anymore. That area was completely burned down, so there’s no trace of it.”
“Do you know the name of the family he boarded with?”
“No, I don’t. He quit school soon after the second year started, so I don’t think any of the other classmates would know either.”
Here, too, the effects of the war proved a stumbling block in the investigation. At this point, Imanishi asked if he knew that a person with the same name had become well known in Tokyo.
“No, I didn’t know that,” the young master shook his head.
Imanishi took from his notebook a clipping of a newspaper article that was accompanied by a photograph.
“He looks like this now. Does this face look familiar to you?”
The young master took the clipping in his hand and gazed at it for some time.
“He was at school just for a short time, so all I can remember is that his face looked vaguely like that. So the fellow has become that prominent in Tokyo?” He expressed his surprise.
“Is the teacher who was in charge of your class still around?” Imanishi asked, putting the clipping back in his notebook.
“Our teacher unfortunately died in the air raid.”
That evening Imanishi went to Kyoto Station. There was still some time before the 8:30 limited express to Tokyo. He entered a diner across from the train station and ate some curry and rice.
It had been worth his while to come here. He had surmised what had happened; now he had confirmation. The seven-year-old boy who had traveled on foot in the mountain depths of Shimane Prefecture with his father, who had an incurable, loathsome disease, had run away from Kamedake and gone to Osaka. He was taken in by someone there. He spent several years growing up. He was probably not adopted. He might have been a live-in errand boy. That shop and the owner seemed to have been destroyed during the war. At any rate, there was no trace of them now. Following this, the boy went to Kyoto. He left in the second year of middle school and went to Tokyo.
The names Eizo and Kimiko had been made up by the boy when he had submitted the registration. Proof of that lay in the fact that the place of origin of this couple was not given. It had been very clever of him to establish his supposed parents at Number 120, 2 Ebisu-cho, Naniwa Ward, in Osaka. This was an area where all the original family registers had been destroyed in an air raid. His school and the city had also been largely destroyed during the war. There were traces of his past, but nowhere was there concrete proof to establish his personal history, a history he had taken such pains to hide. Naturally.
As Imanishi finished his spicy curry and rice and drank his tea, he noticed an evening paper left by another customer. He reached for it. Skimming through it casually, his eyes stopped at an article in the cultural section.
Excursions Abroad Set for Messrs Waga and Sekigawa.
Mr. Waga Eiryo announced that he would be departing for his trip to the United States from Haneda Airport at 10:00 p.m., November 30, on a Pan American flight. He plans to visit various locations in the U.S., starting with New York, and to head for Europe afterward.
Mr. Sekigawa Shigeo will leave for Paris on an Air France flight on December 25. Following his stay in France, he plans to tour West Germany, England, Spain, and Italy, before his return in late February. His trip to Europe is to attend an international symposium of intellectuals as Japan’s representative.
Reaching Tokyo in the morning, Imanishi returned home.
“It must have been tiring for you. It would be good if you could take a bath at a time like this, but the public bath doesn’t open until ten o’clock,” Yoshiko said, concerned.
In order to accommodate a bathtub, the Imanishis would need to add on to their house. It was hard for them to save up enough money to pay for it.
“It’s all right. I don’t have much time. I’m going to sleep for an hour.”
Imanishi gave his wife some Kyoto specialty pickles as a present.
“Oh, you said you were going to Osaka. But did you go to Kyoto, too?”
“Yes. It’s impossible to predict where we may end up in our line of work.”
“They say Kyoto is a beautiful city. I’d love to spend some time there,” Yoshiko said as she gazed at the label on the package of pickles.
“I know. When I retire, let’s take a leisurely trip there with my retirement pay.”
Imanishi lay down on the tatami.
“You’ll catch cold. I’ll lay out the futon right away. Why don’t you change your clothes?”
“No, I don’t have that much time.”
