Pathway to Japanese Literature

“Ohoho.”
“So you want me to give you dynamite because you intend to go to Ethiopia—is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s easily done.”
“Ohoho.”

The female owner of the Newbari Coal Mine, Shinbari Mineko, laughed with lighthearted cheer.

Shinbari Mineko—the formidable woman who had risen from silent film stardom to become the second wife of Shinbari Takuma, the so-called Coal King of Chikuhō, swiftly overthrew his first wife to secure her position as legal spouse, then upon her husband’s sudden death inherited the lucrative empire built on the labor of over two thousand convicts without allowing so much as a whisper of collapse—accepted this reckless demand without so much as a flicker in her composure.

Looking nothing like forty—with neckline makeup, shaved-and-redrawn eyebrows, crimson lips, boldly patterned tanzen robe befitting a femme fatale, hair styled in a wrapped comb—
she showed boldness that defied the Gothic parlor’s opulence through bare white feet and crimson slippers, sinking her voluptuous pale flesh deep into the damask-silk armchair—its raw silk padding another testament to the coal king’s extravagance.
The young man subjected to her smile—delivered through long-lashed double eyelids beneath which she fixed large black eyes with predatory focus—appeared utterly entranced, overwhelmed by her brazen audacity and venomous allure.

Though wearing a shabby brown suit fastened with a seemingly makeshift red tie that clashed discordantly, the young man—with his pale, noble-like features that might have suited a new theater actor—now appeared all the more youthfully childlike in his startled state: brown eyes widened with apparent innocence, thin lips parted slackly in astonishment.

“You’ll consent...?”

Halfway through speaking, the young man's lips trembled.

"My... To say you'll go to Ethiopia or wherever, yet you've no courage to speak of."
"How rude of me... Ohohoho."

The young man flushed crimson in an instant. Then he suddenly turned pale again and thoroughly wiped away the fresh sweat beading on his white forehead hidden beneath disheveled hair with his palm.

“Really… You’ll give…”

“Yes, yes.
If I said I would provide it to you, I will certainly do so.
I am Shinbari Mineko… but do you truly intend to go to Ethiopia?”

“What?… Why do you ask?”

“Why, if you truly intend to go, I’ll provide it.
It’s nothing serious… Igura… I’ve always had a soft spot for Ethiopia.
If I were a man, I’d want to go myself—that’s how strongly I feel about it.”

“I... I really will go.”

The young man’s eyes glowed with fervor.

Mineko’s eyes reflected back the same degree of fervor.
With a supple nod of her bluish-tinged nape, she leaned forward from the chair.

“May I ask you something?”
“Why ever did you decide to undertake such a thing?”
“Just you alone?… And your comrades?…”

The young man seemed to flinch, but soon laughed coldly.
Having finally mustered his courage, he let out a soft sigh.

“Of course I’m not acting alone.”
“We have around twelve comrades.”

“My, twelve people... That’s quite a handful.”
“Can you truly manage to reach Ethiopia with so many people?”
“First of all, can you really carry such dangerous explosives and escape the mainland?”
“If something were to go wrong, I would find myself in quite a predicament too.”
“Because they’ll trace where the dynamite came from immediately through the serial numbers.”

The young man nodded deeply and deliberately.
With an air that said he knew such matters all too well... Then he dropped both sugar cubes into the cold black tea before him.

“There is absolutely no need for concern on that point. Since matters have reached this stage, there’s no reason to conceal anything—I’ll confess. To tell the truth, even among our comrades, five are government officials.”

“My… Government officials… Why…”

“It’s like this.”
“Please listen.”
“All twelve of us received tuition from Tokyo’s political organization—the East Asia Society—to complete our schooling. But five among us became government-commissioned military spies who primarily investigated conditions across regions stretching from Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia, and Arabia through Suez to East Africa.”
“Though personally, these past two or three years I’ve been working at a general store in Port Said as a liaison.”

“My.”
“Has the Japanese government’s reach extended even to such places?”

“Yes.
“That’s right… Unless they keep devising plans step by step like that, the imperialist government can’t function.”

“...Therefore, the other seven comrades besides these five were all Turks and Arabs… The bold ones even disguised themselves as blacks to investigate the white factions coveting and working to exploit the advantageous natural resources of those regions.
“Japan’s forces will soon drive out British, French, and Russian influence from Xinjiang through Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet—we’re now preparing for when we extend our reach from Central Asia to Africa…”

“My.”
“How gallant.”
“It makes me shiver.”
“Such talk...”

“Then came this Ethiopian war.”
“This current conflict between Italy and Ethiopia was originally instigated by British capitalists who cleverly manipulated both sides to disrupt Europe’s power balance and seize Ethiopian interests—but having it resolved neatly in Britain’s favor would be intolerable.”
“It’s absolutely imperative to escalate this into an Anglo-Italian war, plunge Europe into chaos once more, leave Russia’s Far Eastern policy neglected, and during that interval crush both British and French influence in China’s hinterlands along with Communist Army bases—that being the intention of Japan’s authorities.”

“Do you truly believe matters will unfold so smoothly?”

“We will see it through. Once Britain and Italy merely commence hostilities—that alone suffices…”

“Can you truly compel them to initiate war with such ease?”

“It’s nothing difficult. Italy’s air force has long been formulating strategies targeting Britain, believing that if they can just strike Britain down, Italy will become Europe’s foremost power. Meanwhile, Britain’s navy—working in lockstep with major arms manufacturers—is locked in a standoff over the League of Nations’ sanctions against Italy. This makes the timing extremely favorable. At this point, all we need to do is blow up any British warship in Suez—they’ll immediately blame Italy and start the war. Westerners are quick to anger and easily panicked, you see. The Spanish-American War was like that too, wasn’t it? It all started when American pork canning companies, eager to profit from war, had a Spanish warship in Cuba blown up.”

“So you’re all in Suez, then.”

“Yes… Actually, that’s right.”
“For convenience I said Ethiopia, but it’s actually Suez.”
“All twelve of us will disembark at Suez disguised as exchange students bound for Germany, pretend to sightsee Port Said, and investigate the harbor’s conditions.”
“Meanwhile, five or six men from the divided group would retrieve their own luggage—each piece thrown into the sea with buoys attached along the way—gather their respective materials, and assemble a single contact mine.”
“But... but... The difficult part ends there—the rest is nothing.”

“Is that how it is?”

“We wrap the mine’s exterior in a basket to make it look like a lunch basket or something. Then five or six men chosen by lottery board a boat and head far out to sea under the guise of pleasure cruising.”
“Then after night falls, they’ll pretend to row back and ram it into a British warship—the plan is for those five or six men to be blown to smithereens along with the warship.”

“My, how dreadful…”

“Of course, in the plan up until our departure from Tokyo, we were supposed to create a clockwork mine and quietly sink it beside a British warship.”
“Because otherwise the authorities wouldn’t permit it…”

“Quite so.
“You must do so…”

“However, to ensure not even a single mistake occurs, clockwork mines are too dangerous.
If [the mine] were suspected midway and hauled up by a British warship… they’d immediately realize it’s Japanese-made explosives… far too dangerous… so we arbitrarily revised the plan ourselves.”

“A woman of my standing meddling from the sidelines may have no right to say anything... but even so... to waste lives so carelessly...”

“Now please listen.”
“That being the case—since we had the Foreign Ministry’s authorization when leaving Japan, there was no concern about our bags being inspected no matter what we carried—but upon arriving in Suez, those five or six bastards who’d survive afterward found this too dull and proposed [the idea] just before departing Tokyo.”
“Why don’t we just destroy the Suez Canal embankment as a preliminary measure?”
“Then even Britain’s patience would surely snap—that’s what we concluded—but unfortunately, we were short on explosives alone, which is why I’ve come here by train ahead of schedule to make this unreasonable request.”

The young man had grown eloquent without notice.
His speech brimmed with youthful fervor, his eyes shone like a boy’s, his cheeks flushed and swelled like a maiden’s.

Mineko—having thrown white plump arms over the damask-silk chair’s armrest while gazing directly up at his face—appeared deeply moved, her complexion turning deathly pale.
Nodding repeatedly while blinking wide eyes again and again, she let large teardrops stream unabashedly down both cheeks; but when the young man finished explaining and bowed slightly in unison with her movement, she pressed both hands to her face as she bowed deeply.
She spoke through choked breaths.

“That my meager amount of dynamite could prove so useful… How…”

Mid-sentence, she reached for the old-fashioned telephone resting at the edge of the reception desk and began rotating its dial.
While her tear-drenched cheeks still glistened with fresh tears of emotion...
...The telephone emitted intermittent rings—short bursts followed by prolonged tones—growing faster until they dissolved into an unbroken drone.

The young man watched the bell's intermittent ringing repeat in such a manner with vaguely tense attentiveness. The insistent pattern of its peals likely resembled a railway summons or police alert signal.

A reply soon came.

……Ring-ring, ring-ringring-ringring-ringring……

Mineko impatiently picked up the receiver the moment the sound ceased.

“Yes, yes.”
“That’s right.”
“This is Mineko.”
“You there—Mr. Kamizuka at the warehouse… Yes.”
“Listen.”
“I appreciate your efforts, but...”
“Have it reach Mr. Harada’s place by tomorrow morning… Yes.”
“I promised to have two boxes of dynamite sent to Mr. Harada in Moji.”
“Yes.”
“This must remain strictly confidential… you understand.”
“To make tonight’s last upbound passenger train from Nogata… yes… hurry and pack it up to arrive by 10:50.”
“There’s still about four hours, isn’t there?”
“……Yes.”
“Wrap both in straw matting, place them into wooden crates, have them treated as valuables, and send them addressed to the Yamakyu Transport Company in Moji.”
“That’s right.”
“As for the contents, label them as Buddha statues, antiques, or something of the sort, please.”
“Once the check is completed, I’d like you yourself to take that and wait at the station, please.”
“You mustn’t be careless.”
“Pack them thoroughly, okay?”
“Lately, I hear communism has been creeping in around here, you know.”

“The crackdowns are terribly vigilant these days… Yes.”
“Yes, yes.”
“As long as you use my name, it’ll be fine… You know.”
“And another thing.”
“When packing, you must ensure the warehouse light doesn’t leak outside.”
“Yes, yes.”
“Please do that for me.”
“That would be best.”
“Yes.”
“Please handle everything exactly as discussed.”
“Having just one or two would actually raise suspicion.”
“Yes.”
“Please proceed.”
“This side is all set.”
“Hohoho.”

While calmly hanging up the receiver, Mineko glanced back at the young man.

“Two boxes will suffice, correct?”

Instead of replying, the young man sprang up vigorously.
He circled around the table to approach Mineko head-on, then clasped both her hands firmly with his own.
He shed tears of gratitude that streamed down.

“...Thank you... truly.”
“This gratitude... overwhelms me.”

“My goodness. For such a matter… I should be the overwhelmed one.”
“To imagine you entrusting this to someone like me…”

As she spoke, Mineko rose and clasped the young man’s hands with firm pressure.
The young man hunched his shoulders in a tremble.
He appeared engulfed by Mineko’s charms—yet moments later, quietly disentangled his hands.
Retreating two or three steps, he offered a deep, formal bow.

“Then... I’ll... take leave... This debt... even in death...”

“Oh my…”

Mineko stepped forward two or three steps as if pursuing him.
She forcibly took the young man’s hand and pushed his body deep into the chair she had been occupying.

“The luggage and check aren’t prepared yet, are they?”
“Until then, please relax at your leisure.”

“But…that’s excessive… Moreover, I must depart for Moji tonight, receive the cargo early tomorrow morning, and then Kobe the day after…”

“Even so, wouldn’t traveling on the same train as the cargo be perfectly acceptable?”

“Well... th-that’s... true, but... actually...”

“Is there some complication…”

“Well... actually... about four friends... four Fukuoka East Asia Society members who said they’d see me off to Moji and plan to depart on the same train as I am... They’re waiting at Nogata’s Hiyoshi Inn... So I really must...”

“They’ve already met you...”

“They said they’d come on the nine o’clock train...”

“Even so, there remain nearly two hours yet.”
“Your friends’ kindness is all well and good, but we can still have a leisurely chat once we’ve arrived together in Moji on tonight’s train.”

“Th-that’s… true, but…”

“While I may be but a passing acquaintance of convenience, I do wish to offer this modest gesture of farewell.”
“Wouldn’t such brief companionship be permissible?”
“In exchange for the dynamite… Hoho...”

“But…”

“...But what?"
“If you won’t listen to me, I shan’t give you even one box.”
“Hohoho...”

The young man looked up at Mineko as if dazzled.
Yielding to her allure, he sank deep into the damask silk chair.
Laughing a lonely, thorny laugh at himself, he blinked rapidly.

“But… what a waste, isn’t it? To think over a dozen splendid young people like you all—though you say it’s for the country—will be ground to dust and vanish from this earth within half a year… I find it truly regrettable from the bottom of my heart.”

In the center and four corners of the extravagantly luxurious reception room of the Shinbari household, pale electric light refracted through countless cut-glass prisms blazed with brilliant radiance. On the large table at its center stood splendid Western-style dishes unimaginable for a coal mining region, lined with expensive liquor bottles. Beside it, Mineko and the young man sat leaning against each other within the scarlet damask-upholstered sofa, holding glasses...

The young man had removed his jacket and vest, loosening the tie of his white shirt alone, while Mineko had discarded her haori on the floor, carelessly wrapping a five-colored Hakata-ori rolled omelette sash over her gaudy sky-blue underrobe.
Both of them appeared thoroughly intoxicated, the corners of their eyes upturned and gleaming with an unnatural light.

“I feel it’s such a waste.”
“Don’t you agree?”
“That’s not it.”

Once more solemnly in the midst of saying this, Mineko cast her ample white arm lingeringly over the young man’s shoulder.
The young man also took that as his cue to limply place his left hand on Mineko’s knee.
Swaying unsteadily, he tilted his head back toward the chandelier, revealing his healthy-looking, glistening white teeth.

“Oh, come now.”
“Ha ha ha.”
“After all, we’re each just like clockwork dolls with our own arbitrary springs.”
“If a life where those clockwork springs just unwind until you become worn-out and decrepit before dying is such a dreadfully dull existence... then isn’t it precisely why everyone feels compelled to smash apart their own mechanisms while still ticking? Otherwise, you’d never understand what it truly means to be alive.”
“We’re already becoming so irritated with this desperate urge to dispose of our own lives, dispose of them quickly, you see.”
“After all, continuing like this would be dreadfully dull.”

“That’s terribly impressive.”

“Yes.
Even I find myself dreadfully unbearable.
I want to hurl myself against something—anything—and shatter into pieces.”

“Someone like you can’t even manage love or anything, can you?”

“Love… Love, you say… Ha ha ha.”

“Oh come now.”
“Love and such… For you to speak of that… I may appear thus, but I’m a widow who’s properly maintained her virtue.”
“A woman who lost her partner before his spring had fully unwound—forced against her will to preserve this lonely widowhood.”

“Love… Love… Ha ha ha.”
“Love means nothing at all, does it?”
“Isn’t it merely fleeting desire?”
“Eternal love amounts to nothing more than a verbal pact where men and women—according to convenience—agree to mutual forgiveness.”
“A cost-free dalliance.”

“Oh my. You say such awful things.”

“It’s only natural.”
“This world’s drowning in those pretentious mystical lies.”
“That’s exactly why I want to smash it all to pieces.”
“To return everything to an empty world of pure truth.”

“You… Then you’re a nihilist.”

“That’s right.”
“Only a nihilist could undertake such daring work as ours.”
“Zola or someone said it, didn’t they?”
“The greatest task of a scientist lies in inventing powerful explosives to shatter this pebble we call Earth.”
“...lies in making humanity understand what sort of thing truth truly is—or something like that…”

“My, how dreadful.”
“Zola must have been impotent, I suppose.”

“Ha ha ha.”
“This is exhilarating!”
“Truly worthy of a former silver screen star—only Ms. Mineko could.”
“When you say that, don’t all nihilists and communists end up impotent?”

“That’s right.”
“It’s the dregs of humanity—those who’ve lost all interest in this world—who become ideologues.”

“That’s not true…”

“There is.”
“Proof over theory—shall I make you loathe dying?”

“Yes. Go ahead…”

“Is that… truly so?”

"But... but that would only be temporary."
"When tomorrow comes, I'll surely want to die again."
"I've gone through this countless times before."
"Ha ha ha."

"Hohohoho."
"That depends on who's involved, my dear."
"The dream I'll show you isn't some shallow trifle."
"Even if you curse me later, it won't change a thing."

“Whoa.”
“That’s quite some confidence you have.”
“But no matter what you do, it won’t work on me.”
“Because the nihilism nesting in my heart runs far deeper and stronger than any and every dream in this world… Because when tomorrow comes, I’ll surely wake from it…”

“Talking logic won’t help. You can’t know until tomorrow comes, can you? I’ll leave an indelible impression between the gears of your mind… With my power, I’ll stop this British-Italian war and show you.”

“Ha ha ha.”
“This is amusing.”
“Let’s have a toast.”

When the toast concluded, Mineko stood up, twisted the switch beneath the central mantelpiece, and extinguished all five chandeliers at once. Then, pulling the cord in the corner of the room, she opened the Gobelin tapestry curtains that had blocked views on three sides with a smooth glide. Through the left-hand windowpane directly facing their sofa, a solitary arc lamp from the Shinbari Coal Mine's sorting yard glowed in the distance, while beneath it crimson-black furnace flames seethed and overlapped like patterns on a Russian carpet. Beyond stretched starless mountains swallowed by absolute darkness.

The room fell utterly silent.
Apart from the occasional soft rustle of fabric, there was no other sound.
The darkness beyond the window merged seamlessly with the encroaching midnight as it advanced relentlessly.

...suddenly...from an unexpected corner of the room...came an elegant sound like a music box—clink... clink... clink... trill—
It was the golden table clock announcing half past ten.

Then, as if precisely timed to that signal, a blindingly bright light seemed to burst into the room. The two who had been holding their breath until now involuntarily let out small cries and leapt apart to opposite sides.
Both looked up at the chandelier above their heads in perfect unison, but the chandelier remained dark. Only the countless glass prism beads glittered faintly, reflecting light from some far distant window beyond.

The two clung together stiffly once more, stood rigidly, and looked out the window.

Behold!

Through the poplar rows outside the window, from the sorting yards and loading areas overlapping in distant darkness to the massive waste cranes, machine shops, pump stations, winding stations, trolley depots, slag heaps, and cinder dumps—every last light and arc lamp arrayed in their countless thousands across the Shinbari Coal Mine grounds blazed forth with illumination-like brilliance all at once, exposing every corner of the boundless compound down to the shadow of a gnat’s wing with blazing clarity.
The cluster of light merged into a single blazing mass like searchlights, streaming through the window directly before the two and illuminating the interior of the gilded parlor as clearly as broad daylight—was it not?

The young man rubbed his eyes once more.
With his face stiffened, he stared fixedly at the massive cluster of light.

It was a massive cluster of gloomy shadows formed by desolate, barren undulations covered in hard coal cinders and soot-blackened bricks, stones, discarded materials, and the like—not a single tree or blade of grass in sight.
Not a single human shadow, not a stray dog passing through—it appeared as nothing but a solemn hellish tableau of true desolate emptiness.
In one corner of this scene, the nearly extinguished furnace flames and smoke twisted together like tattered cotton or rotten petals, sullenly flickering and flaring.

The young man began trembling violently in Mineko's presence.
With eyes opened wide as saucers, whitened with terror, he kept staring fixedly at the light beyond the window as his jaw began clattering violently.
With quivering fingertips, he pushed Mineko's arm aside and stood up stiff as a rod.

He bore the very visage of a damned soul cast into hell.
His hair disheveled, suspenders undone, and tie dangling loose, he gaped open pallid lips with a lolling tongue, knees quaking violently as he stretched both hands forward like a sleepwalker and swayed unsteadily toward the door.
Mineko, who had been biting her lip while watching him leave, gathered the hem of her underrobe and called out to stop him.

“Ara. What’s come over you all of a sudden…”

“…………”

“I’m scared…”

“…………”

“My, what has you so frightened… Do calm yourself and come here.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of at all…”

“…………”

“That... those lights...”
“When an accident occurs，the office night watch flips them on.”
“It’s nothing serious at all…”

“…………”

The young man did not utter a single word in response. With the sorrowful face of a damned soul halted by a blue demon, he glanced back at Mineko in terror just once... Yet seeming somewhat composed now, he pulled his coat—haphazardly draped over the sofa—askew across his shoulders and staggered out of the parlor. Mineko also gave chase with only her voice, not even attempting to rise from her chair.

“My, what a strange person you are… What are you so afraid of… Where could you possibly be going… How utterly peculiar… Hohohohohohohoho…”

However, as the young man who had left the room slammed the heavy parlor door shut with a loud bang from the other side, Mineko’s smiling face abruptly transformed into a sneer—as if a switch had been flipped.

“Ohohohoho, hahahaha. You fool… Even if you leave now, it’s already too late. You’ll be finished by tonight. Hohoho. But... thanks to you, tonight was quite entertaining...”

However, the moment he stepped out of the Shinbari residence’s inner entrance, the young man’s demeanor abruptly tensed as if he were a different person.

After ascertaining the situation beyond the imposing iron gate’s bars, he darted out through the small side exit like a flash of lightning. He disappeared straight into the darkness of the reed field before the gate like a weasel. Then, clinging to the brick wall enclosing the Shinbari estate’s outer perimeter and making a half-circular detour, he slipped into the dense cedar grove on the small hill behind.

The young man seemed to have studied this area's layout in considerable detail. After about twenty minutes spent navigating to the top of a sixty-degree red-earth cliff behind the coal sorting yard, he slid down nimbly as a monkey through shadowed crevices in its face. He then raced through black shadows cast by mine trolley tracks, slipped like a phantom between freight cars at Nogata Station yard, and reached the rear of Hiyoshi Inn in nearby Hiyoshi Town. After swiftly scanning his surroundings and confirming no surveillance existed, he vaulted over a brick wall densely overgrown with ivy vines. Moving through the rear garden with practiced familiarity, he stole into the bathhouse entrance where he immediately removed his coat and plunged his head into still-unemptied bathwater reeking of human grime. After vigorously scrubbing his face and noisily gulping water from the tank like parched livestock, he fumbled for pomade before smearing it thickly through his hair and meticulously parting it down the middle with a found comb. He then hurriedly stripped off his Western clothes, donned a yukata hanging on a clothes rack, bundled his mud-caked suit and shirt into a ball, and stuffed them into shadows between a numbered locker and ceiling beams. Finally seizing an old red towel from bathhouse tiles—which he wrung bone-dry—he exited into the hallway with composed nonchalance just as an inexperienced young maid approached from the opposite direction. He flashed her a smile.

“You… where was my room again?”

The maid bowed politely from behind the over a dozen freshly washed yukata cradled in both arms.

“Hoho. And what room number would you be in?”

“What number was it again… This place is so sprawling I forgot which staircase I came down from. It’s the room for the group of four who arrived on the 8:54 train.”

“Hoho. You’re referring to the guests from Tokyo, correct? They arrived just now… around ten o’clock. One of them was wearing a helmet…”

“Yeah. That’s it, that’s it…”

“Ah... In that case, when you go up the staircase at the far end there, the room will be immediately on your left.”
“They are Rooms Twelve and Thirteen.”

“……Thank you……”

As instructed, the young man went up to the second floor.
Glancing up briefly at the room number, he quietly slid open the shoji door.

“Huh. Sleeping away. Carefree bastards.”

In the two darkened rooms—one eight-tatami, the other ten—five beds lay arranged in a straight line spanning both spaces. Only the central one remained with its bedding neatly folded, while four figures lay with futons pulled over their heads, softly snoring. Through the dim light from the corridor, cigarette smoke could be seen rising from a brazier near the far pillows.

The young man surveyed four sets of Western clothes lined beneath staggered shelves in the eight-tatami room, two or three bags atop those shelves, and four hats hung in a row on the right wall. Seeming finally relieved, he let out a deep sigh. Without hesitation, he approached his central bed and sat heavily before the pillow. As if suddenly overwhelmed by fatigue, he planted both hands firmly on the sheets and called out in a hushed yet forceful voice.

“Hey. Everyone up.”
“The jig is up…”

The breathing from the beds to either side seemed to stop abruptly.
At the same moment, a muffled snickering sound could be heard from somewhere.

The moment he heard that voice, the young man gasped and jerked his knees up into a defensive crouch.
He leapt up like lightning and twisted the light switch above his head.
Once more, he looked around at the sleeping figures to his left and right.

With a clang... as if triggered by it, four futons flipped back all at once. In the blink of an eye—before he could even gasp—eight sturdy hands piled onto the young man as he tried to rise, binding him tightly... and before he could process it, he was kicked back roughly onto the futons.

“Ugh…”

Bound and sitting back up on the futon, the young man—his pomade-smeared hair disheveled and face deathly pale—looked around his surroundings.
When he saw the four faces looking down at him—all baring white teeth in sneers—his eyes instantly shot wide, teeth clenched as he let out another guttural growl from the depths of his being.

“Ughhh... Damn it!”

“Ha ha ha.
The Kyushu Executive Committee Chairman of the Communist Party: Igura Montarou.
Finally noticed, have you?
You idiot… Ah, Mrs. Shinbari… Thank you ever so much.”

The one who stepped forward while bobbing his head obsequiously was a dark-complexioned, sturdy bearded man who appeared to be the eldest of the four.

"I knew he'd head straight to you—fell right into our hands."

“Hohoho. I’m truly indebted to you all.”

While saying this in a coquettish voice, Widow Mineko Shinbari quietly entered. In mere moments she had changed from her comb-wrapped hairstyle to a tied-back style and now stood imposingly before the bound Igura youth, trailing the magnificent peacock-patterned hem of her gold-brocade visiting kimono. From between her plump hands clasped before the dazzling embroidered maru obi, the enormous diamond ring glittered with prismatic brilliance.

"You bastards... When we heard you'd snuck into this area while detouring from Moji en route to your Shanghai headquarters, we immediately made arrangements."
"Your four comrades were already apprehended at the station earlier."
“So thrashing around won’t do you any good.”
“You didn’t realize we even knew the taxi number from Moji to Nogata you rode in, did you?”

“Thank you ever so much.”
“Hohoho.”
“When this young man appeared in the car with your notified number, I made sure to listen carefully—but for someone who’s supposedly been around Port Said, his complexion was rather too fair, don’t you think?”
“Hohoho.”
“Otherwise I might have been completely taken in myself.”
“He didn’t look like such a person at all, you see.”

“Yes. Much obliged. Then shortly thereafter, as a call addressed to the warehouse manager had come through to the police, we were fully reassured and proceeded to make all the arrangements. As proof that the arrangements had been completed, we had informed you we would turn on all the lights across the mountain—did you notice?”

“Yes.”
“I had them turned off and came here immediately by car, you see.”
“There was something I wished to say to this young man…”

“...Ah... I see.”
“In that case… Since it’s right now… Feel free to…”

The four detectives exchanged glances and filed out toward the corridor.
After seeing them off, Widow Mineko looked down at the Igura youth once more and smiled sweetly.

“Hoho.
“How unfortunate for you.”

“……”

The Igura youth gritted his teeth and looked up at the visiting kimono before him.
But he said nothing.
No—he likely couldn’t have said anything even if he tried.

“Now. Please don’t say anything at all. Even if you speak up, the police won’t act on a single word of it. No matter what fabrications you spout to curse me, there’s no one who’ll take them up. Does that quite satisfy you…”

“……”

“You know. What went wrong was you thinking you could size me up just because I’m a woman. You know.”

“…………”

“Hohoho.
“I did say I’d make it so you can’t die even if you want to… Have you come to understand…?”

“Y-you… poisonous woman…”

The young man had bitten through his upper lip without realizing it.
He shouted as if spattering the dripping blood.

“Hohoho.”
“Exactly.”
“You are a professional fighter.”
“I am a bourgeois fighter… a former actress who abandoned humanity, you see.”
“Lies and callousness—we’re even on both counts.”
“And isn’t that just fine?”

“Tch... Damn you... You’ll remember this...”

“I won’t forget… tonight’s events… Hohoho.”
“You too, please don’t ever forget this for the rest of your life, will you?”
“How delightful—we’ve got some entertainment now.”

“...You’ll kill me…”

“By all means… To be killed by a precious little doll like you would fulfill my life’s ambition.”
“I’m a nihilistic bourgeois who’s indulged every whim… This wretched world holds nothing worth clinging to.”
“I’ll be waiting most properly now, hohohohoho… Well then… farewell… hohohohohoho…”

Smiling proudly, she quietly walked out into the corridor without looking back.
She gave a bewitching bow to the detectives huddled in the far corner smoking cigarettes.

“Thank you ever so much.”
“You’ve gone through such trouble.”
“Ah… Please do take him away… Hohohohoho.”