Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The young leaves of the trees were panting like a person recovering from illness.

Like war dead abandoned on a battlefield, the lion lay with limbs sprawled out, sleeping without form.
The tigers and leopards were all lying down asleep.
The peacock spread its feathers like court ladies vying for beauty, bearing the weight of the wind as it acted nervously.
The elephant swung its large trunk listlessly, looking bored.
Countless waterfowl of all sizes chirped; an ostrich twisted its long neck like a snake, searching for and pecking at small morsels of food; outside the cages, the crowd of humans sprawled lazily on benches in the shade or dragged their feet in sluggish steps from cage to cage.

It was a midsummer afternoon at Ueno Zoo where plants, animals, and humans seemed to have abolished all distinctions and returned to primitive coexistence.

The zoo I entered after twenty years appeared completely unchanged from that time to me.
At least compared to Tokyo's city blocks with their frantic transformations, this place remained exactly as it had been in the past.

Yet I—who hadn't once recalled the zoo throughout all these years—why had I come alone to such a place?
No matter how I considered it, I couldn't comprehend.
I must have arrived here aimlessly, unconsciously, before realizing it—naturally.

"Someone once said 'In forests lies freedom,' but in a sense, the zoo is a forest."
In the heart of the metropolis, this zoo where animals and plants are sheltered from humanity's destructive hands was no different from a virgin forest in that regard.
Perhaps that longing for freedom lying dormant in every heart—through some accidental spark—had suddenly surfaced into consciousness and driven my feet to bring me here.

At any rate, there I sat on a shaded bench wearing the expression of one of the resident animals as though I were their kin.

A man in his early forties wearing a straw hat kept taking biscuits from his pocket and tossing them to the elephant.
The elephant—as if interacting with an equal—used its trunk tip to collect the small biscuits and flick them into its mouth without reserve, shyness, or any concept of hierarchy, then persistently begged for more.
The man never cracked a smile, methodically producing biscuits from his pocket like a grave zoologist documenting feeding patterns.
His movements gradually accelerated until he had emptied what seemed to be an entire packet's contents from the paper bag in twenty minutes flat, then discarded the wrapper and strode briskly away.

I closed my eyes for a while.
My head had become as dry and tangled as a bird’s nest, my ability to think completely gone.
What on earth was I doing here?
Where had I come from and where did I intend to go? And for that matter, where even was this place?
But more than that—what was my current condition?
I suddenly felt a terrible hunger.
The elephant was happy... Ah, all the animals here were so happy!
First, they had a secure home.
They had food.
I, too, somehow felt a sort of happiness being here.
First, here I didn’t have to feel those malicious eyes.
The boarding house landlady's narrow, malicious eyes—those eyes that had abruptly transformed into an indescribable mix of contempt, hatred, and suspicion when she perceived my inability to pay rent—and then every last human in the neighborhood—those utterly repulsive eyes!
I couldn’t help but look around with a chill, fearing one of those eyes might be lurking nearby.

That aside, I could feel nothing but astonishment toward society's people. They were all living their lives without a single exception. Of course there were miserable people here and there, but there seemed to be not a single soul as completely at an impasse as I was.

About half a year earlier, having received three months' severance pay and been cast out onto the streets from XX Company, I had come to a complete standstill—much like a clock that ticks away for a set period after being wound, then abruptly stops at a certain moment. With no parents, siblings, or close acquaintances to speak of, and being unable to hold proper conversations with strangers, I had completely lost all means of sustaining my livelihood. Even so, I had somehow endured every humiliation and survived up to that day. But from then onward, there remained nothing but to live only as many days as physiologically possible without nutritional replenishment and then naturally vanish like the flame of a spent candle. For I lacked even the courage to commit suicide.

It seems that instead of exchanging my last ten-sen nickel coin for a beef bowl to prolong my earthly existence by five or six hours, I had capriciously frittered it away on this zoo admission fee in a dazed caprice.
In any case, I didn't clearly remember the moment I had entered.

Around four o'clock, I stood bathed in the western sun before the monkey cage.
“By the roadside, a dog yawns long and deep; how I envy that I cannot do the same.”
Strangely, Takuboku's state of mind resurfaced within me.
The animals were truly enviable.
I could no longer suppress my envy toward the monkeys nimbly leaping from branch to branch, from wire mesh to ground.
They were such vigorous creatures.
By contrast, my own body—pushed to the limits of fatigue and hunger—felt liable to collapse into utter exhaustion should I make even one vigorous movement.

When I suddenly noticed, the man who had been feeding biscuits to the elephant two or three hours earlier appeared to have bought more somewhere, and was now tossing them to the monkeys.
The children were squealing with delight as they watched the spectacle, but the man kept feeding biscuits to the monkeys with the stern demeanor of someone forbidden to laugh—like a clerk performing some solemn bureaucratic duty.
Biscuits were occasionally bounced back from the net and rolled out beyond the bars.
What astonishing extravagance.
I felt a kind of reverence toward this man’s immeasurable financial power.
Strange as it may seem, in moments like these, it is worship rather than jealousy that arises first within me.

The feet of the crowd all turned toward the entrance and began moving gradually yet in unison.
Human figures within the zoo grounds grew increasingly sparse.
The biscuit-feeding man from earlier had likewise vanished from view without trace.

Suddenly, out of nowhere like a brilliant inspiration, a single thought flashed through my mind. I quietly crouched down and picked up two biscuits that had rolled to my feet. After confirming that no one was watching, I hurriedly tossed them into my mouth. The sweets numbed my starved taste buds as they melted away on my tongue.

I became suddenly and remarkably energetic, as if I were a person under hypnosis. My body grew nimble, but even more than that, my mind began working with remarkable agility.

I started walking briskly, like one of the animals around me—a bear, for example.
And then, with vision as sharp as a small bird’s, I earnestly began searching for something.
In the direction opposite to the crowd heading back toward the exit, I walked with a clear sense of purpose, as if going to retrieve something forgotten.

II

From the zoo entrance, proceeding toward the right-hand side, there were cages housing parrots and small birds, beyond which stood a single teahouse-like arbor bearing a plaque inscribed "Kankantei".
I knew nothing of this small structure’s history or origins.
It may have been that during the shogunate era, the zoo grounds had formed part of some daimyo’s estate, with this tea room preserved intact from those times.
In any case, it stood weathered with age and shrouded in dust.
From autumn through winter, there were times when fallen leaves that had scattered onto the veranda remained unswept for days on end.

Proceeding past Kankantei led to a gentle slope; at the slope's end stood a bridge. Crossing it brought one to a modest plaza—ahead lay the elephant enclosure, to the left a teahouse, and to the right on the hilltop, the area housing lions, tigers, and leopards.
This bridge was quite wide—about five and a half meters across—with a stone-paved water channel running beneath it.
Even though it was called a water channel, on days without rain, almost no water flowed through it.

Once six o'clock passed, the zoo abruptly fell silent, revealing its true character as a "virgin forest in the heart of the metropolis."
The admission cutoff was at 4:30 PM; by 5:00 PM, human figures had all but vanished from the grounds. For about an hour thereafter, guards and what appeared to be janitors still moved about, but by around 6:30 PM, human voices and any sounds related to people had nearly ceased within the zoo.

At this hour, I was pressed flat against the side wall beneath the aforementioned bridge like a gecko, holding my breath. If I positioned myself right in the middle beneath the bridge—as I had thoroughly confirmed during daylight hours—there would be no chance of being spotted by people passing nearby.

Before long, the day had grown completely dark. Contrary to the zoo grounds growing quiet, distant noises gradually became clearer. The sounds of trains could be heard surprisingly close by. The sound of taxis passing by could be heard at roughly two-minute intervals. And in between, the cries of various animals gathered from every corner of the earth came clamoring in like eerie jazz.

When the human body becomes extremely fatigued, it seems the brain cells undergo strange alterations—I was frequently seized by bizarre delusions.
A thought struck me—perhaps the guards here had forgotten to close the lion cage door—and a chill ran down my spine.
When actually feeding them, someone must surely open the door, but over 365 days a year, it seemed likely they might forget to close at least one among dozens of cages for ferocious beasts.
And unfortunately, it was entirely possible they had forgotten to close it precisely tonight.
I imagined the scene of the lion detecting a human scent and lumbering toward me.
My skull and ribs would be crushed between the lion’s teeth like ground meat; with my head clamped in its jaws, my torso and limbs dangling limply, I would be bitten into without resistance.
Strangely, this imagined scenario was a pleasant one.
I felt as though even if I were bitten, it wouldn’t hurt at all.

At other times, I couldn't help feeling with agonizing certainty that some patrolling guard would come searching for my hiding spot with a lantern in hand. What if I were to sneeze or cough just as the patrolling guard was passing by? Like a pickpocket caught in the crowd, I would be dragged out before the multitude and subjected to terrible treatment—that much was certain. What should I say to talk my way out of it at that moment? Though I have no legal knowledge, it might well be that those who lurk in public facilities like this after hours are guilty of serious offenses. Whenever I thought such things, perhaps due to my imagination, I began hearing footsteps as if someone were passing by. And then a cough would suddenly well up.

The high wooden clogs kept the water from reaching my soles, but sitting down remained impossible.
If I stood still, fatigue would grow within my body as if a rod had been thrust through it.
To quench my thirst—or rather, to compensate for my intense hunger—I would occasionally crouch down and moisten my lips with the water flowing below.
Each time, all the bones in my body creaked and groaned, making me feel as though one of them might snap at any moment.

Even this dwelling place—which I had suddenly thought of and chosen, believing it preferable to returning to the boarding house and facing the landlady’s spiteful gaze—quickly proved unbearable for any extended period. Any grime-stained futon would be fine. No—even without a futon, a tatami mat would suffice. If there was no tatami mat, even wooden flooring would be acceptable. If there was no wooden flooring, even dry ground would be acceptable. If I could lie spread-eagled on it for a while, I thought, I wouldn’t care if I were killed come morning. I recalled how I had tossed and turned in bed until daybreak due to insomnia. But compared to my current suffering, insomnia was paradise. There’s such a thing as a soft futon where I could stretch out completely. Never before had I felt so acutely the agony of standing—no, the torment of standing perfectly still.

By the way, was I truly the worst scum among all people in the world? Why had I alone fallen into such circumstances? At least in terms of education, I had graduated from a technical school. Nor did I recall having done anything exceptionally wicked in terms of moral conduct. Far from it—when I had been employed at the company, everyone used to praise me. Admittedly, today's social system isn't structured to provide employment for all people or guarantee everyone’s livelihood. I knew there were as many as a hundred thousand or even two hundred thousand unemployed people in Tokyo alone. But why did I specifically have to be among the ranks of the unemployed? Moreover, among these hundreds of thousands—no, even a hundred thousand or two hundred thousand—unemployed people, I’d never heard of a single person starving to death. Everyone was managing to survive somehow. However, for me personally, there was absolutely no hope of continuing to live on from here. Could it be that within myself there existed some fatal flaw I hadn’t noticed? Could it be that there was some abominable mark on my appearance—one invisible to me yet immediately apparent to others? Now that I thought of it, what on earth had my face looked like? I felt as though I had forgotten my own face. No matter how hard I tried, my face simply wouldn't materialize clearly in my mind. I felt an unbearable urge to immediately rush to a mirror and confirm the true nature of this congenital mark on my face that seemed to provoke such disgust in others.

III

The night grew quite late.
Thankfully, it was a moonlit night.
Was it that the animals needed light too, or that humans needed to patrol at night? Electric lights were lit here and there throughout the zoo.

I timidly slipped out of my gloomy hiding spot, set my foot on the stone wall, and climbed up the aqueduct. No one was watching. As I stood under the bridge—having planned this in advance—there was no need to hesitate at all. Then, carefully removing my wooden clogs, I got down on all fours and crossed the path at the edge of the bridge.

To the lower left side of this bridge stood a circular cage made of iron bars where two red-crowned cranes dwelled. The area surrounding the cage sloped upward like the seating tiers of a Roman amphitheater or Ryogoku Kokugikan, giving the entire space a mortar-shaped depression. And on this slope that served as the viewing area, thickets of bear bamboo grew thickly, reaching about waist-high on a person. I had long planned to relocate into this bear bamboo thicket once night grew late enough that walking through the zoo would be absolutely safe. This was because while I couldn't remain standing under the bridge all night, there had been the worry that entering the bear bamboo thicket while daylight still lingered would risk discovery with even the slightest movement.

Just as I had crawled to a suitable spot and was about to flop down into the bamboo thicket, a low yet heart-stoppingly sharp voice suddenly came from behind me.

“Hey!” came a single sharp word.

My knees began trembling violently of their own accord.
Life is full of surprises, but could anything surpass this?
Who would imagine someone else already occupying such a place?
When I turned around, a man crouched twelve feet away with a pistol trained on my chest.
Though his face remained shadowed, something about him felt disturbingly familiar.
Yet try as I might, I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before.

“Hand over the briefcase!”
The man spoke again in a low, firm voice.

“The briefcase? What kind of briefcase?” I retorted with unexpected calm.

When shock crosses a certain threshold, humans regain composure in the strangest way.
The man wordlessly closed the distance between us and rummaged through my coat pocket with his left hand.
I let him conduct his search unimpeded.

“What’s the matter?
Where’d you stash it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Quit feigning ignorance about the briefcase.”

“I don’t know any briefcase. Did you misplace yours somewhere?”

“Then what business could you possibly have being in a place like this?”

“Because I had nowhere else to go, it suddenly struck me.”

"Why did you go under that bridge?"

"Because that spot was convenient for hiding."

The man silently put the pistol into his coat.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I remembered this was the man who had been giving biscuits to elephants and monkeys during daytime.
A sense of familiarity washed over me.
Yet beyond that recognition lingered another unease - I couldn't shake the feeling I'd seen him somewhere before.
Reflecting carefully, I realized this vague awareness had existed since first glimpsing him hours earlier.
That must be why his peculiar demeanor had so insistently caught my attention.
But what possible reason could this man have for being here?
And what exactly was this briefcase he kept mentioning?

“Since staying upright risks discovery, let’s lie down in the bamboo grass and talk.”
“If the guards find us, it’ll be trouble.”
The man abruptly changed his tone and became strangely polite.
And whether it was my imagination or not, he seemed much younger to me.

“Why on earth did you decide to spend the night in a place like this?”
“Have you done something bad that you need to hide?”
“And why did you go under that bridge?”

I began haltingly recounting my personal story in response to being questioned.
In contrast to the daytime heat and bustle, the night zoo stood quiet, with a refreshing wind carrying a chill that could be felt on the skin.
The two of us occasionally pricked up our ears in vigilance as we asked and answered in hushed tones.
When I told him I hadn't eaten anything since yesterday and was feeling terribly hungry, he pulled out a paper bag of biscuits from his coat pocket and set it before me, saying, “Eat this.”
I silently ate them.
Naturally, I kept quiet about having picked up and eaten these same biscuits during the day.

“By the way, why on earth have you come to a place like this?” I finally turned the conversation to ask.

“This makes the third time I’ve stayed here,” the man answered offhandedly.
“I can’t tell you who I am right now, but you might know me if I were to give my name.”
“I came here to retrieve a briefcase containing certain documents.”
“The briefcase is hidden under the bridge where you were until just now.”
“When I came here before—though ‘the other day’ was actually about three days ago—I hid it there.”
“Since there are some secret documents inside, I had trouble finding a hiding place, you see.”
“It’s an extremely secure hiding spot, that place.”
“However, we discovered there was a traitor of the most despicable sort among our comrades.”
“To make matters worse, I ended up telling that man where the briefcase was this morning.”
“You see, since the authorities have recently intensified their searches and it’s unsafe to remain in Tokyo, I decided to leave the city for the time being and entrusted everything to that man by informing him of future matters.”

“Is it really all right for you to tell me such things?” I interjected in astonishment as this man calmly confided his secrets to me.

“Because you’re not a traitor.”
“Besides, the truth is it doesn’t matter who hears something like this.”
“The public already knows anyway.”
“Feel free to tell anyone about me.”
“But I’ll need you to keep quiet until I leave tomorrow morning.”
“If there’s any loud noise here, that’ll be the end of it.”
“Once morning comes, you can run straight to the nearest police box and tell them everything.”
“In fact, that might work out better for me.”
“I’m already playing cat and mouse with the police as it is.”
“No danger of you getting caught hanging around here.”

“Now then, let me continue with what I was saying earlier,” he said. “When I told that man where the secret documents were hidden, one of our comrades immediately came and informed me he was a spy.”
“So I postponed leaving Tokyo by one day and came here to retrieve the briefcase.”
“I couldn’t let that man steal it first, you see.”
“Because inside it are important documents that concern the lives of dozens—no, hundreds—of our comrades.”
“But I was shocked!”
“That man had already come into this zoo.”
“He was disguised, but I realized it immediately.”
“You see, I’m disguised like this as well.”
“I must look about forty to you.”
“I’m actually twenty-four, you know.”
“I don’t have a beard or anything like that.”

“Has he realized that it’s you?” I asked.

“That I can’t say for certain.”
“I don’t think he’s noticed, probably.”
“In any case, it’s certain that that man is still inside this zoo.”
“To the left of this zoo’s entrance, right next to the monkey cages, there’s a cage housing eagles, hawks, and such.”
“I’ve confirmed the hiding spot behind that cage where that man conceals himself.”
“When it gets past midnight, he’ll surely come out.”
“Because I taught him everything thoroughly.”
“And he’s certain to head under that bridge where you were hiding earlier.”
“To tell the truth, I mistook you for that man earlier and ended up acting so rudely.”
“Oh, that pistol? It’s a toy pistol.”
“I bought it for ten sen at a toy shop in Ginza this morning.”

The man paused mid-sentence and peered at his wristwatch in the dim light.

“It’s just past twelve now, so he’ll be here any moment.”
“Let’s watch quietly.”

The two of us, who had met at this strange hour in this strange place, hid our bodies in the dwarf bamboo thicket and waited with bated breath.
The red-crowned cranes appeared to be asleep, not making a rustle, but from far away came the ceaseless cries of various animals.

IV

“He’s finally come.”
After a while, the man tapped my shoulder and whispered in a low voice into my ear.
Though I heard neither footsteps nor any other sound, he—who daily navigated the realm of life and death—seemed to have detected it with his keen hearing.

Eventually he quietly raised himself up and crawled out of the dwarf bamboo thicket without making a sound.

“Follow me quietly so you don’t make a sound.”
As instructed, I too crawled along behind.

“Look, there’s a dark silhouette standing over there, see? He’s about to go down into the ditch now. Look, he went down. Now he’ll go under the bridge and begin his work. Come out a bit more this way and keep watching. And when I give the signal, you must quickly hide back in the dwarf bamboo thicket again.”

As he said this, he boldly stood up, removed his shoes, and walked briskly away.
When he reached the bridge, he quietly crouched down and remained motionless for five or six minutes.
After a short while, a black object about a foot long abruptly materialized on the bridge.
He hastily grabbed it and rummaged through its contents, but within five seconds raised his hand to signal me toward the other side.
Then immediately he came sprinting toward me with avian swiftness.
Yet despite this urgency, his footfalls stayed nearly imperceptible.

We laid ourselves down once more in the dwarf bamboo thicket without a word.
And we remained perfectly still for a full twenty or thirty minutes.
Eventually, in the quiet dimness, the sound of a man’s footsteps crunching through the earth could be heard, but these too gradually faded into the distance, leaving behind only the occasional strange cry of a bird.

“It went perfectly,” he said in a low voice after thirty minutes of silence. “Had things gone wrong, I was resolved to snatch the briefcase and shove that traitor down onto the stone pavement below when he came up—but there was no need for such measures, thank goodness. In a place like this, making noise is the most dangerous thing, you know.”

“What about the briefcase? Did you retrieve it?” I asked suspiciously, having noticed he hadn’t brought anything back.

“There’s no need for the briefcase.”
“Once you remove what’s inside.”
“Inside that briefcase was our comrades’ membership list. Had that been taken away, we would’ve all been arrested without exception,” he said as he pulled a small notebook from his pocket.
“This is it. I brought another notebook and quietly swapped them while that man was placing the briefcase on the bridge.”
“In that notebook, I wrote down a bunch of fake names.”
“Included among them were names like high-ranking government officials, famous industrialists, and university professors.”
“When that man triumphantly takes that bogus list to the Metropolitan Police tomorrow, a splendid comedy will unfold.”

The two of them fell silent again.

For a while, there was a squawking commotion near the waterfowl cages, but after some time, it quieted down again.
It must have been around three in the morning.
The sounds of the town had completely died down.
The man seemed to be asleep, his eyes closed as he breathed peacefully.
I couldn’t possibly sleep.
I raised my head and, while tilting it slightly from time to time in the dim light, watched his face.
Suddenly, a memory that I had been utterly unable to recall until now flooded back into my mind all at once.

It was definitely that newspaper from three days ago.
The photo published across a full page in the society section must unquestionably be of this man.
A chill ran through my entire body, making me shudder from head to toe.
Here was the leader of a secret society—someone every police officer in the nation was desperately searching for yet still couldn't find—hiding in a place like this, calmly divulging his secrets to me.
The young man appeared to be asleep.
Were I to slip my hand into his pocket now, that notebook he'd mentioned would fall into my grasp.
If I dashed straight to the guards with it... I found myself entertaining this utterly despicable notion, then hurriedly dismissed it.
Even if this man were some villainous criminal, he'd shown me kindness.
What's more, he'd trusted me enough to reveal everything while sleeping right before my eyes.
And someone this considerate couldn't possibly commit evil deeds.
It had to be some misunderstanding, I concluded.

“Dawdling around like this really is dangerous,” said the young man—whom I had thought was still asleep—abruptly sitting up at that moment. “Given that bastard’s nature, he’ll surely check the briefcase’s contents in this dimness.” “It’s dangerous to wait until morning, so I’ll be taking my leave now.”

“What are you going to do?”
I asked in shock.

“We’re getting out before day breaks.”

“From where?”
“Over the wall?”

“We can’t go over the wall, but there’s an escape route outside.”
“No matter how safe you think it is, you can’t just carelessly walk into a dead end with no escape route.”
“...because any number of mistakes could occur.”

I was astonished by this man’s thorough preparedness, but I couldn’t begin to guess where he intended to escape from.
And the thought that this man might escape now struck me as profoundly unsettling.

“What do you mean it will be dangerous come morning?” I asked in a panic.

“Once he realizes the notebook is fake, that man will know I’m here and will either flee before dawn or rouse the guards here to arrange measures—it’s certain.”

“Then please take me along when you escape.”
“If I’m found in a place like this, I’ll be finished.”
I imagined myself being escorted out of the zoo by police officers tomorrow morning, and greasy sweat oozed from my forehead.

“You probably won’t be charged, but you’ll certainly face strict interrogation.”
“Since it’s my fault things have come to this, then come along with me.”
“It’s a bit cramped.”

I followed the mysterious young man out of the bear bamboo thicket. And then we descended from a point slightly downstream of the bridge into the water channel I had entered earlier that evening.

5

Just then, sounds could be heard from the direction of the entrance.
And the sounds grew steadily louder.

“Just as I expected. The police have already mobilized.”

While saying this, the young man quickly descended downstream along the water channel.
I too followed after him, my mind and body consumed by terror.
The water channel had tunnels here and there, but by crouching down, we could pass through them.
The sounds grew steadily louder—human voices and the clattering of sabers came through as clearly as if held in one’s hand.
It was indeed a group of police officers.

“Stay still. Let them pass us by.”

Just as we entered the second tunnel, the young man said this and held his breath perfectly still.
I too turned to stone and stopped moving.

Over the two men's heads, the search party passed by, chattering noisily as they went.

“He must be hiding somewhere without a doubt.
“Knowing I have police connections, he must have panicked and rushed here.
“The moment I lifted the briefcase onto the bridge, it was swapped.”

The man whom this young man had called a traitor seemed to be guiding the group.
Gradually, both the voices and the footsteps grew more distant.
Startled by the unexpected visitors, the animals awoke, flapping their wings and letting out cries.
The two of us started walking again in silence.

When we had walked what felt like two or three blocks, we entered a relatively long tunnel.
Inside was pitch black.

“We’re safe now. For police of all people to miss this drainage channel—how complacent they must be. With methods like that, they’ll never catch clever criminals. While crooks plan three moves ahead, the police just bumble about aimlessly, you see? Salaried work’s full of holes through and through. They ought to study Tokyo’s geography first... Though I must admit, I got quite a scare back there. I kept thinking—what if you’d panicked and shouted?”

Without replying, I twisted my mouth into a forced bitter smile.
I was too terrified to speak.

Before long, the mouth of the tunnel came into view.
The river there had a considerable volume of water, but we managed to climb safely onto dry land by gripping the stone wall of the embankment.

The eastern sky was growing light.
The refreshing dawn wind struck their utterly exhausted bodies with pleasant relief.
However, the two of them could not afford to dawdle around.

Just as a taxi with its "For Hire" sign arrived at the perfect moment, the young man hailed it and leapt inside.
“You come along with me that far too,” I was told, and obediently I sat down next to him.
The driver gave me a slightly suspicious look and started driving without even asking our destination.

“A great success, a great success! By now there must be an uproar at the zoo—I’ve definitely retrieved the membership list. It was a close call, but everything went smoothly. That traitor must be utterly disgraced by now. What’s more, I had a good citizen to talk to—didn’t have to be bored last night. Drop off this guest around Sudacho.” After a while, he boisterously talked and laughed loudly to the driver about such things. The wind would carry away their words, so there was no fear of being overheard. This driver, who operated a legitimate business with a permit from the Metropolitan Police Department, was clearly one of the comrades.

“Let’s head out to Nihonbashi and cut through Marunouchi.”
“And I’ll be leaving Tokyo by morning.”
“The headquarters haven’t been raided yet, right?”
“You burned all the documents, right?”
The young man continued speaking cheerfully.

By the time I got out of the taxi at Sudacho, night had completely given way to dawn. As he was getting out, the young man said cheerfully, “Goodbye—let’s agree not to ask each other’s names. What’s in your sleeve isn’t anything improper. It’s my allowance, you know.”

As I watched the retreating figure of the mastermind behind a major incident currently shocking all of Japan—now speeding nonchalantly through the heart of the imperial capital in a taxi—I stood there blankly, filled with an indescribable emotion. When I put my hand into my sleeve, a small, smooth piece of paper touched my fingertips. When I took it out, there were two ten-yen bills I hadn’t seen in two or three months.