Lady Joker, Volume 1 Kaoru Takamura (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

diminished—no one dared get rid of it and there were some who remained caught up in the workings of it. However, the concept no longer had any societal relevance—the word itself had lost its evocative power.

On the sliding door of the soba noodle eatery that was near the foreign language school—just as the clerk had said—there was a sign announcing the specials of the day. A counter and four, five tables inside comprised the eatery. Back when he was a newly minted reserve reporter, Negoro would stop in there frequently to meet with Kazuhiko Matsuda, a lawyer turned critic who was a regular customer, and his circle of sympathizers.

“Well, if it isn’t the reserve chief!” cried out Matsuda, who was perched at the counter. He looked like a hunched-back silver-haired monkey. Two men sat beside him. Glasses of beer, edamame, and a small bowl or two were set out on the counter. The way that only the area surrounding Matsuda appeared to be cast in its own private, rather enigmatic shadow was par for the course.

“Come on now, have a seat!” Matsuda said. His manner never wavered—not today, yesterday, or ten years ago. Negoro greeted the two men with only his eyes, and they returned a small nod, looking slightly annoyed.

“Tell me, Negoro. Why won’t the newspapers write about things like this?” Matsuda said, his voice rising abruptly. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to display his power of influence, this was just his usual way of talking that he had acquired over his many years as a critic. Negoro listened quietly. “These two have been running around town in support of a candidate for the Tokyo Assembly election, but the candidate has decided to forgo official party recognition and instead run as an independent. And that seems to have put the balance among various supporting organizations and advocacy groups in disarray. But, as you know, we’re no longer in an era when a deep-rooted mainstream association would support a single party and willingly tie their own fate to a party’s political rise or fall.” Matsuda, after directing this diatribe to Negoro, seated to his left, Matsuda then turned his head to the two men on his right. “When it comes down to it, what generates political realignment are changes in the electorate’s social consciousness. You two are responding too late. The fact that you still place such importance on political parties is proof that you are leaning too much on your assumed ability to gather votes. Excuse me, another beer please.”

On the other side of Matsuda, the two men looked troubled—as if they did not want him making careless remarks in front of a reporter—and sure enough, as soon as Matsuda stopped talking, they got up from their seats.

“Well, anyway, professor, we’ll be looking forward to that article,” one of the men said.

Matsuda seemed to pay them hardly any attention, instead taking the fresh bottle of beer and starting to fill his and Negoro’s glasses. Negoro, for his part, felt self-conscious and mumbled an apology to the men for his intrusion.

“You guys are leaving already?” Matsuda asked, finally turning their way.

“We’re rather in a hurry.” The men bid them an innocuous farewell and left the eatery.

“Professor Matsuda. Which district are those men from?” Negoro asked.

“If I tell you that, you’ll figure out the name of the candidate.”

“Are you writing something for the party’s rag?”

“I’m the kind of man who believes that human rights are inherently political, in that they are just one of many interrelated affairs mandated by law. In that way I’m fundamentally at odds with the majority of human rights organizations. Heck, the article I’m writing is about a campaign speech given by that particular politician, and I only agreed to do it because I know him personally.”

“I see.”

As he pretended to listen to Matsuda’s patter, Negoro stared at the menu, whose offerings left much to be desired. “Say, professor. They’ve got seared skipjack tuna, first of the season. Shall we have some?” he asked.

“I forget what a high earner you are. Sure, you can afford to treat me once in a while,” Matsuda said.

Negoro ordered the seared tuna, simmered vegetables, and tempura.

Shortly after Negoro transitioned to the reserve section from the kisha club at MPD, he was assigned to a team in charge of a special feature on the constitution that had commissioned articles from several experts in both the revisionist and protectionist factions. Negoro was assigned by draw to oversee the article by Matsuda, who was infamous back then as a staunch human rights lawyer with a sharp tongue. That had been their first encounter. Since then, however, Negoro had come to realize that political journalism—not limited to the work of Matsuda—which tended to criticize A then propose B and conclude by predicting C, lacked a certain skepticism even if it always provided a lucid, albeit haphazard, argument. In his early thirties at the time, Negoro recognized political journalism was not for him, given his inability to approach things in a straightforward manner, though he still wondered if simply having a clear-cut view meant being correct.

In addition to his work as a lawyer, Matsuda still penned miscellaneous items for various monthly and weekly journals as well as for the rags of particular parties and organizations and special interest groups. But he had long been alienated from the pages of Toho News, ever since running into trouble over the use of real names in reporting on a minor human rights issue. And yet Negoro still made periodic visits to the soba shop, because there were valuable resources among Matsuda’s network of organizations and labor unions such as the General Association of Korean Residents and the Buraku Liberation League.

“At odds with them, professor, I guess that’s one way of putting it,” Negoro joked a little, and poured Hinode Lager into Matsuda’s glass. That reminded him—when would Hinode Meister, whose full-page ad had run in yesterday’s morning edition, go on sale?

“A critic can change his mind too,