Confessions of a Yakuza Read online

  That summer, though, things started to look up. The doctor had been to visit the boss one day, and I’d gone to see him off at the gate, when I saw this girl walking in our direction from the beach. She had a parasol, and was wearing a lovely summer kimono, and there was an elderly woman with her who must have been her nanny. The girl glanced at me as she went by, and her face was so pale and pretty it looked almost transparent. But she’d gone a few steps past the gate when a car came around a corner on the other side. As it went whizzing past, it brushed against her parasol, sending it spinning to the ground. The girl had a hand up to her forehead.

  “What’s wrong, miss?” the nanny asked her in a worried way.

  I ran over to pick the parasol up, then looked at the girl. Her face was as white as a sheet.

  “She doesn’t look too good,” I said. “I should take her straight home if I were you.”

  But the old woman was in too much of a flap to be any use, so I told her I would help.

  “It’s not far,” she said, “—just over there, where that big pine tree is.”

  Since the girl didn’t seem up to walking, I offered to carry her on my back. When I picked her up, though—well, it came as a surprise: not just how light she was, but how nice she smelled. She was obviously high-class; in fact, I found out later that her family was related to Egawa Tarozaemon, the scientist who built a special furnace for making some enormous kind of cannon.

  Anyway, you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but the girl took a fancy to me. The nanny came every day after that to fetch me. I’d hear her voice calling for me at the entrance, and Shiro would go out to see her, then come back with a big grin on his face.

  “The young lady would like the honor, Eiji,” he’d say, kidding me. So I’d ask the boss if I could go, and—bad-temperedly, telling me not to stay too long—he’d usually agree.

  On the way over, the nanny would ask me things about myself, how I spent my time. And I’d fob her off with something like, “I don’t work, but I dabble in the theater now and then.” The bit about not working went down well, you know. Most rich people don’t do a stroke of work, they live off the fat of the land, and it seems she thought I was the spoiled son of some wealthy family. Another thing was, I’d been sort of toughened up in Korea, so I expect I seemed different from the other young men-about-town. Either way, she swallowed the story whole.

  “Mr. Ijichi is in the theater,” she told the girl, all goggle-eyed, when we arrived.

  “How nice. And what kind of plays do you appear in, Mr. Ijichi? Foreign ones?”

  “Oh, I’m just a dabbler,” I said, “not a real actor.” Since I didn’t know a damn thing about the theater, I had to say this in case they asked me any more questions.

  It was a big place they lived in, but apart from the girl the only people there were the nanny and two maids and an old gardener. Sometimes a piano teacher and a man who looked like a university professor dropped by. But as for where her parents were, or how long she was going to stay, I’d no idea. Whenever I went there, the whole place was neat and tidy, not a speck of dust. Through the windows you could see a fine Western-style garden, with an old-fashioned cannon standing on a rock.

  The girl sometimes suggested a game of cards, so I joined in, but all we played was Sevens—no betting at all; it was a complete waste of time as far as I was concerned.

  They asked me to go to the beach with them, too, and we went, all three of us. There was a small cove, and people from the villas were swimming. There were men in red loincloths standing around on the beach as well, and others sitting on the rocks, all staring hard at the people swimming.

  I asked what they were doing, and the old woman said, “They’re keeping watch to see the young ladies don’t drown.” They were hired for the summer, she told me, just to keep an eye on them, one for each family. I don’t know how it got that way, but those lifeguards all wore the same red costume.

  On the beach in Oiso

  The girls who’d finished swimming came up the beach, each with a guard in tow carrying a parasol over his shoulder and a basket. The men had deep tans—they looked almost black against the blue sea.

  “Shall we go?” the nanny said, and the girl and me walked side by side along the sand toward the house. On the way, she kept giving me little glances from under her eyelashes, but every time I looked back she glanced away again. She seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t because the other woman was right behind us.

  It went on like that for days, with us doing the same things over and over again. I couldn’t work it out: a couple of youngsters, boy and girl, going for walks on the beach with a chaperone, and nothing happening. It seemed unnatural. Still, she was as pretty as a picture, just the right age, and a type I wasn’t used to, either, so you couldn’t really say I didn’t enjoy it.

  One day, we got back to find a pile of Alexandrias on the table. More than ten bunches there were, and beside them was something that looked like a watermelon, only it wasn’t. I was wondering what it was when the old woman asked the maid who they were from.

  “They sent them over from Mr. Dan’s place,” she said. That was Dan Takuma, the father of the famous composer; one of the big shots in the business world—Mitsui, or was it Mitsubishi? His summer bonus alone would have been a couple of hundred million in today’s money. Even our boss couldn’t have matched that.

  The nanny offered me a grape, but I was still puzzled by the watermelon. When I tried it, it was as sweet as honey, sweeter than the grapes ... and that was the first time I ever remember having muskmelon.

  Anyway, not long afterward, the boss told me to go back to Tokyo. Didn’t even tell me why. But I had a good idea what was on his mind, so I said goodbye and took the first train into town. And I never saw the girl again, never even went to Oiso any more. The boss had told Muramatsu not to send me. And, on my own side, I wasn’t interested in meeting the girl in secret—the worlds we lived in were just too different.

  Eloping

  A couple of summers after that little holiday, Muramatsu sent for me and said:

  “Eiji—I want you to go to a brother’s place in Funabashi to help him out. There may be some trouble, so I’ll give you ten men to take with you.”

  There was a boss called Ito Chiyokichi over in Funabashi, in Chiba prefecture, he told me. Ito’s gang had had connections with the Dewaya for many years now, and both sides had a strong sense of obligation to each other. Lately, though, Boss Ito had being coming under pressure from a new-style yakuza called Yahagi who’d been getting uppish, and he was in a fix. So they’d decided that this Yahagi ought to be taught a lesson, and they’d asked the Dewaya for reinforcements.

  “If the other side wants a showdown,” Muramatsu said, “then let them have it. Any time you want more men, just let me know.”

  “Leave it to me,” I told him, talking big. “We’ll take care of things, don’t worry.”

  You don’t know how pleased Boss Ito was. Gave us the red-carpet treatment—made us feel like VIPs. After all, without us he’d have been in danger of losing his territory. So no expense was spared: the best geisha in town, parties every night.

  Being entertained like that, we naturally felt we owed them something in return, and if Yahagi’s people had wanted a fight we’d have taken them on any time. We were on the lookout for them—but there wasn’t a cheep out of them. Which wasn’t surprising: basically, they were just a bunch of hicks, and as soon as they heard reinforcements had come from Tokyo, all the wind went out of them.

  “It looks as though things have worked themselves out,” Ito told me, “so why don’t you stay on for a bit and have some fun?”

  I got the feeling somehow that he didn’t really want a fight, that he’d be happy so long as he broke Yahagi’s hold on the entertainment area. Kamezo, my junior in the gang and a close friend of mine, was fed up about it, though; Ito was a slob, he said. But only having come there to help out, it wasn’t for us to meddle. So we decided
we might as well take it easy, and just loafed around town every day.

  The place we were staying at was right in the middle of the red-light district, a lively spot. There were cafes, and places serving Western food. One of these Western restaurants was called Byodoken, and it served sweet things too, like shaved ice with syrup. I was going past one day—a really hot day it was—and the sight of the banner fluttering outside with “Ices” on it made me suddenly decide to go in.

  I sat myself down and said “Give me an ice, will you, any flavor,” and was wiping the sweat off my face when I looked up and there behind the counter was this girl, a real stunner. She had her hair done up and a striped kimono on, with a white apron over it. I went there again the next day, but it was lunchtime and the place was crammed. When she saw me, the girl smiled and said “Hi—you’re back then!”

  She was bustling about attending to the customers, making the other waitresses look invisible. There was something I really fancied about the way she moved. Her forehead was wide and a nice shape, and she had fair skin and almond eyes, with a friendly expression. Her arms as they stretched out of her apron sleeves were slender, and had a sort of glow to them. I sat there in my seat and just stared and stared at her as though I’d gone soft in the head. I went the next day, too, but it was crowded again.

  “Hot weather we’re having,” she said with a little smile in her eyes. I hung on in my seat, and before I realized it the place was empty and the girl was sitting over in the corner.

  “What’s the time?” I asked.

  “Three o’clock!” She had a tray held against her chest. Her hair threw a shadow on her cheeks, which had skin so fair you could almost see through it, and she had rather full, red lips.

  “You got anything against people who don’t do regular work?” I said.

  “You’re one of the Dewaya people, aren’t you?”

  “I won’t come any more if it bothers you.”

  “The owner’s a bit scared.”

  “Then I shouldn’t be here, should I?”

  “You know the cafe over there on the corner? Wait for me there.”

  And that was how I struck up with Omitsu. But it wasn’t long before Ito got wind of our affair and sent for Kamezo to pass on a warning to me.

  “I want you to tell Eiji,” he said, “—that girl is connected with Mr. Makuta. There’ll be trouble if he gets mixed up with her.”

  This guy Makuta, he told Kamezo, was the right-hand man of a certain Mr. Omiya, and quite a big shot locally. Omiya was a construction boss well known at the time in the Kanto area; anybody in the yakuza world would have known who you meant if you mentioned him. According to Ito, Makuta was hoping eventually to set Omitsu up as his mistress.

  “You’ve got women on the brain,” Kamezo told me. “The boss was complaining about it only the other day.”

  “It’s different in this case.”

  “I’m not so sure. It seems pretty much the same to me.”

  “Give it a rest, will you!”

  “The boss won’t like it if he hears, you know.”

  Kamezo was genuinely worried for my sake. So I decided to have it out with Omitsu, and arranged to meet her at a cafe.

  “Are you hitched up with a man called Makuta?” I asked, right out.

  She shook her head, putting a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth, then sat there gazing at me.

  “I’d be in trouble if it got around that I stole somebody else’s girl.”

  “It’s all right. Honestly. I mean, he’s got a wife.”

  “Has he, now....” That gave me a better idea of how the land lay. It was hot that day, you know; the sweat poured off you even when you were sitting still. There were little beads of sweat standing out on her forehead and her hairline.

  She took a handkerchief out of the front of her kimono, then stretched out her hand and wiped my forehead.

  “What shall we do?” she said.

  “About what?”

  “Us.”

  “You’re crazy, that’s what you are.”

  “I suppose I am.”

  We both had a cold drink. Then I gave the shop boy a tip and got him to fetch Kamezo.

  “I’m leaving things to you,” I told him, “so just do whatever’s necessary.”

  Kamezo went pale.

  “You’ll be in real trouble if you do this,” he said. “I mean, it’s stupid just when you’re all set to make a name for yourself.”

  “D’you think I could call myself a yakuza if I couldn’t stand up to some old businessman?”

  “Yes, but still—what d’you aim to do?”

  “The first thing is to talk it over with Okada.”

  So I went back to Tokyo, taking Omitsu with me. Then I left her at an inn and went to see Okada. After listening to what I had to say, he burst out:

  “You just can’t do that! There’ll be a hell of a fuss if you aren’t quick about it! The boss will throw a fit, for one thing. Look, it’s still not too late—take the woman back where she came from!”

  So I bowed to him and went back to the inn.

  Looking back on it now, I really think I’d gone a bit funny in the head. I mean, to cut in on another man’s woman, go against a warning from a senior member of the gang, and then make a run for it—I must have been crazy. But the one thing I knew was that I didn’t want to break up with her, and I was quite prepared to be chucked out of the Dewaya.

  I took Omitsu and we got on a train and went off into the country, to Saitama prefecture. After that we drifted from place to place—so many places it would take too long to tell you all the names. At Yudanaka hot springs, though, we stayed for about two weeks; it was the one place where we really took it easy, and it felt like we were really man and wife. But the sight of those hills every day somehow made me restless.

  “I could get a job here as a maid in a hotel,” Omitsu said to me eventually.

  “Right, that’s it, we’re off!” I said, flying off the handle; and we hit the road again.

  It was tough going, but the girl never complained. Whenever I ran out of cash, I’d go and pay my respects to the local yakuza boss, hoping to get a bit of spending money. Quite a few of them, though, wouldn’t have anything to do with me. It couldn’t be helped—after all, they didn’t have any obligations or anything to our gang.

  I never took the girl with me on these visits; I’d leave her at a noodle restaurant or some other cheap eating place nearby and go on alone. They wouldn’t let you near them if you went after sunset, either, so it had to be before it got dark. That was the rule.

  At the entrance you gave the formal yakuza greeting. People in gangster films always seem to have it down pat, but it’s not as easy as all that. It’s like the way the samurai in the old days used to introduce themselves—you make it quite clear who you are, and what outfit you belong to, and who’s your boss. These basic facts, and the way you deliver them, give them a good idea of what kind of guy you are. Anyway, I’d pay my respects to the local boss, and get given an envelope with a bit of cash in it, which kept us going for a while.

  A formal greeting, yakuza-style

  We’d left in August, and we wandered on in that way for more than three months. It might sound romantic, being together like that with someone you’re in love with, but actually it’s tough to be on the run all the time. On rainy days, for instance, it was awful. Country roads back then were hell to walk along. The whole road would be more like a paddy field—or a river, if the rain was heavy—with the mud splashing right up to your ass. If you had tall clogs on, the mud got stuck between the cleats and dragged down on your feet. You just can’t go on walking forever in the rain, all wet through, sharing an umbrella with your woman, as they do in the movies. Like it or not, you take shelter in some room on the second floor of a cheap inn, and sit around doing nothing all day.

  And however crazy you are about each other, you can’t stay in bed screwing all the time, either; you don’t feel like it, if you’re tired
and worried. Sometimes we’d be completely broke and have to sneak into a village shrine to spend the night, with only a single straw mat for bedding. We didn’t know the area, so I’d get hold of a local and say to him, “My old man’s been sick for months, and I’m traveling about praying for him. Are there any shrines around here that are known for answering people’s prayers?” I didn’t look the part, I’m sure, but he’d usually come up with some suggestion.

  Not that that kind of place was ever comfortable to bed down in. It was toward the end of summer, you see, and there were swarms of mosquitoes. They bit right through our clothes. Normally, you’d light up a mosquito coil or something, but we couldn’t allow smoke to be seen in a shrine—a wooden one, at that—as we might have been found by the villagers and reported to the police. So, however badly we got bitten, we just had to grin and bear it.

  When we got too hungry to stand it any longer, I’d sometimes steal things. I’d pinch a watermelon, or some sweet corn, which we gnawed at raw because there was nowhere to roast it.

  Funnily enough, we didn’t get sick. As for washing, they’d let us use the well if we asked at one of the farmer’s houses. They’d lend us a bowl, too, so we could wash our underwear, then hang it on a pole and wait in just our kimonos till it dried. In the old days there was nothing unusual about people traveling around on foot, and the farmers were always helpful, giving them a cup of tea, letting them use their wells, and so on.

  Even so, however tough you are, to go on walking every day without anywhere really to go wears you down in the end, physically and mentally. Travel’s “sad and sore,” as they used to say; sooner or later, you’re bound to crack up.

  It began to hurt just to look at Omitsu; the girl that used to work in Byodoken was gone completely. I got to feeling sad, thinking about all the fun she’d be having—wearing nice clothes, going to the theater and the movies—if only she hadn’t fallen for me. So one day—we were walking along the edge of the Sano river at the time—I told her: