Bullfight Read online

  Standing there with a cigarette in his mouth, not bothering to say good morning or even to take his hands out of his pockets, Tashiro had the unmistakable air of a showman, elated at his success.

  “Rough morning, I bet.”

  “Actually no, the ride was surprisingly relaxing—having the whole train to ourselves made things easy. Sure took a long time, though, one night here, next night somewhere else. Five days, including today. I’m exhausted, let me tell you.”

  So he said. He didn’t look particularly exhausted to Tsugami.

  And sure enough, the next instant he was ready for business. “So we’re all set for the parade?”

  They had arranged to depart from Sannomiya at eight, make the rounds of downtown Kobe, and deliver the parade of sumo bulls to the stable in Nishinomiya. The next morning they would walk them from Nishinomiya to Osaka, circle through the center of city, then return to Nishinomiya. Tsugami was anxious above all that the bulls might not be in good condition after so much rocking on the train, but Tashiro didn’t seem concerned.

  “They haven’t exercised for so long, a bit of walking will be good for them.”

  Tashiro glanced up at the sky to gauge the weather, looked down at his watch, and then strode off with the contented gait of an officer inspecting his troops, saying he should at least peek in to thank the station manager for his help.

  Tsugami was walking around greeting some of the owners who had helped with things during that first trip to W. when N., a reporter who had made the trip up on the train with the rest of the group, drew him aside, saying he had some information to pass on. “Look,” he said, glancing meaningfully toward the far western edge of the yard, where the only opening in the fence allowed passage in and out. Four or five men were loading something into a truck. Tsugami noticed Tashiro among them; he was standing next to the truck, evidently directing the men in their work.

  “He brought that stuff up with us—says it’s all feed for the bulls. A bunch of us are pretty sure he has something else going on, though. He’s quite the huckster.”

  According to N., Tashiro had loaded an enormous number of mysterious bundles on to the train in W., each wrapped in straw mats and tightly tied, claiming that it was feed. N. was puzzled by the quantity, though, and when he looked inside one he discovered that it was stuffed with dried bonito. When he opened another, a stream of brown sugar gushed out.

  “Feed for the bulls, my ass. And who knows what else is in there? Still, he’s a crucial partner in this project, so I thought for the paper’s sake I’d better just pretend I hadn’t seen anything. And then in Takamatsu—it was hilarious, let me tell you.”

  There had been an earthquake in the ocean off Kishū while they were there, and it had bent the rails that delivered the cars on to the ferry. They had no choice but to unload the bulls and all the rest of the cargo from four of the eight cars, put everything on the boat, and then transfer it all to another set of cars in Uno. Even Tashiro had been rattled. He spent the whole day hurrying back and forth around Takamatsu, and then that night he had brought five or six men who unloaded the “feed” and took it off somewhere.

  “The goods they’re putting in the truck are what’s left, the stuff from the four cars that made it on to the ferry.”

  N. was clearly furious, and proceeded to curse Tashiro roundly. Tsugami wasn’t really surprised that an incident like this should have happened, but even so he felt a wave of displeasure rising up inside him as he stood there watching it happen. He walked up behind Tashiro where he stood near the truck and tapped the shoulder of his overcoat. When Tashiro looked around and saw that it was Tsugami, he suddenly broke into a broad grin.

  “You’re on to me,” he said.

  “How could I not be? You’re doing it right out in the open.”

  “Well, you know,” Tashiro murmured vaguely, then turned serious. “It’s Mr. Okabe’s stuff.”

  Tsugami noticed as Tashiro said this that the name of Okabe’s company, Hanshin Manufacturing, was printed in white on the side of the truck. Tashiro had been unable to refuse. How could he say no when Okabe asked him to load up a few things and take them along, when without his help they would have been unable to get a single car and Okabe had gotten them eight? It just wasn’t possible.

  “Pretend you didn’t see anything. He’ll be useful to you again, trust me.”

  “I’m not sure I want him to be useful. A man like that…” Tsugami’s expression was still sour.

  “As it happens,” Tashiro replied, “I’m afraid there’s a little matter we’re going to need his help on more or less immediately. We’ve got to feed the bulls.”

  For two or three days before a fight, you had to feed sumo bulls great heaps of rice and barley, and then on the actual day of the event you had to give them sake and eggs, too. If you were dealing with twenty-two bulls, well, you were going to need an awful lot of rice and barley, and so on. Tashiro had been planning to try and get special rations issued in Ehime, but in the end he hadn’t been able to get permission, he said, though he had tried as hard as he could. And if they couldn’t make it happen in Ehime, applying for rations in Hyōgo Prefecture or Osaka certainly wasn’t going to work, since they were having trouble providing people with enough basic staple foods. When all was said and done, there didn’t seem to be any choice but to beg Okabe for help.

  “Ask him, and we’ll have no problem getting feed for twenty or even thirty bulls. It’s only for two or three days, after all.”

  Even as he talked with Tsugami, Tashiro would occasionally shout at the men loading the truck—telling them to be careful, issuing instructions. Tsugami had begun feeling vaguely uneasy, as though, without his realizing it, someone had come and wound him up, around and around, with an invisible string. Now that he was feeling this way, he started noticing a certain nasty tinge to Tashiro’s brazenness that hadn’t been there before, as if he had decided he could get away with anything now.

  “All right. I’ll talk to Okabe,” Tsugami said.

  By the time Tsugami left Tashiro and rejoined the rest of the group, everyone from the paper who was involved with the tournament had arrived, and the air was buzzing with voices. He noticed one of the photographers rushing around taking pictures of the bulls. At seven, they started getting ready for the parade. As they were putting the showy sumo-style aprons over the bulls’ backs, Tashiro, who always wore long pants, appeared wearing knickerbockers; he had replaced his usual overcoat with one that came down only to his waist and had a hunting cap on his head. He would be riding in a truck at the end of the parade today, directing the entire process.

  A reporter named Y. walked up to Tsugami, saying he had been searching for him everywhere. He was worried that the pictures of the parade weren’t going to be ready on time, even if the article itself was, and wanted to know if the parade could set out an hour earlier than planned. Tsugami told him to talk to Tashiro and do whatever seemed best.

  “The paper is going to be crazy today. The editors are going to hate us,” Y. laughed. “Not only do we have two huge lead stories, with the general strike coming up on February 1st and the raid today on Jikōson’s compound, we also have to cover this bull parade, and then we’ve got the special report on ‘Traveling with the Bulls.’”

  “It’ll all be over in a few days,” Tsugami said. “Don’t pay any attention.”

  Recently the paper’s pages were awash with big news stories, crammed into limited space. All their competitors were paying particularly close attention to what was happening with the strike, and their editors remained resolutely focused on that one issue; Tsugami, meanwhile, kept right on giving most coverage to the bullfight, come what may, telling himself what he had told Y.—pay no attention.

  Y. glanced at his watch. “Seven already! Today is one busy day.” He lit a cigarette, expelled a puff of white breath and smoke, and hurried off in Tashiro’s direction.

  In the end, the parade did get under way earlier than planned: the twenty
-two bulls ambled out of the yard at regular intervals, banners dyed with their names hoisted up in front of each one, a handler on each side. Already an eager crowd had collected on the street outside the fence, forming a human wall. As Tsugami stood watching the bulls plod out, Tashiro, who had already climbed into the final truck with the bulls’ owners and people from the paper, with their microphones and company flags, made a great show of leaping from the cabin just as it was about to start moving, and came running over to Tsugami.

  He had almost forgotten something important, he said, smiling. “Can you get hold of a hundred thousand yen by tomorrow? We’ll be okay as long as you have it by two or so.” He spoke as though this were nothing at all. “We were supposed to pay the handlers after the tournament, but they say they want it up front. Sorry to trouble you, but that’s how it is.”

  Tsugami felt a sinking sensation. He found it hard to admit that, with this big event coming up the day after tomorrow, the paper didn’t have that much money on hand. Tsugami was still groping for a reply when Tashiro spoke again, ever so nonchalantly.

  “Let’s see… I don’t believe there is anything else…” He frowned pensively for a moment, then suddenly raised his hand. “Well, see you around!”

  A moment later, he had turned his back to Tsugami and was scampering off toward the truck, his heavyset body tilting forward, the muffler hanging out of his coat, jerking in the wind.

  Tsugami returned alone to the paper’s office in Osaka. As he was walking up the stairs, a reporter on the night shift who was heading downstairs told him a man had been waiting to see him for two hours and took a business card from his pocket. Looking down at it, Tsugami saw that it belonged to Miura Yoshinosuke, president of Tōyō Pharmaceuticals—a brand-new player in the industry that had been generating enormous sales thanks to a series of ads for a breath freshener called Clean & Cool that had been appearing not only in newspapers and magazines, but in trains, buses, and even on the streets. Tsugami had no reason to know Miura personally, of course, but his flamboyant strategy of plastering every space with ads had occasionally come up in conversation at the Reporters’ Club.

  “The chief said he didn’t know when you’d be back, but the man insisted on waiting. Said he would stay until noon.”

  When Tsugami stepped into the reception room, Miura was sitting alone with Time or some other foreign magazine spread on his lap, marking the text with a red pencil. He immediately sprang to his feet and said crisply, “Hi, my name’s Miura.”

  He was a young man, probably in his late twenties or early thirties, with long sideburns and a red necktie in a large, loose knot; he had the affected air of someone in the film world—an assistant director, perhaps—but he exhibited a certain drive as he rose, an unmistakable energy, like that of a sportsman meeting an opponent.

  “Actually, I’ve got a favor to ask of you. How would you feel about letting my company buy all the tickets for this bullfighting tournament of yours at a twenty percent discount.”

  Miura lost no time in getting to business; he didn’t even seem inclined to sit down. Tsugami felt slightly taken aback, unable to gauge the intentions of a man who had popped up like this without any warning. He gestured for Miura to have a seat, then hastily made an inspection of his elegant attire, from his impeccably white collar to the tips of his well-polished shoes, everything absolutely the best that could be had these days, betraying an overweening desire to make money speak. Next Tsugami shifted his gaze to Miura’s face, which was characterized above all by the rather over-intense ambition that burned in his eyes. He had the confidently cheerful, obliging look found among people who have been raised in good families, but at the same time there was a fearlessness in his gaze that could not be attributed entirely to his youth.

  When Tsugami did not immediately reply, Miura leisurely took a cigarette case from his pocket, as if to say that he was happy to give Tsugami a moment to think. He extracted an expensive cigarette, lit it, and began slowly blowing out streams of purplish smoke.

  “No doubt this sounds like an extremely good deal for us,” he said after a time, his tone softer than before, “but in exchange for the twenty percent in sales you would be sacrificing, if you’ll forgive me for putting it that way, we would be able to pay you the full cost of the tickets up front, immediately. That means you would be guaranteed not to lose money on this thing, no matter what, even if it rains, even if there’s an earthquake.”

  Miura crossed his legs and gazed at Tsugami, waiting to see how he would respond. When Tsugami continued to sit there listlessly, saying nothing, Miura added, “Naturally, when I say we would buy all the tickets, this would all happen behind the scenes. As far as the public knows, the paper will still be selling the tickets. That would suit us just fine.”

  At last, Tsugami spoke. “You buy the tickets at a twenty percent discount, and then what?”

  “We advertise.”

  “Ah.”

  Tsugami felt his cheek muscles stiffen oddly. Miura’s brash confidence, and the way he seemed to be pushing for an immediate answer, stirred up a powerful urge to fight back.

  “It would help if you could describe the sort of advertising you plan to do. Then, perhaps, I can consider your proposal.”

  Tsugami noticed that his tone was as clipped and businesslike as Miura’s, and the realization made him slightly annoyed. Miura explained that he wanted to include a small packet of Clean & Cool with each ticket when it was sold. In other words, everyone who attended the bullfight would go away with a packet of Clean & Cool as a giveaway. Ordinarily the packet would be sold for seven yen, so they would be getting a seven-yen prize in addition to getting to see the bullfight. In that sense, it would actually be helping the paper.

  “You buy all the tickets at a twenty percent discount and pair each one with a seven-yen giveaway. And do you come out in the red, or in the black?”

  “More or less even, I’d say. Either way, it wouldn’t be much.”

  “Meaning,” Tsugami said, looking directly at Miura with a slightly sarcastic grin hovering around his mouth, “that you would be able to advertise Clean & Cool for free.”

  “Precisely. Assuming, that is, that we sell every last ticket, that is. But if we don’t—” Now it was Miura’s turn to grin. “I lose the cost of whatever we can’t sell. It’s a sort of gamble, you might say.”

  Miura looked straight ahead the whole time he was speaking, his manner proud; the only time he lowered his head was when he was lighting a cigarette. Tsugami had no idea whether Miura’s proposal truly was a good deal for the paper or not. If the tournament was a success, they would see twenty percent of their total sales of three million three hundred thousand yen—a cool six hundred and sixty thousand yen—go up in a puff of smoke. The thought rankled, it was true, but he couldn’t deny the great attraction of having eighty percent of their earnings guaranteed, especially now that Tashiro had asked him to produce one hundred thousand yen and he had no idea how he would get that money. Tsugami’s mind was made up, though, when Miura said it was “a sort of gamble,” offering the words like a challenge.

  “It’s generous of you to make the offer, but I’m afraid can’t accept it. If packets of Clean & Cool were distributed with every ticket, people might get the impression that your company had put up the capital to sponsor the bullfight.”

  “I see.”

  He might have been imagining it, but Tsugami had the sense that for the briefest instant the blood had drained from Miura’s face. And so, feeling sure of himself for the first time in the presence of this man so much younger than himself, he tossed out a life preserver. “How about this. I can’t let you have all the tickets, but if you really want to be involved, I’ll agree to sell you five thousand of the fifty-yen ringside tickets.”

  “Ringside? No, that won’t do.” Picking up on the change in Tsugami’s mood, perhaps, Miura spoke with the haughtiness of a man refusing a proposal, even though he was the one who had been refused. “Spectators
in the special ringside seats are irrelevant in terms of advertising. Even if you were to let us have all the tickets, we wouldn’t be expecting to get anything out of them.”

  As Miura saw it, times had changed utterly since the war ended. The old middle class, which had always loved unnecessary little medicines and so on, like Clean & Cool, had been totally wiped out—they would be in the third-tier seats now. The ringside seats would be occupied by members of the new salaried class who couldn’t care less about such products.

  “How does this sound?” Miura said. “If you’re going to sell us some tickets anyway, why not let us have all the third-tier seats?”

  “No, that won’t work for us. The third-tier tickets will sell no matter what. If anything is going to be left over, it’s the ringside seats. Those are the ones that worry me.”

  “Well then, I guess there’s nothing to be done. It’s really too bad, but…” Miura sat sunk in thought for a few seconds; then, resigned, stood up. He turned to face Tsugami directly. “The meteorologists say they expect it to rain the next few days, but I don’t suppose—”

  “I’m well aware of that. This was always a gamble for the paper.”

  “I see.”

  Miura reached for his hat, smiling mildly as if to acknowledge that the bargaining was finally done. Tsugami marveled at how skilled he was, this young man, in business matters. As he left, Miura said once again, in a tone without the slightest trace of servility, “Would you mind if I come by once again tomorrow morning at nine, in the hope that you will have reconsidered?”

  “By all means. I doubt I’ll have changed my mind, though.”

  Tsugami’s tone, too, had become formal. When someone put a knife to Tsugami’s neck, it was in his nature to press his own blade to his antagonist’s, to keep pressing it in, watching the sharp edge; then, after the agitation of the moment faded, he would look back in disbelief at what he had done. This time was no different. After he saw Miura out, his heart grew heavy and dark, burdened with an inexplicable sadness and exhaustion, and a subtle sense of regret. Given the position he was in right now, no doubt the appropriate thing would have been to negotiate an agreement that turned half the tickets into sure cash, even if he wasn’t going to let Miura have all of them. What was it about Miura, he wondered, that had made him refuse to compromise? But soon the vague discomfort the man had inspired in him faded. Mountains of work awaited him.