Part 5 (2/2)
”I was contacted about this a week ago. I only had a few M16s in stock, so I had to do some real scrambling to find what you wanted, and that kept me so busy that I didn't give it any thought at the time, but then as I was waiting for you ladies tonight it hit me, and it was kind of a shock.”
He looked to be on the verge of tears, and Suzuki Midori asked, ”What is it?” in a tender voice, as if she and this SDF man, who looked roughly her age, were old and intimate friends. It wouldn't do to have him getting all shocked and unstable on them now-they hadn't received the merchandise yet, and they needed him to teach them how to use it. At the same time, she couldn't help but wonder what exactly it was that emanated so powerfully from men who have no appeal for women. It was almost like an odor, and it was the same no matter where they lived or how old they were or what they did for a living. Maybe you could find out exactly what it was if you did a chemical a.n.a.lysis of their hair or urine-discover some kind of marker that was either caused by or responsible for their never having received a woman's affection.
”The fact is, about ten years ago, I met a lady named Midori on the sh.o.r.e of that lake out there, and your names are Midori, and I don't know if it's karma or what it is, but this Midori, she was a terrible liar.”
”My!” said Takeuchi Midori, letting this most common and versatile of interjections escape her parted Chanel-red lips, along with a little sigh. Sakaguchi seemed to gain courage from that ”My!” and as he mixed and guzzled an even stronger drink he muttered, as if to himself: That's right, that's what she was, a liar. That's right, that's what she was, a liar.
”We were only together for half a year or so, but one lie I'll never forgive her for was, I was born in the mountains and never ate much fish, so I had no idea that the head of the buri buri, the mature yellowtail, is one of the most delicious parts, and a member of my squadron who was from Kyushu, he wanted out of the Forces because he was getting married-why that's a reason to quit the Forces is a mystery to me, but a lot of the younger fellows are like that these days-and I helped him out by putting in a good word here and there, so when he got back to his home town he s.h.i.+pped me a whole buri, packed in ice, you see, and me and some of the other fellows were talking about how to go about cooking and eating it, and I was going out with that woman then, and really enjoying every day, you know, living life to the fullest, and she came by and saw the fish and said, 'Well, first of all, you don't need the head, right?' And she cut off the head and wrapped it up and took it away. Then later I found out that the head is the tastiest part, and you use it to make a dish called buri-daikon, and after that the other fellows started calling her the Buri Burglar. That wasn't all, though. She told me a lot of other lies too.”
Takeuchi Midori breathed another ”My!” and gave him a melting, sympathetic look. ”That's terrible!”
Sakaguchi mixed himself a fresh one, going easy on the water, and tossed it down.
”But the worst lie of all,” he gargled, leaning forward with outspread hands, as if begging for mercy, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. ”She told me she was a stewardess, and she was really just a tour bus guide tour bus guide!”
Each of the four Midoris made use of the interjection ”My!” to convert their spasms of laughter into scandalized gasps, and they all nodded in frantic agreement when Takeuchi Midori cried, ”It's just plain wrong to deceive people that way!”
”This Midori woman, I know now that she had other men, and she only came to see me when she felt like it, on nights when she couldn't meet any of the others, but what made me really angry-well, there were lots of things that made me mad, but after I realized that she probably boiled that head with daikon radishes and ate it with another man, well, I not only couldn't eat buri anymore, I couldn't eat radishes either! Also, she was a really good singer, and just because she knew I'd never been on an airplane, she told me that stewardesses have to sing for the pa.s.sengers!”
The Midoris were compelled to ask a question or risk being reduced to convulsive giggles.
”You really never flew in a plane before?”
”Dozens of times during parachute training, but that was on military transport planes. But the thing that still bothers me the most is...is she...she used to tell me I was a good singer too. Naturally I started to wonder if that wasn't just another lie, and, well, I haven't been able to sing ever since. So...would you mind if I sang a song right now?”
Oh, please! Please do! Please sing for us! We love listening to men sing!
The song was the late Is.h.i.+hara Yujiro's ”Rusty Knife,” and Sakaguchi's singing was so bad that it gave the lyric a strange new pathos and poignancy. Listening to his version, Suzuki Midori was reminded that no one ever said it would be easy to go on living in this world; Takeuchi Midori pondered the n.o.ble truth that n.o.body's life consists exclusively of happy times; Henmi Midori vowed to remember that it's best to keep an open heart and forgive even those who've trespa.s.sed against us; and Tomiyama Midori had to keep telling herself that hitting rock bottom is in fact the first step to a hopeful new future. Sakaguchi was gripping the mike in both hands, his eyes were closed, and sweat dripped from his forehead as he sang all three verses and choruses to the bitter end. The freakish mother-and-child duo behind the counter stood at attention, watching Sakaguchi's performance through eyes that shone with a mixture of unnatural fervor and bottomless despair, like members of the Housewives' Civilian Defense Corps seeing off a squadron of young kamikaze pilots.
By the time Sakaguchi had finished, the Midoris were all perspiring profusely beneath their clothing.
”Here she is,” Sakaguchi said, taking a large tennis bag from the trunk of his car and casually extracting something that looked like a telescope and was only a little longer than a tennis racket. she is,” Sakaguchi said, taking a large tennis bag from the trunk of his car and casually extracting something that looked like a telescope and was only a little longer than a tennis racket.
”It's called your M72 LAW, which stands for Light Anti-tank Weapon. Comes loaded with a sixty-six-millimeter HEAT rocket. Exceptional killpower, and it's lightweight, so even a lady can use it. Disposable type, good for a single use only. The American forces accidentally left a pile of these behind after the joint maneuvers a couple of years ago. It's been properly maintained, and I think it's your best bet.”
7.
After the Acacia Rain
I.
The Midori Society didn't leap into action the moment they'd got their hands on the rocket launcher but began holding a new series of study groups to research guerrilla and terrorist tactics. All four of them had regular jobs, so the meetings had to be held at night. Meanwhile, they continued to track the movements of the enemy camp, conducting regular surveillance on Is.h.i.+hara, n.o.bue, and the others. Midori Society didn't leap into action the moment they'd got their hands on the rocket launcher but began holding a new series of study groups to research guerrilla and terrorist tactics. All four of them had regular jobs, so the meetings had to be held at night. Meanwhile, they continued to track the movements of the enemy camp, conducting regular surveillance on Is.h.i.+hara, n.o.bue, and the others.
Sat.u.r.day night, another study group. Suzuki Midori's apartment. Only three of them were present, as Henmi Midori was busy staking out n.o.bue's building.
”All right, then. Does anyone have any questions or opinions about the things we went over last night?”
Chairwoman Suzuki sipped her green tea and looked at Takeuchi and Tomiyama in turn. They had all decided to refrain from drinking alcohol at these meetings. Especially on Sat.u.r.days, when the meetings often lasted into the wee hours, alcohol would only invite drowsiness and impede concentration.
Takeuchi Midori raised a hand. ”I'm reading the greatest book!” she said. She was drinking a cup of thick espresso, which she'd brought in her own thermos. ”It's by this famous general from the Republic of Korea named Paik Sun-yup, and it's called Anti-Guerrilla Warfare Anti-Guerrilla Warfare. Three nights ago we talked about Guerrilla Warfare Guerrilla Warfare by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, right? Well, Che's book is a sort of manual written from the guerrilla's point of view, of course, but Paik Sun-yup writes from the other side. He was a specialist in suppressing communist guerrillas from North Korea. And he-” by Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, right? Well, Che's book is a sort of manual written from the guerrilla's point of view, of course, but Paik Sun-yup writes from the other side. He was a specialist in suppressing communist guerrillas from North Korea. And he-”
Suzuki Midori interrupted her. Hang on a second Hang on a second, she said.
”Takee, are you using less makeup than usual? You're not even wearing any lipstick.”
Takeuchi Midori blanched and gave a little gasp. Her hand darted into the purse beside her, and in less time than it takes to say so, she was checking her face in the little round mirror of her compact.
”I'm sorry,” she said with honest contrition. ”I didn't realize...”
”I'm not saying it just to get on your case, believe me.”
Suzuki Midori took a leisurely sip of her green tea. She'd recently acquired a keen appreciation for how economical tea and coffee were compared to things like brandy and wine and whiskey. In the past, she had often mindlessly gulped down wine that cost five or six thousand yen a bottle at Seijo Is.h.i.+, whereas a hundred-gram bag of even the finest green tea from Yame or Uji was under three thousand yen and would easily last ten days. Besides, the caffeine kept you sharp. Leaders of all the world's guerrilla and terrorist groups have said to drink tea rather than wine, and now she understood why.
”I've made the same sort of mistake myself any number of times and had to hurry into the nearest powder room to fix it, so I'm just speaking from experience. Didn't Guevara and Marigh.e.l.la both emphasize this very point: that if something's important, it's worth rehearsing and reiterating again and again? That's why I keep harping on these things. Going light on the makeup is a habit you can fall into without even realizing it, but people around you are quicker to notice such things than you might imagine. The last thing we want is for people to think there's anything suspicious about our behavior, right? That's why, even though we've all got so much else to do with our time these days, we keep meeting once a week at the karaoke club in front of the station, and that's why when we buy these reference works, each of us goes to the trouble of traveling to bookstores in distant towns, putting on ap.r.o.ns or dressing in college-girl fas.h.i.+ons, or wearing other things we'd never really wear, like those purple jeans of mine. These are the kinds of details we have to keep working on, never letting down our guard. After all, a group of women our age buying manuals on guerrilla warfare and terrorism at their local bookstore would be pretty conspicuous, right? Didn't Marigh.e.l.la and Action Directe's Nathalie Menigon both warn against exactly that sort of thing? We've lost two of our comrades, Nagii and Wataa, so we have to make sure there's no trail of evidence leading back to us when we exact revenge on the dirtbags responsible.”
Takeuchi Midori was nodding in agreement as she peered into her compact and carefully applied her red Chanel lipstick. ”How's this?” she said when finished. Given the thumbs-up, she smiled and said, ”I've got to be more careful!” Perhaps it was partly because of the lipstick, but that smile was unlike any she'd ever exhibited before, and the other two Midoris were mildly stunned.
”Takee!” Chairwoman Suzuki gasped. ”What is with the s.e.xy smile? Even my my heart just skipped a beat!” heart just skipped a beat!”
”Seriously, Takee,” said Tomiyama Midori. ”Do people at work tell you you're looking especially hot these days?”
Takeuchi Midori bowed her head, blus.h.i.+ng, and said that in fact they did.
”My section chief asked me if I'd found a new lover or something. It was strange. I couldn't imagine what he was talking about.”
”You have have found a new lover,” Suzuki Midori said, and tilted her head toward the far corner of the room. The M72 was there, closed up inside its outer tube. ”But back to what you were saying, Takee. What's so good about this Korean general's book? Did you find anything we can use?” found a new lover,” Suzuki Midori said, and tilted her head toward the far corner of the room. The M72 was there, closed up inside its outer tube. ”But back to what you were saying, Takee. What's so good about this Korean general's book? Did you find anything we can use?”
”Well, nothing in particular, I guess, but...” Takeuchi Midori leafed through her underlined copy of Anti-Guerrilla Warfare Anti-Guerrilla Warfare. ”Oh, wait. For example: 'j.a.pan has no history of guerrilla warfare.' I thought that was worth noting. And this one: 'A fascinating thing about human beings is that the more they begin to disintegrate psychologically, the more they tend to fall back on custom and habit.' Well, just things like that...I guess it's not much help, is it? No really practical tips or anything....”
She closed the book and shrugged, still wearing that s.e.xy half-smile. Suzuki Midori and Tomiyama Midori were wondering what it was that had effected this transformation in her-and, indeed, in themselves as well. They had both had similar experiences at their respective offices. Tomiyama-san, Suzuki-san, you're looking awfully pretty lately Tomiyama-san, Suzuki-san, you're looking awfully pretty lately....
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