16



The World's Exhaustion and Burdens

*

The Magic Lamp



The phone rang at nine-thirty at night. It rang once, then stopped, and started ringing
again. This was to be Ushikawa's signal.
"Hello, Mr. Okada," said Ushikawa's voice. "Ushikawa here. I'm in your neighborhood


and thought I might drop by, if it would be all right with you. I know it's late, but there's
something I wanted to talk to you about in person. What do you say? It has to do with Ms.
Kumiko, so I thought you might be interested."
I pictured Ushikawa's expression at the other end of the line as I listened to him speaking.
He had a self-satisfied smile on his face, lips curled and filthy teeth exposed, as if to say, I
know this is an offer you can't refuse; and unfortunately, he was right.



It took him exactly ten minutes to reach my house. He wore the same clothes he'd had on
three days earlier. I could have been mistaken about that, but he wore the same kind of suit
and shirt and necktie, all grimy and wrinkled and baggy. These disgraceful articles of clothing
looked as if they had been forced to accept an unfair portion of the world's exhaustion and
burdens. If, through some kind of reincarnation, it were possible to be reborn as Ushikawa's
clothing, with a guarantee of rare glory in the next rebirth, I would still not want to do it.
After asking my permission, Ushikawa helped himself to a beer in the refrigerator,
checking first to see that the bottle felt properly chilled before he poured the contents into a
glass he found nearby. We sat at the kitchen table.
"All right, then," said Ushikawa. "In the interest of saving time, I will dispense with the
small talk and plunge directly into the business at hand. You would like to talk with Ms.
Kumiko, wouldn't you, Mr. Okada? Directly. Just the two of you. I believe that is what you
have been wanting for some time now. Your first priority. Am I right?"
I gave this some thought. Or I paused for a few moments, as if giving it some thought.
"Of course I want to talk with her if that is possible."
"It is not impossible," said Ushikawa softly, with a nod.
"But there are conditions attached ... ?"
"There are no conditions attached." Ushikawa took a sip of his beer. "I do have a new
proposition for you this evening, however. Please listen to what I have to say, and give it
careful consideration. It is something quite separate from the question of whether or not you
talk to Ms. Kumiko."
I looked at him without speaking.
"To begin with, then, Mr. Okada, you are renting that land, and the house on it, from a
certain company, are you not? The 'hanging house,' I mean. You are paying a rather large
sum for it each month. You have not an ordinary lease, however, but one with an option to
buy some years hence. Correct? Your contract is not a matter of public record, of course, and
so your name does not appear anywhere-which is the point of all the machinations. You are,
however, the de facto owner of the property, and the rent you pay accomplishes the same
thing as mortgage payments. The total sum you are to pay- let's see- including the house,
comes to something in the neighborhood of eighty million yen, does it not? At this rate, you
should be able to take title to the land and the building in something less than two years. That
is very impressive! Very fast work! I have to congratulate you."
Ushikawa looked at me for confirmation of everything he had been saying, but I remained
silent.
"Please don't ask me how I know all these details. You dig hard enough, you find what
you want to know-if you know how to dig. And I have a pretty good idea who is behind the
dummy company. Now, that was a tough one! I had to crawl through a labyrinth for it. It was
like looking for a stolen car that's been repainted and had new tires put on and the seats
recovered and the serial number filed off the engine. They covered all the bases. They're real
pros. But now I have a pretty good idea of what's going on- probably better than you do, Mr.
Okada. I'll bet you don't even know who it is you're paying the money back to, right?"
"That's all right. Money doesn't come with names attached."


Ushikawa laughed. "You're absolutely right, Mr. Okada. Money does not come with
names attached. Very well said! I'll have to write that down. But finally, Mr. Okada, things
don't always go the way you want them to. Take the boys at the tax office, for example.
They're not very bright. They only know how to squeeze taxes out of places that have names
attached. So they go out of their way to stick names on where there aren't any. And not just
names, but numbers too. They might as well be robots, for all the emotion that's involved in
the process. But that is exactly what this capitalist society of ours is built on.... Which leads us
to the conclusion that the money that you and I are now talking about does indeed have a
name attached, and a very excellent name it is."
I looked at Ushikawa's head as he spoke. Depending on the angle, the light produced
some strange dents in his scalp.
"Don't worry," he said, with a laugh. "The tax man won't be coming here. And even if he
did come, with this much of a labyrinth to crawl through, he'd be bound to smash into
something. Wham! He'd raise a huge bump on his head. And finally, it's just a job for him: he
doesn't want to hurt himself doing it. If he can get his money, he'd rather do it the easy way
than the hard way: the easier the better. As long as he gets what he's looking for, the brownie
points are the same. Especially if his boss tells him to take the easy way, any ordinary person
is going to choose that. I managed to find what I did because it was me doing the searching.
Not to boast or anything, but I'm good. I may not look it, but I'm really good. I know how to
avoid injury. I know how to slip down the road at night when it's pitch black out.
"But to tell you the truth, Mr. Okada (and I know you're one person I can really open up
to), not even I know what you're doing in that place. I do know the people who visit you there
are paying an arm and a leg. So you must be doing something special for them that's worth all
that money. That much is as clear as counting crows on snow. But exactly what it is you do,
and why you're so stuck on that particular piece of land, I have no idea. Those are the two
most important points in all this, but they are the very things most hidden, like the center of a
palmist's signboard. That worries me."
"Which is to say, that's what worries Noboru Wataya," I said.
Instead of answering, Ushikawa started pulling on the matted fuzz above his ears.
"This is just between you and me, Mr. Okada, but I have to confess I really admire you.
No flattery intended. This may sound odd, but you're basically a really ordinary guy. Or to
put it even more bluntly, there's absolutely nothing special about you. Sorry about that, but
don't take it the wrong way. It's true, though, in terms of how you fit in society. Meeting you
face-to-face and talking with you like this, though, I'm very, very impressed with you-with
how you handle yourself. I mean, look at the way you've managed to shake up a man like Dr.
Wataya! That's why I'm just the carrier pigeon. A completely ordinary person couldn't pull
this off.
"That's what I like about you. I'm not making this up. I may be worthless scum, but I
don't lie about things like that. And I don't think of you in completely objective terms, either.
If there's nothing special about you in terms of how you fit in society, I'm a hundred times
worse. I'm just an uneducated twerp from an awful background. My father was a tatami
maker in Funabashi, an alcoholic, a real bastard. I used to wish he'd die and leave me alone, I
was such a miserable kid, and I ended up getting my wish, for better or worse. Then I went
through storybook poverty. I don't have a single pleasant memory from childhood, never had
a kind word from either parent. No wonder I went bad! I managed to squeak through high
school, but after that it was the school of hard knocks for me. Lived on my wits, what little I
had. That's why I don't like members of the elite or official government types. All right: I
hate 'em. Walk right into society through the front door, get a pretty wife, self-satisfied bas-
tards. I like guys like you, Mr. Okada, who've done it all on their own."
Ushikawa struck a match and lit a fresh cigarette.
"You can't keep it up forever, though. You're going to burn out sooner or later.


Everybody does. It's the way people are made. In terms of evolutionary history, it was only
yesterday that men learned to walk around on two legs and get in trouble thinking
complicated thoughts. So don't worry, you'll burn out. Especially in the world that you're
trying to deal with: everybody burns out. There are too many tricky things going on in it, too
many ways of getting into trouble. It's a world made of tricky things. I've been working in
that world since the time of Dr. Wataya's uncle, and now the Doctor has inherited it, lock,
stock, and barrel. I used to do risky stuff for a living. If I had kept it up, I'd be in jail now- or
dead. No kidding. The Doctor's uncle picked me up in the nick of time. So these little eyes of
mine have seen a hell of a lot. Everybody burns out in this world: amateur, pro, it doesn't
matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why
everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That
way, you can manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong
anywhere, you go down once and you're out. Finished.
"Maybe I shouldn't say this to you, Mr. Okada, but you're ready to go down. It's a sure
thing. It says so in my book, in big, black letters about two or three pages ahead: 'TORU
OKADA READY TO FALL.' It's true. I'm not trying to scare you. I'm a whole lot more accurate
in this world than weather forecasts on TV. So all I want to tell you is this: There's a time
when things are right for pulling out."
Ushikawa closed his mouth at that point and looked at me. Then he went on:
"So let's stop all this feeling each other out, Mr. Okada, and get down to business....
Which brings us to the end of a very long introduction, so now I can make you the offer I
came here to make."
Ushikawa put both hands on the table. Then he flicked his tongue over his lips.
"So let's say I've just told you that you ought to cut your ties with that land and pull out of
the deal. But maybe you can't pull out, even if you want to. Maybe you're stuck until you pay
off your loan." Ushikawa cut himself short and gave me a searching look. "If money's a
problem, we've got it to give you. If you need eighty million yen, I can bring you eighty
million yen in a nice, neat bundle. That's eight thousand ten-thousand-yen bills. You can pay
off whatever you owe and pocket the rest, free and clear. Then it's party time! Hey, what do
you say?"
"So then the land and building belong to Noboru Wataya? Is that the idea?"
"Yes, I guess it is, the way things work. I suppose there are a lot of annoying details that
will have to be taken care of, though...."
I gave his proposal some thought. "You know, Ushikawa, I really don't get it. I don't see
why Noboru Wataya is so eager to get me away from that property. What does he plan to do
with it once he owns it?"
Ushikawa slowly rubbed one cheek with the palm of his hand. "Sorry, Mr. Okada, I don't
know about things like that. As I mentioned to you at first, I'm just a stupid carrier pigeon.
My master tells me what to do, and I do it. And most of the jobs he gives me are unpleasant.
When I used to read the story of Aladdin, I'd always sympathize with the genie, the way they
worked him so hard, but I never dreamed I'd grow up to be like him. It's a sad story, let me
tell you. But finally, everything I have said to you is a message I was sent to deliver. It comes
from Dr. Wataya. The choice is up to you. So what do you say? What kind of answer should I
carry back?"
I said nothing.
"Of course, you will need time to think. That is fine. We can give you time. I don't mean
for you to decide right now, on the spot. I would like to say take all the time you want, but I'm
afraid we can't be that flexible. Now, let me just say this, Mr. Okada. Let me give you my
own personal opinion. A nice, fat offer like this is not going to sit on the table forever. You
could look away for a second, and it might be gone when you looked back. It could evaporate,
like mist on a windowpane. So please give it some serious thought- in a hurry. I mean, it's not


a bad offer. Do you see what I mean?"
Ushikawa sighed and looked at his watch. "Oh, my, my, my- I've got to be going.
Overstayed my welcome again, I'm afraid. Enjoyed another beer. And as usual, I did all the
talking. Sorry about that. I'm not trying to make excuses, but, I don't know, when I come here
I just seem to settle in. You have a comfortable house here, Mr. Okada. That must be it."
Ushikawa stood up and carried his glass and beer bottle and ashtray to the kitchen sink.
"I'll be in touch with you soon, Mr. Okada. And I'll make arrangements for you to talk
with Ms. Kumiko, that I promise. You can look forward to it soon."



After Ushikawa left, I opened the windows and let the accumulated cigarette smoke out.
Then I drank a glass of water. Sitting on the sofa, I cuddled the cat, Mackerel, on my lap. I
imagined Ushikawa removing his disguise when he was one step beyond my door, and flying
back to Noboru Wataya. It was a stupid thing to imagine.