九

On the morning of the day set for Uranari's farewell dinner, when I got to school, Porcupine suddenly told me the whole story: the other day Ikagin had come to him complaining that I was running wild and asking him to persuade me to move out, and Porcupine, taking it seriously, had told me to move out for the man's sake — but he'd since learned that the man was a crook who liked to forge seals on fake paintings and sell them off, so his tale about me was surely just as much a fabrication.

He'd been hoping to make some money selling you hanging scrolls and antiques, and since you wouldn't bite and there was nothing in it for him, he cooked up that whole story to fool me.

'I didn't know what kind of man he was, so I did you a great disservice — forgive me,' he said, and went on apologizing at tedious length.

Porcupine looked at me suspiciously and asked whether I was really taking that back, so I explained: yes — I'd hated the idea of him treating me, and meant to pay him back no matter what, but the more I thought it over since, the more it seemed better just to let him treat me after all, so I was taking it back.

Porcupine let out a loud 'Ahahaha' and asked why on earth I hadn't taken it back sooner.

To tell the truth, I'd kept meaning to take it, but it felt somehow awkward, so I'd left it where it was.

When I said that lately just coming to school and seeing that one-and-a-half-sen piece had gotten to be a real torment, he said I must be a terribly sore loser, so I shot back that he himself was terribly pig-headed.

And from there the following exchange took place between us.

'Are you going to today's farewell party?'

'When Koga leaves I even mean to see him off all the way to the harbor.'

'I plan to drink plenty today.'

'I'll eat the snacks and go straight home.'

'Anyone who drinks liquor is a fool.'

'You really do show the flightiness of an Edo boy.'

For some time now, every time I'd seen Uranari's face I'd felt sorry for him past bearing, and now that the day of his farewell had actually come, it struck me as so pitiful that I found myself half-wishing I could go to Nobeoka in his place, if such a thing were possible.

So I wanted to make a fine speech at the farewell party and send him off properly, but with my Tokyo back-alley way of talking it would never come to anything, and it occurred to me to hire Porcupine, with his loud voice, to help crush Red Shirt's nerve for good measure — which was exactly why I'd gone to the trouble of calling him over.

When I told him about the business on the Nozeri River embankment and said the man was a fool, Porcupine said I called everybody I ran into a fool.

'Didn't you call yourself a fool at school today?'

'If you're a fool, then Red Shirt isn't one.'

He insisted he was nothing like Red Shirt himself.

When I said, well then, Red Shirt must be a spineless half-wit, Porcupine agreed heartily that he supposed so.

Porcupine is tough enough, but when it comes to words like these, he knows far fewer characters than I do.

I suppose that's just how Aizu men are, every one of them.

When I asked whether, even if that was the plan, he actually meant to let himself get fired, he swaggered that no one was going to fire him — if he went, he'd take Red Shirt down with him.

When I pressed him on just how he meant to bring Red Shirt down with him, he admitted he hadn't worked that part out yet.

Porcupine looks tough enough, but he doesn't seem to have much in the way of brains.

When I told him I'd turned down the raise, the big fellow was delighted and praised me — 'That's an Edo boy for you, well done.'

The trouble, on top of that, is that Koga is simply too good-natured a man.

When Red Shirt first raised the matter, he could have simply refused outright, or at least dodged it by saying he'd think it over, but instead he let himself be talked round by all that fine speechmaking and agreed on the spot, so that afterward, however his mother pleaded and however Porcupine went and argued on his behalf, it did no good at all — and Porcupine lamented this bitterly.

'That man wears such a mild face while he does his dirty work, and always has an escape route ready the moment anyone objects — he's a proper schemer.'

'Nothing works on a fellow like that except a fist to the face,' he said, and rolled up his sleeve to show me his lumpy, muscled arm.

Since we were on the subject, I asked whether his arm looked so strong because he practiced jujitsu.

At that, the big fellow flexed the muscle of his upper arm and told me to give it a squeeze, so I poked it with my fingertips — and it was nothing more than something like the pumice stone you find at the public bathhouse.