He swiftly contacted the company’s other editorial divisions to inquire if they had any likely candidates, but the results were discouraging. All anyone seemed interested in was a quick profit. The economic slump meant that every department had its back to the wall. The responses he got were all similar. If he needed help with a magazine where advertisers were sure to flock, say, or with a book with relatively inexpensive content, sure—they would welcome these projects—but they had no one to spare for dictionary work. Araki grew frustrated. Dictionaries are well respected, and they’re immune to market fluctuations. Isn’t there anyone with the balls to aim high and think long-term?
“Forget it.” Nishioka appeared from between the bookcases and responded to the thoughts Araki had muttered aloud. “Dictionaries cost a vast amount of money and take an enormous amount of time to produce. People have always preferred to make a quick buck, and they always will.” He went over to his desk and sat down.
Nishioka was right. The Dictionary Editorial Department of Gembu Books had been hit hard by the recession, forced to slash its budget and staff. The plan for the new dictionary had been stalled and was still awaiting approval.
Araki flipped through Wide Garden of Words and Great Forest of Words, both of which he kept on his desk, checking the difference between vast and enormous. He clucked his tongue as he searched. “Don’t make it sound like this has nothing to do with you, Nishioka. If you did your job right, I wouldn’t have all this trouble, and you know it.”
“Yes, boss. I apologize.”
“You’re just not cut out to be a lexicographer. When you’re out picking up manuscripts, your footwork is nice and fast, but that’s about it.”
“Now, don’t be mean.” Without getting up, Nishioka kicked the floor and rolled his chair over. “My footwork just brought in a nice juicy piece of news, I’ll have you know.”
“What is it?”
“There’s somebody who’s perfectly cut out to be a lexicographer.”
“Where?” Araki sprang to his feet.
Nishioka gave a teasing smile. Then, dramatically lowering his voice even though no one else was around, he whispered, “Sales department. Twenty-seven years old, same as me.”
“Good grief!” Araki said, whacking Nishioka on the top of the head. “Are you telling me you were both hired in the same year? Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”
“That’s the thanks I get?” Nishioka rubbed his crown ruefully and rolled his chair back to his desk. “As a matter of fact, we weren’t hired at the same time. This somebody went to grad school. Been here just going on three years.”
“Sales, eh?”
“Dashing over there right now won’t do any good. Everybody’s probably making the rounds.”
But Araki was already out the door.
The Dictionary Editorial Department was on the second floor of the annex, an old high-ceilinged wooden building with floorboards that had darkened to the color of toffee. Araki’s footsteps rang out in the dim corridor. He raced down the stairs, pushed open the double doors, and was suddenly blinded by the early-summer sun. Squinting, he made out the eight-story main building next door and headed for the entrance.
He stepped inside the offices of the sales department, to the rear on the first floor, then pulled up short. Damn it, he’d forgotten to ask one crucial bit of information—his potential successor’s name. He didn’t even know if it was a he or a she.
He calmed himself at the doorway, looking around with a nonchalant air. Fortunately, the sales staff had not all taken off on rounds. Six or seven people were sitting at desks, either facing computers or talking on the phone. Which one is a twenty-seven-year-old with a graduate degree who’s been here going on three years? This’ll be awkward; they all look about thirty. God knows which one I’m after. What’s wrong with the sales department, anyway? Somebody ought to make these people get off their butts and go out to bookstores. All except the one I want, that is.
As Araki stood lost in thought, the employee sitting nearest to him came up and asked, “Are you looking for someone, sir?” She tried to lead him back toward the entrance, apparently mistaking him for an outsider who’d wandered in without first stopping at reception. Despite Araki’s thirty-seven years next door in the annex, many veteran employees at Gembu had never laid eyes on him.
“Ah, no, that is . . .” He tried to explain the nature of his errand and stumbled over his words. His eyes were drawn to a young man in a corner of the room.
The young man was standing with his back turned, facing a row of shelves along the wall. He was tall and thin, with hair that was awfully unkempt for someone in sales. He’d taken off his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves, getting ready to rearrange the shelves. Araki watched as he took boxes, large and small, and whisked them around from one shelf to another until they fit together snugly in apple-pie order. His movements were deft, like those of someone assembling a complicated jigsaw puzzle in the blink of an eye.
Araki held back a low cry of exultation. Such dexterity was crucial for anyone involved in compiling a dictionary. In the final stages of editing, the number of pages was fixed and immutable, as any change would affect the printing and price. Fitting the contents into the allotted number of pages meant making swift decisions in a short time—eliminating illustrative quotations, however reluctantly, or condensing definitions. Exactly the sort of puzzle-solving knack that the young man had just displayed.
This was the one! The very one suited to becoming the next head of the Dictionary Editorial Department!
“Tell me something.” Unable to contain his excitement, Araki turned to the woman standing beside him. “That young man over there—what’s he like?”
“What do you mean?” She sounded wary.
“I’m Kohei Araki, from the Dictionary Editorial Department. What can you tell me about him? He’s twenty-seven and this is his third year here after grad school, is that right?”
“I think so, but you’d better ask him. He’s majime.”
Majime, eh? Serious, diligent. Araki nodded in satisfaction. This was very good. Lexicography was slow and steady work—exactly the sort of work that required someone majime at the helm.
The woman turned toward the man, who was now double-checking his handiwork, and called, “Majime! You have a visitor.”
He’d told her he was from the Dictionary Editorial Department, not a visitor—didn’t she get it? Araki was peeved, but persuaded himself that she may have used the word in the simple sense of a “caller,” without any nuance of “outsider.” More worrisome was the fact that she’d actually called the fellow Majime. Just how serious would a person have to be to earn such a nickname? This wasn’t a schoolyard where kids scattered after school let out, or a police department overrun with detectives in jeans. It was a dignified publishing company. Yet here was somebody whose very nickname was Majime. He must be megaserious. Proceed with caution, Araki told himself as he eyed his prospect with greater intensity.
In response to the woman’s summons, the man looked back. He was wearing silver-framed glasses. And yet his nickname wasn’t Megane (Specs) but Majime. As Araki braced himself, the bespectacled young man came over slowly, seemingly ill at ease in his lanky frame.