Chapter 5 Chapter 3 Group Portrait

Kizawa and Arikawa left the restaurant of the hotel.Arikawa saw something while walking through the hall, stopped suddenly, and turned his face to a corner of the coffee shop.Kizawa and Arikawa stood side by side.There's a man at the counter raising his hand here.After the man paid the money, he walked up to Arikawa and Kizawa with a smile on his face.He was about thirty-five or six years old, with a square face and broad shoulders.Behind him stood a slender, short-haired woman of about thirty, wearing a plain dress and carrying a brown handbag, who looked like a clerk. "It's been a long time!" The sturdy man bowed to Kizawa and Arikawa.A dark face, revealing white teeth.

"It's been a long time." Arikawa said to the man, his tone was not very polite. "Today you two are..." "Come for lunch," Arikawa said. "Really, I haven't been to your place for a long time. How are Mr. Maruyama and Mr. Miyashita?" "Thank you! They are fine." "Please greet the two gentlemen!" Arikawa nodded slightly. "Doi Junchang hasn't seen you for a long time. What are you doing now?" Arikawa looked at the man in a new light gray suit with surprised eyes.With a dark complexion and broad shoulders, the new clothes fit him like a model.The tie and the handkerchief slightly exposed on the chest are black, and it looks very chic when matched with the light gray clothes.

"I do this kind of work now." He took the business card holder from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed them two business cards. writer Nobuyuki Doi Room 135, XX Adam Hotel, Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo "Hey, your office is here." Arikawa turned his head and looked at the hotel again. "It must be very convenient. But the rent of such a first-class hotel is quite expensive, right?" Arikawa said. "It's expensive. But I signed a long-term rental contract, so it can be a little cheaper." Doi smiled. "It's so rich!" Arikawa exclaimed, and then asked:

"Do writers have that much income?" He looked at Doi's clothes again. "Writers also have various..." "Do you write novels or something?" "Not a novel." "Then, are you commissioned by the publishing house to publish something like a journal in a magazine?" Kizawa opened his mouth for the first time.He felt that Nobuyuki Doi's name had never been seen in a magazine. "There are a few articles published in magazines, but I mainly write books." Doi turned his face to Kizawa. "Which party wrote it?" "Mostly books on political economy."

"It's like yours, that kind of hard book, is it selling well now?" There is such a hint in Mu Ze's words: you can't rent this kind of high-end hotel without a best-selling book. "its fine." Doi signaled the woman with the handbag to come this way with his lower jaw.The short-haired woman walked forward cautiously. "Let me introduce you. Her name is Saeki Masako, and she is a stenographer. She helps me with shorthand." She saluted the two, and then retreated back to where she had been.Her face is slightly elongated, with round eyes and a small mouth.

"If you ask a stenographer to record your dictation, then you must be very busy at work." Arikawa exclaimed again. "My right hand is a little uncomfortable. I can write short essays gradually, but I can't write long essays, so I can only dictate. Of course, after sorting out the shorthand, I personally revised the final draft." The conversation seemed to continue. "So, how long is it?" Kizawa asked Doi. "Yes, that's roughly the case." Although Doi answered, he seemed unwilling to continue the conversation and looked at his watch.Arikawa guessed what he meant and said:

"Excuse me! We will..." Mu Ze also said from the side: "I wish you success in your work." "Thank you!" Doi Nobuyuki bowed deeply.The female stenographer also bowed. Kizawa and Arikawa left the front lobby of the hotel, and got into the taxi waiting for customers in front of the door. "To the Nagata Town House of Representatives First Member Hall!" Arikawa sat down and said to Kizawa next to him: "I didn't expect that!" "That guy, he ran off somewhere a while ago, but now he looks very dignified, and he's back to this place."

"When I was a reporter at the "National Congress Wanchao Bao", I was gloomy, but now it has completely changed. I really didn't expect it." Mu Ze also felt the same way. "Anyone who has drunk the sewage in Nagata Town will never forget the smell of the soil no matter where he goes, and will return to Nagata Town sooner or later. There are a lot of people like this in Nagata Town!" "You mean, he returned to Nagata Town again? How far is Adam Hotel from Nagata Town!" "Adam and Nagata Town are equivalent to the same district. You can reach the Assembly Hall in the blink of an eye by car! Think about it, Doi claims to be a writer who writes about political economy. Can you sell the money for renting an office in the Adam Hotel with just such a book? Besides, I have never seen Nobuyuki Doi’s name in any books.”

"Perhaps under a pseudonym." "Using a pen name? That's possible... But, he is so busy dictating to the stenographer, and he can afford to rent such a high-end hotel as an office, how can he get so much money? Don't you think it's a little strange?" "Doi dropped out of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo. It is said that he was originally a member of the Communist Party of China. He was one of the fighters who occupied the Yasuda Lecture Hall of the University of Tokyo in 1969, so he is still good at writing theoretical articles." "Because of this history, it seems that I have never been able to enter a good company." Their topic was all about Nobuyuki Doi.

"Doi." Arikawa continued. "It's because he joined a big company, but once his experience is exposed, he will be dismissed immediately. He probably became a reporter for the "Yuan Nei Bao" because he had nowhere to go." "I've heard of it too. If he had finished his studies at the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo honestly, he would have been a top-notch department head in a certain province and department in the political circle. If he was a big company, he would be a backbone. What a pity!" "When I was young, I was keen on that kind of fierce political movement. It's like a child suffering from measles. After he recovered, he would be immune to hyperactivity for life. He couldn't find a good job because he participated in''. In my opinion, Doi did " The reporter from the Courtyard News brought benefits to him."

"why?" "I asked him what kind of book he wrote. He was vague, saying that it was about politics and economy, and he didn't want to go into details. Then he lived in a big hotel, wore a custom-made suit, and had the luxurious style of a female stenographer. Analysis, I think he is still working on Nagata Town." "The job you're talking about related to Nagata-cho is...?" "I'm just guessing vaguely. I think I'll figure it out after a while. If you want to know, you can only ask the female stenographer." "She seems to have been following Doi." "She is probably a member of the local shorthand office, working with Doi." Arikawa said. "Local shorthand office" is the opposite of the shorthand department of the House Affairs Bureau.It refers to "official" here and "privately run" over there. "That female stenographer is called Saeki Masako." Arikawa had already memorized the woman's name. "Doi and Saeki Masako have become..." "this……" "It's an office, but it's actually a restaurant. She took Doi's dictation, and there was no one else in it. A man and a woman were alone in the hotel room. Doi was thirty-five or six, and the woman was thirty. Doi was full of energy, well-dressed, She's fashionable, and she's about to become an old maid. In the secret room of the hotel, the two of them cooperated tacitly, does that mean they have a tacit understanding in all aspects?" Arikawa smiled meaningfully. The taxi climbed Sannozaka from Akasaka.Arikawa and Kizawa looked at their watches instinctively. It was one past five minutes. "Will the old man from you go back to the guild hall?" Arikawa asked. "My old man, after the breakfast meeting, he went to the ten o'clock letter delivery committee meeting. An hour later, he withdrew from the letter delivery committee halfway, returned to the hall, met me, went to the autonomous province, and attended the delivery meeting at one o'clock in the afternoon. Letter to the committee. I guess I won’t be back before four o’clock.” Mu Ze paused for a moment, then continued: "Maybe he's wandering around. He'll call later. The old man wants to avoid the petitioners coming to the guild hall. It's really annoying to let me deal with them alone." Arikawa agreed with him. "It's the same with our old man. He hid in the guild hall after leaving the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the morning, and went directly to the committee from the lunch meeting at noon. The old man hid. I'm not the same as you, pretending to be serious, interviewing one after another. There are endless petitions. The secretary has to run back and forth to take care of the various arrangements of the petitioners. He also said solemnly that the husband is too busy with business to spare time. However, the old man thought that these things are the secretary's job, and there is nothing wrong with them. We are too pitiful for not being considerate of us and sometimes swearing at others. So we must organize a secretarial association as soon as possible!" "Understood... I forgot one thing just now. That is, if private secretaries can join the secretaries union, what about female secretaries? Should they also be asked to participate?" Mu Ze asked as he stubbed out his cigarette. "I've also considered this matter. Let's talk about the female secretary later. Because female secretaries and male secretaries are fundamentally different. Besides, if the female secretary participates, those who are close to the Mr. Congressman will quickly communicate secretly. This is too dangerous. .” After Arikawa said this, the taxi arrived at the main entrance of the first member of the House of Representatives.At this time, Xi Tian, ​​a reporter from the "Yinnei Bao" came out of the door, looking devastated. Miyashita Masamori and Maruyama Koichi were able to leave the venue during the meeting time of the Congress and return to the House of Representatives or go to other places because the Conservative Party has an absolute majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate.In the past, when there was not much difference between the seats of the opposition party, you could not leave the venue for a moment, because the party directors kept coming to check whether anyone was absent.Now when the Standing Committee of the National Assembly is in session, three or five people leave the venue, which has no effect on the overall situation. Moreover, the committee’s deliberations are almost completely carried out according to the agenda, so we can know in advance when the vote will be voted on.Just go back to the meeting before the vote. The Correspondence Committee and the Commerce and Industry Committee of the National Assembly generally do not involve major issues that attract the attention of the people, and there are few disputes.Therefore, newspaper reporters and TV stations did not come to cover this dull meeting.In other words, these would be quiet, boring committees.The committee members couldn't tell when they left the meeting room.Experienced secretaries Kizawa and Arikawa, who understand this situation, arrange their own schedules according to the actions of the councilors.The two of them entered the House of Representatives, quietly walked to the special elevator where no one was moving things, and waited for the elevator.There was only one person in the elevator coming down from the upstairs, a thin and small old man.He stepped out of the elevator with his head down, and looked up at the two people in front of him. "Ah!" The old man stopped suddenly. "Long time no see you guys!" He was nearly seventy years old and looked very old, with thin cheeks, sunken eye sockets, high nose bridge, and curled lips. "Ah, Mr. Ohara!" After Muzawa and Arikawa exclaimed at the same time, they both bowed. "It's really rare! It's rare to see you in the guild hall." Mu Ze said to the old man. His name is Shogo Ohara, and he is the old secretary of Councilor Hirofumi Irie.A celebrity who has been elected as a member of the councilor Irie for thirteen times and has served as a minister several times.Shogo Ohara was Hirofumi Irie's old secretary when he was elected for the first time in 1949, and he was a senior member of the parliamentary secretary.Because he was too old, his body was bent and short, he tried his best to hold his chest out and said to the two people. "Mr. Irie still come to the office here?" Kizawa asked this because Hirofumi Irie opened an office in Akasaka Sanno Building.There are only two female clerks in his office on the second floor of the Congressman's Hall, and Irie has hardly been here.Not only Irie, but all the famous councilors have decent offices outside, and the councilors only hang their name tags in the hall.Outsiders believed that the offices in the guild hall could be abolished, but the congressmen always believed that only the guild hall was an "orthodox" office, so they were unwilling to move out of the "senator's courtyard" named by Hachiro Nishida, a reporter from "Yinai Shibo". Now, Shogo Ohara and five other secretaries are in the Irie Hirofumi office in the old building of Nishimaru University in Kojicho.This is the former office of Irie, and the congressman no longer works here. His office has been moved to the Sanno Building in Akasaka, and there are young secretaries inside.The secretaries used by Mr. Irie are getting younger and younger, and the old secretaries are gradually being eliminated.However, Hirofumi Irie, who is known as a party stick and a man of human relations, stopped paying the secretaries who no longer used him, but left them an office in the Kojimachi Building, and allowed them to use business cards with "Secretary Hirofumi Irie" printed on them.This is to allow them to earn some income in this name to maintain their lives. "I happened to meet you. I have something for you." Ohara took out origami paper from his well-worn suit pocket, and there were about two handfuls of five or six sheets. "Mr. Ohara, what is this?" Arikawa bent his fat waist and said to the old man. "I wrote a time diary." "A record of age?" "You will know when you go back and look. Here is the content of the activities of congressmen and secretaries for a year." The old secretary had a smug look on his thin face. The elevator had gone up and down several times, but Muzawa and Arikawa couldn't move around because they were talking to the seniors. "Ordinary people don't know much about the structure of the National Assembly and the daily work of members and secretaries." Shogo Ohara continued to tell the two people. "There are many newspaper reports on the discussions of the Congressional Budget Committee and the Final Accounts Committee, but there are few reports on the speeches of members of parliament on various committees." "yes." "So, most people don't understand the work and life of the congressmen. I compiled a table of the daily life of the congressmen and secretaries during the congress and the recess period of the year. It may be too dry to write these, so I quoted the relevant information about the four seasons. I edited the haiku. I made up the sentences by myself, but I used the familiar records of the year." "You write haiku?" "Just fooling around." "It's very interesting. With something like this, people can understand the daily work of MPs and secretaries." "Please talk about it, listen to your opinions and revise it... Can you find a place to publish this kind of stuff?" "Oh, that's not good!" Contribution provided by Shogo Ohara "Parliament Years" Usually the Congress (ordinary session) is held in December every year as usual.The convening edict of the regular meeting must be published at the latest twenty days in advance.The duration of the regular session is one hundred and fifty days. The regular meeting held in mid-December continues until the end of May of the following year, and is often extended to the end of June. The interim Congress (temporary meeting) is convened at any time according to the needs of the cabinet.The Cabinet can decide to convene Congress if a quarter of the general members of the House of Representatives and the Senate request it. Adjournment means the temporary cessation of activities during a session by unanimous resolution of both Houses.The "natural adjournment" between the end of the year and the beginning of the year is one of them.During this period, the newly elected members returned to the constituency, went to various places to pay New Year's greetings, and also received guests. The regular session closes at the end of June, and members can rest from July to mid-December.During this period, some congressmen went abroad for inspection and travel, which has become very popular recently. Ohara Shogo arranged the activities of members and secretaries in the court into a table in chronological order, and attached it to the back of "Diet Years".

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