🔍 K’s COLUMN 067 : 渋沢栄一の末裔か？
私が初めて会社に入社したのは1990年2月、25歳の頃だ。
その会社は天下りの人が社長の会社で、虎ノ門パストラル内にあった。
ホテルオークラの近くで、神谷町の駅からほど近い場所にあった。
知っている人は「ああ、⚪︎⚪︎省の天下りの会社だな」ということがわかる。
パストラル内には他にも会社が入っており、全て⚪︎⚪︎省の天下りの人が社長だったからだ。
私は総務部の経理課担当に配属された。
外来のお客様がいらっしゃったら、自分の仕事が忙しくても、お茶とお茶請けを出さなければならなかった。
こういう仕事は大抵の場合、下っ端の仕事である。
社長はいつも「ありがとう」とニコニコして席に着く。
さて、この社長は苗字が渋沢だった。
出社は9時30分から10時の間。
お昼になると「ちょっと出てくる」と言って、ふらりといなくなる。
お昼を食べに出るのだが、帰りに囲碁クラブへ立ち寄る。
何時に会社へ戻ってくるかはわからない。
必ず「直帰ですか？」と訊ねなければ、そのまま帰宅することもあるからだ。
入社して1ヶ月ぐらい経った頃、社長が私を昼食に誘ってくれた。
そこは会社から徒歩５分ぐらいの場所にある鰻屋で、サラリーマンで賑わっていた。
そこで鰻重をご馳走になった。
ちなみにパストラルの社食は、当時130円だった。
外部の人には500円で食券を販売していた。
ホテルの社食は美味しいと有名だったし、130円でこのグレードのものなら良い待遇だと思った。
「君も毎日社食ばかりじゃ飽きるだろう」
そして社長は続けた。
「これから大変なことが起きるからね。
君はこの会社を辞めないほうがいいよ。
君の上司は口うるさいから大変だろうけど、まぁ悪い人ではないからよろしく頼むよ」
何とも意味ありげな言葉である。
大変なことって何だよ・・・。
その頃、私は出版社へ漫画を持ち込みしていたが、会社は残業も多かったため、夕食は社食で済ませていた。
帰宅したら風呂に入り、1日が終わりだ。
死んだように眠り、朝は身支度だけで慌ただしい。
そのような環境下では漫画の持ち込みは不可能だと薄々感じていた。
担当者もついたのに、描く暇もないのでストレスは増大する一方だった。
もしかしたら社長はそのことを薄々と感じていたのかもしれない。
3月は決算でホテル内の客室に泊まり込みだった。
現在では考えられないことかもしれないが、ほぼ徹夜である。
結局私は6月いっぱいでその会社を退職した。
これ以上そこにいては、本来自分のやりたいことができなくなると予見していたからである。
数年後、バブルは崩壊したが、この1990年6月にはまだまだ土地は値上がりしていて、世の中は浮かれていたのだから、誰が不景気を予想していただろうか。
そして、今になって私は社長の言った言葉を思い出すのだ。
「これから大変なことが起きるからね」
今年は1万円札が福沢諭吉から渋沢栄一になった。
その肖像画を見て私はあっと驚いた。
あの社長に似ているのだ。
渋沢栄一には、正妻、妾の他に多数の子供がいたというから、まさか末裔ではあるまいな。
🇬🇧 English version below
🔍 K’s COLUMN 067 : Could He Have Been a Descendant of Shibusawa Eiichi?
The first company I ever joined was in February 1990, when I was 25.
It was a company headed by a former government official who had landed the position after retiring from his ministry.
The company was located inside Toranomon Pastoral, not far from Kamiyacho Station and close to the Hotel Okura.
Anyone familiar with the place would have known, “Ah, this is one of those companies run by retired officials from such-and-such a ministry.”
There were several other companies inside Pastoral as well, and all of them had former officials from the same ministry serving as their presidents.
I was assigned to the accounting section of the General Affairs Department.
Whenever visitors came to the office, I had to serve them tea and something to eat, even when I was busy with my own work.
This kind of task usually fell to the most junior employees.
The president would always sit down with a smile and say,
“Thank you.”
Now, this president’s family name was Shibusawa.
He usually arrived at the office sometime between 9:30 and 10:00 in the morning.
When lunchtime came, he would say, “I’m just stepping out for a bit,” and casually disappear.
He would go out for lunch, but on his way back, he would stop by a Go club.
I never knew when he would return to the office.
If we didn’t ask him,
“Are you going straight home?”
there were times when he would simply go home without coming back to the office at all.
About a month after I joined the company, the president invited me to lunch.
We went to an eel restaurant about a five-minute walk from the office.
It was crowded with salarymen, and he treated me to an eel rice box.
Incidentally, lunch at the Pastoral cafeteria cost only 130 yen at the time.
Meal tickets were sold to outsiders for 500 yen.
The hotel cafeteria was famous for its good food, and considering the quality of the meals, I thought 130 yen was a pretty good deal for employees.
“You must get tired of eating at the company cafeteria every day.”
Then the president continued:
“Something big is going to happen.
You shouldn’t quit this company.
I know your boss can be difficult because she’s always on your case, but she’s not a bad person.
So please, bear with her.”
Those were rather cryptic words.
What the hell did he mean by “something big is going to happen”…?
At the time, I was taking my manga to publishers, hoping to get my work accepted.
But the company required a lot of overtime, so I usually had dinner at the company cafeteria.
Once I got home, I would take a bath, and that was the end of the day.
I would sleep like the dead, and in the morning there was barely enough time to get ready for work.
I was beginning to realize that, under those circumstances, there was simply no way I could keep taking my manga to publishers.
I even had an editor who had taken an interest in my work, but I had no time to draw.
My frustration only continued to build.
Perhaps the president had sensed that, at least to some extent.
In March, it was time for the company’s fiscal year-end closing, and we stayed overnight in guest rooms at the hotel.
That may be hard to imagine today, but we were practically working through the night.
In the end, I left the company at the end of June.
I had foreseen that if I stayed there any longer, I would no longer be able to do what I really wanted to do.
A few years later, the bubble economy collapsed.
But in June 1990, land prices were still rising, and people were caught up in the euphoria of the times.
Who could have predicted that an economic downturn was just around the corner?
And now, all these years later, I find myself remembering what the president said to me.
“Something big is going to happen.”
This year, the portrait on Japan’s 10,000-yen banknote changed from Yukichi Fukuzawa to Eiichi Shibusawa.
When I saw Shibusawa’s portrait, I was genuinely startled.
He looked like that president.
I’d heard that Eiichi Shibusawa had numerous children, in addition to his wife and his mistresses.
So now I can’t help wondering:
Could that president have actually been one of his descendants?