Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

On a rainy afternoon, Yoichi, who had graduated middle school that year, sat hunched over his desk on the second floor, composing a poem in the style of Kitahara Hakushu.
Then his father’s voice suddenly startled him with a “Hey!”
Even as he hurriedly turned around, he did not forget to hide the manuscript under the dictionary that lay there.
But fortunately, his father Kenzo, still wearing his summer coat, was only peering up to his chest from the dim stairway landing.

“Since O-Ritsu’s condition doesn’t look good, send a telegram to Shintaro’s place.”

“Is it that bad?”

Yoichi involuntarily raised his voice.

“Well, she’s always been sturdy—it’s not like anything will suddenly take a turn… But we should at least notify Shintaro—”

Yoichi interrupted his father.
“What did Dr. Tazawa say?”
“Apparently it’s a duodenal ulcer after all.—He says there’s nothing to worry about though.”

Kenzo seemed oddly intent on avoiding meeting Yoichi’s gaze.

“However, I’ve already arranged for Dr. Tanimura to come tomorrow.”
“Since Dr. Tazawa said the same—then I’ll leave contacting Shintaro’s place to you.”
“You know his address, right?”

“Yes, I know.—Are you going somewhere, Father?”

“I’m just going to the bank for a bit.”
“Oh, Aunt Asakawa’s downstairs.”

As Kenzo’s figure disappeared, Yoichi felt as though the sound of the rain outside had suddenly grown louder.
This was no time to dawdle—he felt that with sudden clarity.
He immediately stood up and, while touching the brass handrail, clattered down the stairs.

The area straight down the ladder was a spacious shop, its shelves on both sides tightly lined with boxes of knitwear. In the rainy light at the shop entrance, Kenzo, wearing a Panama hat and with his back turned this way, was in the midst of lowering one foot into the geta he had positioned at the entrance.

“Master.”
“There’s a call from the factory.”
“They asked me to inquire whether you’ll be going there today…”

At the same moment Yoichi entered the shop, the clerk who had been at the telephone called out to Kenzo in this manner. Four or five other clerks were positioned in front of the safe and under the household shrine, their expressions suggesting they were less seeing off their master than merely waiting for him to depart.

“I can’t go today.”
“Tell them I’ll go tomorrow.”

As if the phone call’s end had been his cue, Kenzo opened a large Western-style umbrella and briskly stepped out into the street. For a brief moment, his figure could be seen casting a faint shadow on the asphalt lightly coated with mud as he walked away.

“Is Mr. Kamiyama not here?”

Yoichi, sitting at the ledger desk, looked up at one of the clerks.

“He went on some errand to the back a while ago.”
“Ryo-san.”
“Do you know where he is?”

“Mr. Kamiyama? I don’t know,”

The clerk who had answered remained squatting on the entrance step and began whistling.

In the meantime, Yoichi was diligently moving his fountain pen over the telegram paper that was there.
The face of his brother—darker-skinned and stockier than him—who had entered a provincial high school last autumn still seemed to float vividly somewhere in his mind.
“MOTHER BAD COME BACK”—he began writing this, but immediately tore the paper and rewrote it as “MOTHER ILL COME BACK.”
Even so, having written “BAD” clung stubbornly to his mind like some ominous portent.

“Hey, could you go send this off for me?”

After finally handing the completed telegram to one of the clerks, Yoichi chewed on the spoiled paper, slipped through the kitchen at the back of the shop, and entered the dimly lit tearoom that remained gloomy even on sunny days.
In the tearoom, on the pillar above the long brazier, hung a large calendar that doubled as an advertisement for a yarn shop.
There sat Aunt Asakawa—her hair newly cut—as if forgotten, incessantly using an ear pick.
When she heard Yoichi’s footsteps, she raised her perpetually inflamed eyes without removing the ear pick from her ear.

“Good afternoon. Has your father already gone out?”

“Yes, he just left.”
“We’ve had our hands full with Mother too, haven’t we?”

“What a mess. I thought it wasn’t any named illness at all.”

Yoichi settled his restless knees across from the long brazier with ill grace.
On the other side of a single sliding door lay his gravely ill mother.
Such awareness made the company of this old-fashioned elderly person even more irritating than usual.
Aunt was silent for a while, but then, gazing at him from under her brow,

“Okinu will be here soon, you know,” she said.

“Isn’t Sister still sick?”

“She’s already better today, they say.”
“Oh, it was just the usual head cold again.”

In Aunt Asakawa’s words lingered a tone tinged with light contempt yet oddly familiar.
Among the three siblings, Okinu—not born of O-Ritsu’s womb—appeared to be Aunt’s favorite.
This stemmed from Kenzo’s first wife having been related to Aunt Asakawa.
—Yoichi, remembering this story someone had told him, spent a while half-heartedly discussing his sickly older sister who had married into a kimono shop the year before last.

“What about Shin-chan?”
“Your father was saying it would be better to send word, but…”

When the discussion had settled into a lull, Aunt stopped using her ear pick and spoke as if suddenly remembering.

“I just had a telegram sent.”
“It probably won’t arrive by today, will it?”

“Well… It’s not like we’re talking about Kyoto or Osaka, so—”

Aunt Asakawa’s reply, coming from someone unfamiliar with geography, was disconcertingly vague.
That, for some reason, abruptly awakened a certain anxiety lurking within Yoichi.
Will Brother come back?
When he thought that, he began to feel that it might have been better to write more exaggerated wording in the telegram.
Mother wants to see her eldest son.
But Brother will not return.
Before long, Mother will die.
Then Sister and Aunt Asakawa would accuse Brother of being an unfilial son—such a scene flashed vividly before his eyes for an instant.

“If it arrives today, he’ll return tomorrow.”

Without realizing it, Yoichi had been murmuring reassurances more to himself than to Aunt Asakawa.

Just then, Kamiyama from the shop entered, his sweaty forehead glistening, as though muffling his footsteps.
Indeed, that he had gone somewhere was evident even from the striped gauze haori with rain stains lingering on its sleeves.

“I have returned.”
“Unexpectedly, I was kept waiting quite a while.”

Kamiyama bowed to Aunt Asakawa, then took out a sealed letter he had brought from his pocket.

“They said there’s absolutely no need for concern regarding the patient’s condition—that further details are written inside here—”

Aunt Asakawa, before opening the sealed letter, first put on a pair of thick-lensed glasses.
Inside the envelope, besides the letter, there was also a sheet of Japanese paper with a single line drawn on it, still folded in four.

“Where? Mr. Kamiyama—this Taikyokudo place you mentioned.”

Even so, Yoichi peered curiously at the letter his aunt was reading.

“At the corner of Nichōme, there should be a Western-style restaurant.”
“It’s on the left side after turning into that alley.”

“Then isn’t that near your Kiyomoto master’s place?”

“Yes, roughly that vicinity.”

Kamiyama smirked while fidgeting with an agate seal pendant dangling from his watch chain.

“I wonder if there was ever a fortune-teller in such a place.”
“Is it not that the patient should be made to face south?”
“Which way is Mother facing?”

Aunt Asakawa raised her bespectacled eyes to Yoichi half-reproachfully.

“It’s east-facing.”
“Because this direction is south.”

Yoichi, his spirits somewhat lifted, kept his face turned toward Aunt Asakawa while his hand groped for the cigarette box at the bottom of his sleeve.

“Look, it says here that an east-facing pillow is acceptable.—Mr. Kamiyama.”
“Care for one?”
“Here.”
“There.”

“Well now, thank you.”
“E.C.C., I see.”
“Then I’ll take one—”
“Is there anything else you require?”
“Should anything further arise, please don’t hesitate—”

While holding the golden cigarette holder between his ear, Kamiyama suddenly lifted the hem of his summer haori and hastily tried to retreat toward the shop. At that very moment, the shoji slid open, and her sister Okinu—a damp compress wrapped around her neck, still wearing her celluloid raincoat—entered carrying a basket of fruit.

“Oh, please come in.”

“Even in this rain, you came all the way…”

Those words left their lips almost simultaneously—Aunt Asakawa and Kamiyama. Okinu bowed politely to the two of them, quickly shed her raincoat, then sat down sideways with a dejected air. In the meantime, Kamiyama left the fruit basket he had received from her hand there and hurriedly exited the tearoom. In the fruit basket, green apples and bananas were neatly arranged, glossy and pristine.

“How’s Mother?... I’m sorry. The train was just terribly crowded.”

Okinu remained seated sideways and skillfully took off her mud-spattered white tabi socks. When Yoichi saw those socks, he felt as if he could still sense the raindrops from outside lingering about his sister’s figure, her hair arranged in a marumage.

“Her stomach still hurts something awful—they say her fever’s holding at thirty-nine degrees.”

Aunt Asakawa kept the fortune-teller’s letter spread open while bustling about preparing tea with Mitsu, who had entered just as Mr. Kamiyama left.

“But on the phone, didn’t they say she seemed much better than yesterday? Though I wasn’t the one who answered—who was it? The one who called today—was it you? Yoichi?”
“No, it wasn’t me. Wasn’t it Mr. Kamiyama?”
“That is correct.”

This was the remark Mitsu softly added while serving tea.

“Mr. Kamiyama?”

Okinu scowled and sidled closer to the long brazier.

“What’s this? Making such a face. Is everyone at your place well?”

“Yes, thank you—is everyone at your house well too?”

While listening to this exchange, Yoichi—a cigarette dangling from his lips—stared vacantly at the wall calendar. Since graduating middle school, he could remember specific dates but had consistently forgotten what day of the week they fell on. This realization suddenly filled him with loneliness. To make matters worse, in another month would come an entrance exam he scarcely intended to take. If I failed the entrance examination………

“Mitsu has really been putting on airs of femininity lately, hasn’t she?”

Yoichi suddenly felt as if his sister’s words had come through clearly to him.
But he said nothing, merely smoking his golden cigarette holder.
However, Mitsu had already gone down to the kitchen by that time.

“Moreover, no matter what you say, she has a face that men like—”

Aunt Asakawa finally tidied up the letters and reading glasses on her lap while letting out a scornful laugh. Then Okinu also gave a peculiar look, but quickly shifted her demeanor,

“What? Aunt, that…” she said.

“I just had Mr. Kamiyama check the ink’s color.—Yoichi, go check on your mother for a moment. She was resting well earlier, but—”

Feeling terribly uneasy, he stabbed his golden cigarette holder into the ashes and promptly stood up from in front of the long brazier to escape the gazes of his aunt and sister. Then, with deliberate nonchalance, he entered the sitting room just beyond one sliding door.

There, beyond the glass-paned door at the end, lay a narrow courtyard.
In the courtyard stood only a single thick holly tree facing the water basin.
O-Ritsu, wearing a hemp nightgown, lay still facing that direction with an ice bag placed on her head.
At her pillow side sat a nurse, her nearsighted face pressed close to the patient log spread open on her knees as she diligently moved her fountain pen.

When the nurse saw Yoichi, she gave a slightly coquettish nod.
While clearly sensing her as a member of the opposite sex, Yoichi returned an oddly curt nod to the nurse.
Then, circling around the edge of the futon, he sat down where he could see his mother’s face clearly.

O-Ritsu kept her eyes closed.
Her naturally delicate face appeared even more haggard today.
But when Yoichi leaned in to look, she quietly opened feverish eyes and offered her usual faint smile.
Yoichi felt vaguely guilty about having lingered talking with his aunt and sister in the tearoom.
After remaining silent awhile,

“You know...” she said laboriously.

Yoichi merely nodded.
Even during that time, the feverish smell of Mother still felt unpleasant to him.
But after saying that, O-Ritsu did not continue further.
Yoichi gradually grew anxious.
A will—the thought also came to him.

“Is Aunt Asakawa still here?”

Finally, Mother opened her mouth.

“Aunt Asakawa is here too—and your sister just arrived.”

“To Aunt—you know...”

“Do you need something from Aunt?”

“No, I’ll get Aunt Asakawa some eel from Umekawa.”

This time, Yoichi smiled.

“Tell Mitsu that, okay?
Got it? — That’s all.”

After saying this, O-Ritsu tried to change the position of her head.
In the process, the ice bag slipped off.
Yoichi repositioned it properly without the nurse’s help.
For some reason, he felt as if the backs of his eyes had suddenly grown hot.
“I mustn’t cry”—he instantly thought.
But by then, he already felt tears pooling above the wings of his nose.

“You’re being silly.”

Mother murmured faintly and closed her eyes again as if exhausted.

Flushing red, Yoichi, ashamed of the nurse’s gaze, slunk back to the tearoom. When he returned, Aunt Asakawa looked up at his face over her shoulder and called out, “How is she? Your mother, I mean?”

“Her eyes are open.”

“Her eyes are open, but…”

Aunt Asakawa and Okinu seemed to exchange glances over the long brazier. While casting an upward look, Sister scratched the base of her chignon with a hairpin before moving her hand toward the brazier.

“Didn’t you tell her Mr. Kamiyama has returned?”

“I didn’t.”
“Then Sister should go tell her.”

Yoichi stood by the sliding door, tightening his loosened sash. No matter what happened, he must not let Mother die. No matter what—clinging to that resolve with desperate intensity, …………

II

The next morning, Yoichi sat at the breakfast table in the tearoom with his father.
On the dining table also lay the overturned bowl of the aunt who had stayed overnight.
However, it seemed that while the nurse was taking her time finishing her lengthy preparations, the aunt had gone to Mother’s side in her place.
Father and son moved their chopsticks while occasionally exchanging brief words.
For about a week now, these lonely meals shared by just the two of them had continued every day.
However, today both of them were even more tight-lipped than usual.
Mitsu, the maid serving them, also remained silent, merely holding out the tray.

“I wonder if Shintaro will come home today.”

Kenzo glanced at Yoichi’s face as if expecting a reply.
But Yoichi remained silent.
Whether his brother would return today or not—or rather, whether he would return at all—even now, his brother’s intentions remained maddeningly uncertain to him.

“Or will it be tomorrow morning?”

This time, Yoichi too could not avoid responding to his father’s words.

“But isn’t school right in the middle of exams now?”

“I see.”

Kenzo paused mid-sentence as if pondering something, then soon had Mitsu pour him tea while—

“You’ve got to study too.
Shintaro’s going to become a university student this autumn.”

Yoichi served himself more rice and said nothing.
His father—who lately had been forcing nothing but studying on him without letting him pursue the literature he wanted—had suddenly become detestable.
Moreover, the fact that his older brother was becoming a university student had absolutely no connection whatsoever to his own studying.
He couldn’t help but feel like mocking the contradictions in his father’s logic once again.

“Is Okinu not coming today?”

Kenzo immediately changed tack and asked.

“She said she’ll come.”
“But anyway, she told us to call her once Dr. Tazawa arrives.”

“Okinu’s place must be struggling too.”
“This time they’re on the buying end as well.”

“I guess they did take a bit of a hit after all.”

Yoichi was already drinking tea.
Since this April, an unprecedented panic had struck the market.
In fact, even Kenzo’s shop had recently been burdened with making payments on behalf of a certain Osaka competitor who had been operating quite extensively before suddenly going bankrupt.
When all those various other blows were tallied up, they must have suffered a loss of at least thirty thousand yen.
—Yoichi had also caught wind of such matters.

“If only things would settle with just a minor setback or two—but given how the economy is these days, who knows what might happen to our household at any moment—”

Kenzo left the table with a weary air, uttering his apprehensive remarks in a tone half-meant as jest. Then, after opening the partition door, he entered the adjacent sickroom.

“Did the soup and milk stay down?”
“That’s quite an accomplishment today.”
“Well, you really must try to eat as much as possible.”

“If only the medicine would stay down now—but she vomits it right away.”

Such conversations too reached his ears. This morning, before breakfast, when he had gone to see her, Mother’s fever had been considerably lower than yesterday or the day before. When she spoke, her words were clear and brisk, and she seemed to turn over in bed with ease.
“My stomach still hurts, but I’m feeling much better.” —Mother herself had said so.
Moreover, with her having even regained such an appetite, her recovery might be unexpectedly easier than we had been worrying about until now.—While peering into the next room, Yoichi was lifted by that very joy.
But harboring such overly optimistic hopes might conversely cause Mother’s condition to worsen—there lingered a somewhat superstitious fear of that very possibility.

“Young Master, there’s a telephone call for you.”

Yoichi, still with his hands planted, turned toward the source of the voice.
Mitsu had her sleeve clamped between her teeth as she was spreading a cloth over the dining table.

The one who had informed him of the telephone call was another, older maid named Matsu.
Matsu appeared at the kitchen entrance where a copper pot was visible, her wet hands still hanging down, her work sash tied around her shoulders.

“Where is it?”

“Who may I say is calling—?”

“What a pain—it’s always ‘Who may I say is calling?’”

Yoichi left the dining room at once, muttering discontentedly. Letting the docile Mitsu listen to complaints about Matsu’s competitiveness stirred within him a somewhat pleasant emotion. When he faced the shop’s telephone, the caller was Tamura—the son of a pharmacist who had graduated from middle school with him.

“Today, you know. Why don’t we check out the Meiji Theater together? It’s Inoue. Inoue would go, right?”

“I can’t. My mom’s sick—”

“I see.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But that’s a shame, isn’t it?”
“I heard Hori and the others went to check it out yesterday.—”

After discussing such matters and hanging up the phone, Yoichi immediately climbed the stairs from there and went to his usual second-floor study room.
But even when he sat down at the desk, let alone preparing for his exams, he couldn’t even muster the will to read a novel.
In front of the desk was a latticed window.—When he looked outside through it, a man in a half-coat was pumping air into a bicycle tire in front of the toy wholesaler across the way.
Somehow, that struck Yoichi as rushed and left him feeling uneasy.
But going back downstairs again was something he still didn’t feel inclined to do.
He finally used the kanji-Japanese dictionary under the desk as a pillow and collapsed onto the tatami.

Then in his heart surfaced thoughts of his brother—whom he hadn’t seen since spring and who shared a different father. That they had different fathers—yet because of this, Yoichi had never once felt his affection for him differed from what was ordinary between siblings. No—even the knowledge that his mother had remarried while bringing this brother along was something he had only acquired relatively recently. To speak of their differing fathers—he retained one particularly vivid memory.—

That was still when his brother and he were attending elementary school.
One day Yoichi had argued with Shintaro over the outcome of a card game.
From that time onward, no matter how much Yoichi worked himself into a frenzy, his calm brother hardly even raised his voice.
Yet while occasionally staring fixedly at his face with contempt, he would methodically criticize him each time.
Yoichi finally snapped, and no sooner had he grabbed the nearby deck of cards than he suddenly hurled them at his brother’s face.
The playing cards struck Shintaro’s profile and scattered across the surrounding area.
No sooner had this happened than his brother’s hand sharply slapped his cheek.

“Don’t act so cocky.”

Beneath his brother’s voice, Yoichi lunged at him.
Compared to him, his brother’s physique was far larger.
However, his strength lay in being more reckless than his brother.
For a while, the two of them took turns attacking and being attacked like beasts.

Hearing the commotion, Mother hurriedly entered the room.

“What are you doing? You all?”

Before he could fully register his mother’s voice, Yoichi had already begun crying.
But his brother merely kept his eyes lowered and stood there sullenly.

“Shintaro.
“Aren’t you the older brother?”
“What on earth do you find enjoyable about picking a fight with your own brother?”

When scolded like this by Mother, his brother’s voice trembled, yet he still retorted defiantly.

“Yoichi’s the one at fault.”
“He threw the playing cards at my face first!”

“Liar.
Brother was the one who hit first!”

Yoichi objected desperately to his brother in a tearful voice.

“Brother was the one who cheated too!”

“What?”

His brother again made a threatening gesture and started to take a step toward him.

“Isn’t that exactly why you two end up fighting? The real problem is you—despite being the older one, you refuse to show any leniency.”

Mother shielded Yoichi while pulling Brother away as if prodding him.
Then his brother’s eyes suddenly took on an eerily severe glint.

“Fine then!”

Before he could even finish saying that, Brother tried to strike Mother like a madman.
But before that hand could come down, he burst into tears even louder than Yoichi.—

What kind of face Mother had made at that time—that was absent from Yoichi’s memory.
Yet even now, he felt he could vividly see the resentful look in Brother’s eyes.
Perhaps Brother had simply been irritated at being scolded by Mother.
There was also a sense that indulging further in speculation would be unwise.
But ever since Brother had left for the provinces, whenever Yoichi suddenly recalled that gaze, he felt the mother Brother saw must differ from the one he himself perceived.
Moreover, there was another memory that had led him to begin feeling this way.

——

September three years ago—the day before his brother was to depart for a provincial high school.
Yoichi had made a special trip all the way to Ginza with him to go shopping.

“I suppose I’ll be parting with the big clock for some time.”

When they reached the corner of Owaricho, his brother said this almost as if muttering to himself.

“Then you should’ve just gone to Ichiko.”

“I don’t have the slightest desire to go to Ichiko.”

“You’re nothing but a sore loser.”
“If you go to the countryside, it’ll be inconvenient.”
“No ice cream, no moving pictures—”

Yoichi continued talking in a still-joking tone, his face damp with sweat.

“And even if someone gets sick, you won’t be able to come back in a hurry, and—”

“That’s only natural.”

“So what’ll you do if even Mom dies?”

His brother, who had been walking along the edge of the sidewalk, reached out and plucked a willow leaf before answering him.

“I wouldn’t feel sad even if Mother died.”

“Liar.”

Yoichi said, slightly agitated.
"If you weren't sad, there'd be something wrong with you."
"It's not a lie."

His brother’s voice held a tone thick with emotion—unexpectedly so.

“Don’t you always read novels and such? Then you should understand someone like me right away.—You’re an odd one.”

Yoichi was inwardly startled. At the same time, he felt that look—the look in Brother’s eyes when he had tried to strike Mother—rise vividly in his memory. But when he stealthily glanced at Brother’s demeanor, Brother was walking as if nothing had happened, gazing into the distance.—

When he thought about such things, he grew increasingly doubtful whether Brother would return soon. If exams had started, he might not think anything of being two or three days late. Even if he was late, as long as he came back, that would be fine—but just as his thoughts reached that point, the creaking sound of someone climbing the stairs began to reach his ears. Yoichi immediately jumped up.

Then at the top of the stairs appeared Aunt Asakawa with her poor eyesight, upper body hunched forward.

"Oh, taking a nap?"

Yoichi detected faint sarcasm in his aunt's words as he straightened his zabuton cushion toward the far side. But instead of using it, she settled herself by the desk and began speaking in a hushed voice, as though disclosing some major incident.

"I have something to discuss with you."

Yoichi's heart thudded.

“Is something wrong with Mother?”

“No, it’s not about Mother.”
“Well, about that nurse—you know, there’s just no helping her.—”

Aunt then began to relate the following story in a nagging manner.—Yesterday, when Dr. Tazawa came for the examination, that nurse deliberately called the doctor into the parlor and said, “Doctor, how much longer do you expect this patient to hold on?
“If she’s going to last much longer, I would like to take my leave,” she said.
The nurse must have assumed that aside from the doctor, there was no one else present.
Unfortunately, Matsu, who was in the kitchen, overheard everything.
And then, fuming with anger, she told Aunt Asakawa all about it.
Not only that, but even after Aunt began keeping watch, there were still numerous instances of the nurse’s callous behavior.
In fact, just this morning, she had spent a full hour on her makeup, ignoring the patient.………

“No matter how much it’s part of her job, don’t you think that’s going too far?”
“So in my judgment, I think it would be better to replace her.”

“Yes, that would be better.”
“Tell Father that—”

Whenever Yoichi thought of that nurse tallying his mother’s remaining days, he found himself oppressed by gloom rather than anger.

“Well, you see...
“Father had just left for the factory.”
“I must have forgotten to mention it—what came over me?”

The aunt widened inflamed eyes with a hint of frustration.

"If we're going to replace her anyway，I think doing it sooner would be better，but—"

"Then let’s have Mr．Kamiyama tell them and call the nursing association right away．—We just need to speak to Father after he returns．—"

"I suppose so．"
"Then let’s have him do that．"

Yoichi stepped ahead of the aunt and briskly ran down the stairs.

“Mr. Kamiyama.”
“Please call the nursing association right away.”

Five or six shop clerks who had heard his voice gathered their surprised gazes on Yoichi from amidst the goods scattered across the storefront.
At the same time, Mr. Kamiyama, his flashy serge apron still clinging with bits of yarn, promptly flew out from the cashier’s desk.

“What was the number for the nursing association again?”

“I thought you knew.”

Standing at the base of the stairs, Yoichi, while looking through the phone book with Kamiyama, couldn’t help but feel a mild resentment toward the shop’s atmosphere, unchanged from any ordinary day and utterly disconnected from him and his aunt.

III

In the early afternoon, when Yoichi casually entered the family room, there sat his father Kenzo—who seemed to have just returned—wearing an unlined summer haori in front of the long brazier.
And before him sat his sister Okinu, elbows propped on the brazier’s edge, today without her usual compress and exposing the nape of her neck with its neatly arranged marumage chignon directly toward him.

“As if I’d forget something like that.”

“Then do it already.”

Okinu lifted her face—even paler than yesterday’s—and briefly acknowledged Yoichi’s greeting.
Then, in a tone tinged with restraint and a faint smile toward him, she hesitantly resumed speaking.

“If that doesn’t work out, even I’ll feel awkward about it somehow.”
“And all the shares I bought back then have fallen this time too, so—”

“Alright, alright. I’ll take care of everything.”

Father made a sullen face yet said this as if joking.
Okinu had apparently not yet received part of what Father was supposed to give her when she married last year—some remained mere promises, effectively fallen through.—Yoichi, privy to such matters, deliberately sat far from the long brazier and silently spread out his newspaper, gazing at the advertisement for Meiji-za that Tamura had invited him to earlier.

“That’s why you end up being hated, Father.”

“I’m the one who ends up hating it more than you.”
“Mother’s lying there like that, and you’re just dumping all your complaints on me—”

When Yoichi heard his father’s words, he unconsciously strained his ears toward the sickroom’s movements just one sliding door away.
There, O-Ritsu, unlike her usual self, seemed to be letting out occasional pained groans.

“Mother isn’t comfortable today either.”

Yoichi’s muttered words had just enough force to momentarily halt the conversation between parent and child. But Okinu immediately straightened her posture and, while shooting a brief glare at Kenzo’s face,

“Isn’t Mother’s illness like that because of you?”
“If you had just replaced the doctor when I said that before, this never would have happened.”
“And then you were being indecisive again about that—” she began to reproach her father emotionally.

“That’s why—that’s exactly why I’m saying we should have Dr. Tanimura come today, isn’t it?”

Kenzo finally pulled a bitter face and blurted out.
Even Yoichi found his sister’s obstinacy somewhat grating.

“When do you think Dr. Tanimura will arrive?”

“He’d said he’d come around three.
I’d already called the factory earlier, but—”

“It’s past three now—five to four.”

Yoichi, with his knee drawn up, lifted his eyes to the large wall clock hanging above the calendar.

“Shall I have someone call again?”
“But Auntie said she’d already called earlier.”
“Earlier?”
“She said he’d come as soon as Dr.Tazawa leaves.”

While they were discussing such matters, Okinu, her face still clouded, suddenly rose from before the long brazier and briskly entered the next room.

“Sis has finally taken her leave.”

Kenzo let out a bitter smile and, for the first time, pulled out the tobacco pouch from his waist.
But Yoichi merely looked at the clock again and offered no response.

From the sickroom came O-Ritsu's unceasing groans. Whether it was his imagination or not, they seemed to grow gradually louder than before. What had happened to Dr. Tanimura? Of course, if one considered the doctor's position, Mother wasn't his only patient—he might still be going about his rounds at this very moment. But since it was nearly four o'clock, no matter how delayed he might be, he should have left the hospital by now. At this rate, he might arrive at the shopfront any moment—

“How about it?”

Yoichi was pulled from his gloomy thoughts by his father’s voice.
When he looked toward the open sliding door, he saw Aunt Asakawa, her face etched with worry, peeking in.

“She seems to be in such pain… Has the doctor still not arrived?”

Kenzo exhaled shredded tobacco smoke with a pained look before opening his mouth.

“This is a problem.—Should I have someone call again?”

“Well, if we can just manage temporarily, even Dr.Tazawa would do.”

“I’ll make the call.”

Yoichi immediately stood up.

“I see.”
“Then ask if the doctor has already left.”
“The number is Koishikawa xxx, so—”

Before Kenzo's words had finished, Yoichi rushed out from the tearoom to the kitchen's wooden floor.
In the kitchen, Matsu—her sleeves tied back—scraped a dried bonito with a plane. Rushing past her roughly, Yoichi tried to head straight for the shopfront when Mitsu came hurrying from the opposite direction.
The two nearly collided head-on but just managed to dodge each other.

“Excuse me.”

Mitsu, adjusting her freshly styled hair, said this awkwardly and clattered off toward the tearoom.

Yoichi, feeling oddly self-conscious, pressed the telephone receiver to his ear. Then, before the operator had even come on, Kamiyama, who was at the accounting desk, called out to him from behind.

“Yoichi.”
“Tanimura Hospital?”

“Ah, Tanimura Hospital.”

He still held the receiver and turned toward Kamiyama.
Kamiyama, without looking his way, was returning the large ledger to the gold-latticed bookcase.

“Then they just called from there, I tell ya.”
“Ms. Mitsu should have gone to the back to say that.”

“What did they say when they called?”

“It seems they said Dr.Tanimura has just left—just now, right? Ryo-san.”

One of the clerks who had been called out was just climbing onto a step stool and trying to take down boxes of merchandise stacked on a high shelf.

“He hasn’t left right now.”
“He said he should be arriving here around now.”

“I see.”
“Then that Mitsu should have just said so.”

After hanging up the phone, Yoichi made to return to the tearoom once more. But when he suddenly noticed the shop clock, he stopped there with a doubtful look.

“Oh, this clock is twenty minutes fast.”

“What? This one’s only about ten minutes fast. It’s probably only about ten past four.”

Kamiyama twisted his body and peered at the gold watch on his obi.

“That’s right. Exactly ten past.”
“Exactly ten past.”

“So the back room clock really is slow after all.”
“In that case, Dr.Tanimura is really late.—”

After hesitating briefly, Yoichi strode out to the shopfront and surveyed the quiet street where even the pale sunlight had faded.

“Doesn’t look like he’s coming.”
“It’s not like he could’ve gotten lost finding the house—Well, Mr.Kamiyama, I’ll just go check around there.”

He called out over his shoulder to Mr.Kamiyama and jumped down onto a pair of wooden clogs that one of the clerks had left discarded. And then, walking almost at a run, he headed toward the main street where streetcars and automobiles passed.

The main street was located less than half a block from his shop. The storehouse at the corner there was half a small post office and half a Chinese goods store. In the display window of that Chinese goods store, amidst an eccentric arrangement of straw hats and rattan canes, a gaudy bathing suit stood upright like a human figure.

When Yoichi reached the front of the Chinese goods store, he stood with the display window behind him and began casting an irritated gaze toward the people and vehicles passing along the main street.
But even after standing there for some time, not a single rickshaw turned into this side street lined with nothing but wholesale shops.
Every now and then a car would come into view, only to reveal itself as a mud-spattered taxi with a "Vacant" sign displayed.

Before long, from the direction of his shop, a clerk of about fourteen or fifteen came riding up on a bicycle.
When he caught sight of Yoichi, he skillfully brought his bicycle to a halt beside him, keeping one hand on a utility pole.
And then, keeping his foot on the pedal,

“Dr.Tanimura just called,” said the clerk.

“Was there something he needed?”

Even as he spoke, Yoichi never ceased to cast his eyes toward the bustling main street.

“He said there was no particular business—”

“Did you come here to say that?”

“No, I’m just heading to the factory now.—Oh, and the master said he has business with you, Yoichi-san.”

“Father?”

Yoichi had started to say this when he suddenly looked into the distance and dashed out before the display window as if forgetting the other person entirely. On the sparsely trafficked side street, a single rickshaw was just now trying to turn from the main street toward them. No sooner had he planted himself before the rickshaw shafts than he nearly raised both hands and called out to the young man atop the vehicle.

“Brother!”

The rickshaw puller leaned back and barely managed to stop the vehicle.
On the rickshaw sat Shintaro, still wearing his high school summer uniform with its white-striped cap, his sturdy hands gripping the trunk pressed between his knees.

“Oh.”

His brother looked down at Yoichi’s face without moving a single eyebrow.

“How is Mother?”

Yoichi gazed up at his brother and felt blood suddenly surge through his body, rushing vividly to his cheeks.

“She’s gotten worse these past two or three days—
“—they say it’s a duodenal ulcer.”

“I see.”
“That’s—”

Shintaro remained impassive and said nothing more.
But within those eyes inherited from his mother, an expression Yoichi had not anticipated—yet had unconsciously sought—flickered.
Yoichi, feeling a pleasant bewilderment at his brother’s expression, continued in rapid, fragmented words.

“Today she seems to be suffering the most—but I’m glad you came back, Brother.—Well, we should get going soon.”

The rickshaw puller began running vigorously again at Shintaro’s signal.
At that moment, Shintaro vividly felt an image of himself—seated that morning in the third-class passenger car—projected somewhere in his mind.
It was he who, feeling the shoulder of the ruddy-cheeked country girl beside him pressed against his own, had mused that seeing his mother after her death might bring less sorrow than witnessing her final moments.
Moreover, even throughout that time, he had been absentmindedly gazing at the Reclam edition of Goethe’s collected poems.…

“Brother. Hasn’t your exam started yet?”

Shintaro leaned sideways and cast a surprised gaze toward the voice. There was Yoichi, clattering his wooden clogs against the ground as he ran close alongside the rickshaw.

“It starts tomorrow.”
“You—what were you doing over there?”

“Today Dr. Tanimura was supposed to come, but since he’s taking so long, I stood there waiting—”

Yoichi answered while slightly catching his breath.
Shintaro had wanted to rebuke his brother.
But when that sentiment emerged, it had already turned into commonplace words.

“Were you waiting long?”

“Did I wait about ten minutes?”

“Wasn’t there someone from the shop over there?—Hey, you there!”

The rickshaw puller went five or six steps past before swinging the shafts around and setting them down in front of the shop.
Even Shintaro felt a pang of nostalgia—there, before the shop with its thick glass doors.

IV

An hour later, on the second floor of the shop, Kenzo, Shintaro, and Okinu’s husband had gathered around Dr. Tanimura with grim expressions.
After O-Ritsu’s examination had ended, they had invited the doctor to this second floor to hear its results.
Dr. Tanimura—a man of sturdy build—sipped his offered tea and for a while entwined his vest’s gold chain around thick fingers before surveying their electric-lit faces.

“You have summoned Dr. Tazawa—the family physician—haven’t you?”

“I’ve just had the call made—he said he’d be up right away.”

Kenzo turned toward Shintaro as if to confirm.
Shintaro, still in his uniform, sat stiffly beside his father—who faced Dr. Tanimura—with his knees folded awkwardly.

“Yes, he should be here any moment.”

“Then let’s wait until Dr. Tazawa arrives—the weather’s quite unsettled, isn’t it?”

Dr. Tanimura took out a maroquin leather cigarette case while saying this.

“This year’s rainy season seems to be a long one.”

“It’s quite trying—what with both the weather and the economy these days being as they are—”
“The weather and the financial world being as they are these days—”

Okinu’s husband also added smooth words from the side.
This young kimono shop owner, who had come to visit at just that time, was a man with a short mustache and rimless glasses—a figure dressed more like a lawyer or company employee.
Shintaro, feeling an odd sense of frustration at their conversation, stubbornly remained silent by himself.

However, it was not long after that when Dr. Tazawa, their family physician, entered their midst.
He—wearing a black ro summer haori and appearing slightly inebriated—exchanged polite initial greetings with Dr. Tanimura, then turned to Kenzo, who sat diagonally,

“Have you already obtained the diagnosis?” he asked in a thick Tohoku accent.

“No, I had intended to inform you after your arrival, but—”

Dr. Tanimura responded on Kenzo’s behalf, holding a short cigarette between his fingers.

“I also need to hear your account—”

Tazawa explained O-Ritsu’s condition over the past week in considerable detail as requested by the doctor.
To Shintaro, the faint movement of the doctor’s thin eyebrows upon hearing Tazawa’s prescription became a lingering concern.

When that account reached a conclusion, Dr. Tanimura gave two or three deliberate nods to himself.

“Ah—I’ve understood clearly.”
“Undoubtedly, it is a duodenal ulcer.”
“However, from what I have just examined, she has developed peritonitis.”
“After all, she says it hurts as if her lower abdomen is being pushed upward—”

“Hmm, ‘it hurts as if her lower abdomen is being pushed upward’?”

Tazawa spread his elbows authoritatively over his serge hakama and tilted his head slightly.

For a moment, no one dared to breathe, let alone open their mouths.

“Even so, the fever does seem much lower than yesterday—”

Finally, after a while, Kenzo managed to open his mouth with an uncertain retort.
However, Dr. Tanimura discarded his cigarette and offhandedly interrupted him.

“That’s precisely the problem.”
“While the fever steadily decreases, the pulse conversely increases.”
“—That’s the nature of this disease.”

“I see, so that’s how it is.”
“This’s something we young people would do well to learn and keep in mind.”

Okinu’s husband, arms crossed, occasionally tugged at his mustache.
Shintaro detected in his brother-in-law’s words a chill akin to a stranger’s indifference.
“But when I examined her earlier, there were still no apparent signs of peritonitis or such—”

As Tazawa began to say this, Dr. Tanimura responded with professional courtesy, not missing a beat.

“That’s likely. I believe it developed after your examination. While the condition hasn’t progressed too severely yet—in any case, there’s no doubt it’s peritonitis now.”

“Then why don’t we have her hospitalized right away?”

Shintaro kept his stern face as he interjected for the first time.
Dr. Tanimura, seeming surprised by this, glanced briefly from under his heavy-looking eyelids and fixed his gaze on Shintaro's face.

"She cannot be moved now."
"First, we must do everything possible to keep her abdomen warm."
"If the pain remains severe even then, have Mr. Tazawa give her an injection—the night will still be quite painful."
"No illness is easy, but this one is particularly painful."

Dr. Tanimura said this and cast his sunken eyes down at the tatami, but suddenly, as if remembering something, he took out his vest watch and—

“Well then, I shall take my leave now,” he said, immediately straightening his suit jacket.

Shintaro, along with his father and brother-in-law, expressed their gratitude to the doctor for his visit.
Yet even as he did so, he was acutely aware that an unmistakable look of disappointment remained etched across his own face.

“I do hope you will conduct another examination within the next two or three days, Doctor—”

After finishing the greetings, Tazawa said this and bowed again.

“Yes, I can come up anytime, but—”

These were the doctor’s final words.
Shintaro, descending the dark stairs long after everyone else, could not help but feel keenly that all was lost.…………

V

After Tazawa and Okinu’s husband had left, Shintaro—now changed into a kimono—sat around the long brazier in the tearoom with Aunt Asakawa and Yoichi.
From beyond the sliding door came O-Ritsu’s ceaseless groans.
The three of them kept up their halting conversation under the electric light, yet repeatedly found themselves—as if by some tacit agreement—straining to catch every sound from beyond the door.

“This won’t do.”
“Oh, how it must ache without respite—”

Aunt Asakawa clutched the fire tongs, her gaze fixed vacantly on some distant point.

“Did Dr.Tazawa say she’ll be alright?”

Yoichi, without answering his aunt, addressed his brother, who was clenching an E.C.C. between his lips.

“He said there should be no mistake for two or three days.”

“Suspicious—if it’s what Dr.Tazawa says—”

This time, Shintaro did not reply and was letting the tobacco ash fall into the brazier.

“Shin-chan.”
“When you came back earlier, d’you hear Mother say anything?”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“But she laughed, didn’t she?”

Yoichi peered from the side and gazed at his brother’s calm face.

“Yeah… But doesn’t going to Mother’s side make you feel oddly better?”

Aunt Asakawa directed her smiling eyes toward Yoichi, as if urging an answer.

"That's because Okinu sprinkled the perfume she brought earlier."
"Yoichi."
"What was it you said?"
"That perfume."

"What is it—probably something like floor-sprinkling perfume or whatever they call it."

At that moment, Okinu peered out quietly from behind the sliding door with a face like a patient’s.
“Isn’t Father here?”

“He’s at the shop.”
“Do you need something?”

“Yes, Mother has a little—”

At the same moment Okinu said this, Yoichi promptly stood up from before the long brazier.

“I’ll go and tell her that.”

As he left the tearoom, Okinu—who had applied a poultice of chewed rice—came stealing in this way, holding her chest in both sleeves.
And then, into the spot where Yoichi had been standing, she sat down properly, with a faint chill about her.

“How is she?”

“The medicine still isn’t going down.—But ever since this new nurse came on, just her being older feels more reassuring somehow.”

“The fever?”

Shintaro interjected, exhaling tobacco smoke with a grimace.

“It’s now 37.2 degrees—”

Okinu buried her chin in her collar and looked at Shintaro thoughtfully.

“It’s down another tenth since Dr. Tazawa was here.”

The three of them remained silent for a while.
Then, in that stillness, no sooner had the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor echoed than Kenzo returned restlessly from the shop with Yoichi leading the way.

“A call came from your house just now.”
“Later, they asked that Madam please return the call.”

Kenzo said this to Okinu and immediately went into the next room.

“It can’t be helped.”
“Even with two maids at home, they’re completely useless.”

Okinu clicked her tongue slightly and exchanged looks with Aunt Asakawa.

“The maids these days—at my place, having maids around just makes more work.”

While the two were having this conversation, Shintaro, with a gold cigarette holder between his lips, was keeping the lonely-looking Yoichi company.

“Are you preparing for your exams?”

“I am—but this year I’m throwing in the towel.”

“You’re writing nothing but poems again.”

Yoichi grimaced and lit his own rolled cigarette.

“I’m not someone suited for exams like you are, Brother.”
“I hate math, and—”

“Even if you hate it, if you don’t do it—”

When Shintaro began to say this, Aunt Asakawa—who had been talking in a low voice with the nurse that had come to the sliding door at some point—

“Shintaro.”
“Your mother is calling for you,” she called out to him from across the brazier.

He discarded his half-smoked cigarette and stood up in silence.
Then, as if pushing the nurse aside, he stomped into the neighboring room.

“Come here.
Your mother says she needs to talk.”

His father, sitting alone at the bedside, gestured to him with his chin.
He followed that gesture and immediately sat down before his mother.

“What is it?”

Mother lay with her comb-wrapped head resting on the bound pillow.
Her face, in the light of the shaded lamp, appeared even more emaciated than before.

“Ah, Yoichi... It seems he isn’t studying much... So you must tell him often too—since he’s a boy who listens to you—”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to tell him.”
“In fact, we were just speaking of that.”

Shintaro replied in a voice louder than his usual tone.

“Is that so? Then don’t forget—I too thought until yesterday that I was going to die, but—”

While enduring her stomach pain, Mother managed a smile that exposed her gums.

“Perhaps because we received Taishaku-sama’s charm, today my fever has gone down—if this continues, I should recover—they say even Mitsu’s uncle had a duodenal ulcer but healed in half a month—so it doesn’t seem like such a serious illness after all—”

Even now, Shintaro couldn't help feeling wretched at his mother clinging to such hopes.

"It will heal, I assure you."
"You'll definitely recover, so just make sure to take your medicine properly."

Mother nodded faintly.

"Then please try taking one more dose now."

The nurse who had come to the bedside deftly pressed the glass tube of liquid medicine against O-Ritsu’s lips. Mother kept her eyes closed and drank about two sips from the tube. For that fleeting instant, it lifted Shintaro’s heart.

“That went well.”

“It seems to have settled this time.”

The nurse and Shintaro exchanged a knowing glance.

“If the medicine stays down properly now, we’re over the worst of it.”
“Though it’ll still take some time—by the recovery period, the heat will be unbearable.”
“Maybe we should serve iced sweet bean soup instead of red rice when she’s up.”

Taking Kenzo’s joke as his cue, Shintaro, still on his knees, tried to quietly withdraw from his mother’s side. Then Mother suddenly cast a suspicious look at his face.

“A speech? Where is there a speech tonight?” she said.

He was startled and looked toward his father as if pleading for help.

“There’s no such thing as a speech.”
“There’s no such thing anywhere, so you should get a good rest tonight.”

Kenzo calmed O-Ritsu while simultaneously casting a meaningful glance toward Shintaro. Shintaro promptly lifted his knees and returned to the brightly lit tea room next door.

In the tea room were his older sister and Yoichi, whispering with Aunt Asakawa.
When they caught sight of him, they all raised their faces at once with expressions that seemed to inquire about news from the sickroom.
However, Shintaro kept his mouth shut and, with the same cold look as before, sat cross-legged on the zabuton where he had been.

“What did she want?”

The first to break the silence was Okinu, her chin still buried in her collar, her complexion pale.

“It was nothing.”

“Then Mother must have just wanted to see your face, Shintaro.”

Shintaro detected a spiteful edge in his sister’s words.
But he merely offered a faint wry smile and said nothing in response.

“Yo-chan.”
“Are you taking over the night vigil tonight?”

After a prolonged silence, Aunt Asakawa addressed Yoichi with a yawn in her voice.

“Yes—Sister said she’ll do it tonight too—”

“What about Shintaro?”

Okinu raised her narrow-lidded eyes and fixed a piercing gaze on Shintaro’s face.

“I don’t care either way.”

“As always, Shin-chan is being wishy-washy. I thought if he’d at least gone to high school, he’d become more lively, but—”

“Isn’t he exhausted?”

Aunt Asakawa half-reproachfully restrained Okinu’s shrill words.

“It would be best to let him sleep first tonight.”
“It’s not as if keeping vigil must happen specifically tonight just because someone’s doing it, so—”
“Then I suppose I’ll go to bed first.”
Shintaro lit his brother’s E.C.C. cigarette again.
Despite having just seen his dying mother, he loathed his own frivolity for already feeling buoyant within,………

Six

Even so, it was nearly midnight that night when Shintaro lay down on the futon on the shop’s second floor. He truly felt travel-weary, just as Aunt Asakawa had remarked. But when he finally switched off the electric light, sleep refused to come despite his repeated tossing and turning.

Beside him lay his father Kenzo, exhaling quiet breaths in sleep. For Shintaro, sharing a room with his father that night marked the first time in at least three or four years. Had Father not been snoring?—Shintaro would occasionally open his eyes and peer through the darkness at his father’s sleeping figure, entertaining such trivial doubts.

However, behind his eyelids, various memories of Mother still drifted in chaotically. Among them were happy recollections, but there were also rather abhorrent ones. Yet now that he looked back, all those memories felt equally lonely. "They're all things of the past now. Whether it was good or bad, there's nothing to be done."—Shintaro thought this as he absently settled his close-cropped head onto the starch-stiffened tied pillow.

When Shintaro was still in elementary school, his father had once bought him a new hat.
It was a hat with a long visor that he had long desired.
Then when his older sister Okinu saw it, she declared that since there was a nagauta recital next month, this time he should have a kimono made for her too.
Father merely grinned and paid no heed to her words.
Older sister immediately flew into a rage.
Then, while keeping her back turned to Father, she uttered spiteful words in frustration.

“Go ahead and dote on Shin-chan all you want.”

Father, while somewhat at a loss, still did not let his faint smile fade.

“Since when do kimonos and hats count as the same thing?”

“Then what about Mother? Didn’t Mother just have a haori made the other day?”

Older Sister whirled back toward her father and suddenly glared at him with a fierce look.

“Didn’t you have me buy the likes of combs and hairpins back then?”

“Yes, I had you buy those things.”
“So what if I did?”

No sooner had Older Sister brought her hand to her head than she suddenly flung the white chrysanthemum hairpin onto the tatami mats.

“What’s this? Just some hairpin.”

Even Father finally made a bitter face.

“Don’t do such foolish things.”

“After all, I’m a fool.”
“I’m not clever like Shin-chan.”
“Because my mother was a fool—”

Shintaro kept his pale face turned toward them as he watched this quarrel.
But when his sister raised her voice in such a tearful cry, he silently grabbed the flower hairpin on the tatami and, no sooner had he done so than began tearing its petals to shreds.

“What are you doing? Shin-chan.”

Older sister lunged at his hands like someone deranged.

“Didn’t I say this hairpin was no good? If it doesn’t fit, then what does it matter? What’s this? For a woman—if you want a fight, come at me anytime.—”

Shintaro, who had been crying at some point, stubbornly wrestled with his sister over a single flower hairpin until all the chrysanthemum petals were gone. However, even as he did so, somewhere in his head, he felt as though his sister’s feelings—those of a girl without a biological mother—were reflected with a vividness that struck him as strange.
——

Shintaro suddenly strained his ears.
Someone was climbing the dark stairs, trying not to make a sound.
Just as he thought this, Mitsu called out softly to them from the stairway entrance.

“Master.”

Kenzo—who they thought was asleep—immediately raised his head from the pillow.

“What?”
“Madam has a request.”
Mitsu’s voice was trembling.
“All right, I’m coming now.”

After his father went downstairs, Shintaro lay with his eyes wide open, his body rigidly still as if listening intently to every sound throughout the house. Then, for some reason, during that interval, such peaceful memories—far removed from his current state of mind—rose vividly to the surface.

—This too was from when he was still in elementary school; he had been taken alone by his mother to visit Yanaka Cemetery. In the pines and hedges of the cemetery, magnolia blossoms whitened—a fine Sunday afternoon past noon. When Mother came before the small grave, she told him this was Father’s grave. But he merely stood before it and gave a slight bow.

“Is that all?”

Mother offered water while sending a smile his way.

“Yeah.”

He felt a vague familiarity toward the father whose face he did not know.
But toward this pitiable stone monument, he felt no emotions whatsoever.

Mother then clasped her hands in prayer before the grave for some time.
Then, somewhere nearby, there came a sound like that of an air gun being fired.
Shintaro left his mother behind and went off toward the sound.
After making a wide detour around a hedge, he emerged onto a narrow road—there, a boy larger than himself stood with two others who seemed to be his younger brothers, an air gun dangling from one hand as he gazed regretfully up at the smoke-tinged buds of some unknown tree.

At that moment, the creaking sound of someone climbing the stairs once again reached his ears.
Suddenly anxious, he half-rose from the bed,

“Who’s there?” he called toward the stairway.

“Were you awake?”

The owner of the voice was Kenzo.

“Is something wrong?”

“Mother said she needed something just now, so I went down for a bit.”

Father said in a subdued voice as he lay back down on the same futon.

“By ‘something,’ you don’t mean it’s bad news, do you?”

“Well, when she said she needed something, it was just that if I’m going to the factory tomorrow, there are summer clothes in the top drawer of the chest of drawers.”

Shintaro pitied Mother.
It was less pity for Mother than pity for the wife within her.

“But this is truly difficult.”
“When I went to check earlier, she still appeared to be in terrible pain.”
“And she says her head hurts too—she keeps moving her neck constantly.”

“What if we have Dr. Tazawa administer another injection?”

“They say injections shouldn’t be given too frequently—even if the end is inevitable, I’d at least like to ease her suffering a little more.”

Kenzo seemed to stare fixedly at Shintaro’s face in the darkness.

“Your mother’s bound for a good afterlife—why must she suffer like this?”

The two of them remained silent for a while.

"Is everyone still awake?"

Shintaro, still facing his father, found the silence unbearable.

"Aunt is asleep."
"But whether she can sleep or not—"

When Father began to say this, he suddenly lifted his head from the pillow again and made a show of listening intently.

“Father.”
“Mother needs you for a moment—”

This time, from the middle of the stairs, Okinu called out quietly.

“I’m coming now.”

“I’ll get up too.”

Shintaro threw off the quilted bedcover.

“You don’t have to get up.”
“If anything happens, I’ll come call you right away.”

Father briskly followed Okinu down the stairs once more.

Shintaro sat cross-legged on the floor for a while, then stood up and lit the lamp.
Then, still sitting in the dazzling light of the lamp, he gazed blankly around him.
The reason Mother sent for Father, whether there was a need or not, might actually have been simply because she wanted him to come to her bedside—such a thought fleetingly occurred to him.

Then a sheet of ruled paper with writing on it that had fallen under the desk caught his eye. He picked it up casually.

"Dedicated to M.…"

The rest was Yoichi's poem.

Shintaro tossed the paper aside and lay on his back on the futon, wrapping both hands behind his head. For an instant, he vividly recalled Mitsu's face with its cool eyes.…………

VII

When Shintaro suddenly awoke, the gaps in the window shutters had already turned pale, and upstairs, his sister Okinu and Kenzo were whispering something in hushed voices.
He immediately jumped up.

“Alright, alright. You should get some sleep.”

Kenzo said this to Okinu and hurriedly descended the stairs.

Outside the window, on the roof tiles, there was a sound like a waterfall cascading.
It’s pouring, Shintaro thought as he promptly began changing into his nightclothes.
Then Okinu, who had been untying her obi, addressed him with a touch of sarcasm.

“Shin-chan. Good morning.”

“Good morning. How’s Mother?”

“She was in pain all last night.—”

“Can’t she sleep?”

“She says she slept well, but from what I saw by her side, it didn’t seem like she really slept even five minutes. She kept saying such strange things—I got really creeped out in the middle of the night.”

Shintaro, having finished changing, stood at the foot of the ladder.
In the kitchen visible from there, Mitsu was hanging a rag or something, skirt still tucked up.—But when their voices reached her, she abruptly let down the hem she’d been holding up.
He rested his hand on the brass handrail and felt somehow reluctant to go down there.

“What kind of strange things did she say?”

“Half a dozen? Half a dozen would be six pieces, wouldn’t it?”

“Her mind is a bit off, isn’t it? —How is she now?”

“Dr. Tazawa is here now.”

“That’s early.”

After Mitsu had left, Shintaro slowly descended the ladder.

Five minutes later, when he came to the sickroom, Tazawa had just finished administering the Jikitemin injection.
While receiving aftercare from the nurse at her bedside, Mother kept moving her comb-wrapped head restlessly on the white tied pillow, just as Father had said last night.

“Shintaro is here.”

Father, who had been sitting beside Tazawa, said this loudly to Mother, then gave him a meaningful glance.

In contrast to Father, he sat down on the opposite side of Tazawa.
There, Yoichi sat with his arms crossed, blankly watching Mother’s face.

“Hold her hand.”

Shintaro pressed his mother’s hand between both palms, just as his father had instructed.
Mother’s hand was cold with greasy sweat, unpleasantly damp to the touch.
When Mother saw his face, her eyes seemed to nod in acknowledgment, but she immediately shifted her gaze to Tazawa.
“Doctor... It’s over for me now, isn’t it? My hand has started to go numb,” she said.
“No, that’s not the case. You just need to endure a couple more days,” Dr. Tazawa replied while washing his hands.
“You’ll feel better soon now—oh, there are all sorts of things lined up here, aren’t there?”

On the tray by Mother’s pillow were talismans from the Grand Shrine of Ise and the local tutelary deity, along with sacred images like that of Taishakuten from Shibamata—so many they could hardly fit. Mother, while looking up at the tray with upturned eyes, gave a fragmented reply as if gasping.

“Last night was... so unbearable... But this morning—at least the pain in my stomach—it’s eased... considerably...”

Father said in a low voice to the nurse.

“Her tongue seems to be slurring a bit.”

“Her mouth must be getting sticky.—Please give her water with this.”

Shintaro took the brush soaked in water from the nurse’s hand and moistened his mother’s mouth two or three times.
Mother wrapped her tongue around the brush and tried to suck up the scant water.

“Well then, I’ll come up again later. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”

After finishing arranging his bag, Dr.Tazawa said loudly to Mother in this manner.
Then, while looking back at the nurse,

“Then please administer the remaining injection once more around ten o’clock,” he said.

The nurse muttered a reply and kept a displeased expression.

Shintaro and Father escorted Dr. Tazawa out of the sickroom.
In the adjacent room sat Aunt Asakawa alone, as listless as she had been that morning—as Dr. Tazawa passed by, he casually nodded in return to her polite greeting while turning to Shintaro following behind,

“How’s your exam preparation going?” he asked.
But the moment he realized his mistake, he burst out laughing with an unpleasantly cheerful tone.

“Oh, I—I completely mistook you for your younger brother—”

Shintaro forced a bitter smile.

“Lately, whenever I see your brother, it’s always exam talk.”
“Must be because my own boy’s preparing for them too, you know—”

Tazawa kept smirking even as he walked through the kitchen.

After the doctor left in the rain, Shintaro left his father at the shop and hurried back to the parlor.
There beside Aunt Asakawa sat Yoichi with a rolled cigarette between his lips.

“Sleepy?”

Shintaro crouched down, pressing his knees against the edge of the long brazier.

“Sis is already asleep. You should go up to the second floor now and get some sleep while you can.”

“Yeah—I smoked cigarettes all night last night, so my tongue’s completely raw.”

Yoichi made a gloomy face and fiercely threw the long cigarette butt into the brazier.

“But at least Mother’s stopped moaning.”
“She seems to have gotten a bit more comfortable, hasn’t she?”

Aunt was heating the hand warmer ash to put into Mother’s hand warmer.

“It seems she was in pain until four o’clock, though.”

At that moment, Matsu appeared from the kitchen, her disheveled ginkgo-leaf bun framing her face.

“Honorable Retired Master. Master requests that you please come to the shop for a moment.”

“Yes, yes. I’m coming right now.”

Aunt passed the hand warmer to Shintaro.

“Now then, Shin-chan, you take good care of Mother.”

When Aunt said this and left, Yoichi also stifled a yawn and finally lifted his heavy hips.

“I think I’ll take a nap too.”

After being left alone, Shintaro sat with the hand warmer still on his knees and tried to gather his thoughts.
But what exactly he should think about, even he himself couldn’t grasp.
Only the ferocious sound of rain filled the unseen space above the roof—that alone spread through his mind.

Then suddenly from the next room, the nurse rushed in frantically.

“Someone—please come quickly! Someone—someone—”

Shintaro sprang to his feet in an instant, and the next moment, he rushed into the neighboring room. Then, with his sturdy arms, he firmly lifted O-Ritsu.

“Mother.”
“Mother.”

Mother, still held in the arms, shook her body two or three times.
Then she vomited a bluish-black liquid.

“Mother.”

For the few seconds before anyone else arrived, Shintaro kept calling her name loudly, staring into his mother’s lifeless face with a piercing gaze.

(October 23, 1920)