Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Wasn’t it in the spring of Showa 17 (1942), the year after the Pacific War began, that you graduated from university and enlisted in your hometown regiment in Sendai?
A year passed, and in the early spring of Showa 18 (1943), I received a telegram from you titled “Asu Goji Uenotsuku.”

That must have been around the beginning of March, wasn’t it? After all, it was still bitterly cold. I woke while it was still dark, went to Ueno Station, crouched before the ticket gate, and privately concluded that you too were finally being sent off to the battlefield. For someone as reserved and dutiful as you to send me such a telegram—it must have meant something extraordinary. On your way to the battlefield, you would disembark at Ueno Station, and since there was some rest time there, you must have planned to use that opportunity to have a drink with me—or so I had correctly deduced. By that time in Japan, alcohol was beginning to run out. People would line up in front of bars waiting for them to open at five in the afternoon, ingratiating themselves profusely with the bartenders only to finally get their hands on half a *gō* or one *gō* of liquor—such was the state of things. Yet I had a stand bar in Kichijoji that I was close with—a place where I could push things a bit—so in fact, the previous day I had gone to the auntie there and said, “It seems my close friend is being sent off to the battlefield soon. He’ll arrive at Ueno early tomorrow morning, and though I don’t know how much time we’ll have after that, I intend to bring him there no matter what. Please prepare some liquor and something warm to eat—I’m counting on you!” And so I got her to agree.

I had intended to drag you off to that counter-style bar in Kichijoji without a word the moment we met—but your train was terribly late. It was three hours late. I was crouching by the ticket gate, huddling with both sleeves of my overcoat pulled over me as I waited for you, but inwardly, I was beside myself with anxiety. If your train was delayed by an hour, that meant one less hour I could drink with you. It was delayed by more than three hours, so it was a truly severe blow. And on top of that, it was terribly cold. At that time in Tokyo, air raids had not yet begun, but air-raid attire was already in vogue, and there were almost none like me—those wearing an unfastened kimono with an overcoat draped over it. As I crouched on the concrete floor in my unfastened kimono, the cold crept up from the hem, shudderingly cold, unbearable. It was nearly nine in the morning when your train arrived. You were not alone. This was beyond the reach of my so-called "shrewd deduction."

Along with the rhythmic stomping of military boots, about two hundred officer candidates—your group—marched to the ticket gate in a four-row column.
I stood on tiptoe by the ticket gate and searched for you.
The moment you found me and the moment I found you seemed to happen almost simultaneously.

“Ah.”

“Ah.”

In this manner, you broke away from the ranks as if declaring, “To hell with military regulations!” and ran up to me,

“I kept you waiting. No matter what, I just had to see you.”

I was shocked and dismayed to find that during your time in your hometown regiment, your Tohoku dialect had grown markedly stronger. With a clatter, the formation passed before my eyes. You were utterly indifferent to that formation and chattered nonstop. That must have been what you had thought through on the train—how exactly to make me acknowledge your own progress when we first met.

“When it comes to living—well, what is it? That is—it’s nothing at all.”
“When I was in school, life seemed terrifyingly daunting—I could not handle it at all—but now I see it’s nothing at all, you see.”
“The military is also part of life, you see.”
“When it comes to living—well, it’s nothing more than interactions with those around you.”
“That’s all it was, you see.”
“The military is rather dull, but I have gained confidence in living over this past year, you see.”

The formation kept passing by.
I was beside myself with anxiety.

“Hey, are you okay?” I whispered urgently.

“It’s nothing,” you replied without turning toward the formation. “I’ve learned to say ‘No’ now, you see.
“The strength of proper living lies in having the courage to clearly say ‘No.’
“That’s what I believe.
“In dealing with those around me, I clearly say No when I ought to say No.
“When I achieved this, I gained confidence in living itself.
“Sensei—someone like you still can’t say No, can you?
“I’m certain you still can’t.”

“No, no,” I said, “let’s shelve the life philosophy for later. More urgently—you, those around you have already moved on ahead.”

“You’re still such a coward, Sensei.”
“You have no composure at all.”
“Those around us will disband in front of the station and then proceed to have breakfast.”
“Ah, please wait here a moment.”
“I’ll go get the boxed meals.”
“I’ll get Sensei’s portion too.”
“Please wait,” he said, starting to run off before turning back. “Is that okay?”
“Please stay here.”
“I’ll be right back.”

Without explanation, you entrusted me with your military sword in its purple cloth bag and ran off.
I—though flustered—held the military sword in my right hand and waited.
After a while, you reappeared carrying two boxed meals wrapped in bamboo sheaths,

“It’s unfortunate.”
“Ah, what a shame.”
“There’s no time left now.”

“Don’t we even have hours left? Is it already almost time?” I said, showing what you called my lack of composure.

“Until 11:30.”
“By then, we’re supposed to assemble in front of the station and depart immediately.”

“What time is it now?”
Your foolish Sensei had not owned a watch these past fifteen or sixteen years.
It wasn’t that I disliked clocks—rather, it seemed clocks were the ones who disliked this Sensei.
And not just clocks—most household items appeared to despise this Sensei and keep their distance.

You looked at your wristwatch and reported the time.
Until 11:30, there were only about three hours left.
I had to abandon my plan to drag you off to the stand bar in Kichijoji.
From Ueno to Kichijoji took an hour by the National Railway.
In that case, just the round trip would already consume two hours.
One hour left.
That too was an hour devoid of composure—an hour in which one had to constantly worry about the clock.
It was pointless, I concluded.

“Should we take a walk in the park or something?”
I felt like stifling tears.

Even now, I still feel this way—in times like these, I’m overcome by an unbearable loneliness, like a child left alone at home while everyone else is taken to the festival, cursing heaven and earth with no recourse. I find myself earnestly recalling grandiose, theatrical phrases like “my own misfortune.”

However, you remained unperturbed,

“Let us proceed,” he said.

I handed the military sword back to you,
“This cord really is in poor taste,” I said.
On the military sword’s purple bag, a bright red thick rayon cord was coiled round and round, and at the end of that cord, a large tassel had been very properly attached.

“Sensei, you still have some flair for aesthetics, don’t you?”
“Were you embarrassed?”

“I was a little embarrassed.”

“With that kind of vanity, you’ll never make it as a soldier.”

We left the station and headed toward Ueno Park.

“Soldiers are show-offs too. Show-offs in extremely poor taste.”

Even without reasons like imperialist aggression or what have you, I instinctively—or rather physically—disliked soldiers. I once received a letter from a friend stating, “During my *fukueki* [military service], please look after my household, etc.,” and the term *fukueki* gave me such a grim impression, as if he were serving a prison sentence, that I wondered if it wasn’t a mistake for *fukumu* [duty service]. When I asked someone about it, I was told that *fukueki* was indeed the correct customary term—a revelation that left me thoroughly disgusted.

“I want a drink,” I said softly, as if muttering to myself while climbing the park’s stone steps.

“That too reeks of poor taste.”

“But at least it’s not vanity.”
“Nobody drinks out of vanity.”

I entered the tea shop near the statue of Nanshu in the park and asked if they had any alcohol. There was no way there would be any. Not only alcohol—by that time, even coffee and sweet sake had already vanished from Japanese eateries.

Even though coldly refused by the teashop girl, I did not falter.

“Is the proprietor here? I’d like to meet him for a moment,” I said with feigned seriousness.

Before long, when the bald-headed proprietor came out, I earnestly pleaded today’s circumstances to him,

“Don’t you have anything?”
“Anything will do.”
“I’m entrusting this entirely to your sense of chivalry.”
“I beg of you.”
“…entirely to your sense of chivalry—” I persisted relentlessly in this manner and presented all the money in my wallet to the proprietor.

“Very well!” The bald-headed proprietor finally demonstrated his sense of chivalry.
“In that case, I’ll share my evening drink whiskey with you.”
“I don’t need this much money.”
“I’ll share it with you at cost price.”
“I’ve hidden it here because I don’t want anyone else drinking my whiskey.”

The proprietor, in a state of agitated indignation, abruptly lifted the tatami mats in the parlor, then pried up the floorboards and pulled out a square bottle of whiskey from beneath the floor.
“Banzai!” I said and clapped my hands.

And then, we entered that tatami room and toasted.

"Sensei, you're still the same as ever."

"Still the same."
"I can't stand changing so often."

“However, I have changed.”

“Confidence in living, huh?”
“I’ve had enough of that talk.”
“Should I just say ‘No’?”

“No, Sensei.”
“This isn’t some abstract theory.”
“It’s a woman.”
“Sensei, let’s drink.”
“I went through great pains to say ‘No.’”
“You’re to blame too.”
“You’re not reliable in the slightest.”
“About Kikuya—that girl ended up in a terrible state after that.”
“After all, Sensei is to blame.”

“Kikuya? But that... that ended right there...”

“That’s not how it turned out.”
“I struggled to say ‘No.’”
“Truthfully, I’ve changed as a person.”
“Sensei—we were truly wrong.”

The conversation took an unexpectedly painful turn.

II

Kikuya was the name of an oden shop in Kōenji where I used to often go drinking with you all.
By that time, alcohol was already becoming scarce in Japan, and I had begun feeling severely constrained in my ability to drink with you all and discuss literature.
In those days, a great many university students used to visit my small house in Mitaka.
Since I had already expressed most of my sorrow, anger, and shame through my novels, I found myself with nothing formal left that I wanted to say to visitors either.
But neither did I want to put on airs like some grand authority and deliver solemn lectures on literary theory—the effort of carefully choosing each word while avoiding embellishments proved unbearably tedious—and yet being constitutionally incapable of turning people away at the door ultimately led me to coax you all into darting out for drinks.
When I drank, I became able to voice even the most trivial things loudly.
And since you all listening were also thoroughly drunk anyway, there was reassurance in knowing you weren’t paying much attention to what I said.
I might have feared having my every trifling word taken seriously by you all.
However, as alcohol gradually grew scarce across Japan, that timid fool of a teacher found himself in dire straits.
It was then that we hatched a single truly nefarious scheme.
Okano Kin’emon’s honey trap—that was our ploy.
At that time, Kikuya appeared to have a more abundant alcohol supply than other establishments.
Yet they had imposed a limit of two flasks per person.
Since two flasks proved insufficient, we would appeal to the proprietress’s sense of chivalry and beg for an extra one—only for her to frown and ignore us completely.
When we persisted with our complaints, the old man would emerge from the back and declare, “Come now everyone, off you go! Alcohol production in Japan has dropped below half its former levels.”
“It’s precious,” he’d add.
“Truth be told,” he continued in that enthusiasm-dampening tone of his, “we’ve resolved not to serve students alcohol at all.”

“Very well, in that case,” and so we hatched a certain kind of wicked scheme against this heartless oden shop.

First, I—one afternoon when the oden shop had not yet opened for business—entered through its back door putting on a serious front.

“Uncle, are you here?” I called out to the girl working in the kitchen.
This girl had already graduated from girls’ school.
Wasn’t she about nineteen?
She seemed shy and would quickly blush.

“He’s here,” she said in a small voice, her face already bright red.

“What about Auntie?”

“She’s here.”

“I see.”
“That’s perfect.”
“Are they upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“I have some business to discuss, you see.”
“Could you call them for me?”
“Either Uncle or Auntie—it doesn’t matter which.”

The girl went upstairs, and before long, the uncle came down from upstairs with a deadly serious face. He had a face like a villain’s.

“The matter you mentioned must be about liquor,” he said.

I flinched, but then recovered my composure,

“Yeah, if you’ll let me drink, I’ll drink anytime. However, Uncle, there’s something I need to discuss. Why don’t you come over to the shop?”

I lured the uncle toward the dimly lit shop.

Was that late Showa 16 or early Showa 17? In any case, it was definitely winter. I sat down on the shop’s rickety chair, flicked up my kite-like sleeves, and propped my cheek on the table,

“Well, you have a seat too. It’s not a bad proposition.”

The uncle reluctantly sat down in the chair facing me,
"In the end, it's about liquor," he said with a brusque expression.

I started, wondering if he’d seen through me, but put on a hollow laugh—

“You don’t trust me.”
“Then maybe I should drop it.”
“It’s about a marriage proposal for Masako—the daughter’s name, you see.”

“No good, no good.”
“I ain’t falling for that trick.”
“Going on about this and that, and then it’s liquor.”

Truly a tough customer.
Our wicked scheme seemed on the verge of dissolving into mere bubbles.

“Don’t put it so bluntly.”
“Isn’t that cruel?”
“Well, anyway, we do want you to let us drink.”
“Well, that’s true,” I said, growing almost desperate. “But from what I can see, that Masako-chan is—completely unlike you, utterly unlike you—a good kid.”
“So, there’s this friend of mine—Mr. Tsuruta, who’s now in the liberal arts department at Tokyo Imperial University—though I say that, you probably wouldn’t know him. You know, among the college students I always drag along, he’s the tallest and fairest-skinned, sort of resembling Hazaemon—not that I think he actually looks like Hazaemon or anyone else, mind you—I just threw out a name of a typical handsome man you might recognize to emphasize his good looks—and he doesn’t drink much—though truth be told, among the students who come to my place, he was actually the heaviest drinker—a quiet young man, that Mr. Tsuruta. He’s from Sendai, you see, and his slight Sendai dialect doesn’t make him very popular with women, but well, that’s all for the better.”
“It’s a problem to be as overly popular as I am.”

The uncle grimaced with a look of utter disgust, but I remained unfazed,

“As for that Mr. Tsuruta—he has a widowed mother and is her only son.”
“He’ll soon graduate from Tokyo Imperial University and become a Bachelor of Arts, but he might enlist in the military right after graduation.”
“However, he might also not go.”
“If he doesn’t go, he’ll probably get a job somewhere—this much is true, but everything after is a lie—I’ve been acquainted with Mr. Tsuruta’s mother for years, you see, and even someone like me—well, despite this—is trusted by her.”
“So, you see, the bride for her only son Mr. Tsuruta—she wants Teacher—that is, me, the Teacher—to find one by all means. It’s true, I tell you. In other words, I’ve been entrusted with full authority in this matter.”

However, the uncle turned aside with a look of utter foolishness,

“Don’t be ridiculous.
To entrust such an important son to you?” he said, and refused to engage any further.

“No, that’s not it.
I’ve been entrusted with it,” I insisted shamelessly. “By the way, what do you think—”
“That Mr. Tsuruta and Masako-chan—” I started to say when the uncle,

“This is absurd,” he said, standing up. “You’re out of your mind.”

Even I couldn’t help getting angry as I faced the retreating back of the uncle heading toward the rear rooms,

“You’re someone who can’t recognize kindness.”
“I don’t want your damn liquor!”
“You fool!” I spat.
It was pure chaos.
And so our usual ill-conceived scheme had collapsed entirely.

That night, I reported to all of you who had come to my house that our secret scheme had utterly failed, and offered my apologies. To lay bare our stratagem—it had followed the precedent of Okano Kin’emon, that paragon of beauty among the forty-seven retainers who stole Kira’s mansion blueprints through desperate seductive ploys. Thus we forced this Okano role upon you, our self-styled Adonis, intending to confound the Kikuya household and guzzle their sake amid the confusion. Yet it all crumbled when our leader Ōishi—meaning myself—bungled the affair, leaving us pulverized by that hardheaded uncle’s realism.

“You’re hopeless, Teacher,” Tsuruta kept scorning me vehemently.
“Teacher—no matter what—this way I’ll be utterly disgraced.”
“There’s nothing worth seeing.”

“How about drowning our sorrows?” I stood up.

That night, we wandered through Mitaka and Kichijoji—from oden stalls to sushi counters to cafés—pleading everywhere, but not a drop of liquor could be found.
There was nothing for it but Kikuya.
Burning with shame yet driven by reckless desperation—like some foolhardy warrior charging barehanded at a tiger—we stormed into the restaurant and ordered sake without a trace of warmth.

That evening brought unexpected kindness from the proprietress.
“What a nuisance,” she grumbled even as she quietly refilled our flask.
We would-be loyalists—our raid having come to naught—exchanged glances and forced wry smiles.

I deliberately raised my voice,

“Mr. Tsuruta! You’ve always been too serious—never touching alcohol or anything. Try drinking tonight. This too counts as life’s training,” I said to you, the heavy drinker.

It was a foolish affair, but even that has now become a fond memory.
We, emboldened by this, continued to frequently raid Kikuya and drink heavily.
Kikuya’s uncle seemed utterly dismissive of the marriage scheme, but the proprietress appeared somewhat inclined toward half-believing it.

But our true purpose lay in drinking heavily at Kikuya.
Consequently, we were utterly unenthusiastic about that marriage scheme and ended up occasionally forgetting about it altogether.
Only when we went to Kikuya to beg for sake,

“After all, I’ve been entrusted with full authority.”
“My responsibility is no small matter.”

I had feigned such pretentious sentiments—uttering them with contrived gravity—to unsettle the proprietress’s heart, but that fabricated marriage scheme never materialized further. Before long, you enlisted in a Sendai regiment immediately after graduation, and without Okano, even Ōishi’s famed stratagems could no longer devise excuses to extract alcohol from Kikuya. Moreover, Kikuya itself saw its liquor gradually dwindle, its days of closure growing frequent, forcing me to seek out yet another drinking spot. After parting with you, I visited Kikuya only a countable number of times, until eventually I ceased visiting altogether.

I had truly thought that was the end of it, but then a year had passed, and there we were at that tea shop in Ueno Park, sharing what might have been our eternal farewell cup—when suddenly the topic of Kikuya was brought up, so I was startled.

According to your account that day, about a week after you enlisted, a letter from Kikukawa Masako had already reached you.
Now that you mention it, after you left, I went drinking at Kikuya with other students, and at that time—though she hadn’t asked—I wrote down your unit address on paper for the proprietress, all just because I wanted to drink another bottle.

You did not reply to that letter.
Then, after about ten days had passed, another letter arrived—this one filled with even gentler words of concern.
This time, you sent a reply.
Promptly came yet another kind inquiry from her.
In other words, you two had somehow ended up in a strained relationship before anyone noticed.

“To confess,” you said that day at the tea shop in Ueno Park while gulping whiskey, “I’ve liked that person from the very start. It wasn’t because of Okano Kin’emon or any of those trivial schemes—I truly thought from the beginning I could marry her.”
“But if I told you that,” you continued, “I thought you might despise me—so I kept silent.”

“I wouldn’t despise you or anything.”

For some reason, I was in a terribly gloomy mood.

“You’d surely despise me.”
“Teacher, you always end up ridiculing other people’s love affairs from the very start.”
“That girl from Kikuya—you know, the one—also wrote in her letter that she didn’t want Teacher alone to find out about us exchanging these letters. I agreed with her, and so until now, this matter was to be kept absolutely secret from Teacher. But now that I’m heading to the front and will likely die there, I’ve given it considerable thought.”
“I wrestled with it.”
“And so I realized that I was indeed in a position where I had to say No to that girl.”
“Saying ‘No’ is painful.”
“However, in the final letter, I said No.”
“I hardened my heart and said No.”
“Teacher, I’ve changed.”
“I wrote and sent a heartless, cruel letter.”
“By yesterday or so, it should have reached her hands—in that letter, I wrote everything from the very beginning, our disgraceful scheme laid completely bare, and sent it off.”
“From the very first step, this romance was insincere.”
“If you must resent anyone, resent Teacher.”

“But that’s too cruel.”
“Of course I didn’t write anything like ‘Resent Teacher,’ but I did write that this romance was a sham from beginning to end.”
“But tormenting her to such extremes is heartless.”
“No—I had to write it that strongly.”
“She—she says she’ll wait for my return however many years it takes.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
There was no other way to describe how I felt.

III

Perhaps it was a minor incident.
Yet I have no way of knowing how much this affair has tormented me, both then and now.
Everything is my responsibility.

That day, after parting with you, on my way back I stopped by Kikuya in Kōenji. It had truly been about a year since my last visit.

The front door was closed.
I went around to the back, but the kitchen door was also closed.

"I called out, 'Kikuya! Kikuya!' but there was no response."

"I gave up and went home."

However, I couldn’t shake my unease.
About ten days after that, I went to Kōenji again.
This time, the front door opened without resistance.
But inside, there was only a single old woman I had never seen before.

“What about the uncle?”

“Mr. Kikukawa?”

“Yes.”

“Four or five days ago, everyone returned to the countryside.”

“Had there been talk of that before?”

“No, it was sudden.”
“Most of the luggage is still here.”
“I’m just sort of looking after the place.”

“Where is the countryside?”

“They said something about Saitama.”

“I see.”

Their hasty relocation might have had nothing to do with us, but if your “No” letter had arrived around the time we exchanged farewell cups at Ueno Park, then this Kikuya family’s move would have occurred four or five days after that. Somehow, there—even faintly like a bird’s shadow on a shoji screen—I felt a lingering unease brush past, and I only grew all the more despondent.

About half a year had passed when an airmail letter arrived from you at the front.
You seemed to be on some southern island.
The letter made no mention of Kikuya.
It merely stated your intention to become Masashige of Chihaya Castle.
I promptly wrote back that while I wished to send Masashige a banner of chrysanthemum water, I thought you would find a banner from Kikukawa more to your liking.
Yet even that Kikukawa was now beyond reach—their current status unknown.
I told them I would send word once I learned more，but there was simply no way to investigate their family’s situation.
After that，I kept writing you letters and sending magazines，but your replies stopped entirely.

Before long, the regular air raids began, and the homeland too became a battlefield.
I suffered disaster twice and finally ended up as a dependent in my family home in Tsugaru, passing each day in gloom.
You still show no signs of returning.
If you were to return, I’ve been waiting thinking a letter with that news would surely come to me from you, but there’s been no word at all.
Until all of you return safely, even if I drink alcohol, I feel as though I can’t get drunk at all.
Surviving alone and drinking alcohol is absurd.
Perhaps I might already end up quitting alcohol.