Pathway to Japanese Literature

One afternoon “The view from up here is—*ahem*—truly exceptional.”

In one hand he held a Western-style umbrella; in the other, a folding fan and a Japanese hand towel. The old man’s head was cleanly bald, and the pith helmet he wore looked as if it had been plugged on like a stopper.—Still uttering those words cheerfully, he walked past Shun’s side. Having said this, he neither turned toward Shun nor shifted his gaze from the distant view; instead, he sat down on the bench at the edge of the stone wall with an air of resignation.—

For about two ri beyond the town, the land remained flat and green. The deep indigo of I Bay spread out beyond that. Cumulonimbus clouds with fuzzy edges—their overall form not quite distinct—lay quietly coiled above the horizon.— “Ah, yes, it is.” The aftertaste of his own voice from when he had answered haltingly still seemed to linger in his throat and ears, making the disparity between his past self and present self feel strangely discordant. With the old man’s goodwill—seemingly free of any particular attachment—still etched on his cheek, Shun was drawn back into the tranquil vista once more. A breeze blew—it was afternoon.

Partly out of a youthful sentiment—a desire to calmly reflect on his younger sister who died in her prime—Shun had left home not long after her thirty-fifth-day memorial and come to stay at his elder sister’s house in this town. In his daze, until he realized it was another child’s cry, he had felt as though it were his dead sister’s voice.

"Who was it? Making someone cry in this heat..." Making someone cry in this heat... He found himself thinking even that far.

More than when she had passed away, more than at the crematory, it was in such experiences of coming to an unfamiliar land that the sense of loss became deeply etched within him. It was only after coming to this land that the painful experiences surrounding her death—like when he had written to a friend, “Many insects gather around one dying insect, mourning and weeping”—had finally come to feel as if veiled by a thin veil. And as he found calm in those thoughts and grew accustomed to his new surroundings, an unusual tranquility began to settle over Shun. Having always been accustomed to city life and particularly after a recent period with no moment for his heart to rest, he grew all the more reverent within this stillness. Even when walking on roads, he took care to expend as little energy as possible. He would try not to plant a single thorn. He would try not to sacrifice even one finger. The slightest of things could sway the happiness of a day. —It felt nearly superstitious, how much weight such thoughts carried.

And even in that summer of frequent drought, rain came once, then twice, and with each clearing, the climate too had begun to turn, as if something faintly autumn-like now touched the skin.

Such tranquility of mind and the faint harbinger of autumn did not confine him to the books and delusions within his room. Placing grass, insects, clouds, and scenery before his eyes to ignite the heart he had secretly suppressed—to Shun, that alone seemed like something worth doing. "There are castle ruins near our house, which I think would be just perfect for Shun’s walks." In the letter Elder Sister had sent to his mother, such things were written.

The night after his arrival.

The brother-in-law, his elder sister, her daughter, and he climbed these castle ruins together for the first time as a group of four. Due to the drought, rice planthoppers that had swarmed the paddies in great numbers were being exterminated with insecticide lamps. Since this would only continue for two or three more days, they had gone up to witness it. The plain stretched out as a sea of insecticide lamps as far as the eye could see. In the distance they twinkled like stars. Mountain gorges were dimly illuminated, with light flowing out from them like great rivers. He grew excited at this extraordinary spectacle until his eyes teared up. On that windless night, the castle ruins bustled with townspeople who had come both to cool off and see the sights. From the shadows emerged town girls with thickly powdered faces, their excited eyes gleaming.

The sky was achingly clear. And beneath it, the town was lined with roof tiles. The white-plastered elementary school. A storehouse-style bank. The temple roof. And here and there, resembling planed wood shavings packed between Western confections, green plants sprouted forth between the houses. Behind one house, banana leaves hung down. The curled leaves of cypress trees were also visible. Pine trees trimmed into shapes resembling layered cotton batting were also visible. All of them, with their darkened lower leaves and fresh young foliage, formed a splendid green mass.

In the distance, a red postbox was visible. A baby carriage-like object and a roof with white painted lettering were visible. A board stretched with red fabric patches bathed in sunlight was visible, small and nestled between the roof tiles.—

When night fell, along the illuminated main street of the town, village youths who had come by bicycle rode past in large groups toward the brothel district. The young shop workers too, clad in yukata, would sway their hips in a manner utterly different from their daytime demeanor as they teased women with powdered faces.—Such scenes of the town were now sandwiched between roof tiles, with only the many banners erected in that area hinting at the theater’s presence there.

Blocking the western sun, an inn—its first, second, and third floors all completely shaded at the western windows—appeared somewhat nearby. From somewhere came the sound of wood being hammered—though it hadn’t seemed particularly loud to begin with—echoing through the town’s sky: "Clang, clang." Without a moment’s pause, one after another, the tsukutsukuboushi cicadas sang. It seemed like they were practicing verb conjugations. When he suddenly thought that way and listened, he found himself strangely getting into it. They would begin with a "chk-chk-chk," repeat "o-shee, chk-chk," then shift to "chk-chk, o-shee" or back to "o-shee, chk-chk," until finally transforming into "sut-ko-chiyo... sut-ko-chiyo..." before ending with a drawn-out zeeen and falling silent. Midway through, another one started up from the side with a "chk-chk." Then another finished its "sut-ko-chiyo" and began transitioning to a drawn-out zeeen. They sang in threefold, fourfold, fivefold, even sixfold layers.

The other day, Shun had seen tsukutsukuboushi cicadas singing on a cherry tree at the shrine within these castle ruins from just a foot away. He watched in amazement at how such a tiny insect—with its splendid frame and thin wings like soap bubbles—could produce such a high-pitched sound. If one were to say what was related to that high-pitched sound, it was solely the stretching from its belly to its tail. The part covered in dense soft fur and segmented moved with the precision of an engine component.—He could recall its appearance at that moment. The taut swelling from belly to tail. A stretching and contracting that seemed ready to burst with force in every fiber. ――And suddenly, he was struck by the feeling that a single cicada was a creature of supreme preciousness.

From time to time, people would come by like the old man from earlier—cooling themselves, gazing at the scenery, then rising to leave. The person Shun often saw when coming here—the one who napped in the pavilion or gazed out at the sea—had come again today and was chatting amiably with a nursemaid.

Children holding cicada-catching poles darted about here and there. The child made to carry the insect cage would occasionally stop to peer inside it, then glance toward the pole before scurrying after them. Though no words were exchanged, there was a strangely theatrical charm to their silent coordination. Over there, girls caught rice-pounding grasshoppers and made them pound rice while chanting, "Negi-san, pound the rice, so-and-so." The term Negi-san meant a Shinto priest in the local dialect. Shun envisioned the grasshopper—with its virtuous elongated face tipped by two short antennae that did indeed give it a priestly air—as it pounded rice in that carefree manner, immobilized by the girls gripping its hind legs.

Through the grass where the girls gave chase, grasshoppers stretched out their two legs and, their wings full of sunlight, several went leaping forth.

There were chimneys that occasionally belched smoke, and the fields spread out from that area. A Rembrandt-esque sketch-like landscape lay scattered.

Dark grove. Farmhouse. Road. And within the green rice fields, a brick chimney of faded ocher.

A small light railway approached from the sea. The wind rising from the sea blew and billowed the light railway’s smoke landward, in the direction of its travel.

As he watched, it appeared not as smoke but rather like a toy train running with the smoke’s form fixed in reverse. The sunlight dimmed with a rustling whisper. The landscape’s complexion transformed rapidly before his eyes. In the distance along the coast, he could see an inlet slanting into the shore.—Every time Shun climbed up to these castle ruins, he had made a habit of looking out at that inlet time and again.

For a coastline, large trees grew thickly here and there. In their shade peeked the roofs of houses. And in the inlet lingered the sense of moored boats. It was merely that sort of view. There was nothing particularly striking about it. Yet he found himself strangely drawn to it.

There was something. There really was something there. To put that feeling into words would have rendered it as hollow as empty sky. Perhaps he could call it a baseless, faint longing—that sort of feeling. Had someone suggested this phrasing—“Don’t you think so?”—he might have agreed. Yet within himself lingered the conviction that there was still something more.

People of what seemed like a different race lived there, conducting lives separate from this world.—It struck him as that sort of place. Yet even so, there was something overly fairy tale-like about it, an ill-fitting incongruity. He wondered if it might be because he couldn’t recall any foreign painting depicting a place resembling that. In thinking so, he summoned to mind one of Constable’s works. Still, that wasn’t it either.

Then what could it be? This panoramic view lent a kind of beauty to everything without exception. Yet the view of the inlet surpassed even that. There alone pulsed a vibrant vitality. That was how it seemed—— On days when the sky cleared into an autumn-like blue, the sea appeared a deep blue slightly warmer than that azure. When white clouds drifted above, the sea too shone white. Today the earlier cumulonimbus clouds had spread across the horizon with the hue of pomelo flesh, tinting the sea up to the inlet’s very edge with that same color. Today too the inlet lay calm, veiled in its customary mystery.

As he watched, he felt the same urge—to let out a sorrowful growl like a beast from the edge of these castle ruins. It felt strangely suffocating.

In a dream, I went to a strange place and found myself thinking I had been here before. In much the same way as that feeling, unfathomable memories welled up. “Ah—days such as these—moments such as these.”

“Ah—days such as these—moments such as these.”

Those words—he couldn’t tell when he had prepared them—fluttered and flickered— “Hurricane Hutch’s motorcycle” “Hurricane Hutch’s motorcycle” The girlish voices from earlier resounded loudly one after another beneath Shun’s feet. The roar of a motorcycle that seemed to be passing through Marunouchi Avenue could be heard.

It was the time when a certain doctor in this town would return riding it. When they heard that roar, the girls near Shun’s house would vie with each other to shout “Hurricane Hutch’s motorcycle!” “Autoba!” some children were also shouting.

The three-story inn had removed its sunshades before one knew it.

The red stretched boards of the distant drying platform could no longer be seen.

From the town’s roofs came smoke. From the distant mountains came cicadas.

Magic Tricks and Fireworks

This was another day.

After finishing dinner and his bath, Shun climbed up to the castle ruins. In the twilight sky, he could occasionally see fireworks being set off in a town several ri away. When he noticed, a faint sound—as if wrapped in cotton—lingered. Because it was so far away, the sound rang out at hollow intervals. He thought he was seeing something wonderful.

At that moment, three boys led by one around seventeen arrived. This too seemed like an after-dinner cool-off. Perhaps out of consideration for Shun, they were talking quietly.

Feeling too awkward to tell them verbally, he deliberately pretended to be watching intently in the direction where the fireworks were rising. Within the distant panorama, the fireworks flared and vanished with the luminescent clarity of star jellyfish. The sea was growing dark, but that direction still retained some brightness. After a while, the boys noticed it too. He was inwardly pleased.

“Forty-nine” “Ah. Forty-nine.” While exchanging such remarks, they were timing the interval between one firework’s ascent and the next. He was half-listening to their conversation. “××-chan. What’s ‘flower’?” “What’s ‘flower’?” “*Flora*” The oldest one was answering so readily— While recalling that at the castle ruins, he returned home. When he approached near the house, the neighbor saw Shun’s face. And in a flustered manner, “He’s come back home, I tell you,” the neighbor called into the house.

They had been saying they might go see the magic show at Nanikaza Theater, but when Shun abruptly dashed out, they were thrown into a commotion.

“Ah. “Well,” said Brother-in-Law with a laugh, “It’s no good if you don’t speak clearly,” he chided his sister. Elder Sister also laughed as she began taking out clothes. While he had been at the castle ruins, Elder Sister and Nobuko (Brother-in-Law’s sister) had applied heavy makeup.

Elder Sister said to Brother-in-Law,

“You, where’s the folding fan?” “It’s in the travel bag, but…”

“Right. That’s gotten dirty too…” As Elder Sister nodded in understanding and slowly began searching, Brother-in-Law, making his cigarette sizzle noisily,

“Who cares about a folding fan? Just hurry up and get ready,” he said, preoccupied with his clogged pipe. In the back room, the mother-in-law who had been helping Nobuko get ready “Now, how ’bout these?” said the mother-in-law as she gathered and brought over two or three uchiwa fans. They were uchiwa fans that sugar shops and such had distributed. While watching his elder sister skillfully putting on various clothes, he found his mind wandering to the atmosphere of the back room—wondering what emotions Nobuko might be feeling, or how she was getting dressed.

Before long, the preparations were completed, so Shun went down first and put on his geta. “Katsuko (your sister and her husband’s daughter) is around here somewhere—go and call her properly,” said the mother-in-law.

Wearing long-sleeved clothes and mingling with the neighborhood children, Katsuko—though called—was still arguing about something. “I’m going to the ‘Ka’ place, I’m telling you!” “It’s ‘katsudou,’ I tell you!” “Katsudou! Katsudou!” two or three girls taunted. “Nuh-uh,” Katsuko shook her head. “‘Yo’ place, I’m telling you!” they kept at it. “‘Youchien’?”

“Gross!” “Kindergartens ain’t got evening hours, I tell you!”

Brother-in-Law came out.

“Hurry out now.” “We’ll leave you behind, I tell ya!”

Elder Sister and Nobuko came out. Their faces, thickly coated with white powder, appeared to float in the twilight. They were each holding one of the uchiwa fans from earlier.

“Thank you for waiting.” “Katsuko.” “Katsuko, do you have your fan?” Katsuko briefly showed a small fan and tried to cling onto her elder sister. “In that case, Mother, we’ll be off then…”

When Elder Sister said that, “Katsuko, you shouldn’t keep saying ‘Let’s go home, let’s go home,’” said the mother-in-law to Katsuko.

“You shouldn’t say that.” Instead of answering, Katsuko mimicked her and slipped into Shun’s hands. And Shun took her hand and started walking.

The neighbors who had set out cooling platforms on the street called out “Good evening, good evening” to passersby.

“Katsu-chan. What’s this place called?” He tried asking such a thing. “Shosenkaku.” “Chōsenkaku?” “Nuh-uh, Shosenkaku.” “Chōsenkaku?” “Sho—sen—kaku.” “Cho—sen—kaku?” “Yeah,” she said and smacked his hand.

After a while, Katsuko began saying “Shosenkaku.”

She started saying “Shosenkaku.” “Chōsenkaku.”

As if declaring herself the contradictory one, she kept mimicking him with flawless precision. It turned into a game. Eventually he was saying "Matsusenkaku," while Katsuko unknowingly kept repeating "Chōsenkaku." Nobuko noticed this and burst out laughing. When laughed at, Katsuko sulked.

“Katsuko.” Now it was Brother-in-Law’s turn. “That’s not right at all—warabi!” “Nuh-uh.” Snorting, Katsuko pretended to hit Brother-in-Law. Brother-in-Law pretended not to notice, “That’s not right at all—warabi!” “What was that again?” “Katsuko.” “Why don’t you let Shun hear it once?” As she started sniffling as if about to cry, Nobuko took her hand and began walking.

“This… what were you going to say after this?” “You were going to say this isn’t bracken after all, weren’t you?” Nobuko kept pressing like that, covering for her. “Who in the world did she say that to?” This time he was half asking Nobuko. “To Mr. Yoshimine’s uncle, right?” Nobuko laughed while peeking at Katsuko’s face.

“There’s more where that came from. “And there was another even bigger one!” When Brother-in-Law said this threateningly, both Elder Sister and Nobuko burst out laughing. Katsuko was on the verge of proper tears.

A large electric light hung on the castle ruins' stone walls, casting a radiant glow on the trees behind them. The trees in front had turned into dense black shadows. From that direction came the repeated chirring of a cicada.

He had fallen behind and was walking alone.

Since coming to this area, tonight was the first time he went out like this with others. He went out walking with the young women. That too was something extremely rare in his experience. He was somehow happy. In her way of interacting with his slightly willful sister, there was no strain at all—not that she did it skillfully, but rather did it with a peaceful disposition from birth. Nobuko was that kind of girl.

When her mother-in-law, out of religious devotion, told her to have Tenrikyo-sama’s followers pray for her, she obediently complied. It was an injury on her finger, and because of it, she hadn’t been playing the renowned koto either.

She was making plant specimens for school. When she went to town on errands, she would gather a lot of weeds into her furoshiki and bring them back. Because Katsuko wanted some, she would share some with Katsuko too and was busily applying herself to the task alone. Katsuko pulled out her photo album and brought it to him. Without appearing the least bit awkward about it, she responded to his questions calmly and clearly.

—Nobuko had such likable qualities. Now, Nobuko walking before him while holding Katsuko’s hand looked completely different from her usual self at home—clad in clothes with raised shoulder seams and sticking her legs out awkwardly—appearing far more mature now. Next to her walked Elder Sister. He thought his sister had become a bit thinner than before and that her walking had improved somewhat.

“Come on. You. Walk ahead…” Elder Sister suddenly turned around and said to him. “Why?” He could have understood without asking, given his current state of mind, but he deliberately pretended ignorance. Then he laughed on his own. Having laughed like that, he could no longer keep walking from behind.

“Hurry.” “I feel sick.” “Right?” “Nobuko.” “………” Nobuko nodded while laughing. The theater interior was as muggy as expected. An elderly woman—perhaps what they called a water attendant—with her hair in a ginkgo-leaf twist took a stack of zabuton cushions and hurried ahead to lay them out. At the very back of the flat seating area, Shun took the left end, Elder Sister came to the middle, Nobuko the right end, and Brother-in-Law sat behind. It was intermission, and the lower floor was about seventy percent full.

The woman from earlier brought a tobacco tray. The coals had been set, and it wasn’t considerate given the heat. She lingered without leaving. How should I put it—with that crafty look particular to women of her sort, she kept darting her eyes around. She pointed at the brazier with her eyes and looked away repeatedly while stealing glances at Brother-in-Law’s face. Though he knew full well she was watching, while fumbling to extract silver coins from his wallet within his sleeve, he grew angry at her lack of manners.

Brother-in-Law had composed himself and seemed utterly insensible. “Oh, the brazier…” The woman restlessly said this offhandedly and, while busily rubbing her hands, averted her eyes again. Finally, he produced the silver coins, and the woman left.

Soon, the curtain rose.

A man who didn’t look Japanese, his skin tinged dark, listlessly carried in props while periodically staring hard at the audience. His sloppiness made it thoroughly unamusing. When that ended, an Indian with a suspicious-sounding name emerged wearing an ill-fitting frock coat. He spoke in some incomprehensible tongue. Saliva sprayed from his mouth as he talked, white spittle collecting at both corners of his faded lips. “What did he say?” Elder Sister pressed him insistently. Then the stranger sitting next to them also turned to look his way. He felt utterly exasperated under their scrutiny.

The Indian stepped down from his seat and was searching for a witness. A man, his arm still being grabbed, wore a precarious, bashful smile. That man was finally taken to the stage.

He let his hair hang down over his forehead, wore a stiffly starched yukata, and despite the heat, had on black tabi socks. As he stood there smiling, the man from earlier brought a chair and made him sit down.

The Indian was a cruel bastard. He said "Let's shake hands" and extended his hand toward the man. The man hesitated but resolutely extended his hand. Then the Indian pulled back his own hand, turned toward the audience, put on an ugly imitation of the man’s gesture, hunching his neck, and sneered derisively. It was vile. The man looked toward the Indian, then toward the seat he had originally occupied, laughing with an uneasy smile. It was a laugh that seemed to imply something. Perhaps he has a child or a wife. Unbearable. Unbearable, Shun thought.

The handshake turned rude, and the Indian's pranks grew increasingly malicious. The spectators laughed each time. And then the magic show began. There was a string for the trick where it would stay connected even when cut. There was a metal bottle for the trick where water would endlessly pour out—utterly trivial tricks, and the items on the glass table dwindled. An apple still remained. This was meant to be a trick where eating an apple would make its piece blow fire from one's mouth, so as a test, that man was made to eat it. Because he ate it skin and all, this too was laughed at.

Every time the Indian laughed in that absurd way, Shun found himself wondering why that man didn’t do something about it. And he himself became quite uncomfortable. Before long, he suddenly found himself recalling the fireworks from earlier.

"I wonder if those fireworks from earlier are still going off." He found himself thinking.

Into the twilit plain, fireworks from a distant town flashed and vanished like starlit jellyfish. The panorama of sea, clouds and plain appeared truly beautiful to him. “Flower—” “Flora.”

Indeed, he hadn’t said “Flower.” Both that child and that panorama—they seemed like such splendid magic that no magician could rival. Such things gradually washed away his discomfort. By his usual habit of viewing unpleasant scenes with detachment—doing so made them conversely appear amusing—that feeling was beginning to take shape. He thought that his earlier self, who had gotten angry alone at the lowly clown, was now slightly comical.

On stage, the Indian was vigorously blowing fire from his mouth amidst an atmosphere identical to that of the billboard illustration. In it, there even appeared an eerie beauty.

When it finally ended, the curtain fell. “Ah, that was fun!” “It felt kind of fake,” Katsuko added stiffly. The way she said it made everyone laugh— Levitation of a Beauty. Feat of Strength. Operetta. Asakusa Vibes. Torso-Cutting of a Beauty. With that lineup, he returned home late.

Illness.

His elder sister fell ill. Her spleen and abdomen ached, and a high fever developed. Shun wondered if it might be typhoid fever. At her bedside, her brother-in-law “Maybe I should go call the doctor,” he said.

“Well, it’s probably fine. “It might just be some bug.” And without addressing Shun or her brother-in-law,

“Even though it was so hot yesterday, she didn’t sweat at all on her way back home,” he said weakly. The previous afternoon, they had seen her returning from afar with a somewhat gloomy expression, and Shun and Katsuko had playfully teased her from the window while fooling around. “Katsuko, who’s that?” “Oh. That’s Mom.” “That’s Mom.” “No, that’s a lie. “That’s some lady from another family.” “Go look.” “She won’t come into the house.”

Shun recalled her face from that time. That it had been slightly strange was indeed slightly strange. Shun thought it was due to that rare feeling of seeing family members he was accustomed to viewing only at home suddenly with an outsider’s gaze out on the street—but he still felt somewhat lacking in strength.

The doctor came and, saying there was indeed suspicion of typhus, left. Shun exchanged troubled looks with his brother-in-law downstairs. On his brother-in-law’s face, a strained smile had congealed.

It turned out to be kidney trouble. The doctor, citing the state of her tongue coating and stating he couldn’t definitively diagnose it as typhus, left in good spirits. The elder sister said this was the second time she’d been bedridden by illness since marrying into this household. “Once in Kitamuro...” “That time was rough for me. “No ice nearby, you see—ended up riding my bicycle about four ri around two in the morning to go wake someone and buy some. That part went alright enough.” “Wrapped it in a furoshiki and tied it behind the saddle, but when I got back, it’d rubbed away down to just this much.”

The brother-in-law demonstrated that hand gesture. Even regarding the fever chart for his sister, true to form for a brother-in-law who tried to create such an accurate one updated every two hours or so, there was a characteristic flavor to his story that made Shun laugh. “What about that time?” “We’d boiled the bugs, you see.” Partly due to Shun’s own undisciplined lifestyle, he had once developed lung problems. At that time, his brother-in-law had made a shrine visit in Kitamuro praying for his recovery from that illness. When the illness had somewhat improved, Shun once went to that house in Kitamuro.

It was a cold mountain village where villagers worked as farmers and woodcutters and also engaged in sericulture. When winter came, wild boars would even come to the fields near the house to dig up potatoes. Potatoes were a staple food for half of the farmers. At that time, Katsuko was still little.

A neighborhood old woman would come and, while looking at Katsuko’s picture book, would expound on things—calling elephants “trunk-swingers,” monkeys “mountain lads” or “yae’n,” and such. When I asked about a child said to have no surname, the villagers would say it was because he was a woodcutter’s child and look at me as if it were obvious. At the elementary school, there was a teacher named Kaoru, the village headman’s daughter, who was being called by her bare name by the students. She was still around sixteen or seventeen years old.—

Kitamuro was such a place. Shun found himself interested in his brother-in-law’s stories about Kitamuro.

When they were in Kitamuro, Katsuko had fallen into a river. That story came from Brother-in-Law’s lips. It was when Brother-in-Law was bedridden with cardiac beriberi. The grandmother—over seventy years old, Brother-in-Law’s grandmother and Katsuko’s great-grandmother—took Katsuko to the river to rinse bowls. The river ran swift, narrow but with a fairly deep bottom. Though Brother-in-Law and others always told her not to bother, whenever Elder Sister was out, the grandmother would insist on holding Katsuko. At that time too, Elder Sister had been away.

Haa, she’s gone out, he thought as he lay in bed. Then after a while came a strange sound. Ah! Before he knew it—as if drawn by some invisible force—the gravely ill man rose and staggered out. The river stood right there. When he looked, Grandmother wore a contorted expression. “Katsuko—” she managed, straining desperately to continue, but no words followed.

“Grandma! What’s happened to Katsuko?!” ……

Only her fingertips were frantically conveying it.

He could see Katsuko being swept away by the river! The river had swelled after the recent rain. Ahead stood a stone bridge, its slabs nearly level with the water’s surface. Beyond lay a bend where eddies perpetually swirled. The river curved there into a deep swamp-like expanse. Had she struck her head against bridge or bend, or been dragged under in those murky depths, salvation would’ve been impossible.

The brother-in-law suddenly jumped into the river and gave chase. He intended to catch her by the bridge. He was in poor health. Even so, he finally managed to catch her just before the bridge. However, the current was so strong that even trying to use the bridge for leverage proved utterly impossible. The gap between the stone slab and water was just wide enough for Katsuko’s head to pass through, so the brother-in-law dove through while lifting her up, barely climbing out downstream. Katsuko went completely limp. Even when turned upside down, she wouldn’t vomit water. Frantic with worry, he kept calling Katsuko’s name while patting her back.

Katsuko came to her senses briskly. No sooner had she regained consciousness than she stood up and immediately started dancing around. The brother-in-law looked somehow odd, as if he’d been made a fool of. “What’d you do to these clothes?” he said, tugging at her wet garments, but she just kept saying, “Dunno.” It seemed she had merely fainted when her foot slipped and hadn’t actually drowned at all. And then, would you believe it, she was dancing with her usual expression— Such was the gist of brother-in-law’s story. He also said that because it was just when the neighboring farmers were taking their midday nap, how dangerous it would have been had he not gotten up then.

Both the speaker and the listener were drawn in, and when the brother-in-law fell silent, it became quiet.

“When I went back home, Grandma and the three of them would be waiting at the gate,” the elder sister said. “She just couldn’t stay put at home, y’see. She’d change into her kimono and say she was waitin’ for her mom, y’see.” “It was after that when Grandma started getting senile,” the elder sister said, lowering her voice slightly as she cast a meaningful look at her brother-in-law.

“After that happened, Grandma started gettin’ a bit senile-like, y’see. “Even after all that time passed, she kept sayin’—to this one (pointing at Sister)—‘I can’t make it right with Yoshi-san, I can’t make it right with Yoshi-san,’ y’see.” “Grandma, I keep tellin’ you there’s no way such a thing could happen.” From then on, Grandma visibly declined into senility and died about a year later.

To Shun, Grandma’s fate felt somehow cruel. The fact that it wasn’t his hometown but rather the mountains of Kitamuro, where he had gone intending to look after Katsuko, made that feeling all the more profound.

Shun had gone to Kitamuro before that incident occurred. Grandma would often confuse Katsuko's name with Nobuko's—Nobuko who by then should have already been attending girls' school. Nobuko had been here at that time with her mother and others. To Shun, who didn't yet know Nobuko, each time Grandma mixed up their names there vividly took shape in his mind a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl bearing that name.

Katsuko

Shun leaned against the window facing the field and gazed outside.

Gray clouds covered the entire sky. It appeared both profoundly deep and seemed to hang low near the ground. Everything around lost its light and settled into stillness. Only the distant hospital’s lightning rod, by some quirk, appeared to shine white.

In the middle of the field, children were playing. As he watched, Katsuko was among them. There was a boy among them who seemed to be engaged in some rough play.

Katsuko was knocked down by the boy. Just as she got up, she was knocked down again. This time she was pinned down tightly. What on earth were they doing? They’re being so rough. Thinking this, Shun kept watching. When that was over, the group of girls—there were three of them—now lined up in front of the boy as if at a ticket gate. A strange ticket-punching ritual began. The boy yanked hard on a girl’s outstretched hand. The girl was slammed to the ground. The next girl held out her hand. That hand too was yanked. The knocked-down child got up and rejoined the back of the line.

This was how it looked as he watched. The boy began varying the force of his pulls. For the girls, the nervous anticipation of these shifting intensities seemed to be where the enjoyment lay. Just when it seemed he would pull hard, he’d posture as if using all his strength only to tug lightly. Then came an abrupt slam without warning. Next time, he would handle them with a touch so light it barely grasped their hands. Though small, there were moments when the boy bore an uncanny resemblance to grown men—lumberjacks or stonemasons in their work clothes—and even now he appeared to be carrying out his task as if humming some tune under his breath. And indeed, he looked thoroughly self-satisfied.

As he watched, it still seemed that Katsuko alone was being treated more harshly than the others. He took this uncharitably. Katsuko must be being subjected to veiled meanness. The reason he thought this was partly because Katsuko was willful and never acted properly when playing with other children. Even so, did Katsuko not realize that unfairness? No, there was no way she didn't realize that. Rather, for Katsuko, it seemed the truth was that she understood yet persisted in stoic pretense.

Even as he thought all this, Katsuko was slammed down harshly once more. If she was stubbornly putting on a brave front, what must her face have looked like in that moment she was knocked down and found herself glaring at the ground?—Yet by the time she got up, it wore the same expression as all the other children. It’s remarkable she didn’t burst into tears. Thinking that the boy might glance at this window by some chance, he did not leave the window’s vicinity.

Through the cloudy sky of unfathomable depth, something glinted intermittently as it passed. Doves? Blurred by the cloud cover, their forms remained invisible, but the reflected light—three birds perhaps, assuming they were birds—drifted about in that aimless dove-like flight. "Ahh. That Katsuko brat—maybe she's demanding they go harder on her of her own accord." The thought struck him suddenly. Once when Shun had hugged her tight, she'd made him squeeze her harder over and over. He remembered that time now. Thinking of it this way, that too seemed exactly like something Katsuko would do. Shun stepped back from the window and went inside.

That night, some time after dinner had ended, Katsuko began to cry. Shun was listening from the second floor. Eventually his sister’s voice grew louder as she tried to calm her down, and Katsuko started wailing uncontrollably. When the commotion became too loud, Shun went downstairs. Nobuko was holding Katsuko. Katsuko had one hand pulled under the lamp’s direct light while her sister, holding a needle, tried to bring it toward her palm. “She went out and got a thorn stuck in her hand,” “Didn’t even notice till the soy sauce stung during dinner,” the mother-in-law explained to Shun.

“Hold it out properly!” Elder Sister got angry and was roughly pulling her palm. Each time, Katsuko would flare up, her cries growing louder. “I don’t care anymore—I’ll leave you to it.” In the end, Elder Sister wrenched her hand free. “There’s no helping it now—let’s just put on the ×× plaster and wrap it up.” The mother-in-law said in a mediating tone. Nobuko went to get the medicine. Shun, overwhelmed by Katsuko’s crying, went back upstairs again. Even as they applied the medicine, Katsuko’s crying still showed no signs of subsiding.

"The thorn must have been embedded back then anyway." Shun was recalling the events from earlier that day. The thought of what Katsuko’s face had looked like when she’d fallen face down on the ground with a smack came back to him once more.

“Perhaps she’s finally letting that stubborn pride from back then burst out.” As he listened while thinking such thoughts, that blazing cry began to seem to Shun like something profoundly sorrowful.

Day and Night

He found a splendid well in the shade of a cliff beside the castle one day.

It appeared to be the site of a former samurai residence. On ground that blurred the line between field and garden stood an aged plum tree, pumpkins planted in rows, and clusters of shiso plants. From the castle's cliffside, thick-trunked tall trees and ancient camellias formed a verdant partition, within whose shadow the well sat enshrined.

A large well frame, imposing stone masonry—sturdy and splendid.

Two young women were washing laundry in a large tub. From where he stood, he couldn’t see it, but the mechanism appeared to be a well sweep, and the drawn-up water overflowed into a large wooden bucket, the trees’ greenery reflecting lushly within. When the woman by the tub pretended to wait, the woman by the well sweep released the water. The tub water leaped out, and a rainbow of water droplets formed. There too, the green foliage cast its shadow, and the water flowed abundantly over the beautifully washed granite paving stones and over the bare feet of the women.

Envious—it was a wonderfully happy-looking scene. In the shade of a refreshingly cool green screen. Indeed, clear, pure, and abundant water. He felt somehow enchanted.

Today was a clear blue sky and fine weather.

At the house in front and at the neighbor’s Drawing water, washing, hanging to dry.

Whether it was in the national textbooks or the elementary school songbooks, the lyrics of a song he had sung as a boy came back to him. Though he sensed no artistry in those words, the fresh, genuinely cheerful imaginings he had nurtured through that song in his boyhood now pressed unexpectedly into his chest. Caw caw, the crows cried as they flew, To temple roofs, to shrine groves, Caw caw, the crows cried as they flew. It had an illustration.

Then memories came flooding back—of illustrations like one titled something like “Shiho” showing a child facing the morning sun with arms outstretched. The printed text in a block-style script that resembled handwritten calligraphy from national textbooks. Then there were the illustrations—whose painterly hands had created them?—that perfectly matched those angular fonts in sensibility, depicting children who might be described as round-faced honor students were one to imagine such paragons. “Something-something Rights Reserved”—he would read it as “Gonshoyū,” though he never voiced this aloud in front of others—having provisionally settled on that reading in his mind. That “Something-something Rights Reserved”—which, considered thus, also seemed fitting for national textbooks—a person’s name resembling the addressees in letter-writing examples. Even the very look of those colophons had come back to him.

In his boyhood, he had felt that somewhere there existed a place exactly like those illustrations. He had felt that somewhere there existed such simple, honest children. Such things had occurred to him. They had been something like objects of longing from that time. A simple, plain, healthy world—now that world lay before him. Unforeseen, here in the shade of these rural green trees, that world existed in a still fresher form.

Amid such national textbook-style sentimentality, he felt as though the life he ought to live was suggested to him.

His attachment to a landscape he wanted to devour, along with recollections of his childhood and imaginings of a new life, ignited those intermittent moments within him. Once again came nights when he couldn’t sleep.

After nights when he couldn’t sleep, even trivial things would immediately ignite a smoldering excitement within him. When that excitement subsided, a fatigue came that made him want to lie down right there by the roadside without a care. Such excitement would arise even from looking at the maple’s bark.—

The maple tree's bark was cold. It was behind the bench in the castle’s main enclosure where he always sat.

Pine needles had fallen at the base. Ants were crawling serenely over them. When he looked at the cold maple bark, the lichen-like patterns of moss clinging to it appeared beautiful.

Memories of playing on rush mats in childhood—especially the tactile sensations—came back to him.

Still, it was beneath the maple tree. Pine needles lay scattered, and ants were crawling. On the ground were uneven patches. He spread a goza mat over them.

“Children indeed know well the pleasant sensation of feeling that ground’s unevenness beneath the cold goza mat through the soles of their feet. “And as soon as they spread the goza mat, they would immediately leap onto it, delighting in the freedom to roll around on the ground, clothes and all.” While thinking such things, he felt an impulse to press his cheek against the maple’s bark and cool it immediately.

"I must be tired after all," he thought. He realized his limbs carried a slight fever.

“I think I’ll give you these things.” One is jelly. Even slight footsteps would send ripples spreading, and when the wind blew, it would raise small waves. Its color is the blue of the sea—look, numerous fish are swimming within it. Another is a window hanging. Though it is woven fabric, it has become a thicket where autumn grasses grow thickly. Though not visible there, one senses a ginkgo tree beginning to take on color growing above it. When the wind comes, the grass rustles. And, look. A looper caterpillar is inching from branch to branch.

"I will give you these two things. Since they aren’t finished yet, you should wait. And when things feel dull, you should try suddenly recalling them. You’ll surely feel cheerful because of it."

He ended up writing such things on a postcard one day, though of course it had been in jest. And he felt he had somewhat alleviated that itchy restlessness he would occasionally feel these days, day in and day out.

When he lay awake at night, unable to sleep quietly, a night heron cried as it passed through the sky. At times, that cry seemed to be coming from somewhere within his own body. The sound of insects chirping also seemed strangely to be heard as if inside the room. When he thought Ah, don't come, an indescribable feeling would well up within him. This had become the established routine of his recent sleepless nights. The strange feeling made him sense, with the light turned off and his eyes closed, the presence of things moving vigorously before his eyes. The presence of something vast would invert into mere motes even as he watched. It was a movement that felt like something he had touched before, something he had held in his mouth. It was as if caught in ceaseless rotation like a machine; when he imagined the tips of his own sleeping feet, that sensation would immediately be swept into a feeling of immeasurable distance. When reading books or such, there were times when the characters started to look small; this feeling was somewhat similar to that. When it worsened, a kind of fear would even accompany it, making him unable to keep his eyes closed.

Lately he sometimes thought it felt like he could wield sorcery. This was the kind of sorcery he meant.

When he was a child and would sleep alongside his younger brother, he would often lie facedown and form an enclosure with both hands (intending it to be a pasture). “Yoshio,” “You can see cows in here, I tell ya,” he said while deceiving his younger brother. Encircled by his hands, his face pressed down like a lid in the darkness atop the bedding—when he said that, forms of numerous cows and horses would take shape in their imagination. ――He now felt that such visions could truly manifest.

Countryside, plains, towns, markets, theaters. Wharves and the sea. How he wished those vast scenes—studded with people, carriages, ships, and living creatures—would somehow manifest within this darkness. And it seemed on the verge of appearing at any moment. It seemed that the clamor reached his ears as well.

The feelings that had led him to scribble mischievously on the postcard also stemmed from that bizarre, irritating itchiness.

Rain.

August came to an end.

Nobuko seemed to be returning to her school dormitory in Asuichi tomorrow.

Since the wound on her finger had healed, her mother told her to go give thanks to Tenri-sama, and accompanied by a neighbor, she went and completed the act of gratitude. That person was the most devoted believer in this neighborhood. “Where’s the luggage tag?” Her brother-in-law, who had been tying up Nobuko’s large trunk, said this. “What’re you standing there gawking at?” When her brother-in-law teased her in mock anger, Nobuko went off laughing to search for it. “It’s not here.” Nobuko returned after saying that. “If I made them from old cuffs…” he said, and the brother-in-law

“No—there should’ve still been plenty left,” said Nobuko. “Did you check that drawer?” asked her brother-in-law. Nobuko said she had checked. “Katsuko’s gone and hidden it again, hasn’t she?” “Go check once.” The brother-in-law said this and laughed. Katsuko would collect even the most trivial things into her drawer and hoard them.

“The luggage tag’s here.” Mother said that and brought it over with a faint smile that seemed to say See? “After all, we can’t do without having old folks around.” The brother-in-law said such affectionate words.

In the evening, Mother was roasting beans.

“Shun. “How about something like this for you?” After saying this, she pushed the roasted beans toward him. “This is the souvenir Nobuko will take back to her dormitory. “Even if she takes back about one shō, I hear they’ll be gone in no time…”

As Shun listened to the conversation while chewing on beans, there was a sound at the back door and Nobuko returned. “Did they lend it to us?” “Yes. I put it in the back.” “It might rain—make sure you bring everything all the way inside.” “Yes. I’ve brought them all the way inside.” “Ms. Yoshimine’s auntie asked if you’re returning home tomorrow…” Nobuko cut off her words as if finding something amusing.

“Are you returning home tomorrow…?” Mother asked in return.

The story went that when asked by Ms. Yoshimine’s aunt, “When are you returning home? Are you returning home tomorrow?” Nobuko had flusteredly replied, “Yes, I’m returning home tomorrow.” When Mother and he laughed, Nobuko’s face reddened slightly. What they had borrowed was a baby carriage. “I’ll load the luggage onto it and take you to the station on the first train tomorrow,” Mother said, explaining her plan.

That must be tough, he thought. “Is Katsuko coming too?” When Nobuko asked, “She says she’s coming, so she’s going to bed early tonight,” Mother said. He thought that since it would be troublesome to send out luggage despite the early morning, it would be better to buy the tickets tonight and send the luggage ahead as hand luggage,

“Shall I take it over now?” he ventured. In part—being mindful of propriety himself—he had meant to anticipate Nobuko’s feelings as a young woman of marriageable age. But with Mother and Nobuko repeatedly saying “Don’t trouble yourself, don’t trouble yourself,” he ended up leaving matters in their hands.

He pictured their departure—Mother, her daughter, and her niece—the three of them on a summer morning at dawn, one pushing a baby carriage, another being led by the hand of the one who was dressed up, all heading toward the station. It was beautiful. "Are they not each counting on that joy of departure in their hearts?" And he felt his heart being cleansed.

That night too, sleep did not come easily.

Around midnight came an evening shower. He lay waiting in anticipation of its continuation. After some time came sounds of its approach from afar once more. Insect voices transformed into rainfall. When it had poured awhile longer,the shower passed onward toward town again. He took down his mosquito net，rose，and slid open one storm shutter. In Honmaru keep’s enclosure shone an electric lamp. Rain-glossed tree leaves beneath its glow cast countless fish-scale glimmers. Another evening shower arrived. He sat upon wooden threshold edge，cooling his feet in rainwater flow.

The door of one of the tenement houses below opened, and a young woman in nightclothes came to draw water from the hand pump. The rain grew heavier, gushing as it began to gurgle and glug in its throat. When he noticed, a white cat was crossing under the eaves of another house. Nobuko’s kimono remained hanging on the clothesline in the rain. With its tubular sleeves, it was the yukata she usually wore—the garment his eyes had grown most accustomed to. Perhaps because of this, as he watched, Nobuko’s figure came to mind with an uncanny vividness.

The evening shower had moved on toward the town again. The sound continued in the distance. “Ting, ting.” “Ting, ting.” Amidst the chirping of crickets that had begun to sing, another insect started its call—a sound like a bead of precise quality being struck by hard metal.

While still feeling the heat of his forehead, he waited for yet another evening shower to come over the castle.