Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

“You there! Military bread, please!”

The children had blue eyes.
And, wrapped in tattered coats with worn-out fur, they huddled with their heads buried in their collars.
There were also girls.
There were also boys.
The shoes were torn.
There, needle-like snow was intruding.

Matsuki was wearing cold-weather boots had thrust both hands into trouser pockets and was standing at mess hall entrance.

Snow driven by the wind piled against the windowpanes, threatening to shatter them. Water gushing from the valley spring had frozen solid around it, forming icy rock formations. It seeped upward as if thrusting from underground—higher today than yesterday, higher yesterday than the day before. He thought this was truly Siberia. Ice gradually rising from the earth wasn’t a phenomenon seen in the inland regions.

The children, in their own way despite the language barrier, sought pity from Matsuki, and all five of them put on fawning expressions and attitudes.

The “Anataa” they uttered carried a blatantly fawning accent.

“No bread?”
The children repeated.
“You there! Please! Please!”

“There’s some.”
“Take it.”

Matsuki worked the edge of the scrap bucket and rolled it out toward the entrance.

Inside was barley rice left uneaten by the company.
Pieces of bread had been thrown in.
Leftover miso soup had been splashed over it.

The children, rejoicing and letting out groans, clawed at each other’s hands as they scraped the leftovers into the enamel washbasins they had brought.

The mess hall smelled of old, rotten pickles.
Mixed with that were the smells of butter and hemp sacks.

At the cooking counter, Yoshinaga, who had been cutting burdock, came to the entrance still wearing his hemp sack apron.

Takeishi was throwing birch firewood into the pechka.
Inside the pechka, the birch bark crackled and popped in the flames.
He too came to the entrance.

“Koriya.”

Matsuki said.

“What?”

Koriya was a boy with eyes round and large like bells, constantly darting around, and with a sharpness to his face.

“Is Gariya there?”

“She’s here.”

“How is she doing?”

“She’s busy.”

Koriya stood right there, stuffing his cheeks with a broth-soaked piece of bread, munching voraciously.

The other children too were munching voraciously, some grabbing pieces of bread, others handfuls of rice soaked in broth.

“Is it good?”

“Uh-huh.”

“It must be cold.”

They gathered every last grain from the scrap bucket into the washbasin, tucked it under their arms, and ran up the snowy hill toward home.

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

The hems of the children’s coats and trousers fluttered in the wind.

The three of them watched them go from the entrance to the mess hall.

Their slender, long legs climbed the hill, kicking through the snow with spring-like vigor.

“Nashya!”

“Riza!”

Takeishi and Yoshinaga called out.
“What?”
They answered from the top of the hill.
The children all stopped at once and looked down at the mess hall in the valley.
“You’ll spill your food!”
Yoshinaga said in Japanese.
“What?”
Yoshinaga beckoned to the girl to come over here.
On the hill, they shrieked and laughed and shouted.
And then, after going a little way, they scattered off to their respective homes.

II

The mountain sloped low and gently, divided into two hills, then connected to the grassland, stretching out wide and far.

The barracks were located in the valley between the two hills.

Here and there on the hills, and in the area where the grassland at the base of the hills stretched out, Russian houses were scattered about.
There were those who had fled their homeland, fearing the revolution.
There were also those who had been indigenous to Siberia since long ago.

They were all struggling to get enough food.
Their fields were destroyed, and their livestock was plundered.
They could not work in peace.
They had no choice but to struggle for survival.

They lived in a wooden house where the nails in the plank walls were rotting and about to fall out.
The roof was low.
Around the house, straw and garbage were scattered.

Here and there stood tall piles of dry hay.

The cart was left abandoned where it had been driven up under the eaves.

Inside the room stood an old table and a samovar.
An embroidered curtain hung from above.
Yet from within came an alien stench of pelts and animal grease—like some beast’s lair.

To the Japanese soldiers, this reek epitomized everything foreign about these people.

The children came every day from there, carrying an enamel-coated washbasin.
Sometimes, old men and old women came.
Sometimes girls came.

Yoshinaga had come from the First Company.
Matsuki and Takeishi were soldiers in the Second Company.

The three of them began setting aside the white sugar mixed with breadcrumbs on their plates instead of throwing it away.
They took care not to pour miso soup on leftover bread.
And when the Russians came, they distributed it to everyone.

“Can I come over to your place?”

“Please do.”

“Is there something good going on?”

“There’s nothing… But please, do come.”

To the soldiers, those words felt cheerful, lively, heartfelt—as though they were being wholeheartedly welcomed.

The soldiers could hardly understand Russian.
But through its tone, they quickly discerned they were being welcomed.

In the evening, after finishing their duties in the mess hall, they climbed the snowy hill one by one, separately, gasping for breath, careful not to be noticed by their superiors.
Their exhaled breath froze, clumping like frost on the tufted fur of their cold-weather caps.

They were starving and thirsting for home’s warmth and human affection.
How many years had it been since they came to Siberia?
It had only been about two years.
Yet it felt as though they had already been away from home and their homeland for ten years.
Just as seafarers yearn for harbors and pine for land, they yearned for their homeland and pined for their families.

What surrounded them was an endless snowy wilderness, square brick barracks, and nothing but gunfire exchanges.

For whose sake must they be buried in the snow in a place like this?
It was not for their own sake, nor for their parents’ sake.
With their hands in their pockets, it was for the sake of those who had been exploiting them.
It was for the sake of XXXX.

For the enemy, they were only working for free.

Yoshinaga felt as if his chest was rotting.
He felt like he was suffocating.
If he could escape the barracks without being executed, he did not want to endure even a single minute more.
Even for just a moment, he wanted to get outside the barracks—to glimpse a home filled with warmth.
With that desire, he climbed the snowy slope.

On top of the hill was Riza’s house.
He stood at its entrance.

The door had been sealed with paper strips to keep out drafts.
He took his hand out of his pocket and rapped lightly on the door.

“Good evening.”

Inside the house, they had lit the pechka, and warm air filled the room.
That warmth was already palpable from outside the door.

“Good evening.”

“Please do come in.”

A cheerful and resonant woman’s voice resounded through the door.

“Oh, Mr. Yoshinaga!
“Please come in.”

The girl, looking delighted and smiling, extended her hand.

He did not know how to shake hands at first.
Until then, he had never shaken hands.
As if he were doing something wrong, his chest fluttered anxiously.

But soon, he grew calm.

Not only that—when the other person strongly gripped his hand in return—he learned what it meant: how to use his eyes during the handshake to interpret what they were saying. If someone extended their hand listlessly, as if unwilling, there was no hope. And so on... He had mastered reading hearts through handshakes.

When Yoshinaga was being led into a room with a table, chairs, and a samovar, Takeishi stood knocking at another door, steam puffing from his nostrils. Then Inagaki, Ohno, Kawamoto, and Sakata—each waiting two or three minutes apart—rapped on separate doors.

“Good evening.”

And they focused their attention on the eyes and how tightly their hands were gripped in return.

Some of them read in those eyes that they would be given what they desired.
And their hearts surged.

“Alright—today I’ll kiss her hand.”

There were times when two men collided over one woman.
Times when three men collided.
At such moments, they would halt mid-descent down the hill, lock eyes, and laugh—dry rattles scraping from their throats.

“Sopernik, I wonder.”

“What’s a Sopernik?”
“Sopernik… It means competitor. In other words, someone who competes in love. Hahaha.”

Three

Matsuki was also one of those climbing up the hill.

He had no competitors he could laugh off.

He had never been called out to by a woman in a cheerful, resonant voice with, “Please do come in!”

If that could be called love, his love was an unrequited love.
He always carried bread, hardtack, or sugar wrapped in newspaper when climbing the hill.
It was a portion of the provisions meant to be distributed to the soldiers that he had secretly set aside.
He climbed the hill with it and descended on the other side.

After about thirty minutes, he climbed the hill from the opposite side empty-handed and dejected, then descended toward the barracks and returned.
The others were still in warm rooms with lit pechkas, their hearts aflutter during that time.

“Ah, I should just give up on this!”
He looked about to collapse, utterly exhausted on the snow.
This is so stupid.

At the foot of the hill lay a wide road buried in snow.
The snow, trampled by sleds and boots, had frozen hard.
Before reaching there, the regiment’s barbed wire had been strung around.
Every night, he would crawl under it, cross the ice-slicked road, and stand beneath a certain window.

“Gariya!”

He tapped the windowpane with his fingertips.
A lung-freezing cold wind swept through.
He stood beneath the eaves for a while.

“Gariya!”

And then again he tapped the glass.

“What?”

The woman showed her face from behind the windowpane.
White teeth peeked between lips.
It held a disarming charm.

“Can I come in?”

“What’s that?”

“It’s bread. I’ll give it to you.”

The woman received the newspaper-wrapped item through the window and immediately closed the glass door.

“Hey, can’t you open it a bit more?”

“…The room will get cold. I can’t.”
“Once you open it, it wastes three logs’ worth of firewood.”

She had cherry-blossom-pink skin.
When she smiled, childlike dimples formed on both cheeks.
She was not a bad woman.
But she had to do what she could and take money.
Parents and younger brother were struggling to eat.
The sister who had a child came to get tobacco for her husband to smoke.

Matsuki brought bread.
He brought sugar.
Then with his military pay of five yen and sixty sen, he bought something and brought it.

But he had far too little money to support her family’s livelihood.
Someone with more military pay was preferable.

It wasn’t just soldiers starving for meat.

Even the esteemed one receiving eighty-five times Matsuki’s pay still greedily sought meat.

“I have things to do.
“I’m sorry—could you come tomorrow instead?”

Gariya said.

“It’s always ‘Come tomorrow.’”
“And if I come tomorrow, it’ll be ‘Come the day after.’”

“No, truly tomorrow—I’ll be waiting tomorrow.”

IV

The snow had deepened.

The path trampled down by those who came to the mess hall for rations was buried under fresh snow, its traces now indistinguishable.
Then, the children trampled it down and recreated the original path.
The snow fell and piled up once more on top of it.

The houses on the hill were buried under the snow like stones.

From the distant mountains, partisans were constantly watching this village.
Not only that, but when night came, the sentries were frequently attacked by wolves.
Through snow so deep that even when their limbs sank in, it still wasn’t enough, the wolves came running swiftly.

Wolves could not obtain what they needed to eat in the mountains.
So, seizing their chance, they would attack villages and carry off chickens, puppies, and pigs.
They formed a pack, howling as they came surging forward with such ferocity that they devoured anything in their path.
When sentries encountered them, they couldn’t help but tremble violently.
Though armed with rifles, there were only two men.
The ferocious animals slipped through bullets and closed in immediately.
It was truly terrifying.
Sentries had to fight wolves collectively.
If things went badly, teeth sank into armpits or throats.

Hazy overcast days continued.
Days were short，and nights were long.
The sun never once showed a smiling face.
This marked Matsuki’s second winter spent in Siberia.
He grew weary and depressed.
He felt as if the sun had abandoned Earth and flown off somewhere.
If this state continued indefinitely，he would surely fall ill—and it wasn’t just Matsuki.
All his comrades of the same enlistment year withdrew into themselves and were exhausted.
And they went to where the women were.
They had interest in nothing but that.

Gariya stealthily made her way to the mess hall, as if avoiding prying eyes.
From beneath her old coat—which, though worn, seemed to have once been of considerable quality—her skirt, bleached white from washing, peeked out intermittently.

“You keep pushing people away, so even if there was hardtack, I wouldn’t give you any.”

“Oh, is that so.”

Her voice rang out clear and piercing.

“Damn right it is—that’s only natural.”

“Then fine.”

With her black-polished, high-heeled boots, she pivoted sharply—like a whirling top—and began moving toward the hill.

“No—that’s a lie! A lie!”
“Others just came and took everything away moments ago.”

Matsuki shouted from behind.

“No, I don’t need it.”

Her two long legs bounced like powerful springs as she climbed the hill.

“Gariya!
“Wait!
“Wait!”

He gripped a bag of hardtack and chased after her.

Comrades of the same enlistment year came out to the mess hall entrance and, seeing that, laughed.

Matsuki, panting heavily, caught up with the woman and threw the bag of hardtack into the empty washbasin.

“Here, I’ll give you this.”

Gariya stopped and looked at him.
Baring her pure white teeth, she said something.
He couldn’t grasp the meaning of her words.
But he immediately understood from her rounded, calm tone that she held some goodwill toward him.
He thought chasing after her had been worthwhile.

As he started to leave and glanced back, Gariya was climbing the hill, sliding along the snowy path.

“Hey, cut it out already.”
From the mess hall entrance, Takeishi shouted.
“If you keep flirting around too much, I’ll jump in and compete!”

V

Yoshinaga’s company was to separate from the battalion and go defend Iishi.

Between H and S stretched a vast forested area across a considerable expanse.
There were mountains and a large valley there.
A river flowed through the forest.
The geography of that area was not known in detail.

But the iron bridge there was constantly destroyed.
The railroad ties had been pulled out before anyone noticed.
The military train was suddenly attacked.

The communication wires were being cut incessantly.

Communication between H and S was constantly severed.
From this, they could nearly confirm the existence of a partisan stronghold there.
The garrison company was dispatched to Iishi precisely to secure proper communication in that area.

Yoshinaga was organizing his personal belongings on Matsuki's bunk.
Withdrawing from the mess hall, he was to return to the company.
He thought about how he had frequently exposed himself to danger up until now.

Those struck by bullets, those who lost their eyes, those who had their arms torn off—they numbered not just three or four. There was also a man who had been standing sentry with him when, one evening, he suddenly spewed a gush of blood from his chest and collapsed. His surname was Sakamoto.

He had retained a vivid memory of that scene ever since.

From out of nowhere, he had been shot by someone.

The two men had been standing at the edge of the mountain.

The relief sentries were marching out in formation from the guardhouse.
In fifteen more minutes, the two would return to the guardhouse and rest.

The setting sun glowed crimson as it sank toward the distant horizon.
A herd of cattle and horses, their backs bathed in the setting sun, plodded slowly across the grassland.
It was mid-October.

Sakamoto,

“I’m starving,” he said and yawned.

“If we were back home, right about now would be the time we’d be heading back from the fields with hoes on our shoulders.”

“Oh, right.”
“I wonder if it’s already time to dig up potatoes.”
“Mhm.”
“Ah, I really want to eat potatoes!”

And Sakamoto yawned again.
Before his yawn could even finish, he collapsed onto the grass like a felled log.

Yoshinaga jumped up.

Another bullet grazed his head and whizzed past with a howl.

“Hey, Sakamoto! Hey!”

He tried calling.

The military uniform was soaked in dark, clotted blood.

Sakamoto could only groan, "Ugh..."

They departed the homeland, reached Vladivostok, and landed.
From that moment onward, danger had already been closing in on all their lives.

The locomotive was burning firewood.

They rode about four hundred ri deeper inland.
They would sometimes get off the train and engage in gunfights.
And then, they returned to the train and cooked rice.
The firewood smoldered.
It was winter.
The locomotive ran out of firewood and frequently came to a halt.
He had not washed his face for two months.
By the time he arrived there, he was utterly blackened.
The cold was so intense it stole one’s breath.
And an epidemic of influenza was spreading.
Above the barracks, enemy planes were flying.

Throughout the town, red flags were fluttering.

So what did they do?
In the end, because our situation was dire and we were on the verge of defeat, we burned the equipment we couldn’t carry back and retreated.
The red flags blocked their retreat.
And so, they fought.
And they continued their retreat.
Red flags were spreading everywhere like an influenza epidemic.
It was war again.
And then what happened?……

They had even fought wars lying in mud like snowmelt marshes.
There were times when they were showered with machine gun fire from above.

Yoshinaga thought how he had managed to survive this long.
If where he’d been standing had shifted just a foot or two sideways, he might have died.
Even from now on—what would happen? Who could know!
Who could know!
No one gives a damn if I die alone.
The only one who worried about him was Mother out in the village gathering firewood.

He wore against his skin the protective charm bag his mother had made for him.
It was a fairly large bag sewn from new white cotton.
It had become blackened and foul-smelling, soaked through with grime and sweat.
He opened it and thought about replacing it with a new bag.
He cut open the bag with scissors.
The protective charms had been lavishly stuffed inside.
Kotohira-gu, Otokoyama Hachiman-gu, Amaterasu Omikami, Fudo Myoo, Myoho Renge Kyo, Suitengu—Mother must have thought that the more there were, the greater the divine protection!
They were worn down until the paper had nearly lost its original form.—There were still more.
There was another one—wrapped in paper.
He opened it.
Inside were paper bills.
There were five-yen bills, fifty-sen bills, and one-yen bills—altogether amounting to about ten yen.
Mother must have secretly put in the money she saved from gathering firewood.

“Hey, hey.”
“Money came out of the protective charm.”

Yoshinaga said happily.

“What?”

“Money came out of the protective charm.”

“Is that true?”

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

“Well, well. That’s a jackpot you’ve hit there.”

Matsuki and Takeishi came running in from the direction of the mess hall.

The bills had also turned black from sweat and grime.

“Let me see… These are bills from the homeland.”
Matsuki and Takeishi picked them up with a look of nostalgia and examined them.
“It’s been ages since we’ve seen bills from the homeland.”

“Mother probably put it in there secretly.”

“You’re a real dimwit for not noticing that until now.”
“…A real windfall.”

“Hmm, I made out well.”
“…I’ll split it half with you.”

Yoshinaga thought that he would at least have to go to Iiishi the day after tomorrow.
They would have to pass through snowy valleys and mountains.
There were partisans there.
It was another shootout.
What would become of life?
Who could know!
Who could know!

VI

Matsuki bought anpan, sugar, pineapple, tobacco, and other items from the military canteen.

Late in the evening, he wrapped them in newspaper and climbed the hill.
The snow, hard as stone and frozen solid, clattered under his boots.
The air felt sharp enough to slice through his nose.
He climbed to the top of the hill, then descended the other side.
In that window below the hill, a light was burning.
A human figure flickered and moved behind the glass-paned door.

He tried saying as he walked.

“Gariya.”

“Gariya.”

“Gariya.”

“You’re so blatant about it.”

Now then, how should I say that in Russian?

Voices seemed to drift up from somewhere at the foot of the hill.
It was a woman over thirty.
And one of them sounded Japanese.
What are they saying?
He stopped short.
The voice somehow reminded him of Gariya's mother.
But it had already been abruptly cut off.
Then, at a nearby window that had been open until now, a blue curtain was swiftly drawn.

"Hmm? They shouldn't be going to bed this early..."
He thought.
Then he slipped through the barbed wire and crept up beneath the window.

“Good evening—Gariya!”

The stepping stone he had brought to reach the window had been removed.

“Gariya.”

Fragments of shattered snow came flying toward him.
They pattered down around the hem of his cold-weather coat.
More snow came flying.
It struck his back.
But he didn’t notice.
He kept staring fixedly up at the window.

“Gariya!”

He said, looking up.
The stars glittered with razor-sharp clarity.

"Hey, you!"

The man who had been throwing snow earlier jumped out from behind a birch tree, boots clattering.
It was Takeishi.

Matsuki started.
And he nearly dropped the newspaper-wrapped bundle onto the snow.
He had steeled himself in that instant to abandon everything and flee if it had been an officer or a stranger.

“Back again, huh?”
Takeishi laughed.

“Oh, it’s you.”
“Don’t scare me like that.”

Matsuki’s heart continued pounding wildly for some time.
The moment he realized it was Takeishi, he felt awkward about having immediately used the money he’d received from Yoshinaga to buy things that would please the woman.
“I should’ve left the sugar and pineapple behind.”

“Someone got here before us,” Takeishi whispered, pointing at the window.
“I thought it was you who went in, so I was keeping watch here.”

“Who is it?”

“Dunno.”

“A non-com or an officer?”

“Was too dazed to tell.”

“Who’s the bastard?”

“Let’s go in and see.”

“Quit it, quit it… Let’s go back.”

Matsuki thought—if they were discovered by an officer, it would be a problem.

“Wouldn’t going back like this be spineless?”

Takeishi retorted.
He banged loudly on the glass door.

“Gariya, Gariya, good evening!”

A man’s irritated voice echoed from the next room.

“Gariya!”

“What do you want?”

Koriya, Gariya’s younger brother who had left the military preparatory school in Vladivostok, emerged from behind the curtain wearing a military uniform with white epaulets.

“Where’s Gariya?”

“She’s busy.”

“Tell her to come out for a second.”

“What’s that?”
“That.”

Koriya saw Matsuki’s newspaper-wrapped bundle and asked about it.

“Hey, this is sake!”
Before Matsuki could answer, Takeishi produced a 4-gō bottle of Masamune sake from his feet.
“We’ve brought a whole bunch of good stuff.”

Takeishi ripped off the newspaper wrapping and thrust the sake bottle from outside the glass door toward Koriya’s face.
Matsuki thought the way he handled it looked practiced.

“Give it.”
Koriya moved his hand.

But his movements lacked their usual force, faltering midway as if his resolve had been broken. It was a rare thing for the normally brash Koriya.

Matsuki thought that Takeishi must have brought goods too and was up to the same thing. Well then, there was no reason for him to feel ashamed of his own actions either. He found himself wanting to push harder when Koriya held back.

"Here, take this too." He pulled out a can of pineapple.

Koriya squirmed uneasily.

“Here.”

“Thank you.”

The boy, with what looked like a sword-shaped mark somewhere on his face that gave him a slightly sullen air, struck Takeishi as an intriguing character.

“Want more?”

The boy wanted the things being given but hesitated as if receiving them would be bad.

“Tobacco and sugar.”
Matsuki handed them through the window opening.

“Thank you.”

When Koriya took the offered items from the window and retreated inside,

“There’s definitely someone in there,” Takeishi whispered low to Matsuki.

“Who? I can’t make sense of it.”

“Let’s slip in and see for ourselves.”

The two pressed their ears against the wall.
From one or two rooms over came a furtive rustle, then the groan of a door being opened.
A saber scabbard rattled.
Takeishi gripped the window frame, hoisted himself up, and peered through the glass.

“Do you see?”

“No—just a samovar bubbling away steadily.”
“This place isn’t... a household that’s peddling their own daughters, is it?”

Koriya emerged from behind the door.
When he saw Takeishi clambering up as if trying to enter the house through the window, he abruptly changed his demeanor,
“Stop!”
“Stop!”
he said in a hoarse, forceful voice, as if scolding.

Takeishi, suddenly made to feel by that desperate voice that he was doing something wrong, slipped and fell from the window.

Koriya started toward the window but suddenly turned back halfway and shut the door with a snap.
For a while, the two men stood beneath the window.

On the hilltop, the snow-covered houses glittered with lights. Takeishi thought there was a woman there too. Yoshinaga might be lingering over their farewell with Riza while sipping warm tea. To the skinny, petite Riza, he was probably urging that they go all the way to Iiishi together. He must have also bought something that would please Riza and brought it with him. Takeishi visualized Yoshinaga’s face, with its small wrinkles and kind appearance. And he found himself smiling. Yoshinaga was going to end up going to that dangerous guard duty at Iishi.

The lights here and there on the hilltop were blocked by curtains and began to go out one by one.

“Good night.”

From the nearest house—Gudokov’s—three or four soldiers of the same enlistment year emerged.
As they walked and exchanged words, their voices carried down to the foot of the hill.
They were returning to the barracks.

Suddenly, above their heads, Gariya’s resonant, cheerful voice rang out.
The two of them suddenly felt as though they had been revived by it.

“Boo!”
She smiled at the two men from behind the glass door.
“Please come in.”

When they entered through the entranceway, Matsuki peered into the dining room, bedroom, and another workroom.

“Who was here?”

“Major.”

“What?”
Both of them did not know the term.
“It’s Mayoru.”

“What could it be?”
“ ‘Mayor’...?”
Matsuki and Takeishi looked at each other.
“If you interpret ‘swaying close,’ maybe he’s some guy who dances or something.”

Seven

For Matsuki, the Major was not a competitor to be dismissed with a laugh.
Just as the two entered through the front entrance, the Major emerged from the back door.
He was angry and in a foul mood, fuming with irritation.
He was a corpulent, well-fed man with a beard, weighing over eighteen kan.
His boots kicked through the hard snow.
His flared nostrils inhaled the frozen air as if to suffocate it, then exhaled thick steam in its place.

His back felt scorched by humiliation (!) and fury.
He had finally managed to suppress it.
And then, he strode off toward headquarters.
……Midway, he suddenly turned on his heel.

The Major approached the window beneath which Matsuki and Takeishi had been standing just moments before.
He was sturdy and tall.
Without standing on tiptoes, he could see inside the room through the gap in the curtain.

There, two first-class privates had set up a four-go bottle of Masamune and were sitting face-to-face at the table.
Gariya was talking with a slightly flushed face.
White teeth glinted.
Lips that stung like mint were smiling.

Jealousy and fury exploded in his chest.
He tried to roar at them with his specially reserved booming voice—the one he used for commanding the battalion.
The voice surged up to the very top of his throat with guttural intensity.

But through desperate effort, he finally managed to suppress it.
And then he hurried back to the regiment with strides twice as large as before.

“Drinking at a woman’s place—those bastards are utterly outrageous!”

The sentry who had presented arms at the camp gate was showered with angry shouts.

The Guard Commander, seeing the Battalion Commander’s ferocious expression, worried to such an extent that he feared the man might come to strike him with a whip.

“Adjutant!”

He barged into the room and immediately bellowed.

“Adjutant!”

When the adjutant entered, he—without even removing his sword—sank into a chair, breathing heavily through flared nostrils.

“Emergency roll call.
“Immediately! Do it immediately!”

“Yes.”

“Do not permit Russians near the mess hall.”
“Not even a single grain of leftover food may be given—absolutely prohibited.”
“Ensure strict enforcement.”

“Yes.”

“Good. That is all.”

When the adjutant withdrew to the next room to convey the orders, he bellowed again.

“Adjutant!”

“Yes.”

“If there are any latecomers to this roll call, have their company go defend Iishi instead of the First Company—make sure of it. As punishment—don’t keep them here.”
“Do it that way—now! Carry it out immediately!”

Eight

A troop of soldiers walked on in silence through the snow.
They were tired and listless.
The large winter boots sinking into the snow felt unbearably heavy, like cumbersome obstacles.

The snow sometimes reached up to their shins.
Everyone was assailed by gloom and anxiety.
The company commander’s face showed signs of anxiety.

The grasslands, the roads, and the rivers—all were completely buried under snow.

Beyond scattered clusters of five or six dead trees—their branches crowned with snow in such a way that they appeared to be nothing but branches bearing snow—nothing else could be seen in the vicinity. Everywhere, without exception, there was nothing but dazzlingly bright white snow. And there were no sounds, no shouts to be heard. The sound of the soldiers’ boots crunching through the snow was swallowed up by the sky and faded away.

They had been walking through the snowy wilderness since early morning.
They gnawed on bread and hardtack at noon and ate snow to wet their throats.

“Which way do we go to reach Iishi?!”

From a small hill on the right, a scout came running down, carrying a rifle in one hand and gripping a scabbard in the other.
The rifle felt heavy, his arm stretched taut as if weighted down.
He ran on, dragging it through the snow.
It was Matsuki.

Gasping for breath, when he reached the company commander’s side, he lifted the rifle he had been dragging as if it were immensely heavy and performed the "present arms" salute. His hands were frozen and did not respond as he intended. The rifle could not be raised straight and properly to his nose.

The company commander glared at him disapprovingly.
“Again. Do you call that a present arms?!”
His eyes seemed to say that.

Matsuki was out of breath and couldn’t speak for some time.
From his nostrils to his throat, everything was dry and stiff as if he had just run a marathon.
He tried to produce saliva to moisten his throat, but none would come.
He wanted to collapse on the snow and rest.

“What’s wrong?”

The company commander glared with anger in his eyes.

“The way—I just can’t—” Matsuki gasped, unable to continue speaking.
“I... just can’t figure it out, sir.”

“What’s that Russkie doing?”

“Yes.
“Smetanin—”
He struggled for breath again.
“He says he can’t get his bearings in this snow.”

“Useless bastard.
“There’s supposed to be a big river with a fir forest beyond it.
“Can’t you find anything like that? Once we reach it, we’ll get straight to Iishi.”

“Yes.”

“Tell that Russkie to shut up and guide us properly!”

The company commander snapped irritably as he walked.
“If necessary, I don’t care if you stick a bayonet in him.”
“That guy might be colluding with the Partisans and deliberately leading us astray.”
“You’d better keep a close watch on that!”

“Yes.”

Matsuki, secretly clinging to the hope that he might be relieved of duty, walked alongside the company commander for some time.

He was pale.
Every muscle in his body was battered into exhaustion.
His head was foggy, and his ears were ringing.
But the company commander did not try to let him rest.

“Hey, get moving.”
“Search harder!”

Staggering along, Matsuki—like a weary old horse driven by the whip to muster its last strength—once again dragged his rifle and dashed off ahead.

“Hey, Matsuki!”
The company commander called him to a halt.
“Not only search for the path—check if there aren’t any Partisans around, if there are houses nearby, if you can spot the railway. Keep a sharp eye out.”

“Yes.”

The scout eventually climbed the hill and then vanished into the valley beyond.
There, Takeishi and Smetanin, their guide, were waiting for him.

Since departing from the main force that morning, Matsuki and Takeishi had been continuously sent out on scouting missions.

The company commander snarled unpleasantly at the two men.

“Who do you think the company has to go defend Iishi for?!”
“Isn’t this all because you bastards sneaked out of the barracks to fool around with those women?!”
He glared at the two men with eyes that seemed to seethe with genuine anger.
“I don’t want to expose my company to danger.”
“My company is precious.”
“It’s you two bastards who dragged us into this danger!”
“This is no conduct for a soldier!”

And the two of them were assigned to laborious, dangerous duties.

Matsuki and Takeishi walked about a kilometer ahead of the company along the deep snow-covered path.
Then they observed the situation, turned back at a run, and reported to the rear.
When their report was finished, they were ordered to go ahead again.
The snow was deep and dazzling.
The two of them had to constantly keep their eyes on the front and both sides as they advanced.
Each time they returned gasping for breath to report, the company commander would find some fault and yell in a dissatisfied, irritated voice.

Takeishi, who had been resting by crouching on the snow,
“Won’t they relieve us yet?” he asked.
“Ah.”
Matsuki’s voice too lacked vigor.
“This is hopeless—I’d rather freeze to death right there!”

Takeishi let out a sigh that verged on tears.

The two of them, along with Smetanin, started walking again.
When they descended the hill, there was a shallow valley.
Then the terrain became a gradual slope.
When they proceeded along that, there was a steep mountain to their left.
To the right, the snowy wilderness stretched far into the distance.

"Let's try climbing the mountain," Smetanin suggested.
If they looked down from the mountain, they might have discerned the geography.
But this required climbing before the company reached the base, assessing conditions, and descending again.
Otherwise,the company commander would resume his harangues.

The mountain's folds lay buried under deeper snow.
Matsuki and Takeishi scaled upward using rifles as climbing staffs.
Bear tracks marked the terrain.
Then small indeterminate pawprints appeared everywhere - some unknown creature's traces.
Mugwort lay smothered beneath snowdrifts.
Boots snagged on shrub stumps.
Their heads swam feverishly.
They longed to shed every burden and collapse into snowbound oblivion.

The mountain connected at its summit to the next one.
And then, beyond that, another mountain stretched endlessly into the distance, like beads on a string.

As far as the distant horizon, there was nothing but white snow.
Smetanin still couldn’t get his bearings.

The company trudged slowly over the hill like ants.
In the vast, endless snowy wilderness, it was no more significant than a mere two or three ants.

“Any direction’s fine—just take us somewhere.”
The two of them gave in to despair.

“They’re pushing us too hard—now nothing makes sense anymore!”

Smetanin removed his fur hat and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

IX

A thin, white dusk enveloped and pressed in on the entire wilderness.

Where were they supposed to go?!

Matsuki had often heard of those who collapsed exhausted in the snow and froze to death.

Fatigue and hunger stripped away one’s resistance to the cold.

For an entire company to freeze to death in the snow—was such a thing even possible?
And could it even be permitted?

It had become [twisted]—the Major’s sexual desire.
The soldiers did not even know such things.

Why did they have to come to Siberia?
Who had sent it?
Of course, such matters remained beyond their understanding, hidden above the clouds.

We did not want to come to Siberia.
We had been forced to come.
Even that, they were now on the verge of forgetting.

All they could think was that they didn’t want to die.
They wanted to somehow escape the snow and stay alive.
That was all there was to it.

The ones who had forced them to come into the snow were Matsuki and Takeishi.

And the ones who had led them astray were Matsuki and Takeishi.—They had come to think of it that way.
What lay beyond that—the fact that a demonic force was strongly at work upon them—was something the soldiers did not understand.

No matter how frantically they struggled, what lay ahead was nothing but snow.
Their limbs had begun to go numb.
Consciousness had begun to fade.
Even a ramshackle hut would do—they wanted to find one and make it through the night!

But no matter how far they went, there was nothing but snow.……

The first to collapse was Matsuki.
Then it was Takeishi.

Matsuki still knew that his consciousness was growing dim.
But soon, his head grew dizzy, and he could no longer distinguish front from back.
And then, as if falling asleep, his consciousness slipped away.

His limbs froze.
And then, eventually, his entire body stiffened like a rod and stopped moving.

…Snow fell.

In the white wilderness, the scattered yellow bodies were buried.
The snow fell and piled up layer upon layer.
The fallen soldiers were covered by snow; before long their backpacks, boots, military caps—everything lay hidden beneath it until no trace remained of where they had fallen.

The snow still continued to fall.……

X

Spring came.

The sun smiled down from between the clouds.
The snow that had clung to dead trees fell away unnoticed.
Sparrows chirped busily amidst shrubs and darted about joyfully.

Even the military train’s roar crossing the iron bridge seemed to stretch languidly.

Melted snow dripped endlessly from gutters, rainwater gurgling pleasantly as it flowed.

Yoshinaga’s company had been dispatched to Iiyishi.
They occupied a wooden building atop a hill.
Water from the barracks’ gutter trickled through withered grass into a valley stream.

When Matsuki and Takeishi’s company went missing, the Battalion Commander dispatched other companies to search for them.
The Battalion Commander even put on a look of concern.
He even said things like how he had no excuse to offer the bereaved families.—But in his heart, he felt no concern whatsoever. Not only that—he was rather refreshed.
What weighed on his mind was the more pressing matter of how to frame the report to the Division Commander.

They searched for a week.
However, their whereabouts still remained unknown.
The Major seemed to have completely forgotten about the matter.
He looked out at Gariya’s house from the second floor of headquarters and whistled "The Red Sunset."

Spring came.
But even now, it remained unclear where and how that one company had vanished without a trace.

Yoshinaga surveyed the vast wilderness where the snow had not yet completely melted from the barracks atop the hill and quietly mused how he himself had managed to stay alive until now. At that time, our company had been scheduled to be dispatched first. But for some reason, it had been changed the day before departure. If his company had come on foot instead of by sled, he too might now be somewhere with his bones being gnawed by strange dogs.

To go on foot into the deep snow was like walking to one’s death.

Those who had sent them to Siberia didn’t give a damn if they were torn apart by partisans or devoured by wolves.
Of course, two or three men would die.
Even if two hundred men died, it meant nothing.
They didn’t consider a soldier’s death worth a second thought—not even as much as a stray dog dying.
There were plenty of replacements.
They could be summoned with just a single draft notice.
……

On the left side of the hill, a train was passing.
There was a river.
There, the ice still clung.
Cows clomped heavily across it.

To the right stretched an endless wilderness.

Dead trees stood.
There was snow beginning to melt.
A flock of black crows swirled in the air.
Their gloomy, raucous cries clamorously reached even the hilltop barracks.
It was as if every crow from every corner of the horizon had gathered—countless in number, swarming so thickly they seemed on the verge of blotting out the sky like storm clouds.

The crows eventually flew noisily down from the sky toward the horizon.
And they tenaciously dug through the snow.

The flock had also gathered yesterday.
And today，they were there as well.

Three days passed.
However, the crows only grew in number, clamor, and gloom.

One day，a soldier on village guard duty encountered a Russian peasant returning home with a backpack slung on the tip of his rifle and carried on his shoulder.
The rifle and backpack were Japanese.

“Hey，wait!”
“Where the hell did you steal that from?”

“Over there.”
The bearded peasant raised his large hand and pointed to the wilderness where crows were swarming.

“Over there. They were lying there.”

“You’re lying!”

“Over there.”
“Over there in the snow—lots of ’em lying there.”
“…There’s lots of soldiers dead there too.”

“You’re lying!”
The soldier slapped the peasant’s cheek with a sharp crack.
“Come here.”
“Come to the company!”

It became clear that Japanese soldiers were buried in the snow.
The symbols attached inside the backpack demonstrated that it belonged to Matsuki and Takeishi’s company.

The following day, the company set out from early morning beneath a sky swirling with crows.
The crows had already swarmed frantically over the snow, greedily digging through it with their beaks.

When the soldiers approached, the crows cawed raucously and soared into the sky like a cloud.

There lay the half-devoured corpses of soldiers scattered about.
Their faces had been so savagely mutilated they were beyond recognition.

The snow was half-melted.
Water had seeped through into their boots.

Noisily cawing, the crows that swarmed in the sky soon descended onto the snow about a hundred meters ahead.

The soldier chased them off whenever he found crows scratching and pecking through the snow.

The crows screeched again, swirled up into the sky, and descended a couple hundred meters ahead.
There were corpses there too.
The soldier chased after them.

The crows gradually fled farther away, descending onto the snow as they went a mile, even two miles ahead.