Pathway to Japanese Literature

I have done nothing but be taken care of by others.
I will likely remain just like that.
I have been cherished by everyone and lived on with this carefree facade.
Even now, I may still keep living behind this carefree facade.
And when I consider that repaying all these great debts might prove impossible until my dying day—why then, even I feel a faint ache in my chest.

I was taken care of by so very many people.
I was truly taken care of.

This time, I intended to write only about Kita-san and Nakahata-san, but thought I might write about my other great benefactors in turn once I became able to produce somewhat better work.
At present—or rather, at that time—I could not help but feel my poor writing skills made it impossible to adequately capture complicated relationships; yet when it came to Kita-san and Nakahata-san, I believed even with my current abilities I might manage to write about them with relative accuracy.
That was because theirs was—if I had to say—a simple, clear relationship.
However, depicting real people leading modest lives naturally required an appropriate level of meticulous consideration.
For those individuals did not even have the opportunity to request corrections to my descriptions.

I absolutely must not write lies.

Both Nakahata-san and Kita-san were around fifty years old. Nakahata-san might have been a year or two younger. He seemed to have been cherished by my late father. Having been a clerk at an old kimono shop in Goshogawara—a town about three ri from my hometown—he would often come to our house to help with various household matters. My father used to call him "Sōmoku." Apparently, this was a teasing nickname meaning "plants and trees," given because Nakahata-san showed no interest in romance and remained unmarried even as he neared thirty. In the end, my father arranged for him to marry a fine young woman from a distant branch of our family. Nakahata-san soon became independent, ran a kimono business successfully, and grew into a prominent figure in Goshogawara Town. To Nakahata-san's entire household, I had done nothing but cause worry and trouble over these past ten years—truly imposing on them at every turn. When I was ten years old, I went to visit my aunt's house in Goshogawara and was walking alone through the town when—

“Shucchaa!” someone shouted loudly, and I was startled.
It was Nakahata-san who called out from the back of a nearby kimono shop.
Because it was so sudden, I was truly startled.
I had not known until then that Nakahata-san worked at such a kimono shop.
Nakahata-san was sitting in the dim shop, clapped his hands briskly, and then beckoned, but I was so embarrassed at having my name called out so loudly that I ran away.
My real name is Shuji.

I had another experience of being startled when Nakahata-san unexpectedly called out to me during my middle school years. I think it was around my second year at Aomori Middle School. One morning, on my way to school when passing by a squad-sized group of soldiers, someone unexpectedly shouted loudly—

“Shucchaa!” someone called out, and I was startled. Nakahata-san was walking with a rifle shouldered. He had his hat tilted back. He must have been undergoing training due to a military exercise summons for reservists or something of the sort. That Nakahata-san was a soldier came as such a shock that I became utterly flustered. Nakahata-san smiled nonchalantly and began stepping out of line, which only made me panic more—my face burned all the way to my ears as I fled. I heard the other soldiers laughing too.

I want to forever keep those two memories of being called out to carefully stored away.

In 1930, when I entered university in Tokyo, Nakahata-san had already become indispensable to me.
Nakahata-san had by then established his own kimono business, coming to Tokyo monthly on buying trips and secretly visiting me each time.
At that time I shared a house with a certain woman and had severed contact with my hometown, but Nakahata-san—privately entreated by my elderly mother among others—served as intermediary in various matters.
Both the woman and I presumptuously exploited Nakahata-san's goodwill, making capricious demands and imposing countless requests.
The most concise summary of those circumstances now lies before me, which I shall here transcribe.
This letter appears in the concluding section of my work *Fictitious Spring*, though needless to say it remains fictional.
Yet while diverging greatly from factual truth, its atmosphere may be said to approach emotional veracity.
Though framed as correspondence from an acquaintance (most assuredly not Nakahata-san), this document bears no relation to reality—Nakahata-san having never penned such peculiar missives—and I reiterate emphatically that it constitutes nothing beyond my own fabricated "fiction," which passage I now reproduce below.
If only they might comprehend how insolently I comported myself and what troubles I visited upon all.

“On the twenty-third day of last month, in accordance with Her Ladyship your mother’s instructions, I humbly sent one parcel containing New Year’s rice cakes and salted salmon, along with one barrel of cucumbers. However, as stated in your letter regarding the apparent failure of the cucumbers to arrive, I must trouble you to investigate at your local station and favor me with a reply. Kindly convey the above to Madam your wife. Allow me now a few words: Though I—an uneducated man who for twenty-eight years since the autumn of my sixteenth year until this present age of forty-four has served as a lowly merchant frequenting the Tsushima household—am aware this ill-mannered admonishment exceeds what ought to be prolonged at such a time, I prostrate myself in shame to present these harsh truths to your ears, and earnestly entreat your temporary forbearance.”

“Rumors say that lately your habit of borrowing money has resurfaced—you now make requests even to distinguished strangers with whom you share no acquaintance, pleading like a dog for loans, only to meet rejection yet remain unabashed. ‘What’s wrong with borrowing?’ you say. ‘If I repay as promised someday, the lender suffers no inconvenience, and I save my own skin—where’s the harm?’ Just the other day, this very habit led you to hurl a brazier at Madam your wife, shattering two panes of glass—even if half this tale is exaggeration, I cannot stem my silent tears.”

“Though I humbly consider your lineage—a House of Peers member bearing the Order of the Second Class—to hold nothing worthy of pride for you literary types, being but antiquated relics, I implore you to think of Her Ladyship your mother, now alone in heaven and earth since your father’s passing, and deign to let this humble one preserve some semblance of dignity.”

“‘I bitterly resent such words as “In this present state where I alone am disowned, expelled from my home as a villain, and now reviled all the more—thereby allowing all matters to be neatly settled in every direction.”’”

“Once your family’s honorable name has been restored in due time, by what means could I dare speak ill of your esteemed elder brother and sister?”

“I most humbly entreat you to refrain from such misinterpretations.”

“The other day, I received heartfelt lamentations from Elder Sister Kikuko-sama, who married into the Yamakida household. Though it seems theatrical, I have undertaken Masooka’s great role—for being one whom you dislike, even were I your social superior, such meddling would be unwelcome. Not only I, but Elder Sister Kikuko-sama too finds her position as a bride strained by tending to your affairs through forced devotion. Therefore, from this day forth, you must absolutely refrain from borrowings elsewhere. Should dire necessity arise, I humbly request you inform me first and endure to the utmost limit. Should your elder brother learn of this matter, it would spell catastrophe—hence for this occasion alone, I have advanced temporary funds. I earnestly entreat you to bear this in mind.”

“I humbly reiterate: even I shall not trouble those I dislike with further entreaties. With this understanding, I earnestly entreat you to attend to your health and take good care of yourself.”

In early summer of 1936, when my first collection of creative works was published, my friends held a celebration for me at Seiyoken in Ueno.
By coincidence three days prior, Nakahata-san had come up to Tokyo and stopped by my place.
I begged Nakahata-san for a kimono.
I asked him to prepare the finest hemp kimono along with an embroidered haori, summer hakama trousers, a stiff sash, a long undergarment, and white tabi socks—the complete set—but even Nakahata-san appeared troubled.
"It simply won't be ready in time."
"The hakama and obi can be arranged immediately," Nakahata-san was explaining, "but for the kimono and undergarments, we must first select patterns and have them tailored—" but I talked over him. "It'll work! It'll work! Just order them from Mitsukoshi or some major kimono store—they'll sew it overnight! With ten or twenty seamstresses working on a single kimono, it'll be done quickly! In Tokyo there's nothing you can't accomplish!" I declared with unfounded confidence about matters I scarcely understood.
Finally Nakahata-san relented: "Well then, I'll try."
On the morning of the third day—the day of the celebration—all my requested items arrived from a certain kimono shop.
Everything was top quality.
I would likely never wear such fine garments again.
I dressed in them and attended the celebration.
Though I regretted it, I didn't wear the haori as it made me look like some performer.
The day after the event, I took all those items to the pawnshop.
And so I finally disposed of them all.

I had strongly urged Nakahata-san and Kita-san to attend this gathering as well, but neither came.
They might have refrained out of politeness.
Or perhaps their businesses kept them too occupied to find the time.
I had wanted to show Nakahata-san and Kita-san my esteemed seniors and friends to reassure them, but even that might have been nothing more than my own self-important delusion.
Had they seen such a celebration, far from being reassured, Nakahata-san and Kita-san might have only become more apprehensive about my future.

I had caused Kita-san real worry as well.
Kita-san was a tailor in Tokyo's Shinagawa Ward.
Though he was a tailor, he was not just an ordinary one.
He was different.
His house was an ordinary residence.
There was no signboard nor display window.
In a back room, two skilled apprentices clattered away at sewing machines.
Kita-san made Western clothes exclusively for specific patrons.
A man of masterful temperament, and willful at that.
There was something about him that even wealth and honor could not corrupt.
It seemed both my father and brother had decided to have their Western clothes made by Kita-san.
After I entered a university in Tokyo, Kita-san took charge of supervising me.
And so I did nothing but deceive Kita-san. I committed one terrible act after another, until he finally confined me to the second floor of his house, forcing me to live like a dependent for some time.
My brother back home, disgusted by my shiftlessness, would occasionally threaten to stop sending funds, but each time Kita-san would intervene and negotiate with him, pleading, "Please continue the remittance for another year."
I ended up separating from the woman I had been with, but even then, Kita-san went to great lengths for me.
There were simply too many instances to count.
If I were to speak from my own experience, I caused him about as much trouble as writing twenty full-length novels would entail.
And so I continued to be taken care of with the same carefree facade as ever, not even lifting a finger to handle the slightest personal matter.

On the New Year's when I turned thirty, I held a wedding ceremony with my current wife, but even then ended up relying entirely on Nakahata-san and Kita-san. At that time I was practically penniless. The betrothal money of twenty yen had itself been borrowed from a certain senior. As for wedding expenses, there was absolutely no way to procure them from anywhere. Though renting a small house in Kofu City at the time, on my wedding day I visited that senior's Tokyo residence wearing everyday clothes. The plan had been to meet my bride at the senior's house, receive ceremonial sake cups from him, then return to Kofu with her. Kita-san and Nakahata-san were supposed to attend as substitute parents that day. I departed Kofu early morning and reached the senior's residence around noon. Truly in everyday attire—unshorn hair, no hakama trousers—I wore only what clung to my back with nearly empty pockets. The senior sat quietly working in his study. (What I call "the senior" is actually [Redacted] Sensei; having always detested his name appearing in fiction or essays, I deliberately use this disrespectful common noun.) He seemed to have forgotten about the wedding entirely. While organizing manuscript papers, he explained details about garden trees to me. Then as if suddenly noticing—

“The kimono has arrived.”
“Nakahata-san sent them over.”
“Somehow, it seems like a rather fine kimono,” he said.

A set of black habutae crested formal wear, hakama trousers, and then another set of striped silk kimonos—it was something I hadn’t anticipated in the slightest.
I was dumbfounded.
I had simply planned to receive the wedding sake cups from that senior and then take the bride straight home.
Before long, Nakahata-san and Kita-san arrived together, laughing.
Nakahata-san was in his national uniform, and Kita-san in a morning coat.

“Let’s begin, let’s begin!” Nakahata-san urged impatiently.

The day’s meal followed formal banquet protocol, complete with sea bream and other ceremonial dishes.
I found myself dressed in the crested kimono.
They took commemorative photographs.

“Shuji-san, a moment.”

Nakahata-san took me to the adjacent room.
Kita-san was also there.
They had me sit down, then both of them sat properly before me and bowed in unison.

“Congratulations on this day,” they said.
Then Nakahata-san said,

“Today’s meal is rather humble fare, and I apologize for that, but since Kita-san and I have arranged this for Shuji-san’s sake, please accept it without concern.”
“We too have received extraordinary kindness since our predecessors’ time, so we wished to repay even a little through this occasion,” he said earnestly.

I resolved never to forget.

“This was Nakahata-san’s doing.”
Kita-san always yielded credit to Nakahata-san.
“For both this time’s kimono and hakama, Nakahata-san ran all around your relatives and gathered contributions from everywhere to have them made for you.”
“Now, do apply yourself properly.”

Late that night, I was to return home on a train departing from Shinjuku with my bride, but at that time, I had only about two yen in my pocket—and this was no joke or exaggeration.
Money is something that, when you don’t have it, you might as well have none.
In case of emergency, I intended to get back half of that twenty-yen betrothal money.
With ten yen, you could buy two tickets to Kofu.

When leaving the senior’s house, I whispered to Kita-san, “Couldn’t I get you to return half of the betrothal money?”
“I was counting on it.”

At that moment, Kita-san became truly furious.

“What nonsense are you spouting! That’s exactly why you’re hopeless—what on earth are you thinking? That’s exactly why you’re hopeless. Haven’t you improved at all? Saying such things means you’re completely beyond help.” Having said this, he smoothly withdrew bills from his own wallet and quietly handed them to me.

But when I tried to buy tickets at Shinjuku Station, my bride’s sister and her husband had already purchased our tickets—second-class ones—so I no longer needed any money.

On the platform when I tried to return the money to Kita-san, he—
“For the road! For the road!” he said, waving his hand away.
It was a beautiful gesture.

After marrying, I managed to avoid any major blunders, then a year later vacated the Kofu house and rented one in Mitaka on Tokyo’s outskirts—six tatami mats, four and a half tatami mats, three tatami mats—where I earnestly wrote novels until two years later a girl was born.
Kita-san and Nakahata-san came delightedly bearing splendid swaddling clothes.

Now, both Kita-san and Nakahata-san seemed somewhat relieved about me, no longer coming around frequently as they used to or giving various instructions.
Yet since I myself remained completely unchanged from before—still enduring each painful, desperate day—Kita-san and Nakahata-san no longer visiting felt somehow lonely.
I wanted them to come.
Last summer, Kita-san came by unexpectedly in the rain wearing long boots.

I promptly took him to our regular tonkatsu restaurant in Mitaka.
The woman there came over to our table and called me "sensei," which made me feel extremely awkward given Kita-san’s presence.
Kita-san pretended not to notice my panic and said to the woman,

“Is Dazai-sensei kind to you all?” he asked with a smirk.
The woman, having no idea this man was my longtime supervisor, replied, “Oh yes, he’s ever so kind.”
With such vague, flippant remarks, my heart raced with anxiety.
That day, Kita-san had brought a matter to discuss.
It was less a consultation than perhaps better termed a command.
It was a proposal—or perhaps better termed a command—for me to visit my family home in my hometown together with Kita-san.
My hometown lies at the northern tip of Honshu, roughly in the center of the Tsugaru Plain.
I had not seen my hometown for ten years already.
Ten years ago, I caused a certain incident, and since then have been in a position where I cannot show my face in my hometown.

“Has my brother granted forgiveness?”
We talked over beer at the tonkatsu restaurant.
“It’s not like he’s actually given permission, has he?”

“From my brother’s position, he still can’t possibly forgive you.”
“So I’ll take you there on my own authority instead.”
“Really—it’ll be fine.”

“That’s dangerous.”
My heart felt leaden.
“If I go traipsing over there only to get turned away at the entrance and make a big scene, that’d be like poking a hornet’s nest. I’d rather let things stay as they are a while longer.”

“There’s no such thing.”
Kita-san was brimming with confidence.
“If I take you, it’ll be fine.”
“Just think about it.”
“It may sound rude, but even your mother back home is already seventy.”
“I hear she’s become noticeably weaker these days.”
“You never know when something might happen.”
“At this point, keeping things as they are won’t do.”
“Things will get complicated.”

“I suppose so.”

I was melancholy.

“Isn’t that right? So since I’m taking you there now while we’ve got this chance, just go meet everyone at home. Once you’ve met them now, then no matter what happens next time, you’ll be able to rush home without a second thought.”

“I only hope it goes that smoothly.”
I was terribly anxious.
No matter what Kita-san said, I remained thoroughly pessimistic about this homecoming plan.
I had a premonition something dreadful would happen.
Over these ten years in Tokyo, I’d truly committed every manner of disgraceful act.
There was no possible way I could be forgiven.

“Oh, it’ll go smoothly.”
Kita-san alone radiated exuberance.
“You must act as if you are Yagyū Jūbei.”
“I will take on the role of Ōkubo Hikozaemon.”
“Your brother is Tajima-no-kami.”
“It will surely go well.”
“Even Tajima-no-kami or whoever it is won’t stand a chance against Hikoza’s obstinacy.”

“But,” said the feeble Jūbei, needlessly skeptical. “If possible, I think it’s better not to push through with such obstinacy. I don’t have the qualifications to be Jūbei yet, and if someone like Ōkubo were to recklessly charge in, I think it’d lead to something disastrous.”

I was utterly terrified of my earnest, short-tempered brother. This was no time for jokes about Tajima-no-kami or whatever.

“I’ll take responsibility,” Kita-san said in a strong tone. “No matter the result, I will take full responsibility. Just rest easy as if aboard a great ship—leave this matter to Hikoza.”

I could no longer object.

Kita-san was being hasty too.
The following day at seven in the evening, we were to board the express train departing from Ueno.
I left it to Kita-san.
That night, after parting with Kita-san, I went into a café in Mitaka and drank heavily.

The following day at five in the evening, we met at Ueno Station and ate in the underground cafeteria.
Kita-san wore white linen clothes.
I was in a meisen summer kimono.
Though inside my bag lay a pongee kimono and hakama that had been prepared.
As he drank beer, Kita-san

said, “The wind’s changed direction.”
He paused briefly before adding, “Your brother has come to Tokyo.”

“Oh.”
“Then this trip is pointless.”
I was disappointed.

“No. Going back home to meet your brother isn’t the purpose. If you can meet your mother, that’s enough. That’s what I think.”

“But barging in while my brother’s away does feel rather underhanded.”

“There’s no such thing.”
“I met your brother last night and mentioned it briefly.”

“Did you say you’re taking Shuji to his hometown?”

“No, I couldn’t say such a thing.”
“If I told him outright, your brother would say, ‘That’d be a problem for Mr. Kita.’”
“No matter what his true feelings are, he’s in a position where he has to say that.”
“That’s why I didn’t say a thing when I met him last night.”
“If I told him, it’d ruin everything.”
“Well, I just told him that I have some business up in Tohoku and plan to depart on tomorrow’s seven o’clock express, but might stop by your family’s place in Tsugaru while I’m at it.”
“That’s how it should be.”
“If your brother isn’t home, it might actually be more convenient.”

“If you’d told him you were visiting Aomori, your brother would’ve been delighted.”

“Yes—he said he’d telephone your family home to arrange guided tours everywhere, but I refused.”

Kita-san was stubborn; he had never once visited my birthplace in Tsugaru.
He detested being treated to meals or looked after by others.

“I wonder when Brother will return.”
“Surely not—on the same train today—”

“There’s no such thing.”
“Don’t make light of this.”
“This time he’d brought along Mr. Mayor.”
“It seems to be a rather involved matter.”

My brother sometimes came to Tokyo.
However，it had been absolutely decided that he would not meet with me.

“Even if I go home，if I can’t meet my brother，it’ll lose much of its purpose.”
I wanted to meet my brother.
And I wanted to bow deeply in silence.

“Oh，you can meet your brother anytime after this.
“But more importantly，the issue is your mother.”
“After all，she’s seventy—no—sixty-nine，perhaps?”

“We’ll be able to see Grandmother too, won’t we? She must be nearly ninety by now. And I want to see my aunt in Goshogawara too, and—” When I thought about it, there were so many people I wanted to meet.

“Of course, you will be able to meet everyone.” His tone was resolute. He looked remarkably dependable.

This homecoming was beginning to seem increasingly enjoyable. I wanted to meet my second brother Eiji, and I also wanted to meet my sisters. For all of them, it had been ten years. And I wanted to see that house. I wanted to see that house—the one where I was born and raised.

We boarded the seven o'clock train.
Before boarding the train, Kita-san had sent a telegram to Nakahata-san in Goshogawara.

“7 DEPART KITA”

That alone was already apparently enough for Nakahata-san to fully grasp the gist of it.
It’s what they call unspoken understanding, apparently.

“If I were to clearly inform Mr. Nakahata that I’m taking you along, it would put him in an awkward position. Mr. Nakahata doesn’t know—doesn’t know anything—and he will come to meet me at Goshogawara Station. Only then must we make it appear that he was surprised to see you—otherwise, Mr. Nakahata will be in an awkward position with your brother afterward. They might ask why Mr. Nakahata didn’t stop us despite knowing. But Mr. Nakahata doesn’t know—it’s only when he comes to meet me at Goshogawara Station that he finds out and is surprised. And well, since we’ve come all the way from Tokyo, if we make it so that you at least get to see your mother once, Mr. Nakahata’s responsibility will be lighter. I will take full responsibility for everything else—but since I am Ōkubo Hikozaemon, even if Tajima no Kami rages or whatever, it won’t faze me.” It was quite a convoluted explanation.

"But Mr. Nakahata does know, doesn't he?"

"That's precisely where the nuance lies."
"Seven depart."
"That settles it."
Ōkubo's stratagem proved too labyrinthine to fully comprehend.
Yet ultimately I had placed everything in Kita-san's hands.
To voice complaints now would be unconscionable.

We boarded the train. It was second-class. The car was quite crowded. Kita-san and I finally managed to secure seats, one each on either side of the aisle. Kita-san casually slipped on his reading glasses and began perusing the newspaper. He remained perfectly composed. I opened a detective novel by someone named Georges Simenon. I always make a point of reading mystery stories during long train journeys. One doesn't feel inclined to tackle Prolegomena or such weighty matters aboard a train.

Kita-san extended the newspaper toward me and slid it over.
When I took it and looked, there was a large three-column spread featuring a review of my recently published novel *Shin Hamlet*.
It was a review overflowing with goodwill from a certain senior.
It was nothing short of excessive praise.
Kita-san and I exchanged glances in silence then smiled together with equal delight.
I began to feel that this might turn into a wonderful journey.

They arrived at Aomori Station around eight o'clock the next morning. It was mid-August, but quite cold. A mist-like rain was falling. They transferred to the Ou Line and then bought a boxed meal.

“How much?”

“—Sen!”

“Huh?”

“—Sen!”

Sen! I understood he was stating a price in sen, but couldn’t discern how many tens of sen he meant. After asking three times, I finally realized he was saying sixty sen. I was stunned.

“Kita-san, did you understand what the station vendor just said?”

Kita-san gravely shook his head.

“Right?”
“You didn’t understand, did you?”
“Even I couldn’t understand it.”
“No—I’m not saying this to put on airs as some affected Tokyoite.”
“Even I was born and raised in Tsugaru—I’m a country bumpkin through and through.”
“I spout Tsugaru dialect nonstop, and in Tokyo I’m always being laughed at by everyone.”
But after ten years away from my hometown, when suddenly confronted with pure Tsugaru dialect, I couldn’t understand it.
I couldn’t understand a single word.
People are such unreliable creatures, aren’t they?
“If you’re separated for ten years, you end up not even understanding each other’s dialect anymore.”
I felt as if I had just been confronted with irrefutable proof that I had utterly betrayed my hometown, and I tensed up.

I listened intently to the conversations of the passengers in the train car. I couldn’t understand. The accents were unusually strong. I strained my ears intently. I began to understand, little by little. Once I began to grasp a little, my understanding then started accelerating splendidly—like dry ice bypassing the liquid stage to suddenly billow into thick vapor. After all, I am a person of Tsugaru. When we transferred to the Gono Line at Kawabe Station and arrived at Goshogawara Station around ten o’clock, there was, as it turned out, not a single word of Tsugaru dialect I couldn’t understand. Everything had become perfectly clear. But as for whether I myself could speak pure Tsugaru dialect, I had no confidence in that.

At Goshogawara Station, Nakahata-san had not come to meet us.

“He should have been here.”
Even Ōkubo Hikozaemon had darkened his expression at this singular moment.

Even after exiting the ticket gate and looking around the small station interior, Nakahata-san was nowhere to be seen.
The square before the station—if one could even call it that—lay desolate with scattered stones and horse droppings, two rickety carriages standing idle. There I stood with Ōkubo, bags dangling from our hands, utterly forlorn.

“He’s here!”
“He’s here!”
Ōkubo shrieked.

A large man came walking from the direction of the town, laughing.
It was Nakahata-san.
Nakahata-san showed no sign of surprise upon seeing me.
He was saying something like “Welcome.”
His manner was magnanimous.

“This is my responsibility.”
Kita-san said in a tone that was, if anything, rather self-satisfied.
“As for the rest, I leave everything to you.”

“Understood, understood.”
Nakahata-san in his kimono looked like Saigō Takamori.

We were guided to Nakahata-san’s home.
Upon hearing the news, my aunt came tottering over.
Ten years had turned my aunt into a little old woman.
She sat before me, gazed at my face, and was shedding tears profusely.
This aunt had stubbornly supported me since I was a child.

At Nakahata-san’s home, I changed into a tsumugi silk kimono and put on hakama trousers.
From that town called Goshogawara, three *ri* further away in a place known as Kanagi Town lay the house where I was born.
From Goshogawara Station, heading straight north through the center of the Tsugaru Plain by gasoline car for about thirty minutes brought you to that town.
Around noon, Nakahata-san, Kita-san, and I—the three of us—headed to Kanagi Town by gasoline car.

Rice fields stretched endlessly.
The green was pale.
I was struck by a somewhat unexpected impression—had the Tsugaru Plain always been like this?
The autumn of the previous year, I had gone to Niigata and even made a trip to Sado Island, but the greenery along the Japan Sea coast was terribly faint, the soil whitish and parched dry, even the sunlight felt feeble, and it had been unbearably disheartening; yet now, this plain spread before my eyes was exactly the same.
When I thought about how I was born here and grew up playing carefree without ever noticing the sadness of this pale, faint landscape, a strange feeling came over me.

When we arrived in Aomori, a light rain was falling, but it soon cleared, and now even thin sunlight was shining.
However, it was chill cold.

“All these fields around here must be your brother’s, eh?”
Kita-san asked me, laughing teasingly.

Nakahata-san interjected from beside us,

“That’s right,” he said, still laughing. “As far as the eye can see, they’re all his.”
It had a slight air of exaggeration.
“But this year’s harvest is poor.”

In the far distance, the great red roof of my family home came into view.
It floated gently in a sea of pale green rice fields.
I felt shy all by myself,
“It’s smaller than I expected,” I murmured in a low voice.

“No, not at all,” Kita-san said in a reproving tone, “It’s a castle.”

The gasoline car crept along slowly and arrived at Kanagi Station.
When I looked, there stood my second brother Eiji-san at the ticket gate.
He was smiling.

I set foot on my hometown soil for the first time in ten years.
It was a desolate land.
It felt like frozen earth.
Every year, because it froze several feet underground, the soil had swollen up and turned whitish—that was the impression it gave.
The houses, the trees, the soil—all gave me the impression of having been washed and bleached.
The road was white and parched; walking along it gave no sensation underfoot.
It felt terribly precarious.

“The grave,” someone murmured.
That alone sufficed for their understanding.
The four walked silently straight to the temple.
There they bowed before his father’s grave.
The great chestnut tree beside it stood unchanged from former days.

As I stepped through the entrance of my family home, my heart pounded with excitement. Inside lay hushed silence. It felt like the administrative office of a temple. Every room had been polished to an unexpected cleanliness. They should have appeared more worn with age, yet somehow managed to feel compact and orderly. The impression wasn't unpleasant.

I was shown to the Buddhist altar room.
Nakahata-san flung open the doors of the Buddhist altar wide.
I sat facing the Buddhist altar and bowed.
Then I greeted my sister-in-law.
A refined young lady brought tea, so I bowed while smiling, thinking she might be my brother’s eldest daughter.
That was the maid.

Footsteps sounded swift and light from behind.
I tensed up.
It was Mother.
Mother sat quite a distance away from me.
I silently bowed.
When I looked up, Mother was wiping her tears.
She had become a small old woman.

Again, swift, light footsteps sounded from behind.
For a moment, I felt a strange—though it seemed wasteful—sense of eeriness.
Until they appeared before my eyes, I felt somehow afraid.

“Shucchaa! You made it after all!”
It was Grandmother.
She was eighty-five.
She declared loudly.
She was far more vigorous than Mother.
“I’d been wanting to see you.”
“Though I didn’t say nothin’, I’d been wantin’ to see you once.”

She was a cheerful soul.
She’d never missed her evening drink, even now.

The meal tray appeared.

“Drink.”
Eiji-san poured beer for me.

“Yeah.”
I drank.

Eiji-san had remained in Kanagi Town since graduating school, assisting our eldest brother all along. Then several years ago, he had established his own branch of the family. Though Eiji-san was supposed to possess the sturdiest physique among us brothers along with a heroic bearing, meeting him again after ten years revealed him to be a truly gentle and delicate man. Compared to myself—having spent a decade in Tokyo fighting with all manner of people while living a coarsened, squalid existence—he seemed like an entirely different species of refined being. Even his facial features were finely drawn and beautiful. Among all my blood relatives, I alone had become this base, ugly man with a wretched pauper's disposition—this truth struck me with crystalline clarity, drawing forth a secret bitter smile.

“Where’s the restroom?” I asked.

Eiji-san made a strange face.

“Oh, come on,”
Kita-san laughed and said, “Does one come to your own home and ask such a thing?”

I stood up and went out into the corridor. Though I had known there was a guest restroom at the end of the corridor, I thought it improper to wander about the house pretending familiarity while my eldest brother was away, so I asked Eiji-san—though he might have taken me for an affected fool. After washing my hands, I remained standing there awhile, gazing out the window at the garden. Not a single tree or blade of grass had changed. I wanted to explore every corner of the house inside and out. There were countless places I longed to glimpse just once more. Yet since that would have been shamelessly presumptuous, I resigned myself to devouring the garden’s view through that narrow window.

“The water lilies in the pond—well, thirty-two bloomed this year.”
Grandmother’s booming voice carried all the way to the outhouse.
“I ain’t lyin’ or nothin’—thirty-two bloomed, I tell ya!”
Grandmother had done nothing but talk about those water lilies since we arrived.

We left the house in Kanagi around four in the afternoon and headed to Goshogawara by car.
To prevent any awkward situations from arising, I had made prior arrangements with Kita-san about leaving early.
Without any major mishaps—in what could be called a harmonious atmosphere—we boarded the hired car.
Kita-san, Nakahata-san, Mother, and me.
Through the kind encouragement of my sister-in-law and Eiji-san, Mother too came with us to Goshogawara.
Our destination was my aunt’s house.
I was supposed to stay there one night.
Our original plan upon leaving Tokyo had been for Kita-san to also stay overnight so that starting the next day just the two of us could tour Asamushi Hot Springs and Lake Towada—but that morning an inconvenient telegram arrived from Kita-san’s Tokyo home to the Kanagi house, forcing us to return to the capital that very night via the express train departing from Aomori.
The telegram said the wife of Kita-san’s neighbor had died, but he insisted, “This won’t do—that poor household can’t hold a funeral without me. I must go immediately.” Once he made up his mind, that stubborn Mr. Okubo wouldn’t listen to reason, so we didn’t try to stop him.
At my aunt’s house we all ate dinner together before seeing Kita-san off to Goshogawara Station.
When I imagined how exhausted Kita-san must have been boarding yet another train right then, I found it unbearably painful.

That night at my aunt’s house, Mother, Aunt, and I talked late into the night with no one else around.
When I laughingly mentioned that my wife had been tending the small garden at our Mitaka home and growing various vegetables, this seemed to greatly please them—they kept nodding in unison, murmuring “My, how wonderful” and “Well now, isn’t that something.”
I had grown somewhat capable of speaking Tsugaru dialect naturally, but when conversations turned complex, I still resorted to Tokyo speech.
Neither Mother nor Aunt appeared to fully understand what sort of work I did.
I attempted explanations about manuscript fees and royalties, but they seemed to grasp less than half of it—matters deteriorated until they asked things like “If you make and sell books, doesn’t that make you a bookseller? Isn’t that right?” so I surrendered and answered, “Well, suppose that’s about right.”
When Mother asked “About how much income do you make?” I replied brightly “When payments come in, it might be five hundred yen or even a thousand,” but she calmly followed with “How many people split that?” leaving me crestfallen.
They seemed thoroughly convinced I ran a bookstore.
Yet whether manuscript fees or royalties, I found myself thinking one shouldn’t consider these earned through individual effort alone—that they should be seen as collaborative works, and that dividing them among everyone might be the proper approach.

Since neither Mother nor Aunt would acknowledge my true capabilities at all, I became somewhat flustered, took out my wallet from my pocket, and laid out two ten-yen bills on the table before them,

“Please accept it.”
“Please use it for temple offerings or something.”
“I have plenty of money.”
“Since it’s money I earned through my own work, please accept it,” I said, terribly embarrassed yet driven to desperation.

Mother and Aunt exchanged glances and giggled quietly.
I stubbornly persisted until I finally made them accept the money.
Mother placed those bills into her large wallet, then took out a ceremonial envelope from within it and handed it to me.
When I later checked the contents of that ceremonial envelope, I found that it contained the manuscript fees for my hundred-page work along with nearly the same amount again.

The next day, I parted from everyone and went to Aomori, stopped at a relative's house where I stayed one night, then returned straight to Tokyo without further stops, as though fleeing.
Even after returning for the first time in ten years, I had only caught a fleeting glimpse of my hometown's scenery.
Will there ever come another time when I can see it properly?
If something were to happen to Mother, I would see my hometown again—but that too would be a painful affair.

About two months after that trip, I happened to meet Kita-san on the street.
Kita-san had a pale face.
He had no energy.

“What’s wrong? You’ve lost weight.”

“Yes, I had appendicitis.”

That night we’d returned to Tokyo on the express train from Aomori, he explained—the abdominal pain had started right after arriving.

“That’s terrible.”
“So it really was too much after all.”
I’d had appendicitis myself before.
From that experience I knew overwork could bring it on.
“That trip was nothing short of a forced march for you.”

Kita-san smiled faintly.
The guilt became unbearable.
This was all my doing.
My vices had surely shaved ten years off Kita-san’s life.
Yet there I remained—unchanged, wearing that same careless face.