Pathway to Japanese Literature

I For a long time now, I had lived wishing to live alone. I had completely forgotten both my hometown and the family members there, and even now, on my family register, their names remain a pristine white, beginning to fade from the distant memories of blood relations.

Only Mother, despite my tendency to stumble through life, would send me scolding letters that said: "You might think this old woman's just being contrary and making trouble," she wrote, "but press your hand to your chest and think straight. Even when I call you reliable and keep trusting you," she continued, "changing men's names like this wears me down too. That man demanded five yen, but you know this crone can't scrape together such sums. With him being what he is, Father endures it all—lately he hauls coal at the naval barracks with just a lunchbox of rice sprinkled with soy sauce. Since five yen's impossible, I'm setting aside two. You'll have to make do. Writing these letters takes all day and pounds at my skull. If you did come back—what would become of just us two?"

Mother.

I would take out Mother’s sun-steeped letters, tears oozing steadily as I muttered, “Who’d go back? Even if I returned to the country, I couldn’t eat properly... Just you wait.” What struck me hardest in Mother’s letter was the part about Stepfather going to work at the naval barracks every day with a lunchbox doused in soy sauce.—It had already been four years since I came to Tokyo. It was not such a distant past. In those four years, I had become wife to three men. The third man—the current one—stood diametrically opposed to my temperament: an ordinary soul devoid of embellishment. To put it another way, should someone remark to us, “It seems you’ve moved again—this time to rather lonesome quarters,” I would cheerfully reply as ever—“Oh yes! Why, thousands upon thousands of azaleas planted like a proper estate”—spreading my arms wide as I strained to convey those imagined blossoms’ splendor. Yet this third man would counter with absurd blankness: “No—two hundred bushes at most. Common azaleas of inferior stock on what amounts to abandoned grounds.” Thus I often found myself mired in inescapable shame. Though I’d resolved that once properly wedded I’d show my anger freely—perhaps our union remained too new, or some vestigial restraint made me prudent—I always swallowed his blunt words silently, never deigning to retaliate.

Having originally carried the past of having been wife to two men—and since I still preserved those former husbands' true natures like sooty specimens within the confines of another memory, no matter how one might put it—it would have been terribly troublesome to start quibbling over this and that now.

II

As for how the second man connected me to the third, Komatsu Yoichi— When he struck you, there came the crisp sound of bones—like rice boiling over flame. In the meager wallet lay a single Chinese copper coin— this became his whip of choice for beating.

To shatter bones and flesh he would shove me against the wall “Can this bitch even eat dandelions!” Dandelions glistening with white dew the man chewed voraciously while— because it was your fault—

He would always beat me with a copper coin whip.

The second man’s name was Uotani Ichitaro. “My ancestors were probably migrants,” he would say. “They must have caught fish and devoured them as they moved on.” Even as he said such things, he would beat me when his poverty left us without meals for days on end, strike me again when forcing me to eat boiled dandelions instead of rice, sneering, “Why can’t you shed that vulgar woman’s nature of yours?” “What kind of whorish display is it to let your collar hang down to your back?” He’d say things like that while beating me, and truly, each day my bones felt ready to crumble away—I existed as nothing but a stump made for beating.

I had stayed with that man for about two years, but after being kicked in the ribs, I finally mustered the resolve to flee to a distant city. Even after moving to the city where my bones no longer creaked, I would occasionally slip a one-yen note into a letter and send it to the man I'd left behind, writing words to suggest that if he stopped beating me, I might consider returning to see him once. Then came this reply from the man I'd abandoned: "You left because you want to whore yourself out, because you want to slather your collar with thick powder, because you want to gorge on fine food—isn't that right? I've gone three days without eating now. By the time this letter arrives, it'll be four days—think about that!"—

In a corner of this bustling metropolis lived a man who hadn't eaten a meal in four days. A man who kept spitting contempt at a society that refused him work, cursing and raging... To such letters I could never bring myself to reply, instead papering over the silence by humming that little song—"I've forsaken both body and world for you alone"—as I scraped by. Before long, Uotani must have married too—I once glimpsed him walking with some mousy woman, looking positively buoyant. At that very moment, clad in a white apron myself, I didn't call out—but took grim pleasure in dropping every earned coin into the hell jar, resolved to soon wash my hands of this waitress drudgery.

Then—before many months had passed—when I welcomed the New Year at that rundown café, I became a bride for the third time, accompanying my current Yoichi, and found myself pondering deeply: "After having wished so fervently to live alone, what a fickle, loneliness-fearing woman I must be."

III “How did your previous husband used to scold you…” Yoichi removed the boneless dried horse mackerel from his mouth and said this. “There was never any scolding.” “It’s not that there wasn’t any—I’m sure you had some harsh experiences.” I was sucking on the bone-in horse mackerel while watching the bathhouse chimney. “How harshly you were scolded.” What a brutal way to ask—I endured the burning sensation along my spine as I looked up at Yoichi’s face. Yoichi was licking his chopsticks after picking them clean. I felt as if vinegar had congealed in my stomach—my eyelids began to swell.

“Why bring that up now—you want to torment me, don’t you? —No matter how poor we get, please don’t torment me. Don’t hit me. I know we’ll never be any richer than this, and days when we can’t even eat will keep coming. But just because we’re poor, don’t beat my body.” “If… if you absolutely insist on hitting me, then I… I’ll have to leave you again. And if you hit me this time—my already loose right rib will snap clean through, and I won’t be able to work anymore.”

“Oh… So that previous man was hitting you like that?” “Yes—he’d call me ‘this tattered bitch’ and all.” “No wonder you keep talking in your sleep. ‘The bones’ll fly out—have mercy!’ Even in your dreams you keep crying like that.” “But—it’s absolutely not that I’m crying from missing him. If you’re tormented enough, even a dog whimpers in its sleep.” “I’m not blaming you. Just thought it must’ve been hell for you.”

“Aren’t you going to eat this horse mackerel?” “Ah.” Perhaps because the low dining table was small, the fish looked enormous. It had been ages since we’d had a whole fish from head to tail as a meal accompaniment, so I ate every last scrap Yoichi had left behind. Yoichi looked at the pale remnants of horse mackerel on the plate and laughed in surprise. “Why do women—creatures called women—like fish so much?” “Men dislike scales, don’t they?” “Speaking of scales—why don’t you break open that carp-shaped Hell Jar you brought? There should be enough for moving costs.”

“Well… Moving costs aside… But going from this 8-yen house to a 17-yen one—that’s quite a difference. And when I went to see it yesterday… Doesn’t it look like the sort of place raccoon dogs would come crawling out?” “What does 17 yen matter? If I find good work, there’s no need for you to be so anxious.” “Because you’ve never kept a household with another woman besides me.” “I think we’ll soon find ourselves with our hands and feet tied—”

“Hmph—you’re quite the experienced one, but you shouldn’t say such things.”

Had I possessed more youth to bring to life with Yoichi, I might surely have become that fresh-faced woman—yet here I remained, ever like a stray dog frantic for my next morsel. The progression from a rented second-floor room to establishing our own household—it filled me with terrible unease, as though we were setting out into an endless desert.

IV

The very act of taking out the Hell Jar from the wrapping cloth and shaking it near Yoichi’s ear was what left me utterly mortified. For whenever I thought of my stepfather and mother—surviving on soy sauce rice during their distant travels—I would rummage through the Hell Jar with old postcards, exchanging every last silver coin for paper bills to send in letters to Mother. Now, when told “Go on, break it open,” I who knew the contents were nothing but copper coins found myself with no way to retreat, and ended up confessing.

“You can break it if you want, but… truthfully, it’s nothing but copper coins now.” “Even copper coins are money. Since they’re a bit heavy, there must be twenty or thirty sen here.”

This man might be mentally insensible or something. He drank his tea without so much as a flicker in his eyes, as if a breeze had passed by unnoticed.

“Money never stays—ah, it’s finally raining. Hey, this is trouble.” I vigorously smashed the Hell Jar against the pillar. The daily tear-off calendar showed June 15th. Taian—an auspicious day for weddings and departures. From afternoon onward, thunder roared fiercely as hail-like rain began falling. Perhaps owing to his mountain roots—legs as hairy as a forest—Yoichi busily began packing. I felt intensely happy. Seeing the man packing with all his strength reminded me of the dreariness when I’d fastened my own bundles alone—here in this place—I grew strangely tender, thinking, “At any rate, I want us to last long together.”

I tucked all the essential tools—kitchen knives, metal fire tongs, daikon graters, dew ladles—into the knot of my salt-faded merino obi. Also hidden within my bosom were chopsticks, a hand mirror, and two slices of salmon I’d bought for five sen, all wrapped in newspaper. “Don’t make such a fuss—just wrap it in a furoshiki already.” “Well, but I was thinking of carrying the bucket down like this.” From the second-floor rented house where we first set up our household to the estate grounds we were moving to—in terms of distance, it must have been about five chō. This mere five-chō stretch of road would become a terribly roundabout detour unless we cut through the crematorium grounds, radish fields, gravesites, and cedar groves lining its path. To economize on moving costs, we resolved to take this shortcut and carry our meager belongings one by one. As for our so-called belongings, they consisted of a dish container made from a beer crate, a tall rickety table, a futon, furoshiki-wrapped bundles, Yoichi’s painting tools, and things of that sort.

The futon was of course mine—this hadn’t existed during the time of the men I’d left. It was a futon made from patched-together yukata—when sending it, Mother had written to ask whether one pillow would suffice. I had written only to Mother with some account of the third man’s background—my own opinions sprinkled in—so she’d lamented in her heart, "This girl’s gone and found herself another man..." Though she must have been grieving in her heart like that, perhaps having regained her composure to show consideration, she wrote: "Will one pillow suffice?" When I saw Mother’s letter that had come out of the futon, I felt somewhat ashamed. I’ve heard that upper-class people have a weaker sense of shame—but even if Mother, being of lowly status, strives not to feel embarrassed about such things, the fact remains: if she has already been sending pillows up until now, then by this point I would effectively be begging for three new pillows for the man. As I followed this line of thought, a bone-chilling wave of sorrowful shame welled up within me.

At that time, Yoichi had one cotton quilt and a single pillow stuffed with buckwheat husks that looked like a ripe persimmon. Since I lacked a pillow, I used a floor cushion folded double—this wasn’t particularly inconvenient, but the way that cushion grew conspicuously stained became agonizing to behold. When Mother wrote asking if we needed two pillows now, though part of me wanted to reply with an eager “Yes,” I instead sent back a letter affecting nonchalance: “One pillow will suffice.” Then came into my hands a single black-lacquered pillow of the most rustic sort. It must have been my dead grandmother’s—perhaps because this small pillow stood so high, I couldn’t tell whether I slept or woke, so poorly did it cradle my neck.

Afterwards, I sent Mother a lengthy letter of thanks regarding the futon, but when it came to the pillow, I refrained from adding even a single word of gratitude—as though I had forgotten.

V

Azaleas, of course, along with deutzia, thistle flowers, and paulownia trees surrounded the house. Within this spacious estate beyond our own home, about four more single-story houses—each similarly encircled by flowering plants and trees—stood arranged as if tracing a circular pattern. Before the house stood fifty or sixty low pine shrubs, their sparse treetops revealing a vacant lot spanning some two hundred tsubo. At its center rose a solitary Himalayan cedar. “You could search all Tokyo and never find a place this good.”

Yoichi scraped vigorously at the paint on his palette—hardened like oysters—with a palette knife, clearly taken with this house we’d moved into.

When one slid open the glass door marked “Entrance/Exit,” a long corridor ran horizontally through like a dormitory wing, parallel to which three six-tatami rooms lined up like bird boxes. “But seen from outside—what would people take this house’s owner to be? I can’t help feeling it looks like a place where a tinsmith or carpenter might live.” “Hmph—since you’re so refined yourself, it’s all much of a muchness.” “We might as well put up a sign as painters.—But you won’t find another house this unpretentious even if you tried.” “The garden’s spacious and the neighbors aren’t right on top of us...”

“Speaking of neighbors, I have to bring soba over tonight, but what do you think?” “How many should we give each?” “Well, three per household should do.”

The first days after moving were strangely lonely, tending to make one remember things. I had carried such memories countless times. Those distant days when I'd moved from place to place with departed men—distributing soba each time—now found their echo as darkness crept across windowpanes. To dispel these ghosts between rafters and reality, I jerked my head upward, staring hard at ceiling cracks.

“Oh, the electricity hasn’t been connected yet.” “It’s true—there’s no service line either. We’ll be inconvenienced for two or three days.”

The habits I’d acquired over time were a terrible thing. I stood up and jabbed the middle of the pillar several times with my index finger. Then, to an extent even I hadn’t anticipated, the pillar swayed violently unsteady, sending clouds of sandy dust raining down from the ceiling onto our napes like dandruff.

“Hey，you—even if you tore this place down，it’s a house you could buy for twenty or thirty yen at best.” “No matter how you think about it，seventeen yen for rent is just too much! It’s absurd—I mean really!”

Yoichi remained silent, vigorously rubbing the tip of his red nose. "This woman would fuss over every detail even on a trip," he likely thought. "In her past she must have endured extraordinary hardships—pawnshop runs, debt refusals, rent haggling." Seeming to entertain such thoughts, Yoichi thudded his back against the wall and spoke. "I'm quite the romantic, you know... But what part of you could have drawn me in..."

When spoken to with such earnestness, I found myself tearing up again. "Will this man too abandon me?" The hearts of men are such wearisome things. My two former husbands would make endless excuses—when there was money, they'd squander it all themselves without restraint, and when we went hungry, they'd vent their frustrations by beating me. "Tell me—aren't women like me the sort who aren't easily loved?" "We're husband and wife, after all—and it's not as if I can expect money from anyone else..."

Yoichi pulled out a yellow candle roughly two sun long from the nail box, lit it, and walked testily toward the room with the kitchen. Left behind in the dark central room, I had no choice but to lie prone on the damp tatami, cover my eyes with my sleeve, and somehow sing aloud, "I'm a romanticist too, you know."

VI

Perhaps because no one had lived there for so long, the room held an old, pitted smell like strawboard paper, with faint mold stains tracing the edges of the black tatami mats. "Hey, at least take soba to the neighbors! Looks like we share a well with them!"

Bang bang—Yoichi sullenly barked at me while striking something against the lintel. After buying a thirty-sen soba coupon from the neighborhood noodle shop, I went to make moving-in greetings at the first house on the left. Though called neighbors, the houses stood with shrubs growing sporadically between them in rustic fashion, making each appear practically like a solitary dwelling. I wore a flannel single-layer kimono that looked like it had been soaked and scrubbed countless times until the grime seeped out, wrapping Yoichi’s three-shaku band cloth tightly around myself.

They must be wondering what kind of person I am. Resolving that if questioned I would mumble something like "He's a painting teacher," I slid open the glass door marked "Entrance/Exit" that was practically my own home. The owner of this house must have been particularly fond of white flowers, for in every vacant lot, what looked like early-blooming pyrethrum bloomed like snow. White smoke rose from the roof. In the shade of the flowers, someone sang about returning home because frogs were croaking, and a boy stood alone urinating.

When I returned after greeting just one house, Yoichi had lit the slender one-sen candle I had bought beforehand and was pasting something onto the wall of the room adjoining the kitchen.

The inside of the house was already pitch dark. “What does he do?” “He’s apparently an accountant at the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau, they say.” “Hmm, a rigid sort, eh?” On the earthen walls were pasted a Modigliani painting of a woman missing half her head and a Dufy seascape awash in blue. Even such haphazard color prints served to comfort the dreary walls. Perhaps due to the soft light, the sea’s color—a vivid blue—stung my eyes as if it were wet. “That next house is the Spiritual Healing Clinic.” “Huh, what kind of things do they do there?”

“When I came alone to look at this house, the girl from the Spiritual Healing Clinic showed me around. She’s such a nice girl.” “Now that you mention it, that girl showed me around too. But I guess it’s pretty much the same as our situation—that place over there with the wooden sign that says ‘Melon, Tomato, Eggplant Seedlings for Sale,’ right?” Each time Yoichi took the lamp and made his rounds through the three rooms, I trailed after him like a moth. In the right-side room with plain tatami mats, Van Gogh’s profile of a girl—terribly emaciated—clung to the wall. Underneath it, we could really use even a single chest of drawers. This room seemed perfectly suited to serve as a bedroom, with walls on two sides and paulownia branches overhanging outside the window, Mr. Kozato Manzo’s kitchen entrance visible in the distance.

The middle room was of course meant to serve as Yoichi's atelier, but with all four shoji screens encroaching on the hallway, it occupied the noisiest position among the three rooms.

Yoichi decorated this room with one of his own landscape paintings in a handmade frame. It wasn't a very good painting. I had never once thought Yoichi's paintings were particularly skillful. One reason might have been that I didn't particularly care for how he painted roads small and sideways across the canvas. "I prefer paintings without roads though." I had indeed said such things before, but Yoichi would vehemently daub several brown roads across the canvas—perhaps thinking to himself what could someone like me possibly understand about art.

VII Mountains nurture essence through stillness, waters console emotions through motion; between these two states—stillness and motion—there are those who find their dwellings. I once heard Yoichi speak of these fine words from an essay by Basho called *Sharfudo no Ki*. It filled me with loneliness that Yoichi—who knew such exquisite phrases—could find satisfaction in this precarious dwelling with its exorbitant rent incompatible with our means, a place where even horses might come clomping through, offering no promise of peaceful habitation.

Under the kitchen sink, bamboo grass and vine weeds resembling mountain burdock were thriving, while the base of the threshold had crumbled into tatters from ant nests.

“I’m sorry. If you’re not too tired, please hang a shelf in the kitchen.” “Let’s leave the shelf for tomorrow and make dinner instead.” “That’s true, but there’s nothing shelf-like here—nowhere to attach it properly.” “My eyes are swimming. Let’s eat.”

Yoichi removed the headband from the back of his head as he carried the charcoal box to the kitchen. There were two slices of salmon but no rice.

When Yoichi retreated to the adjacent room, I took a stone to the carp-shaped hell jar I’d failed to break earlier and began tapping at its tail end in the darkness—tink tink. The brittle earthen fragments crumbled onto the tattered apron, and the copper coins spilling onto my lap held a considerable weight. No matter which one I looked at, they seemed to be copper coins. I ran my finger along the edges of the spilled coins on my lap, checking each one to see if even a single fifty-sen silver coin might be mixed in.

There were exactly twenty copper coins—one ten-sen holed coin and one fifty-sen silver piece—and for a while my heart pounded like a child's. Had all these swapped-out one-sen coppers been fifty-sen silvers, they would have made over ten yen—I grabbed the bamboo basket and stepped into the shadow-drenched town. Though its eaves hung low, the shopping street held diverse stores; a drinking hole called Pigeon, cramped as a shipping crate, spun records crooning about Ginza.

In the middle of that town was a river. A white bridge spanned it. Beyond that bridge, cheap eateries typical of the suburbs lined the street, and there was said to be a temple called Hokkeji.

I bought about one shō of rice and, at the vegetable shop, a few onions and some Shantung cabbage. Wrapping them in my apron as if hiding a kitten, I felt that familiar ease—this would last through tomorrow—and the memories of men I’d had to subsist on such meager comforts with time and again. If only I could collide with something and have blood gush forth, smash my skull and shatter my bones—then the path ahead might become clear. Is it to work? To eat? For what purpose do humans live? That each day was nothing but scraping by was growing increasingly painful to me.

When I groped my way through the trifoliate orange gate, the house stood pitch-dark inside, only the charcoal brazier on the kitchen's earthen floor burning bright like an eyeball. “Where had you gone?”

“I... there was no rice left, so I went out to town.” “To buy rice?” “Why didn’t you say so sooner?” “I can’t move now!”

Yoichi seemed to be lying spread-eagled, and as he spoke, he gave the impression of rolling restlessly across the tatami. “I meant to tell you sooner but missed my chance… It’ll be ready in no time.” “Yeah—look, there’s no need to hold back.” “If there’s no money, just say so plainly.” “You should just say it plainly… I’ll try making the rounds at the Ueno Exposition tomorrow.” “I think there might be some leftover work from house painting jobs.” “Expecting to make a living through painting without real work is pure delusion.” “Exactly! All this art and painting talk—it’s just personal indulgence! Someone like me should paint summer panoramas with house paint for country grandparents to look at—that might actually amount to something! That’s what suits me.”

“Are you scolding me?” “Scold you? I’m not scolding you—that’s why it’s so maddening. You shouldn’t get all twisted up like this. What I told you was that poor people shouldn’t leave things half-spoken.” “Kick that hesitation aside and just state your demands clearly to anyone!” “Servile thinking will only drag you down.”

As I washed the rice, tears overflowed.

The man’s words—Don’t be servile—struck my chest like a physical blow, and the facade of chaste womanhood I’d maintained until now collapsed miserably with a clattering crash.

Yoichi shouted in a voice that cracked like a whip, as though dragging himself up from this current state where he felt despair toward everything.

“This notion that we can’t survive unless someone’s drowning—that’s a luxury we can’t afford anymore. We’ve got to shed that mindset.” “We can’t even feed ourselves properly…” “But isn’t drowning better than starving?”

“Just how many days’ worth of hunger-endurance training have you stockpiled? There’s no way it could last a year.”

VIII

Days of clear skies continued.

From the roots of the three-leaf plant I had planted by the well bloomed pale white flowers like scattered millet grains. The Modigliani on the wall, the Utrillo, the Duffy too—all had faded into terribly dull colors, and I, whenever Yoichi left each morning, would spend all day idling about the garden. The air of an unoccupied room always came pressing down heavily like a human hand upon my shoulders as I sat there. Moreover, with no furniture and many walls, even during the day the room was tedious and lonely.

The sky was blue.

The three-leaf flowers swayed languidly like white rice grains. "Auntie, why aren't you wearing an obi?" The Kozato boy who'd sung the frog song tilted his head with precocious affectation, peering curiously at my waist. "Auntie gets headaches when she wears an obi." "Hmph—my dad gets headaches too." I fastened my clothes with a blue-and-yellow twisted cord—ah, that faded red merino obi must have already passed from that Korean scrap dealer's hands to some nursemaid by now.

It had been five days since I sold the obi. Because there was no train fare to Ueno this morning, Yoichi took his own chestnut-colored shoes and went to sell them to that Mr. Park. “How much?” “He bought them for sixty sen.” “So, did Mr. Park know those shoes had four holes in them?” “He was making his rounds to the mansions anyway—said they told him to come have some miso soup to fill the gap, so he drank it down.” “Was it good?” “Ah, it was really good… I’ll leave twenty sen here, so you should get something to eat.”

I had been standing dazedly in the garden since morning, clutching twenty sen. In the pine treetops, cicadas had begun their first ceaseless song, and everything was a green so vivid it hurt the eyes. When I tried to swallow my saliva, my tongue felt strangely feverish and rough. I wanted to eat something—red bean rice, Chinese noodles, mochi stuffed with sweet bean paste, udon. Fantasizing about such things I might afford with stray coins, I jingled the two white copper coins by my ear.

Incessantly sing the cicadas. Through the sparse pine thicket beyond pass several unsaddled horses.

“Lovely weather we’re having...” Mr. Park the scrap dealer came barging in through the trifoliate orange gate while rhythmically tapping his neck with a scale, kicking the door open. “Mr. Park, those shoes had holes in them though…”

“That’s fine. “I’ll make it up at the mansions anyway.” “That’s a relief.” “That’s fine. “Is Mr. Komatsu coming home late?” “Yes, he always comes home after nightfall…” “Times are tough.—Speaking of which, how about buying a kerosene stove? Payment in three installments would do.”

“Well… how much is it?”

“Ninety sen will do. It’s quite handy by nature.” Park, finding the coolness pleasant no doubt, lay sprawled in the long entrance corridor watching me operate the humming kerosene stove. Although it had become quite rusty, gray enamel had been coated over it, giving it an oddly antiquated look. When she lit the wick, it emitted a drawn-out hum—exactly like the roar of a descending airplane. “We don’t need much kerosene. One can lasts three months. My house is the same way.” “One can lasts three months.” “My house is the same way.”

When Park left after setting down the kerosene stove, I placed that gray stove by the kitchen window and stared at it. Why does furniture comfort people so deeply? At dusk by the wellside, while pouring out water from boiled udon noodles, Mr. Kozato's child came running and looked up at the sky.

“Hey, Auntie! A plane’s flyin’!” “Where is it?” “There! Can’t ya hear it…”

I stroked the head of the child looking up at the sky.

“It’s Auntie’s kerosene stove humming. Come by tomorrow, and I’ll show you…” Even after being told this, the child—(Mr. Kozato’s roof smoke, which I see daily, must come from charcoal or firewood cooking)—kept looking up skeptically at the dimming sky and saying, “But isn’t that a plane?”

Nine Yoichi was diligent in keeping a diary. Had it been me, I would’ve found it foolish and written nothing at all, but even on those listless days spent doing nothing, Yoichi would methodically jot down trivialities like rain or clear skies.

When days of rain and clear skies continued endlessly, even Yoichi himself must have reached his limit, for he began jotting down things like "I want a mosquito net" and "Saw an advertisement in town that said 'If I were but a king...'". Such matters came to be recorded.

But the days of hunger stretched on like a chain. Even the once-diligent Yoichi had begun frequently abandoning his diary, letting thin layers of dust accumulate.

And so, on a certain August morning with the diary still blank—perhaps having fallen into some dream—when I opened my eyes, I found myself gazing at the shadow cast on the wall as usual. It was a beautiful pale yellow dawn. The light had not yet reached even the window’s edge.

At that moment, I heard unfamiliar shoe sounds. "It's only around five—who could that be?" While thinking this, I slid open the fusuma and peered through the glass door showing the garden beyond, where a large ruddy-faced man casually met my gaze and laughed. A cold sensation flowed down my spine, but I made myself smile.

“Is Mr. Komatsu awake?” “That’s quite early. I’ll wake him right now.” Whether it was due to the morning light or not—this gentleman dressed entirely in new things visiting Yoichi so early must be some close friend from far away—I reasoned as I hurriedly shook Yoichi awake. “I don’t have any friend like that. Did he say ‘Komatsu,’ huh?” “Yes—he’s laughing and asking if you’re awake.” “That’s strange.” While Yoichi was putting on his kimono, I unlocked the front door.

Then, what do you know—four or five gentlemen, each holding shoes in their hands, scattered in three directions down a single long corridor while shouting something at the top of their voices. As I fled into the bedroom in panic, two gentlemen blocked my path from behind and shouted. “Are you Komatsu Yoichi?” Yoichi too must have been taken aback; his lips drew taut and quivered.

“We’ll need you to come down to the station.” “Huh… What’s this all about? If it’s being caught pissing in public or something, I might remember that much—but what’s the real reason here?” “No need to play dumb.” “You are Komatsu Yoichi?”

“Yes, that’s right.” “I’m Komatsu Yoichi, a house painter currently working at the Ueno Exhibition where I paint seven or eight cedar trees from Toshogu Shrine every day as part of my routine.” “Hmph. Whether you paint or not makes no difference. You’ll need to come with us.” “Is this about thought crimes? “Right now I’m just temporary help—if I don’t show up today, some other guy’ll grab my spot.” “Well, come along like a man and we’ll sort this out properly.”

“How many hours will this take?” “Won’t this take too long?” Perhaps having calmed down, Yoichi relaxed his lips and began to laugh.

“Since I’d hate for this to come down to the 29th, I’ll show you this now.”

With that, Yoichi took out his draft notice from the closet and showed it. “This must be some mistake? As you see here, I’m scheduled to report for military service at the end of this month—three weeks’ duty.”

The gentlemen who had searched the other two rooms also wore blank expressions,

“Hey, looks like we’ve got the wrong guy.” “There’s no such thing. This man here—I’ve obtained conclusive proof.” “Hmm, but that’s strange—you there, this ‘Yoichi’ isn’t an artistic pseudonym, is it?” “Your real name is Komatsu Seiichi—written like this, right?”

“So why don’t you look at the draft notice?” A single small draft notice passed from hand to hand among the gentlemen. “How strange—we’ll have to search again.” “By the way, there aren’t any other guests here, right?”

Outside the Karatachi Gate, a small white automobile was waiting. Fishmongers heading out for supplies and newspaper delivery people were peering in. “Tch! What’re you even drawing salaries for?” “Hey! Kanayo! Go sprinkle salt on ’em!” “But we’ve got no salt.” “No salt? Then throw mud! No mud? Douse ’em with kerosene then!” “They’ve turned the whole place upside down without a by-your-leave—not even a ‘pardon us’!” “What’s to say… Seein’ that when you’re starvin’ an’ scrabbling for crumbs—enough to make anyone see red.”

"When I was little, my stepfather used to set up shop by the roadside and often got slapped across the face by officers—but honestly, what more on earth do they expect us to do?"

X On an evening when there were only two or three days left of work at the Ueno Exhibition, Yoichi returned home with his entire head wrapped in bandages. “Every path blocked? “Hey! “Must’ve been the heat—got all worked up and ended up in a fight.”

“Who with?” “They say half-baked oil painters have this annoying pretentiousness—that’s what us painter guys complain about, right? So I told ’em, ‘Is this about me? If it’s about me, say it straight to my face!’” “Then when he said, ‘Dealing with that damn hack painter’s a pain,’ I bellowed, ‘What’re you getting all high and mighty for, you idiot? You’re the one skimming off the top!’ Next thing I knew, he smashed a glass against my forehead.”

“Oh! You look just like a ditch-digger, don’t you? Does it hurt?” “There’s glass in there, but it should be fine.”

From the three-shaku belt he'd tightened as a substitute bandage, Yoichi took out thirteen days' wages and left them. “They say the daily wage is two yen fifty sen, but then they go and deduct fifty sen. On top of that, they set our share for the venue at about four yen and then skim off even that—it’s just too much.” Even so, having nearly thirty yen in cash sent a jolt through her chest. “But didn’t you pick that fight on purpose to make them fire you?” “That might not be it, but everyone complains and then bows and scrapes when they step forward.”

“That’s just how things are.” I bought a liter of kerosene for the first time in ages.

The gray kerosene stove roared vigorously with a sound like a round airplane. The two of them went out to the garden and doused themselves with water. While splashing water vigorously on the darkened azalea leaves, I found myself casually thinking about the day Yoichi would depart. “Just six more days until you’re a soldier...”

“Ah.” “What will we do about the house while you’re away?” “There’s nearly thirty yen here, isn’t there? Five yen should cover my travel and pocket money, and if we set aside ten yen for rent, can’t we scrape by on what’s left?” “I suppose so.”

The tomato seedlings we'd gotten from the Kiaijutsu Clinic had finally produced about three yellow flowers. When those flowers fell and the red fruit ripened, he’d probably return—but reading the letter from home about my stepfather, who used to take soy sauce rice bentos to work at the naval barracks and had been swept away by a minecart, I found myself gripped by a peculiar gloom. He laid out a mat with Karatsu-made bowls, plates, and donburi vessels, calling out: "Every last one of these won't eat your rice for you—look! Authentic Karatsu bowls here! Five for two bu if you're not impressed—no? Then three kan for twenty-five sen! This girl here too—twenty-five sen for a fine lass with russet hair and a runny nose!"

I remembered how my stepfather used to set up shop alongside Chinese satin sellers at the old stone-paved wharf in Nagasaki, baring his shoulders as he peddled Karatsu grain. Those long years of splitting a single bowl of yellow champon noodles between parent and child; those times when roadblocks forced us to stop, and my stepfather's exhausted, sun-blackened figure would haul our cart through Kitakyushu's countryside—in the four years since coming to Tokyo, I had already received some twenty yen sent from these impoverished parents.

In the end, it had already been a year since my stepfather and the others settled in Sasebo, but pushing trolleys at the naval barracks might have finally been his last work. It was a letter from home steeped in gloom. "So if you can manage it at all, scrape together seven yen as a loan—urgently, I beg you. Your father too keeps groaning 'It hurts, it hurts—just make it stop.' That's how things stand here." "The coal work's too harsh for him now—best he go to the hospital by the looks of it."

I thought about showing Yoichi the letter from home after finishing dinner. Yoichi was probably thinking about something as he leaned against the window singing a song with vague melancholy. The melody felt intensely autumnal, steeped in sorrow. I sipped hot tea repeatedly while waiting for a chance to mention the letter, but Yoichi never stopped his lonesome singing.

XI Through silence I would send money home—I resolved this daily as I bandaged Yoichi’s forehead. “Even small injuries hurt like this—what do you suppose it’d feel like having your arms or legs amputated?” “That’d be life over. I’d kill myself if it were me.” “If you can’t work anymore, being alive loses its purpose…” The day Yoichi left for his mountain regiment, wind tore through the air until it turned gray. “Feels like spring—this foul wind,” people muttered as they gathered at the station.

“Did you turn off the kerosene stove?” Yoichi looked at my face and laughed in that way people do when they’ve run out of meaningful things to say. His geta-clad figure clutching a service bag resembled nothing so much as a newspaper subscription collector, making me snicker despite myself. “Might as well burn the place down,” I deflected. “If you get lonely alone, have that girl from the clinic come by.” “I’ll manage better alone anyway…”

I felt something like familial affection welling up for Yoichi. This sweetness I'd never known with the two previous men made me oddly tearful; I clenched my double chin and looked down.

This is unbearable... Honestly...

For Yoichi, who loved sweets, I wrapped five-sen caramels and a bunch of bananas in newspaper and made him take them along. "You'll be staying at an inn tonight anyway, won't you?" "There's no one I know there—I'll just take some cheap lodgings near the barracks." "There must be many households plunged into misery by the draft." "Ah, farmers during harvest season—they must truly be struggling." The seaside resort flyers fluttered in the cold wind, while the hems of lightly dressed women passing before the station billowed up like sails.

The loudspeaker was announcing the departure. “You stay well now.”

The entire time we walked along the long platform, Yoichi kept repeating the same words over and over. When he spoke such kind words to me, I found my chest tightening strangely. And, to make myself look every bit the foolish woman, I puffed out my cheeks and forced a smile. As I puffed out my cheeks, my eyes began to ache. I pursed my lips tightly and waited for Yoichi to peer out from the window. The steam train bound for the mountains remained sooty, its windows clattering open like eyelids. When the windows opened, the crowd of well-wishers swarmed toward them like ants. Yoichi was holding up his hat and newspaper-wrapped bundle high on the luggage rack. His Adam’s apple looked sharply prominent. As I looked at that sturdy neck, the tears I'd been holding back stung the inside of my nose, leaving me no choice but to stare blankly at the distant clock.

“Hey!” Yoichi had already unwrapped a caramel and, cheeks seemingly stuffed, called out to me while munching.

“What?” “Here, have a caramel.” No one was facing our way. Yoichi’s seat was back-to-back with the lavatory, so he could probably stretch his legs out comfortably. Yoichi counted on his fingers as if remembering something. “Three sevens—twenty-one days? That long?” He muttered to himself with an air of weariness. “Since there’s no one to look after you, make sure you don’t get sick.” I wished fervently that the train would leave soon. It was an agonizing five minutes. Precisely because we couldn’t openly share that painful feeling between us, my restless impatience grew all the more, and as I tried to focus my smile, my face threatened to contort.

Twelve

It must have been because I was alone now. Even during the day, insects rustled and fluttered about in the kitchen. Nine days had passed since Yoichi left.

The first picture postcard that arrived from the mountains described how after the steam train had pulled in, he'd made his way through the valley town and endured the unpleasant experience of seeking lodging late into the night. The second postcard notified us of his address: Komatsu Yoichi, Second Company Draftee, Matsumoto City 50th Regiment Reserve Unit.

The third picture postcard showed a beautiful photograph of white birches on a plateau gleaming brightly beneath large floating cumulus clouds. The message read: “Today we marched about four ri on maneuvers. At a country house, I ate grapes—they were sweet.” “All the farmers seem busy.” “As we marched, it began to feel like we alone were moving at a carefree pace, and I found myself losing track of why we were walking at all.” “Even as we did this, there was also a man who couldn’t stay calm.” “Are you managing the household alright?” “You should let me know.” The message read.

To kill idle time, I read Yoichi’s picture postcards and letters repeatedly to distract myself. What had become of those wooden clogs, I wondered. Perhaps he was now wearing sturdy military boots and even enjoying them like a child. When I thought of Yoichi’s desolate figure on the day of his departure, my chest seared with pain.

The fourth letter read: "I must say, I seem to be constantly writing letters to you." "You might think me a sentimental fool—here I am, far away with enough to eat, yet fretting over how you’re managing your meals." "I still haven’t received a single letter from you." "You should establish order in your life from now on and truly settle down." "Settling down doesn’t mean imitating some bourgeois wife." "It’s about storing up the strength for you and me to manage our life." "Those with money go to the canteen." "Those without stay in their squads, singing nonsensical songs when loneliness sets in." "The ones singing songs must be getting restless with the harvest approaching." "There’s a ship carpenter in the bed next to mine—he says he left behind three kids and a wife, and sent them the less than one yen he received after his first week here." "Such things exist." "Well, if you had pet birds or planted flowers, I could at least ask how they’re growing—but there’s nothing there beyond yourself. Stay well, I beg you."

How profoundly the man’s unfathomable thoughts, which I had never known before, made me tearfully affectionate.

I tried reflecting my face in the hand mirror. “You’ve always had a wandering soul,” Mother would often say, yet at twenty-three I already looked haggard beyond my years, my lips chapped and weathered. Deep shadows fell across my eyelids; those long lashes I’d once taken pride in now stuck out frayed and sparse, utterly devoid of their former charm. In my bare-faced state, devoid of rouge or powder, I found no trace of the deep affection Yoichi showed me—this tenderness—among the two men of my past. Moreover, even the love my mother showed me as a child came to feel like something as replaceable as a stepfather, and I had remained twisted in my loneliness for so long.

The fifth letter read: “I still haven’t received your letter. You must be drowning in that peculiar sense of obligation of yours. In another year or two, you’ll realize how foolish that was—but I want you to resolve to leap beyond such antiquated notions. You seem determined not to let me hear anything unpleasant or show any weakness, but such things are as insubstantial as dust that scatters with a breath. Well, let me just call it a troublesome habit. The enclosed money is from what I received at the unit and the leftover travel and lodging expenses from when I left Tokyo. I have not a single sen left. But I’m eating enough to get by. I’m managing. The mountains are bathed in brilliant sunshine.”

The sixth letter: “You keep growing more sincere within my heart. I read the letter. Read it without skipping a single character. Not like you—reading in such a rush. I read while imagining your face. That twenty yen I sent must’ve hit hard—I’d been thinking something was up. Even if you sent fifteen yen to Mother—if you thought I’d be mad about that, you don’t know me at all. I’ll write to Sasebo myself. You wanting to work—that’s fine too.

Two yen wouldn't last ten days, but I absolutely oppose you taking up work as a waitress. It's not respectable work. The barracks made me ponder many things—though sometimes I even think such sweet thoughts. I wish we could have gone on a honeymoon to Sasebo, just the two of us, you know. The barracks are bleak—whether asleep or awake, it's all talk of women. I too have begun to feel this longing for you. In ten days we'll meet. If it's work other than being a waitress, please stay strong and keep working to survive. I hear Mr. Kozato has gone mad—you should greatly comfort that poor neighbor of yours.

The tomato flowers fell and three green fruits formed. A joy I had never known before made me remarkably cheerful. After Yoichi’s letters began arriving, through Mr. Park’s introduction, I started going early each morning to the scrap market with the daughter from the kiatsu therapy clinic to sort through scraps for making Asakusa paper.

Tearing off each day’s calendar page, listening to the vigorous morning hum of the kerosene stove, and sipping hot tea had become my refreshing daily routine.

The seventh, eighth, and ninth letters from the mountain barracks were filled with characters that reddened one’s cheeks. “To you I send this desolate beauty— This could hardly be Yoichi’s own verse. But it was a fragment of song that seeped into the backs of my eyes.

(November 1931)