Pathway to Japanese Literature

The traveler who had lodged in that town found himself inexplicably drawn by the powdered snow's ephemeral beauty and walked toward the river. Honkawa Bridge stood very near the inn. The name Honkawa Bridge was one he had not recalled in many years. Memories from his middle school days seemed to linger there still; the powdered snow honed his delicate perception to razor sharpness. Pausing at the bridge's midpoint to gaze at the shore, he abruptly discovered a faded sign reading "Honkawa Manju." All at once, he felt engulfed by an illusion of merging with an uncannily tranquil scene from antiquity. Yet in the next instant, he stood helpless against the violent tremors coursing through his body. Within that snow-veiled moment of stillness had flashed the cruelest vision of finality...He committed this revelation to paper in a letter dispatched to an acquaintance residing there. Then he quit that town entirely, journeying toward remote horizons.

...The man who had received that letter was blankly gazing out the window from the second floor. Immediately before his eyes lay the small earthen storehouse of the neighboring house, and the desolate sight of a section near the roof where its white plaster had peeled away to expose coarse reddish clay—it seemed that only such trivial details still retained vestiges of their former appearance. ...He too had recently come to live in this town, but to the man who had long been away from his hometown, everything now seemed like strangers devoid of any connection. What had become of the mountains and rivers that had nurtured his boyhood dreams?—He wandered through his hometown’s landscapes, following wherever his feet led him. The Chugoku Mountain Range crowned with lingering snow and the rivers flowing beneath retained only a faint impression, overshadowed by the awkwardly armed, restless town. In the streets, it was a bizarre world—amidst the murderous tension where those encountered treated each other with brusque dismissal, there lingered an inexplicable air of absurdity.

……Before he knew it, he had found himself pondering the shudder described in his friend’s letter. A hellish transformation beyond imagination—and moreover, one that seemed to surge forth in an instant. In that case, would he too soon perish alongside this town, or had he returned to bear witness to the final moments of his birthplace? It was a fate akin to a gamble. At times, he found himself entertaining such self-serving, foolish thoughts—that the town might remain untouched, unscathed by any calamity.

Fastening his splendid black serge jumper at the waist while his clean-shaven chin glistened, Seiji busily blocked the entrance to Shozo’s room. “Hey, do something about this!” In contrast to that tone, Seiji’s eyes lacked intensity. He sat down beside the desk where Shozo was writing a letter and began flipping through the illustrations in Winckelmann’s *Imitation of Greek Art* that lay nearby. Shozo set down the pen and silently watched his older brother’s movements. This brother who had once been engrossed in art history during his youth—could he still feel drawn to such things even now…? But Seiji immediately snapped the book shut.

That too had felt to Shozo like a continuation of the earlier “Do something about this!” tone. Though over a month had already passed since his return to the eldest brother’s household, he had taken no employment, merely continuing his pattern of late risings and nocturnal wakefulness.

Compared to him, this second brother spent each day immersed in discipline and tension. Even after the factory had closed for the day, there were times when the office light remained on late. As Shozo, passing through the Rojii corridor, stopped by the office to check, he found Seiji alone leaning over his desk, diligently writing something. The satisfaction he found in such administrative tasks—stamping the pay envelopes for the workers, preparing documents for the mobilization office—could be discerned even in the distinctive handwriting with which he wrote. Various notices were pasted on the office wall in beautiful, perfectly uniform characters that looked stamped from a mold……As Shozo stood vacantly captivated by those letters, Seiji spun his swivel chair toward the extinguished briquette stove. “Want a smoke?” he said, pulling out a worn Hoyoku tobacco pouch from the desk drawer before switching on the radio atop the shelf. The radio was reporting the critical situation on Iwo Jima. The conversation invariably turned to the prospects of the war. Seiji blurted out a skeptical remark, and Shozo declared despairing words……At night, when an alert was issued, Seiji would usually rush over to the office. Not even five minutes had passed since the alert was issued when the front doorbell rang violently. When Shozo, his face dazed from sleep, opened the inner door from the Rojii side, two young women stood waiting outside. They were female factory workers on watch duty. “Good evening,” one of them called out to Shozo. Shozo was struck directly in the chest and felt compelled to straighten his collar. Then, around the time he was groping through the office darkness and turned on the radio’s light, Seiji—wearing a thick air raid hood—came fidgeting in. “Is someone there?” Seiji called toward the light and sat down in the chair, but immediately stood up again to look around the factory. And so, even on the morning after the alert was issued, Seiji left early for work by bicycle. It was also he who came to warn Shozo—sleeping alone in the back second floor—with “How long are you going to keep sleeping?”

Even now, Shozo felt the customary warning in this brother’s busy demeanor, but Seiji—having returned Imitation of Greek Art to its original place—suddenly inquired.

“Where did Brother go?”

"A call came this morning—it seems he went out toward Takasu." Then Seiji—a faint smile playing in his eyes—flopped down and muttered, "Again? What a nuisance..." The words seemed poised to draw further details about Junichi’s movements from Shozo’s lips. But for Shozo, the recent circumstances between their eldest brother and sister-in-law defied coherent understanding; moreover, Junichi never spoke of the matter beyond what necessity demanded.

From the very day Shozo returned to the main household, he became aware of the abnormal air wafting through that house. It was not due to the black cloths draped over lamps nor the dark curtains hung throughout every corner, nor was it merely their unwelcoming demeanor toward the brother who had lost his wife and been forced to return to this constrained era—something far more unbearable lurked within that house. On Junichi’s face, harsh shadows were sometimes carved, and on sister-in-law Takako’s face lingered something dimly throbbing with overwhelmed emotion. The two middle school-aged nephews commuting to Mitsubishi under student mobilization also remained strangely silent, their faces clouded with gloom.

……One day, sister-in-law Takako vanished from that house. Then Junichi began making frequent solo outings, and household management was entrusted to his widowed sister living nearby. This Yasuko would come to Shozo’s room on the second floor late into the night and chatter nonstop about all sorts of things. This was not the first time the sister-in-law had disappeared; Shozo learned Yasuko had already taken over the household twice before. The atmosphere of the house as depicted by this thirty-something sister-in-law was filled with wild speculations and distortions—precisely why something clung feverishly to Shozo’s mind.

……In the inner parlor hung with blackout curtains, an extravagantly lavish satin kotatsu futon glowed crimson under the lamp’s light—beside it, Junichi’s deflated figure could occasionally be glimpsed. The scene filled Shozo with an unbearable sense of futility. Yet come morning, Junichi would don his work clothes and diligently begin packing evacuation crates. His face bore an imperious ferocity all at once.... Then whenever an outside call came through, the eldest brother would bustle out. In Takasu there seemed to be some mediator—but beyond that fact, Shozo could discern nothing more.

……The sister would speak with an air of dread about the sister-in-law's transformation over these several years—comparing it to her own circumstances of having been forced to endure every hardship because of the war—portraying it as the visage of one who had reveled in extravagance through the war, and speculating whether this latest inexplicable disappearance might be some physiological phenomenon of menopause. ……While the sister rambled on, Seiji would sometimes come and listen in silence. “Fundamentally, she lacks work ethic.” “If only she’d spare a thought for the workers,” the second brother interjected. “Well, she’s quite the idle madam,” the sister nodded. “But isn’t this war’s falsehoods destroying everyone’s spirit now?” Shozo began, to which Seiji laughed: “Hmph—nothing so complicated. As luxuries dwindle daily, sister-in-law’s flying into a rage over nothing.”

Takako ran away from home, and after a little over a week, she returned as if nothing had happened. But it seemed there was still something unresolved within her, for after four or five days, she vanished once more. Then, Junichi’s pursuit began anew. "This time it'll be long," Junichi declared haughtily. “If you dawdle around, everyone will think you’re fools.” “Aren’t you all just men pushing forty who can’t even properly greet people?” he would sneer at his younger brothers. ……Shozo would occasionally detect something he shared within his two elder brothers’ personalities, and it left him with a disagreeable feeling. Yasuko, who worked as a supervisor at Mori Manufacturing, pointed out her brothers’ ineptitude in their attitudes toward society. That ineptitude existed in Shozo as well. ……But during their long separation, how terribly his brothers had changed. Then had Shozo himself not changed in the slightest? ……No. Everyone—every single one of them—exposed to the crisis that drew nearer with each passing day, was still changing and would undoubtedly continue to change. He had to bear witness to the brink.—This was the conviction that naturally arose within Shozo during that time.

“Here it comes,” Seiji said, thrusting a slip of paper before Shozo’s eyes. It was a draft notice. Shozo stared fixedly at the paper, reading every last corner of the print. “May?” he muttered. Shozo was no longer as shocked as he had been last year when receiving the national militia’s education conscription. Yet Seiji noticed the look of anguish rippling across his face and declared lightly, “Ah well, either way—it’s home service now. Nothing too serious.” ...May meant two months ahead, but would this war even last that long? Shozo secretly pondered.

Without any particular reason, Shozo often wandered aimlessly through the streets. Taking along his sister’s son Kenichi, he visited Sen-tei for the first time in years. A garden he had often been taken to visit as a young child in the past—where even now trees and water lay hushed under pale early spring sunlight. An ideal shelter—such thoughts would flash through his mind. ……Movie theaters were packed from midday onward, and restaurants in entertainment districts perpetually bustled. Shozo would choose remembered alleyways to walk through but found none of childhood’s cherished imprints. A platoon led by a non-commissioned officer suddenly emerged from an intersection singing a dirge. He passed squads of female student laborers too—white headbands around their hair—marching in lockstep like soldiers.

......Standing on the bridge gazing upstream at mountains whose names Shozo didn't know, he saw island peaks from the Seto Inland Sea direction peeking through gaps between buildings. To these mountains encircling the city, Shozo began sensing something faint he wanted to address......One evening, his eyes were drawn to two young women passing a street corner. Their healthy limbs and full permanent waves—wondering if they heralded tomorrow's new archetype—slightly piqued Shozo's curiosity. He followed them and tried catching fragments of their conversation.

“As long as we’ve got sweet potatoes, that’s good enough, right?” It was a drawn-out, haggard-sounding voice.

At Mori Manufacturing, about sixty female student laborers were scheduled to come to the sewing factory. With preparations for the student acceptance ceremony underway, Seiji worked with fervor, and as the day drew near, even Shozo—who until then had been idling about—naturally began appearing around the office and found himself roped into assisting with miscellaneous tasks. Clad in new work clothes and dragging his clogs with a clatter as he carried chairs from the storehouse, Shozo moved with an awkwardness that suggested resistance to unfamiliar labor. ......Chairs had been carried in, curtains hung, and the ceremony program items Seiji drafted posted up—the venue stood fully prepared. The ceremony was supposed to begin at nine that day. However, an air raid alert issued from early morning threw all plans into complete disarray.

"...Bizen Okayama, Bingo Nada, Matsuyama airspace—" The radio reported moment by moment the approach of carrier-based aircraft. When Shozo had finished preparing himself, the anti-aircraft guns began roaring. In this city where such guns had never been heard before, the leaden sky grew faintly tense. But with no aircraft silhouettes visible and the air raid alert downgraded to a cautionary signal, people simply fidgeted restlessly. ……When Shozo entered the office, he encountered Ueda wearing a steel helmet.

“It’s finally come—what in tarnation is this?” Then Ueda, who commuted from the countryside, spoke to him. The countenance that showed both a robust physique and an unassuming mind still somehow gave Shozo a sense of relief.

There, Seiji’s figure in a jumper appeared. His face attempted a dashing smile while his eyes glittered brightly. ……It was when Ueda and Seiji had disappeared toward the front entrance, leaving Shozo alone seated in a chair. He had been sitting blankly without thinking of anything when suddenly a sharp whine sounded from the roof’s direction, followed by a crackling noise like something tearing apart. It felt about to crash right overhead, making Shozo’s vision dart toward the glass window. For an instant, the second-floor eaves across the way and the pine treetops in the garden burned into his retina with abnormal intensity. The sound ceased completely after that. After some time, people came clamoring back from outside. “Blimey—scared ten years off me,” Mitsui said with a distorted grin. ……When the air raid alert lifted, crowds began shuffling through the streets again. Amidst the restless murmuring, there lingered an oddly buoyant atmosphere. Someone brought over an artillery shell fragment they’d picked up right nearby.

The next day, when a single class of young female student laborers wearing white headbands, led by their principal and head teacher, came filing in, they were immediately ushered toward the ceremony hall. By the time all the workers had taken their seats, Shozo had settled into a chair at the very back with Mitsui. Shozo had half-listened to the ceremonial address by the man from the prefectural mobilization division and the principal’s exhortations, but when Junichi—resplendent in his national uniform—finally took the podium, he listened with keen interest to every word of the speech. He seemed well-practiced in such ceremonies, his voice and demeanor crisp. But there was also a faint sense of something caught in his words—or rather, in the contradictions of his heart. As Shozo stared intently, he locked eyes precisely with Junichi’s gaze. It emitted a mysterious light, as if challenging something. When the student laborers’ chorus ended, they noisily poured into the factory from that day onward. The sight of them arriving early every morning and departing in orderly rows under their teachers’ guidance each evening brought a thread of freshness to this factory, imparting some vitality to its atmosphere. That pitiable sight appeared before Shozo’s eyes.

Shozo counted buttons in a corner of the office. He was meant to sort the scattered buttons on the desk into groups of a hundred, but as his sluggish, unpracticed fingers kept fumbling clumsily through the task, Junichi—who had been watching him intently while dealing with a visitor—finally snapped, "What kind of counting is that? This isn't some game!" Katayama, who had been diligently writing letters, immediately set down his pen and approached Shozo. "Ah, that? Do it like this—watch," he said. Katayama kindly demonstrated the method. This Katayama—younger than him yet bursting with energy—possessed such terrifying competence that he perpetually overwhelmed Shozo.

On the ninth day since carrier-based aircraft had appeared over this city, another air raid alert was issued. However, the squadron that had invaded from the Bungo Channel detoured around Sadamisaki Point and continued streaming toward Kyushu. This time, though nothing struck this city, both its people and streets had suddenly grown restless by this point. As the military deployed and began destroying buildings across the city one after another, evacuation carriages flowed ceaselessly day and night. In the afternoon after everyone had gone out, Shozo sat alone in the office engrossed in reading Iwanami Shinsho's *The Discovery of Zero*. The tale of a French officer captured by Russian forces during the Napoleonic Wars—who immersed himself in mathematical research out of sheer despondency—strangely resonated with him. ......Suddenly, Seiji came hurrying back inside. Something that seemed to have him greatly agitated showed clearly in his expression.

“Isn’t Elder Brother back yet?” “Not yet, it seems.” Shozo vaguely responded. Junichi remained frequently absent as ever, and how his conflict with Takako had developed since then remained unclear to third parties. “We can’t afford to dawdle like this!” Seiji began speaking in a voice tinged with anger. “You should go out and see for yourself. Takeyacho Street and the Hiratayamachi area have all been cleared away! The Clothing Branch Factory is finally being evacuated too.”

“Hmph. So that’s how it’s come to pass.” “Which means Hiroshima’s been trailing three months behind Tokyo all this time.” As Shozo muttered these words without particular intent, “Shouldn’t we count ourselves fortunate Hiroshima lagged so far behind?” Seiji retorted, eyes wide and unblinking, his expression hardening further.

Seiji’s household, burdened with many children, had recently been thrown into turmoil by one chaotic demand after another. In every room, evacuation clothing was strewn about, and with two children set to depart soon after joining the group evacuation, the preparations alone were overwhelming. The inept Mitsuko was sluggishly clearing away her work, and at times wasted hours on idle chatter. When he returned home from outside, Seiji would always vent his irritation on his wife in a foul mood, yet habitually, once dinner was over, he would retreat to the back room and diligently work the sewing machine. There were already two rucksacks in his house, and it didn’t seem like something that needed to be rushed. Seiji was simply engrossed in the enjoyment of crafting them. Muttering "Damn it, damn it," he moved the needle. "I can't let myself be beaten by some craftsmen!" In truth, the rucksacks he crafted were superior to the shoddy products of unskilled craftsmen.

......In this way, Seiji had continued to distract himself in his own manner, but today, when he reported to the Clothing Branch Factory and was ordered to evacuate it, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet begin to shake. Then, on his way back, as he approached the Takeyacho area, the alleyway he had grown accustomed to over forty-some years now lay like a mouth with teeth knocked out, while soldiers swung their hatchets wildly. For Seiji—who, apart from two or three years spent studying abroad in his twenties, had hardly ever left his hometown, enduring his assigned work until his position had finally stabilized—this was unbearable. ……What on earth was going to happen? It wasn’t something Shozo could understand. He wanted to meet Junichi as quickly as possible and inform him about the factory evacuation. He felt there were countless things he wanted to discuss earnestly with his elder brother. And yet Junichi, for his part, was preoccupied with Takako and now seemed to be of no help at all.

Seiji removed his gaiters and sat dazed for a while. When Ueda and Miura returned shortly after, the office became consumed with talk of building demolitions for firebreaks. "They're brutal about it," Ueda said, sounding almost impressed. "Sawing through pillars with their blades going back and forth, then tying ropes and pulling with those work chants—heave-ho, heave-ho—until everything gets torn down methodically. Roof tiles smashed to bits, nothing left but wreckage." Miura chimed in like he'd seen it firsthand: "Nagata's stationery shop was pitiful. That place had fine craftsmanship visible even from the street, but the old owner just stood there wailing while stroking the tokonoma pillar." Then Seiji too joined the conversation, smiling faintly now.

At that moment, Junichi also returned with a sullen expression.

As April arrived, tender leaves had begun appearing throughout the city, but wind whipped plaster dust from crumbling walls into the air, leaving it harsh and gritty. The ceaseless flow of oxcarts and horses laid bare every aspect of human existence. "They're even carting things like that now," Seiji laughed bitterly, gazing out the office window. An oxcarriage passed by bearing a taxidermied pheasant that swayed with each bump. "How utterly pathetic," Junichi muttered, struck by life's impermanence. "We keep lamenting China's misery, yet here we've become China ourselves." This eldest brother who cautiously avoided wartime criticism had once blurted when Iwo Jima fell: "Tearing Tojo limb from limb wouldn't satisfy me." But when Seiji pressed about evacuating the factory, Junichi showed little support. "What good comes from being first to panic and flee the Clothing Branch Factory?" he retorted.

Shozo too began going out more frequently, his legs wrapped in gaiters. Banks, the Prefectural Office, City Hall, the Travel Agency, the Mobilization Bureau—wherever he went, the errands were simple, and on his way back, he would stroll around the streets. ......Horikawacho Street had been sliced open with brutal force, leaving only an earthen storehouse standing as the glaring traces of destruction stretched visible into the distance, resembling an Impressionist painting. "This too had its own charm," Shozo tried to force himself to feel. Then one day, within that Impressionist painting, countless pure white gulls were moving. They were female students engaged in labor service. They had alighted upon glittering fragments of debris, and while their white blouses basked in the bright sunlight, each was opening her lunchbox. ……Even when stopping by a used bookstore, the turnover of books was striking, and panic and disorder could be glimpsed there as well. “Do you have any books on astronomy?” The voice of the youth asking such things suddenly lingered in his ears.

On an electricity holiday, he visited his wife’s grave and took a walk toward Nuten Park. This area had once bustled with cherry blossom viewers, he recalled, but when he glanced at the quiet shade now, an old woman and a girl were furtively unpacking their lunch. Peach blossoms hung heavy while willow greens burned vivid. Yet Shozo found himself unable to properly grasp the season’s essence. Something had slipped askew—the world’s rhythm horribly mangled. He wrote these impressions to a friend. Letters often came too from another friend evacuated to Iwate Prefecture. “Stay well.” “Be cautious.” Even in these terse phrases, Shozo detected their desperate prayers for war’s end. But would he live to see that new day?……

A conscription notice arrived for Katayama. The sharp-featured man continued cracking his usual jokes while briskly wrapping up his duties. “Have you ever been through roll call before?” Shozo asked him.

“That was actually supposed to be my first time this year… and then suddenly this happens.” “After all, this is a once-in-a-millennium war,” Katayama laughed with forced cheer. Old Man Mitsui—who had been absent due to illness—had watched them gloomily from the office corner for days. Now he shuffled toward Katayama. “When you become a soldier,” he instructed like a father lecturing his son, “turn yourself into a fool. Thinking’s forbidden.”

...This Old Man Mitsui had been at the shop since Shozo’s father’s time, and Shozo retained a childhood memory of once feeling unwell at school and having this man come fetch him. At that time, Mitsui had encouraged the pale boy while patting his shoulder as he vomited by the riverside. Would that nearly expressionless, narrowed face remember such distant minutiae? Shozo sometimes felt compelled to ask this old man what he thought of times like these. But the old man always maintained something unyielding in the office corner, something that repelled approach.

......Once, the accounting department had come requesting rings for blackout curtains. When Ueda promptly retrieved boxes of rings from the warehouse and lined them up on the office desk, the accounting department soldier asked, "How many are in one box?" "A thousand per box," Ueda answered offhandedly. The old man who had been staring intently from the corner suddenly interjected.

“A thousand?” “There’s no way that’s right.” Ueda gazed at the old man with a puzzled look, “It’s a thousand. That’s how it’s always been until now.” “No, it’s absolutely not right.” The old man stood up and brought a scale. First he measured the weight of a hundred rings. Then he weighed the entire box of rings. When he divided the total by a hundred, it came to seven hundred pieces.

At Mori Manufacturing, a farewell party was held for Katayama. Then people unknown to Shozo appeared in the office and began procuring various items from somewhere. Shozo gradually came to realize that the various groups Junichi belonged to were exchanging supplies with one another. By that time, the long-standing conflict between Takako and Junichi had grown ambiguous and begun resolving itself in an unexpected direction.

In terms of evacuation arrangements, it was decided that Takako would be assigned a house in Itsukaichi-cho, and that the Mori family kitchen would be entrusted to Yasuko—who had just sent her son off in the student evacuation and was now left alone. Once these matters were settled, Takako returned home with ostentatious ceremony and began preparing her relocation belongings. But even more than Takako, it was Junichi who became engrossed in packing. He meticulously fastened ropes around various items and constructed protective covers and frames. Between these tasks, he would return to the office to operate the check protector and receive visitors. In the evenings, he drank alone with his sister. The liquor had materialized from some unknown source, and Junichi remained in good spirits……

Then one morning, B-29s streaked across the sky above this city. The students in Mori Manufacturing's sewing factory all peered out windows at once, crawled toward the roof, and gazed at contrails lingering in the sky. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" "Oh how fast!" the girls exclaimed in scattered awe. Both B-29s and their contrails were making their first appearance in this city—for Shozo, who had grown accustomed to seeing them in Tokyo since last year, these were his first contrails witnessed in ages.

The following day, a carriage arrived and Takako’s belongings were transported toward Itsukaichi-cho. “It’s like redoing my bridal procession!” Takako laughed as she bid farewell to the neighbors and departed. Yet after four or five days, Takako returned again for another farewell gathering with the neighbors. On an electricity rationing day, a mochi mortar had been prepared in the kitchen since morning, with Junichi and Yasuko making preparations to pound rice cakes. Soon enough, women from the neighborhood association came trooping into the kitchen. By now even Shozo had grown thoroughly sick of hearing about these neighborhood people through his sister’s endless accounts. Which factions were colluding with whom, which groups stood opposed, how everyone skirted regulations to scrape by. The women who appeared in the kitchen all wore expressions too complex for simple interpretation, yet seemed endowed with survival instincts beyond Shozo’s comprehension and an artless knack for falsehoods. ……“Best drink while we still can,” various associates proposed party plans to Junichi around that time, making the Mori family kitchen bustle with activity. At such moments the neighborhood housewives would arrive to lend their hands.

In his dream, Shozo felt a storm being violently tossed about and crashing down. Then, the windowpanes boomed—boom, boom—. Before long, he heard someone nearby shouting, “Smoke! Smoke—”. With unsteady steps, he approached the second-floor window to find thick black smoke billowing up in the distant western sky. By the time he adjusted his clothing and went downstairs, however, the planes had already passed. ……There was Seiji’s worried face. “This is no time to be lazing around in bed!” he scolded Shozo. That morning, Shozo had been completely unaware that an air raid alert had been issued; the radio had barely finished reporting that a single plane was headed toward Hamada (a port on the Japan Sea coast in Shimane Prefecture) when it happened. A string of bombs scattered here and there along Kamiyacho-dori. It was the last day of April.

When May arrived, roll call rehearsals were conducted every night in the neighborhood national school's auditorium. Shozo had been unaware of this until he finally noticed it four days before the actual roll call. From that day onward, he too would finish dinner early and go there. That school had already been converted into military barracks by then. In the dim lamplight of the auditorium's wooden-floored hall, a considerably older group and a markedly younger group intermingled. The young instructor with a ruddy complexion stood ramrod-straight, the gleaming shins of his long boots bouncing like rubber.

“Did you alone fail to notice that everyone’s been coming here for rehearsals like this?” At first, the instructor calmly questioned Shozo, and Shozo mumbled excuses. “Your voice is too quiet!” Suddenly, the instructor barked in a startling voice. ……Before long, Shozo too noticed that everyone here was bellowing in barbaric shouts. He shook his head and tried desperately to force out as loud a voice as he could. When he returned home exhausted, the cadence of shouted commands churned within him. [...] The instructor was gathering a young group to practice roll calls one by one. In response to the instructor’s questions, the youths answered energetically, and the practice proceeded smoothly. When a young man with a slight limp came forward, the instructor looked down at him from the podium.

“Are you a photographer?” “That is correct.” The young man responded with a bob of his head in a humble merchant-like tone. “Enough. A simple ‘Yes’ will do. After finally getting into a decent mood, being given such a reply just deflates me completely,” the instructor said with a wry smile. At this confession，Shozo jolted to realization. They’re intoxicated，he thought． “This is the height of absurdity． The Japanese military is simply intoxicated with formalities．” When he returned home，Shozo chattered away in front of his sister．

It was a dim, gloomy morning that looked ready to rain at any moment. Shozo stood in formation on the national school's athletic field. They had been there since five o'clock, but with nothing but repeated lectures and formations, departure remained elusive. That morning's instructor—the one who had slapped a young man across the cheek while denouncing his attitude—still seemed to thrum with restless energy. Just then, a grimy middle-aged man arrived and began mumbling some complaint.

“What did you say?!” Only the instructor’s voice carried through the hall. “You never came to a single rehearsal—now you think showing up just this morning suffices?”

The instructor stared hard at him,

“Strip naked!” he bellowed. When told this, the man timidly began undoing his buttons. However, the instructor grew even more ferocious.

“This is how you strip!” the instructor declared as he dragged the man toward the front of the athletic field, spun him around backward, and yanked off his shirt. Within the dim light veiled by a bluish-green haze, an ugly back riddled with scabs lay exposed. “So this is the body that required absolute rest?” The instructor paused briefly before his next move. “You reckless fool!” A sharp crack rang out as his fist flashed through the air. At that instant, the schoolyard siren released its wailing alert. The mournful drone seemed to heighten the scene’s ghastliness. When the siren finally faded, the instructor appeared deeply satisfied with his performance,

“I’ll have this man prosecuted by the Military Police starting now,” he declared to the group, then finally gave the order to depart. As they approached Nishirenpeijo, raindrops began pattering down. The rough sound of footsteps advanced along the moat. Across the moat lay the Western Second Unit, but Shozo’s eye was suddenly caught by azaleas blooming wildly like blood upon the dim green embankment. Except for sending a portion of Yasuko’s belongings to her son’s student evacuation site and entrusting one box to an acquaintance in the countryside, the majority still remained in the storehouse at Junichi’s home. Her personal items and work tools had been placed in the six-tatami room where the sewing machine was installed, but she—who loved spreading out ongoing tasks across the entire room and working feverishly amidst them—remained utterly unconcerned about the resulting disarray. In the rainy weather, as dusk fell early, mice would scuttle about noisily and hide behind the ball crates. Junichi, being fastidious, would occasionally scold his sister about this mess. Yasuko would make a half-hearted attempt to tidy up whenever this happened, only for the room to end up even more disordered than before. What with work, the kitchen, cleaning—she couldn’t keep such a large house to her brother’s liking—Yasuko would often confide in Seiji with a grumble. Ever since renting the house in Itsukaichi-cho, Junichi had kept conceiving new items to evacuate, remaining nearly every day preoccupied with packing—yet always made a habit of meticulously tidying the house after scattering belongings about. Junichi's emergency rucksack was packed with food supplies and tied to a rope hanging from the engawa ceiling—in other words, to prevent damage from mice. After Junichi and Nishizaki carried the roped-up cargo to a corner of the factory, Junichi put on his reading glasses in the office and perused a few documents, then abruptly appeared in the bathhouse and began scrubbing the wash area with vigor.

Lately, Junichi spun like a top in both body and mind. Although he had evacuated Takako, the town association refused to evacuate its air defense personnel and would not issue travel permits. Therefore, Junichi also had to transport food to Takako’s location. He had even obtained a commuter pass to Itsukaichi-cho, and rice flowed in constantly without shortage. …By the time he finished cleaning the bath, Junichi already had a plan for tomorrow’s packing. After wiping his limbs, slipping into his geta, and peeking into the storehouse, Junichi found his gaze drawn—as always—to Yasuko’s belongings piled haphazardly by the entrance: boxes left gaping open after something had been retrieved, garments spilling from their lids. For a while, Junichi stared coldly at it, but suddenly thought he should have prepared more buckets there, and gave a solitary nod.

Yasuko, now past thirty-five, could no longer return to the bright mind she had as a schoolgirl, and the clear soul she once possessed had long since been lost. Instead, something disquietingly wanton had taken root within her. After losing her sickly husband and relocating near Junichi while raising an infant, the world had grown complex for Yasuko. During that time, she had even spent over a year on a dressmaking apprenticeship journey. Yet in the depths of hardship, as she endured constant prodding from her mother-in-law, neighborhood association members, sister-in-law, and brothers, she gradually came to understand life's hidden truths. Lately, nothing interested her more than others' affairs—speculating about people's feelings had become nearly addictive. Then, in her own way, she distracted herself by engaging people in amusing interactions—or rather, through small exchanges of affection—rather than trying to control them. Yasuko had grown irresistibly fond of an innocent newlywed couple from the neighborhood whom she'd met half a year earlier. On nights when Junichi went out to Itsukaichi and was away, she would invite them over to prepare dorayaki. Under blackout conditions, amidst threats of an uncertain tomorrow, this became an amusing diversion—like playing house.

...Ever since taking charge of the main house’s kitchen, her middle school-aged nephew had grown fond of calling out “Sis! Sis!” with childish affection. The younger boy had clung to his mother and evacuated to Itsukaichi-cho, while the older one—now acquiring a taste for tobacco and perhaps lured by nighttime diversions in the entertainment district—stubbornly remained behind. Each evening upon returning from the Mitsubishi factory, he would peer into the kitchen. There in the cupboard waited steamed buns and doughnuts, always repositioned to catch his eye exactly as he preferred. After gorging himself at dinner, he would shamble into the darkened streets, returning later to soak away his sweat in a bath. His carefree bellowing of songs through steamy bathroom airs perfectly mimicked factory workers’ boisterousness. Though his face retained boyish softness, his torso had swelled to conscript-like proportions. Yasuko always stifled giggles at his off-key singing... When she served red bean manju after Junichi’s evening drink, her eldest brother would lavishly praise her efforts. Junichi—fancying himself rejuvenated in a crisp blue dress shirt—occasionally teased with mock cheer: “Getting plump, aren’t we? My my, rounding out day by day!” Truthfully, Yasuko’s lower belly protruded while her face had regained a maidenly glow. Yet weekly, the sister-in-law returned from Itsukaichi-cho. Takako arrived swathed in garish work pants and cloying perfume, ostensibly checking on household affairs while monitoring Yasuko’s conduct. At air raid warnings during these visits, Takako’s brow would furrow instantly—only to vanish with hasty “Let’s leave before another tiresome alarm” once all-clears sounded.

Around the time Yasuko began preparing the evening meal, her second brother Seiji would usually arrive. There were times when he would happily show her a postcard, saying it had come from an evacuated schoolchild. But at times, Seiji began complaining of feeling unsteady or saying, "I'm getting dizzy." His face lacked vitality; his eyes bore a look of agitation. When Yasuko offered him a rice ball, he silently took big eager bites. After that, he would look at the house's frantic evacuation preparations and sneer things like, "Why not take the stone lanterns and potted plants while you're at it?"

For some time now, Yasuko had been concerned about the chests and dressing table left carelessly in the storehouse. Junichi had even said, "We should make a frame for this mirror stand," and if he had just ordered Nishizaki once, it would have been resolved immediately. But Junichi, preoccupied with his own evacuation preparations, now wore an expression as if he had completely forgotten about it. Asking Nishizaki directly felt too awkward. Nishizaki, who would unconditionally obey Takako's orders, always seemed reluctant when it came to Yasuko's affairs. [...] That morning, when Yasuko carefully watched Junichi approach the storehouse with a nail puller from the office, his face appeared calmly composed. Thinking this was her chance to make the request, she promptly brought up the mirror stand matter.

“Mirror stand?” Junichi muttered tonelessly. “Yes—at least let’s evacuate that quickly,” Yasuko implored, clinging to her brother’s gaze with desperate intensity. His eyes darted sideways. “That worthless junk? What’ll become of it?” He spun away and marched off. Yasuko felt suddenly plunged into emptiness. Then anger rippled through her—she couldn’t stay rooted. True, repeated moves had reduced it to scrap, but this was her mother’s gift when she married—her mother who’d still breathed then. Junichi cherished every broom that became his—how could he not grasp this raw human ache?

…She was recalling that night’s terrifying expression on Junichi’s face.

This occurred when arrangements for Takako’s evacuation to Itsukaichi-cho were nearly complete. Junichi insisted on moving his sister into the house to oversee everything in his wife’s stead, but Yasuko refused to agree. Part of this stemmed from veiled criticism toward her self-centered sister-in-law, but she also fretted over the children evacuated to Kake-cho—so much that she even wavered about becoming their caretaker and joining them there. Though Takako and Junichi tried alternately placating and pressuring Yasuko, night had already grown late.

“Will you absolutely not agree?” Junichi demanded, drawing himself up rigidly.

“Yes, Hiroshima is still dangerous after all, so I think we should go to Kake-cho instead...” Yasuko repeated the same argument. Suddenly, Junichi grabbed the navel orange peel beside the long hibachi and smacked it against the far wall. A violent atmosphere suddenly filled the room. “Now, now, please give it another good think until tomorrow,” the sister-in-law interposed placatingly, but in the end, Yasuko ended up consenting that very night. ...For a while, Yasuko wandered aimlessly through the house in a dizzying state, but before she knew it, she had climbed the stairs and found herself in Shozo’s room on the second floor. There, from early morning, was Shozo—holed up alone to mend socks. When she finished venting about Junichi all at once, tears began streaming down for the first time. And then, her feelings seemed to calm somewhat. Shozo continued working in silence, his expression clouded with worry.

After roll call, Shozo often found himself sinking into a sense of emptiness he couldn’t control. Around that time, having little business to attend to, he rarely showed his face in the office anymore. When he did emerge, it was solely to read newspapers. Germany had already surrendered unconditionally, but now this country was proclaiming a decisive battle on home soil, with terms like “fortress-building” beginning to appear. Shozo tried to detect traces of truth behind the newspaper editorials. Yet there were stretches of two or three days when he couldn’t read any papers at all. The items that should have been on Junichi’s desk until now had been concealed somewhere for reasons unknown.

While constantly feeling driven into a corner yet unable to combat his growing listlessness, Shozo would often wander aimlessly through the spacious house, utterly at a loss with himself... Come noon, female students would arrive at the kitchen to fetch tea. Beyond the single-layer blackboard fence, lively voices of apprentices released from work drifted from the factory's open-air corridor. As Shozo settled on the dining hall veranda and gloomily stared at the small pond beneath his feet, calisthenics began at the factory - the squad leader's crisp "One, two, one, two!" commands ringing out. Only that girl's gently lilting voice somehow managed to soothe Shozo's heart. ...Around three o'clock, he would suddenly remember something and return to his second-floor room to mend socks. Across the garden, on the office building's second floor, female workers stood diligently laboring while motorized sewing machines' whirring carried over. Fumbling with the needle's eye, Shozo envisioned: When I wear these to flee.

...After that, his figure walking dispiritedly through the sunset-lit streets became a common sight. As buildings were successively torn down across the city, unexpected plazas gaped open where crude earthen trenches squatted in their places. Turning onto a desolate stretch of road where streetcars rarely ran, he reached an embankment along the river where fig leaves clung heavily beside a collapsed earthen wall. The lingering murky twilight resisted dissolving into full night, thick with muddy humidity that left Shozo feeling he wandered through alien terrain. ...Yet when his feet carried him past that embankment, they brought him to the foot of Kyobashi Bridge, where he continued walking along the riverside levee. As he neared Seiji's house entrance, a niece playing roadside called out first, followed by a first-grade nephew who came leaping. The nephew yanked insistently at his hand, digging small hard nails into Shozo's wrist.

Around that time, Shozo found himself wanting an evacuation bag. Every time an alert sounded, he would carry around a cloth-wrapped bundle, but his elder brothers had proper rucksacks while Yasuko had fashioned a shoulder-hung bag. Yasuko had promised she'd sew one anytime if he procured fabric. So Shozo approached Junichi. "Fabric for a bag?" Junichi murmured with an ambiguous expression that gave no indication whether such material existed. When no clarity came despite waiting, Shozo pressed him again. Junichi grinned spitefully. "You don't need that sort of thing. If you want to haul something while fleeing, just take any rucksack hanging there." However much Shozo explained it was meant solely for important documents and wearable essentials, Junichi remained unmoved. "Hmm..." Shozo released a heavy sigh. He simply couldn't grasp Junichi's psychology. "You ought to sulk properly." "If it were me," Yasuko explained her method of handling Junichi, "I'd cry and make trouble for him." Even regarding the mirror stand incident, Junichi had coolly arranged its evacuation afterward. But such gradual pressure tactics were beyond Shozo. ...He went to Seiji's house about the bag. Seiji produced suitable fabric. "This should be enough to make one." "It's about one to of rice—will you send something?" After obtaining the cloth, Shozo requested Yasuko make the bag. His younger sister then remarked, "What good comes from only thinking about fleeing?"—another spiteful comment from her.

Since the bombing on April 30th, this town had not suffered any further air raids. Consequently, the city's evacuation proceeded with fluctuating urgency, and people's minds swung constantly between tension and respite.

Air raid alerts were issued nearly every night, but since these had been determined to be mine-laying operations, Mori Manufacturing abolished its night watch system as well. But the signs of a decisive homeland battle were growing increasingly palpable.

“Field Marshal Hata has come to Hiroshima,” Seiji told Shozo one day in the office. “The Fortification Headquarters is at Higashi Renshojo. Hiroshima’s going to be our last stronghold.” As he spoke these things—though not without skepticism—Seiji nevertheless appeared more fired up about decisive battle preparedness compared to Shozo. …“Ah, Field Marshal Hata…” Ueda drawled in his lingering way.

“Ah, they say over in Futaba-no-Sato they’re eating two big manju every day.”...That evening, the office radio reported five hundred B-29s attacking the Keihin area. Old Man Mitsui, who had been listening with a grimace, “Whoa... five hundred planes—!” he couldn’t help letting out a cry of astonishment. Then, everyone began to snicker.

...One day on the second floor of Higashi Police Station, factory owners from across the city were gathered for an official briefing. Shozo, attending as a substitute, found himself in such an assembly for the first time but listlessly indulged in his own thoughts. When he suddenly became aware of his surroundings, the speaker had changed—a burly policeman now stood ready to address them. Shozo began feeling faint interest in the man’s demeanor. Both his build and countenance epitomized the quintessential police officer. “Now then,” declared a voice brimming with robust clarity, “I shall briefly outline matters regarding air defense drills.” ...Well now, Shozo thought skeptically as he listened—with cities nationwide enduring hailstorms of bullets, are they truly conducting drills here?

“As you are well aware, Hiroshima City currently receives a continuous influx of evacuees from all directions—Tokyo, Nagoya, Osaka, Kobe, and other regions.” “What do these displaced persons tell our citizens? ‘My, how terrifying the air raids were! Absolutely terrifying!’” “‘Just flee immediately regardless of circumstances,’ they prattle.” “However, ultimately they represent complete failures in air defense—pitiful fools deserving contempt.” “We who maintain unwavering self-reliance must never heed their words.” “True, the war situation grows increasingly severe, with air raids intensifying without respite.” “But no matter what dangers arise, so long as we maintain resolute defenses against them, there remains not the slightest cause for fear.”

Having said this, he pivoted to face the blackboard and launched into a practical explanation using diagrams... Listening to his words—utterly devoid of anxiety—it truly seemed air raids were simple, clear-cut matters, and that human life too existed solely under straightforward physical forces. What a peculiar man, Shozo thought. But men like this stalwart robot must exist in countless numbers across Japan now.

Junichi never went toward Itsukaichi-cho empty-handed—he would always stuff his rucksack with miscellaneous evacuation items and set out alone eagerly after dinner—but one time he said to Shozo, “You need to know about this place in case of emergencies. Come with me from now on,” and invited him along. Made to carry a small bundle of belongings, Shozo went with Junichi to the train station. The Koi-bound train was slow to arrive, and Shozo gazed at the end of the spacious road. But before long, beyond the buildings, the distinct form of Kuresasayama crouching in the distance came into view.

Now imbued with summer dusk's moisture, it pulsed with vivid life. The mountains linked to that peak—usually showing only faint slumbering forms—now seethed with terrible vitality. Clouds drifted lazily through their fathomless shapes. Then the ranges seemed to shudder and sway as if about to cry aloud. An uncanny vision. Suddenly then, a grand composition encircling this city began forming in Shozo's eyes. After crossing several crystalline rivers and leaving the city behind, Shozo's gaze still devoured the scenery beyond the train window. This rail line once teemed with beachgoers; even now the wind carried occasional whiffs of nostalgia through the carriage. Yet the Chugoku Mountain Range's arresting countenance—which had gripped Shozo since earlier—showed no weakening. Against twilight's darkening canvas, the peaks cast ever-sharper emerald hues while Seto's island shadows rose starkly. Waves—calm blue waves—buffeted by endless tempests seemed poised to spiral into frenzy.

In Shozo's eyes floated the familiar map of Japan. At the far reaches of the boundless Pacific Ocean, the Japanese archipelago first appeared as tiny dots. The B-29 formation that had taken off from the Mariana Base drifted like stars, threading through the clouds. The Japanese archipelago was abruptly pulled closer. One part of the formation that had split above Hachijojima headed straight toward Mount Fuji, while the other proceeded along the Kumano-nada toward the Kii Channel. But when one plane now drifted away softly from that formation, it crossed Muroto Misaki and surged onward toward Tosa Bay.... Over a blue plain appeared mountains foaming in clusters, but upon flying over their peaks, there lay the Seto Inland Sea, calm as a mirror. One plane danced leisurely over Hiroshima Bay while inspecting the islands scattered across that mirror-like surface. Under the too-strong midday rays, both the Chugoku Mountain Range and the cluster of cities facing the bay entrance were a pale purple haze. But before long, the outline of Ujina Port came clearly into view, and from there, the entire expanse of Hiroshima City could be taken in at a glance. The Otagawa River flowing along the mountain gorge branched at the city’s entrance; as the number of divergences increased further, the city spread out across the delta. The city was immediately surrounded by low mountains at its back, with two rectangular drill grounds shining large and white. But throughout the city divided by that river these days, white vacant lots marking evacuation-demolition sites had formed everywhere. Was this what they called establishing an impregnable defense against incendiary bomb attacks? ……A bridge abruptly came into view through the telescope’s field. A bean-sized swarm of people was still bustling about. They must be soldiers. Soldiers—they seemed to be occupying every corner of this town lately. Not only did shadows teem like ants across the drill grounds, but similar figures also dotted the peripheries of even minor buildings. ……Had the siren sounded? Carts were moving throughout the town.

In the green rice fields on the outskirts of town, a toy-like train crawled slowly along. ...Farewell, quiet town. A single B-29 banked sharply and flew leisurely away.

Around the time the Battle of the Ryukyu Islands concluded, a massive air raid struck Okayama City in the neighboring prefecture, followed by Kure City burning from the late hours of June 30th until dawn broke on July 1st. That night, as formation bombers roared across Hiroshima's skies one after another, Seiji arrived at Mori Manufacturing with only his eyes glinting beneath his air raid hood. Neither factory nor office contained a single soul; at the house's entranceway crouched Yasuko, Shozo, and their middle school-aged nephew. Could this meager group truly protect such an expansive area?—Seiji immediately wondered. Then from the front came the clang of an alarm bell and a voice shouting "Take cover!" The four scrambled into the garden trench. The cloud-choked sky refused to brighten as explosion after explosion rumbled through. Only when shapes began emerging clearly through the gloom did the all-clear finally sound.

……In a state of intense agitation, Junichi was hurrying through the city that had regained its calm. He had not slept a wink in Itsukaichi-cho, having spent the entire night gazing at flames blazing crimson across the sea. He couldn’t afford complacency. "The fire’s already licking at our heels"—muttering this to himself, he tried to rush home with all haste. The train failed to arrive promptly that morning too, its passengers all wearing vacant expressions. When Junichi appeared at the office with the morning sun already high, here too he met only people bearing vacant, sleep-heavy faces.

“This is no time for carelessness. We’ll evacuate the factory at once.”

When Junichi saw Seiji’s face, he immediately made that declaration. Removing sewing machines, applying to the prefectural office for allocation of horse carts, reorganizing household goods—urgent tasks had again piled up for Junichi. However, Seiji, his consultation partner, merely raised minor objections about trivial details and showed no efficiency whatsoever. Junichi burned with the desire to crack the whip sharply.

Two days later, rumors of a major air raid on Hiroshima flared up and spread rapidly. When Ueda conveyed the evening warning from the Provision Depot to Junichi, Junichi hurried his sister to finish dinner early, then turned to Shozo and Yasuko and said:

“I’m heading out now. I trust you’ll handle things here.” “I intend to evacuate if the air raid siren sounds, but…” When Shozo pressed the point, Junichi nodded.

“If things look hopeless, throw the sewing machines into the well.”

"If I plaster the storehouse door... Maybe I should just do it now."

Suddenly, a fierce resolve surged through Shozo. He then approached the storehouse. The red clay had been prepared beforehand, but plastering over that storehouse door was something never once done in their father’s time. After propping up the ladder, Shozo began working the red clay into the gaps of the white-walled door. By the time he finished, Junichi was no longer there. Shozo was concerned, so he stopped by Seiji’s house. “They say tonight will be dangerous…” When Shozo said this, Mitsuko—while frantically stuffing items into a bag—began rambling: “Well that’s actually the secret part—Mr. Kojima from the neighborhood also heard about such things at the office this evening and came back…”

Just as he had finished all preparations and was crawling into the mosquito net in the six-tatami room downstairs—for Shozo had taken to sleeping on the first floor around that time—the radio announced the Tosa Offshore Maritime Alert. Shozo listened intently inside the mosquito net. Kochi and Ehime Prefectures were under caution alerts before transitioning to air raid warnings. Shozo crawled out from under the net and rolled up his gaiters. After slinging the field pack and canteen over his shoulders, he fastened them with a strap. At the entrance, he searched for his shoes and had just pulled on his gloves when the siren sounded another caution alert. He rushed out front and hurried toward Seiji’s house. In the darkness, asphalt resisted his hard soles. Shozo stood rigidly upright, becoming aware of his own legs moving with mechanical precision. The gate to Seiji’s house gaped open. No matter how fiercely he pounded on the front door, no response came. They must have already fled. Shozo scrambled along the embankment road toward Eibashi Bridge. As he neared the bridge, the siren began wailing its air raid alarm.

After crossing the bridge in a frenzy and circling the embankment behind Nuta Park, before he knew it he had reached the levee leading toward Ushita. Around this time Shozo finally noticed the swarming crowd pressing around him—citizens of every age and gender clad in desperate attire. Handcarts piled with pots and baby carriages bearing old mothers pushed through the throng. A man dashed by wearing a steel helmet, his bicycle pulled by a military dog; an old man hobbled past clinging to his cane......A truck arrived. A horse passed through. The narrow twilight road now bustled like a festival day......Shozo sat down on lumber beside the water tank under the trees.

“Do you think this area will be safe?” asked a passing old woman. “It should be safe—the river’s right in front, and there aren’t any houses nearby.” Having said that, he twisted the canteen cap. The sky over Hiroshima’s streets now hung pale and hazy—it seemed flames might erupt at any moment. If the city burned to ashes—what would become of me from tomorrow onward?—Shozo wondered even as he found himself fascinated by the displaced people’s movements before his eyes.

The scene of refugees from the beginning of Hermann and Dorothea rose to mind. But compared to that literary vision, how terrifyingly desolate this reality appeared... After some time, the air raid alert was lifted, followed by the cancellation of the caution warning. People began trudging back along the levee road. Shozo too turned back alone along that path. The road had grown more congested than during their initial flight. Voices shouted as stretchers came pouring in one after another—medical orderlies transporting the sick.

Leaflets scattered from the sky warned of impending air raids, and frightened citizens began evacuating in droves at sunset. Even though no alert had been issued yet, the upper reaches of rivers, suburban squares, and mountain foothills became packed with such people; in thickets, mosquito nets, bedding, even cooking utensils were brought out. The Miyajima Line trains, crowded indiscriminately from morning till noon, grew even more fraught as evening approached. But even these natural instincts were soon strictly regulated by authorities. There, evacuation of air defense personnel had already been prohibited by prior regulations, but now they attempted to monitor even their absence, compelling each household to post papers listing names and ages. At night, soldiers with bayonets and police officers stood resolutely at bridge approaches and crossroads. They attempted to coerce vulnerable citizens into defending the city to the bitter end, but people—driven into corners like rats—skillfully slipped through cracks. At night when Shozo carefully observed areas along his escape route, he noticed seemingly empty houses were in fact more numerous.

Shozo too would immediately flee whenever nightfall brought ominous developments, from that July 3rd evening until August 5th—his final escape. ……When the Tosa Offshore Alert sounded, he began preparing his belongings. Air raid warnings in Kochi and Ehime Prefectures required less than ten minutes to downgrade to caution alerts in Hiroshima and Yamaguchi. Though gaiters could be fastened swiftly in darkness, trifles like hand towels and shoehorns sometimes delayed Shozo. Yet by the caution siren's wail, he always sat lacing his shoes at the entryway. Yasuko would arrive similarly prepared at the entrance around that time. The two exited through the gate in succession. ……Rounding a street corner and walking ten paces, Shozo thought the sirens would blare any second now. Sure enough, air raid alarms howled through the darkness from all directions. Oh—what loathsome wailing rose and fell through every register. Was this what they called a wounded beast's death throes? How would historians someday describe this sound? Such musings... And yet—long ago, merely hearing a lion-dance flute approach from afar would send him fleeing pale-faced. But where that childhood terror held purity, now even fear felt encased in some crude frame. These thoughts flashed through Shozo's mind for mere seconds before he gasped up stone steps toward the embankment. At Seiji's house entrance, sometimes the whole family stood ready—other times unprepared entirely. Yasuko would arrive near-simultaneously when Shozo appeared there. “……Tie this cord here,” his small niece said, offering her hood. He secured the strings firmly before swinging her onto his back and exiting a step ahead of others. Crossing Eibashi Bridge brought momentary slackening in their pace. Past railway tracks at Nuta Embankment, Shozo lowered his niece into thickets.

The river water glimmered faintly white as great cedars cast ink-black shadows across the road. Would this little niece remember such a view? Suddenly there surfaced in Shozo's sweat-drenched mind that novel—A Certain Woman's Life—whose story began with nightly escapes from earliest childhood. [...] After a time, Seiji's family would arrive: Sister-in-law bearing an infant on her back, the maid clutching bundles of belongings. Yasuko strode at the forefront, briskly tugging her young nephew along by the hand. (She'd once been caught fleeing alone and harshly reprimanded by the civil defense group; ever since she'd borrowed this nephew for cover.) Seiji came walking behind with his middle school nephew flanking him side by side. Listening to radios crackling in nearby houses, they'd press further upstream when circumstances demanded. Their brisk march along the lengthy embankment revealed increasingly sparse dwellings until rice paddies and mountain bases loomed hazily ahead. Then frogs erupted in chorus from every direction. Still the shadowy procession flowed through hushed darkness—figures slipping away endlessly through the night. Sometimes dawn would break unnoticed only to find their return route choked with dense vapors.

At times, Shozo would flee alone. He had occasionally been called up for reservist training since a month prior, but what had initially been a group of over twenty comrades had gradually dwindled until only four or five remained. "A major conscription will be issued in August," said the branch chief. Standing in the evening gloom of a schoolyard where searchlights swayed over distant Ujina's skies, Shozo found his attention wandering as the reserve second lieutenant lectured. No sooner would the training end and he return home than the siren would begin wailing. Yet by the time the air raid alert started sounding, Shozo would already have his belongings perfectly prepared. As if extending his military drills, he'd dash into the dark streets. Then he'd adopt the manner of someone rushing homeward while listening to shoes clattering urgently around him. After safely passing through the bridge checkpoint, he'd eventually reach Nuta Embankment. There he'd finally stop and settle into a thicket. Downstream stood an iron bridge, its white sandbar faintly visible through the receded waters. Though this was a scene remembered from childhood walks, Shozo now found the starry sky overhead conjuring visions of battlefields. Would those beautiful natural vistas and serene states of mind described in War and Peace—those moments when characters perceived nature's grandeur—ever come to him at death's threshold? Suddenly a faint cry came from cedar branches above his crouched form. "A cuckoo," he thought with inexplicable unease. If this war escalated into a decisive homeland battle and Hiroshima became our final stronghold—could he then resolutely sacrifice his life? But this city becoming our last bastion—what madness surpassed even delusion! Were this made into an epic poem, it would surely become history's most wretched and insignificant. Yet Shozo still felt he could hear unseen wings beating overhead—terrible wings brushing against his very skin.

When the all-clear sounded and everyone returned to Seiji's house, Shozo would sometimes linger at the entranceway listening to the radio. Since they might have to flee again at any moment, the nephew and niece kept their shoes on. But while the adults were absorbed in the radio, the nephew who had been chattering moments before would sometimes sprawl across the entranceway stones and fall asleep snoring loudly. The child who seemed accustomed to this life of constant upheaval snored like a soldier. (Though Shozo absently watched this scene, he never imagined it would meet a soldier's death.) The first-grade nephew couldn't join group evacuations and only occasionally attended National School. August 6th happened to be a school day too - that morning near Western Drill Ground, this child met his abrupt end.)

When they realized that waiting a while longer posed no particular danger, Yasuko went home first, followed by Shozo leaving through Seiji’s gate. But when he returned to the main house, his two-layered clothes were drenched in sweat; he wanted nothing more than to tear off his shirt and socks immediately. After bathing in the bathroom and sitting down on a kitchen chair, Shozo finally seemed to regain his human composure. ――Tonight's chapter too had drawn to a close. But tomorrow night— ――That tomorrow night too would surely begin from the waters off Tosa. Then gaiters, knapsacks, shoes―all the preparations would come flying out of the darkness, and the escape route lay precisely mapped out before them……(Looking back on this later, Shozo would marvel that despite being relatively healthy at the time, he’d somehow managed to move with such agility.) Does every life inevitably contain its unforeseen season?)

The factory evacuation at Mori Manufacturing proceeded sluggishly. Even with the sewing machines disassembled, obtaining wagon allocations remained difficult. On mornings when horse-drawn wagons arrived, everyone hurried with transport work, and Junichi grew especially energetic. One time, all the tatami mats from the sitting room were carried off by these wagons. The stripped sitting room now lay spacious with bare floorboards, a solitary sofa left standing. Reaching this state made the house's impending end feel tangible, yet Shozo lingered on the veranda gazing at white flowers in the garden corner. They had begun blooming during the rainy season—as one flower decayed another bloomed—still maintaining their quiet six-petaled forms. When he asked his second brother their name, he was told they were gardenias. Familiar since childhood, their unassuming presence now filled him with unbearable nostalgia...

“How many air raid alerts have there been up to now? I can’t even remember. Even now, the coastal areas glow crimson. Every time the siren sounds, I erase my traces and burrow into shelters. Lately I’ve been studying higher mathematics—its beauty transcends all. Japanese artists are doomed because they can’t comprehend this.” Such a letter reached Shozo from his Tokyo friend, their first correspondence in ages. There had been no recent word from the friend in Iwate Prefecture. Kamaishi had come under naval bombardment, making that region appear increasingly unsafe.

One morning, as Shozo was in the administrative office, Otani—who worked at a neighboring company—appeared. He was one of Takako's relatives and had been visiting frequently since Junichi's conflicts began, making him no longer a stranger to Shozo. Black gaiters wrapped around his slender shins, his spindly torso and elongated face gave an unsteady impression, yet he carried a determination to hold himself together. This Otani marched briskly up to Junichi's table,

“How’s Hiroshima holding up?” “Last night too—just when we thought they were coming—they veered off toward Ube.” “The enemy knows full well there are crucial factories in Ube.” “Compared to that? Hiroshima’s just crawling with soldiers—from an industrial standpoint, hardly worth mentioning.” “I’ve started believing this place will be spared—it’s definitely safe,” he declared with forced cheerfulness.

(This Otani would ultimately go missing on the morning of August 6th while commuting to work.)

……But the person who began to think Hiroshima might be spared was not Otani alone. The nighttime evacuations that had once been so bustling were gradually diminishing in their numbers of porters. Moreover, there were several attacks by small-scale aircraft, but not only did that massive formation crossing Hiroshima’s skies in broad daylight refrain from dropping any bombs on this city—the anti-aircraft guns at the Western Drill Ground even managed to shoot down one medium-sized plane by chance. “Hiroshima can be defended, don’t you think?” When a civilian in the train car addressed an officer, the officer silently nodded. ……“Ah, that was interesting. Aerial combat like that’s hardly ever seen,” Yasuko said to Shozo. Shozo was engrossed in reading Gide’s “If It Die…” in the tatami-less sitting room. The uncanny tableau of youth and self unfolding in Africa’s scorching heat clung stubbornly to his mind.

Seiji never believed the entire city would be spared, but he always prayed that his own house by the riverside would not burn down. He dreamed of the day when the two children evacuated to Miyoshi Town would return safely to this house, and they could all play by the river together. But when such a day would come—if he pursued the thought—remained hopelessly unclear. “If only we could evacuate the small children somewhere...”

Yasuko had grown increasingly anxious since the nightly evacuations began. “Please do something quickly,” his wife Mitsuko had also begun mentioning evacuation around that time, but “You go settle it yourself,” Seiji replied with evident irritation. If he sent his wife and children away—not that everything went smoothly for Junichi either—how could he possibly manage to live on in this house? He had absolutely no idea. He had long discussed with his wife about wanting to rent a house somewhere in the countryside and at least move their household belongings there. But where in the countryside could such a house be found? Seiji hadn’t the faintest clue. By this time, Seiji had stopped making snide remarks about his eldest brother’s various actions; instead, he would fixate resentfully on them, lost in solitary thought.

Junichi, however, could no longer abandon Seiji's family. In the end, through Junichi's mediation, they managed to rent a house in the countryside. However, wagons for transporting their belongings couldn't be hired immediately. When a rural house was secured, Seiji threw himself frantically into packing. Then came notice from the teacher at Miyoshi's group evacuation site about parent visitation days. Preparing winter necessities for Miyoshi-bound trips alongside evacuation packing and schoolchildren's supplies plunged the household back into disarray. Moreover, Seiji harbored an odd compulsion—he couldn't rest until every item destined for evacuated children bore meticulously brush-inscribed names.

After tidying up this and scattering that, come evening Seiji abruptly changed course, took his fishing rod, and went out to the riverbank right before him. He hadn’t been catching much these days, but found that letting his line sink brought him the deepest calm. ......Suddenly jolted by a rushing roar from the river, Seiji’s eyes snapped open. While staring at the water, he realized he’d been half-dreaming since earlier—drifting through cataclysmic visions from the Old Testament he’d read long ago. Then from the cliffside house above came Mitsuko’s figure calling loudly, “Father! Father!” As Seiji climbed the stone steps clutching his rod, his wife blurted without preamble: “Evacuation.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Seiji asked in return, not understanding what she was referring to. “Ohkawa came by earlier and said that if we don’t vacate within three days, this house will be demolished immediately.” “Hmm,” Seiji groaned. “So you agreed to it?” “That’s exactly what I’m saying! We have to do something, or it’ll be disastrous. The last time we met with Ohkawa, he showed us the diagrams and clearly explained that our house wasn’t included in the planned area. But now he comes out of nowhere saying there’s a regulation for every twenty meters!”

“Did those Manchurian grifters clean us out?” “Isn’t this utterly galling? We must act now or it’ll be catastrophic,” Mitsuko fretted, her agitation rising.

“You go sort it out.” Seiji tossed off the remark with affected nonchalance, though this was no time for hesitation. “Let’s go to the main house,” they agreed, and soon afterward visited Junichi’s residence. Yet Junichi had already departed for Itsukaichi-cho that evening as well. When they tried reaching him via intercity telephone, the lines refused to connect all night for reasons unknown. Mitsuko seized Yasuko and resumed her protracted rant against Ohkawa’s underhanded methods. Listening to this, Seiji felt the specter of their home’s impending demolition lodge in his chest—three days hence—now gripped by absolute desperation.

“Please, God, let there be a great air raid on Hiroshima within three days.”

Seiji, who had been a Christian in his youth, suddenly opened his mouth and offered this prayer.

The next morning, Seiji's wife visited Junichi at the office and droned on about evacuation matters, stating that since Councilor Tasaki appeared to be the main authority behind building demolitions, she wanted him to somehow arrange a request to Tasaki.

Junichi listened with noncommittal grunts，then called Itsukaichi and ordered Takako to return immediately. Then，turning to Seiji，he said，“What a state. “They tell you your house is slated for building demolition for firebreaks，and you just say ‘Yes，sir’ and let them have their way? “If your house burns down in an air raid，you can get insurance，but if it’s demolished for evacuation，you won’t get a single yen in compensation!” he complained.

After a little while, Takako arrived. After listening to the full account of the situation, Takako said breezily, “Well then, I’ll just go see Mr. Tasaki,” and headed out. Before an hour had passed, Takako returned with a bright expression. “Mr. Tasaki has promised that the building demolitions for firebreaks in that area will be halted according to that arrangement.” Thus, Seiji’s household problem was smoothly resolved. Just then, exactly at that moment, the air raid alert was lifted.

“Come on, let’s return now before another air raid alert starts causing trouble,” Takako said hurriedly as she rushed outside. After a while, two chicks in the chicken coop beside the storehouse began haphazardly announcing the time. Their uncoordinated rhythm had sometimes amused Junichi and the others, but now no one paid heed to the chicks’ cries. The scorching sunlight filled the quiet sky above the crape myrtle. ...Before the atomic bomb would visit this city, there still remained a little over forty hours.

(From the January 1949 issue of Modern Literature)