Pathway to Japanese Literature

When he looked up at the treetops, something gentle seemed to flicker in the swelling buds of new leaves.
The trees, the sight of the early spring trees, faintly comforted him.
Since he had moved to the lodging in Kichijoji, people rarely came to visit.
He went a week, even ten days, with almost no opportunity to converse with people.
When he went out to buy cigarettes, he would say, “Please give me some cigarettes.”
Entering a coffee shop, he would order, “Coffee.”
In a day, he would speak words only two or three times.
But instead, countless unvoiced words constantly swirled around him.

In the thicket near the railway overpass on Waterworks Road lay the corpse of a white puppy.
Bathed in the early spring sunlight, it lay as if peacefully stretched out in sleep.
If one could die so quietly, unknown and unnoticed by anyone... he would gaze intently at the small corpse lying exposed on the roadside during his walks, as though it would remain there forever.
This was a sight utterly unlike the scenes of humans’ gruesome deaths seared into his memory.

"From now on—from now on—how would that man go on living?" He was being talked about in such terms by his younger friends.
This was during the time when he was to vacate a room at a Kanda publishing house, his destination still undecided, leaving everything suspended in uncertainty.
In the situation where magazines were folding, publishers collapsing, and powerless writers being driven to obscurity, everyone was in a despondent mood.
Maybe I should become a shoeshine... he found himself thinking, as he attentively watched the shoeshine workers settled in their spots amidst the bustle.

“The other night in the train too, when F, N, and I were talking about you.”
“From now on—from now on—how on earth are you going to go on living?”
E, who had recently decided to study in France, turned to him and said.
That plaintive, anxious tone seemed to twist his gut as he listened in silence.
He wanted, above all else, a single room where he could settle himself.

One day, when he went to check on the room in Ogikubo that had been promised through an acquaintance’s arrangement, everything turned out completely different.
As he walked dazedly through the twilight streets, he suddenly encountered the acquaintance.
Right then, he had them search together for another possible place in Kichijoji.
It was that evening that he decided to rent the room there.

When he moved from a noisy corner of Kanda to the second-floor room of his Kichijoji lodging, he felt as though he had finally returned to his study after a long absence.
It was quiet.
From the second-floor window stretched a broad vista of bamboo groves, clusters of trees, and houses leisurely occupying the space.
Sitting vacantly at his desk, he even felt this might be an extension of the house where he had parted from his wife.
Whenever he walked along Itsukaichi Street, trees persistently caught his eye.
Oaks, zelkovas, magnolias... Ah—could this be it? His heart swelled as if reuniting with something long yearned for.
Yet...the powerless writer's bleak prospects remained utterly unchanged even here.
Two years prior, he had sold his Hiroshima land—the meager remainder of that money still clung to his hands.
It was calculated to last three, perhaps four more months.
Lately he found himself recalling that "monster" metaphor with increasing frequency.

Against the monster that ceaselessly drove powerless war victims to destitution and sought to strip them of everything, he had intended to hurl the land in Hiroshima’s burned ruins and flee.
If he fed this much to the monster’s maw, he could survive for about another year.
Having obtained the money from selling the land, he had proudly thought this way back then.
Then, abruptly—methodically—the monster shifted its method of pursuit.
His manuscripts began selling piecemeal, and his work chronicling the atomic bomb experience gained some recognition, eventually being published as a standalone volume.
He had apparently survived two years unscathed.
But the monster never once loosened its grip.
When that visage materialized before him again, he stood empty-handed—nothing left to throw at his adversary—now plunged into ruin with scarcely any means left to flee.

“Why don’t you just die already?
What are you cowering for?”

The young friend who had been a crew member on a special submarine would say such things to him when drunk.
Compared to the countless sorrowful lives that had been pointlessly slaughtered, even cornered into dire straits as he was, he might still be considered fortunate.
If heaven were to bury him as a useless human, then it could not be helped.
The corpse of the dog he had seen in the thicket near the railway overpass would sometimes flash through his mind.
The words "one more time before dying" would often surface.
But he shook his head violently, as if to deny it.
However, he had wanted to return to his hometown one more time.
For some time now, he had been invited by writer M to accompany him to the upcoming Japan PEN Club "Hiroshima Meeting."
From his elder brother in Hiroshima had come a letter of inquiry asking whether he might return for his nephew’s imminent wedding.
His younger sister in Kurashiki had also asked him to stop by on his way.
But regarding the travel expenses, he still hadn’t been able to reach any definite decision.

One day, he ventured for the first time into Inokashira Park that lay immediately nearby.
Long before, he had once visited it with his wife, but because those sweet memories remained too vivid, he had hesitated to return.
As he entered the dim path beneath the tree-lined avenue, a swarm of bran-like insects swirled before his eyes.
He reached the pond's edge and walked in circles while gazing at the water.
Floating weeds spread fresh tendrils through the water as tadpoles darted among them.
A brimming luminosity pulsed insistently through the air.

The tree-lined path he passed through once daily grew more spring-like with each passing day. Even just seeing sunlight pour onto new buds clinging to branches intoxicated him like wine. He felt as though the most delicate music were spilling forth from there.

Far, far away—through misty seas—
Morning again tinged green
In the glass of swelling buds
Is a gentle premonition not reflected there?
Within the boy’s chest, each morning windows opened one after another
Peering through those windows—the distant I

This was something he had casually noted down in his notebook two years ago when visiting Hiroshima.
Nostalgia gnawed at his heart.
Though he had missed his nephew’s wedding, he now resolved to attend this PEN Club “Hiroshima Meeting” without fail.
……He had not forgotten the photograph kept at his elder sister’s house in Funairi Kawaguchi-cho.
It showed an elder sister who had died during his boyhood—the gentle girl standing beneath the grape trellis now filled him with relentless yearning.
That’s right—when I go to Hiroshima this time, I’ll borrow that photo and bring it back—this whimsical notion fanned his nostalgia further.

One day, he was approached by a friend with a proposal for a book aimed at boys.
It was a solid publisher’s project, and if he could complete this work, his living expenses would be guaranteed for about six months.
Suddenly, he felt his outlook brightening.
Since the payment for that job would only come about six months later, to tide himself over until then, he resolved to ask his elder brother in Hiroshima for a loan.……As he bought souvenirs for his nieces in Kurashiki, he found his heart buoyant.
As he selected items that seemed to suit a girl’s preferences, a gentle exchange felt distant.……It wasn’t what one would call love, but since last summer, he had been stirred by a certain tenderness.
A twenty-two-year-old young woman named Miss U, whom he had come to know by chance, had become a mysterious presence to him.
At first, her face dazzled him so intensely it made him tremble, and being with her left him breathless.
But as he grew accustomed, the painful feelings within him gradually diminished; yet no matter how many times they met, her delicate, pure, and sharp impression remained unchanged.
He voiced his admiration for it.
Then Miss U spoke.

“To think of women’s hearts as only beautiful in that way must be a mistake.”
“And beauty fades so quickly, you know.”

Just hearing that this elegant girl beside him had been part of the Women’s Volunteer Corps during the war, with a *tasuki* sash crossed over her chest, gave him an aching pang.
When they had tea together or took walks, sudden vivid flashes would appear in her voice and expression.
Twenty-two was the age his wife had been when they married.

“Anyway, you’re someone dear to me.”
“I want to remember you as someone dear.”

On the night before leaving Kanda, as he was cluttering his room with luggage, Miss U called out to him from outside the window.
He immediately went outside and took a walk with her.
After moving to Kichijoji, there had been no opportunities for them to meet.
But into the bag he was taking to Hiroshima, he quietly placed Miss U’s photograph. ……Having arranged to meet the PEN Club group in Hiroshima, he departed Tokyo one step ahead of them.

When he exited the ticket gate at Kurashiki Station, a girl holding a small dog caught his eye.
The girl silently bowed to him.
During the time he hadn’t seen her, his little niece had come to resemble his younger sister’s face from childhood in some way.

“Mother has just stepped out,” said the little niece as she came up from the kitchen entrance and opened the front door from within. On the desk in the tatami room lay a yellow box of foreign cigarettes.

“Please, have a smoke,” said the niece as she brought matches and then went outside as though her duty was done.
He moved to the wall and tried opening the window there.
Beneath the window lay a flowerbed where violets, daisies, and tulips had all come into bloom.
While he was engrossed in the whirl of colors, his younger sister returned from the front.
Then the little niece came to her mother’s side and settled herself down.
The older niece had not yet returned, but when he took out the souvenirs, his sister picked one up and laughed, “My, when buying such things, you must have enjoyed yourself after all.”

“Everyone seemed quite satisfied to have received them from such a nice place.”

His younger sister began recounting in meticulous detail the events of their nephew’s recent wedding ceremony.

“At the ceremony, your name came up.”
“They were all saying that you must already have someone proper in Tokyo.”

Suddenly he grew flustered.
Having been widowed for seven years now, he knew how sarcastic remarks and mockery constantly circulated among acquaintances.
……When his younger sister started preparing dinner, he went to the parlor and sat down before the piano.
This was the same piano that had been installed in their Hiroshima home’s parlor when his sister was a schoolgirl.
He opened the piano lid and absently touched the keys.
After tapping out disjointed notes for some time, his middle school-aged niece appeared.
Her appearance—now fully that of a young woman—felt startlingly unfamiliar to him.
“Play something for me,” he asked, prompting her to sift through the sheet music atop the piano.

“Shall we do this ‘Für Elise’?” she said while pulling out another score to show him, then pointedly added, “I can’t play this one yet.” Her hurried movements brimmed with hesitant uncertainty, but once her eyes fixed on the Für Elise sheet music, her fingers began producing clear, confident notes.

The next morning when he awoke, small teddy bears and duck toys were arranged by his pillow. When he suggested it might be his nieces’ prank, his sister laughed and said, “They thought you must be lonely and wanted to comfort you.”

That afternoon, he boarded the train after being seen off by his niece.
The local train, steeped in provincial character, offered leisurely views through its windows until the sight of Onomichi Bay suddenly drew him to vibrant green hues unseen in years.
Then his eyes began concentrating on the scenery outside with devouring intensity.
Since his wife's death, he had visited her hometown countless times.
This stemmed from a vague longing to reclaim lost time within his heart by retracing her origins—yet now her birthplace itself lay just ahead.
When he disembarked at Hongo Station, he stopped by his deceased wife's house.
That evening as he soaked in its tiled bath, memories of when she first guided him into those waters resurfaced instantly.
How much time had passed since then? This thought repeated within him endlessly.

The next evening, he got off at Hiroshima Station and walked straight toward Noboricho.
When he peered casually through the glass window facing the street, he faintly saw his elder brother’s face; his elder brother gestured with his hand to go around to the other side.
Suddenly he realized it was a newly built factory, and that the house entrance lay off to its side.

“Hey, things seem to be going well for you.”

The nephew called out with a smile.
Clinging close behind the nephew was a lively-looking wife whom he had never seen before.
Upon arriving at this house, he learned that the PEN Club’s arrival here tomorrow had been covered quite prominently in the newspaper, with even his own mention introduced as a writer from his hometown.

“So you’re the guy who took the atomic bomb,” his elder brother quipped at the dinner table.
But after drinking just a little beer, his elder brother’s skin had already begun to itch.

“I’m the one being consumed… Just the other day, they peeled off the skin of my abdomen with a scalpel.”

It remained unclear whether this was atomic bomb disease, but lately his elder brother had been troubled by skin that itched unbearably. When he had undergone an examination at ABCC (Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission), a portion of his skin was excised and sent to their home country for research purposes, it was said. Compared to when he had last seen him, his elder brother’s complexion had grown haggard. Perhaps because there was a young couple nearby, even his sister-in-law’s face appeared aged. Late at night, he slipped into his clogs and went to visit the storage room at the back. Here resided the younger brother and his wife who had returned from Siberia.

The next morning, as he stood idly on the veranda, his elder brother’s figure could be seen crossing through the fields shouldering a manure bucket for morning chores.
Right before his eyes marigolds and cornflowers bloomed on the ground while beyond them in the wheat field stood a single pear tree clad in pure white blossoms.
Two years earlier when he had stopped by this house, the road beyond the wheat field lay fully visible; now a black wooden fence encircled it.
With a small sewing factory built along the main street, this house too had come to feel somewhat withdrawn.
Yet what remained to evoke memories from before the burning was merely the rock from what had once been an artificial hill in the garden and a well still visible in the wheat field.
Both that single moment on that tragic morning and his exact position when it happened remained etched in his memory with excruciating clarity.
As flames first became visible and he fled, his eyes retained as that house’s final image a vivid maple tree—its base snapped clean at a garden corner’s edge, blue branches thrust into a hand-washing basin.
Then over a month after destruction’s completion when he first returned here again amidst endless embers stood a rust-red safe with wooden signpost beside it.
This too stayed sharply imprinted.
And when he had first visited this newly built house from Tokyo back then too dwellings remained sparse with debris still scattered everywhere.
Compared to those days this area had now transformed into something unrecognizably town-like.

In the afternoon, when he went to Hiroshima Station to meet the arriving PEN Club members, a large crowd of what appeared to be local greeters had gathered at the exit.
But when the train arrived at last, the crowd all began heading toward the stationmaster’s office.
He too followed the crowd and moved around to that side.
Amidst the large crowd of people, M’s face immediately caught his eye.
There, a few writers he knew were also present.
Eventually, joining this group, he too boarded the sightseeing bus for the city tour.
……The bus stopped on Hijiyama Hill, and from there, the entire city could be seen at a glance.
Right away, in the thicket, war orphans with burlap sacks slung over their shoulders were rustling about.
That struck his eyes as bizarre.
Then the bus stopped in front of the gas company.
On the darkened surface of the massive gas tank, the traces of the atomic bomb’s rays remained as a single white ladder-like shadow.
This gas tank too was something he had been familiar with since childhood.
……The bus crossed Miyuki Bridge and arrived at Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital.
The appearance of the first atomic bomb patient—the glossy sheen of burn scars on his back and the red congealed state of his left hand’s nails—resembled something like a specimen.
……After visiting City Hall, Kokutaiji Temple, Osaka Bank, and the Hiroshima Castle ruins, the bus stopped beside the Industrial Promotion Hall.
When he was a child, at the time this Western-style building first appeared in the city, he had been taken by his father to climb its stairs. That round roof could also be seen from the second floor of his house, stirring a sense of expansion in his child’s heart.
Now, as he looked up at the reinforced concrete remnants and fixed his gaze on the area around its domed roof, the soft evening sunlight of spring flowed vainly.
The sparrows were flying about restlessly—perhaps building their nests there. ...Time flowed on.
Now, this city no longer held things that would suddenly send shivers through the eyes of those who saw it.
And the gentle breeze and distant mountain range surrounding the city seemed to be quietly continuing to pray for something.

As the bus crossed the bridge and emerged onto Koi’s national highway, a group of puffy black phantoms—swollen and walking with faltering, listless steps across the quiet pre-sunset asphalt—seemed to abruptly come into view.

The next morning, he set out for the “Hiroshima Meeting” being held at the Gas Building.
On the second floor there, the table speeches by the Hiroshima PEN Club and the Japan PEN Club continued for over three hours.
When the meeting ended, the sign-in book was passed around to him as well.
“Water…” he absentmindedly wrote in a flash, taking up his pen.
Then he strolled off toward the Central Public Hall with M.
M had long seemed interested in Hiroshima, but he suddenly found himself imagining what M would perceive here this time.
It was a beautifully clear, splendid day, and the air seemed filled with countless minute particles mingling harmoniously.
When they arrived at the Central Public Hall, the venue was already filled with an audience.
He too had been scheduled to attend and speak at the lecture meeting now being held here.
He did not think that his name and works were yet well-known among the people of Hiroshima.
But as one of those who had survived that day, he felt there might be something that could not be severed from this land.
…The things he intended to speak about were what he had been vaguely pondering all along.
As he became absorbed in thoughts of childhood—the familiar rows of cherry trees in Dote-machi, the dizzying sight of Kokutaiji’s towering camphor tree with its fresh green leaves when he was a boy—his mind now seemed to fill with a throbbing radiance of green.
Then, the turn for the lecture came around to him.
He stepped onto the stage and faced the swirling faces of the audience, but a green phantom flickered before his eyes.
Within the swirl of faces, he thought he could discern some that seemed to belong to survivors of that day.

When the lecture ended, the bus carrying the PEN Club members drove along the evening sightseeing route.
The tranquil green of the Seto Inland Sea visible before his eyes seemed to soothe his heart wearied by clamor.
As the steamship reached the pier, an island with lit lights came softly into view.
Shortly after settling at the inn, he sat in a corner of an atomic bomb survivors’ roundtable hosted by a magazine company.

The next day, as the PEN Club had disbanded, he parted from the group and boarded a train alone.

When he returned to the house in Noboricho, the younger brother from the back and the second elder brother from Hiratayamachi had come. It had been over a decade since the four siblings had last gathered like this. But no one gave voice to it. The three-tatami dining area was jam-packed with dishes and people. “Let’s take in a bit of Hiroshima’s night as well. Let’s stop by Hiratayamachi first,” he said, inviting his second elder brother and younger brother to go out. When they stopped by his second elder brother’s shop, the curtains were drawn and the light was out.

“Please show me where everyone’s gathered—just for a moment.”

He made his request to the sister-in-law who had emerged from the inner room. Children in nightclothes and Western attire came trooping out. They were all war orphans who had once shared a desolate existence with him in Yawata Village. Among their varied faces, the pained expression of the eldest daughter—the one most attached to him—stood out conspicuously. He promptly returned to the street. Then the three of them ambled toward Hiroshima Station. Though the night had grown late, when they crossed Enkō Bridge, high-tide waters lay beneath it—that timeless sensation of a river at night. Returning to Kyobashi, something swift darted across the deserted road before their eyes.

“Weasel,” the second elder brother uttered in a rare tone.

There were still a few places he wanted to see and houses he wished to visit.
He had also wanted to visit Yawata Village again after so long—the place where they had continued their wretched existence for over half a year following the disaster.
Nowadays there were buses running from the city, making it easy to go that way, but he had wanted to walk that road once more—the one he had trudged over two and a half miles along five years ago.
So the next day, he first stopped by his younger sister’s house in Takasu.
This was his first time stepping into this newly built house and seeing the child born after her remarriage.

“I’ve grown old.”
“Now you look more like the younger brother,” laughed the younger sister.
Beside them, a child who could crawl was staring at the mother with a sulky face.

“Are you not experiencing any particular symptoms?”
“Lately, for some reason, my eyes have been tearing up uncontrollably.”
“I’m thinking of having the ABCC examine me.”

He and his younger sister had been in the same building when the atomic bomb struck, but could abnormalities really manifest five years later?
……But his younger sister began anxiously recounting her brother-in-law’s case.
Her brother-in-law had lost even his hair to radiation sickness back then but quickly recovered, remaining free of abnormalities for a long time afterward; yet recently, she said, his cheek muscles had begun twitching and his frailty had become pronounced.
As he listened to such talk, he found himself recalling once more that nauseating stench which had assaulted his senses—piercing and pervasive—rising from scattered patches of Hiroshima’s earth in those immediate aftermath days.

After finishing lunch at his younger sister’s place, he took the train to Rakurakuen Station and from there walked along a path following a stream toward Yawata Village.
In the far distance lay a mountain range his eyes well remembered.
As he walked gazing at those mountains, a feeling reminiscent of that past gnawing sorrowful anger surfaced... In the midst of starvation, he had often trudged along this very road.
As if abandoned alone in a chilled universe, he would gaze vacantly up at the night stars on this road.
But if survival itself had been threatened, that danger should have persisted ever since.
Even now, exposed to life’s impending collapse, he walked this path alone.
Yet in any case, he had survived five years since then... Before he knew it, wind stirred and dampness permeated the air.
A thin haze rose over the mountain range’s sky as clouds gathered.
Close by came the song of a skylark.
Looking up, he saw a single skylark in the thinly clouded sky quietly trembling its wings.

The next morning, he walked toward Shiromshima.
After buying marigold flowers at a florist near the temple, he visited his deceased wife’s grave, then stood on Tokiwa Bridge and gazed for a while at the riverbank of the Izumi Mansion.
On the hazy green bank, the small figure of someone working could be seen.
Both that bank and this bridge above held memories of death and flames for him.

In the afternoon, he went out toward Motomachi.
That place was the former site of the West Drill Ground, but now houses of repatriates, war victims, and others stood lined up, forming a single settlement.
At the site of the former field artillery regiment was the Shinsei Gakuen he had been searching for.
He was guided by the orphanage director and walked around looking at the orphans’ rooms.
When he entered the spacious study room, beyond the glass-paned windows lay the stone walls of the castle ruins and a blue moat intermingling light and shadow.

After leaving there, he took the train to his elder sister’s house in Funairi Kawaguchi-cho.

“What should I do about the dishes of yours I’ve been keeping?”

When he entered the living room, his elder sister immediately began to speak.

“Ah, those? You can just use them as you like—I don’t need them anymore.”

The dishes were ones he had buried underground and dug up from the ruins of his house—items his wife had used during their travels years before. It had been five years since they had been left in his elder sister’s care.

……He mentioned that he wanted to see the album.

When asked which photo he wanted to see, his elder sister brought three albums from the back. The photograph of a girl standing beneath the grape trellis that had been behind their old house was quickly found.

This was the visage of his deceased elder sister that had occupied his thoughts until coming to Hiroshima.

He decided to borrow it for a while and tried to peel it from the album.

But the thin, discolored photograph clung flatly to the album page.

Because it was tearing and likely to be ruined, he gave up.

“When you came back here the year before last and sold that land—or so I heard—what have you done with the money?”

“Most of it’s gone.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t something meant to be converted into money.”
“If you convert it into money, it disappears right away.”
“Oh… I see.”

His elder sister showed him the inside of the recently renovated house.
As it happened, all the lodgers were out, so he walked around viewing from the reception room up to the second floor.
The tatami-floored area was divided by a thin wooden partition into two separate rooms.
Every room bore the desolate bleakness befitting student lodgers.
Her side work sewing on a machine also wasn’t going well, so she had started a boarding house. “Look at me,”
“I had saved a hundred thousand yen.”
“Of that, I spent sixty thousand yen to hire a carpenter this time,” said his elder sister.

This area was far enough from the hypocenter that the house remained unburned, but immediately after the war ended, his elder sister had lost her husband and was struggling while raising her two sons. Yet considering those circumstances, his PL believer elder sister seemed rather carefree. “Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together,” she repeated until their parting.

He was scheduled to depart the next day, but he still hadn’t found the opportunity to ask his elder brother for a loan. Having encountered various people and gazed upon diverse landscapes, he felt as though things that had vanished or been forgotten were welling up incessantly from underground. Suddenly, he mentioned to his sister-in-law that he had heard a skylark on the road to Yawata Village the previous day.

“Skylarks sing here in Hiroshima too.”
“They were singing here in the back.”

Whether it was the weasel he had glimpsed the other night or the skylarks—had such creatures now become accustomed to this city?

“Inokashira Park is right near your boarding house, isn’t it? When I came up to Tokyo long ago, I had someone show me around that park once.” … The fact that his deceased wife had specifically guided his sister-in-law there struck him as news.

That night, he found it hard to fall asleep in bed.
The words "Water, please" kept surfacing in his mind.
He had casually written them in the PEN Club's autograph book, yet from those words now swelled countless memories.
The maid at his second brother's house—she too had died from burns while desperately begging for water back then.
Water, please... Water, please... Water, please... Water, please... It gripped him like some nightmarish incantation.

After returning to Tokyo, he wrote it as follows.

Water, please
Ah... Water, please
Let me drink
Better dead—
Better dead—
Ah...
Help me Help me
Water…
Water…

Please…

Someone…

O—O—O—O—

O—O—O—O—

The sky splits

The city vanishes

The river

Flowing

O—O—O—O—

O—O—O—O—

Night falls

Night falls

In glittering eyes

On withered lips

Searingly scorched

Dizzying

this chaos’s

face’s

human groan

human’s

On the morning of his departure, he finally ventured to mention the loan to his elder brother.

“How much income did that book bring in?”

He had no choice but to state things exactly as they were.
The book he wrote about the atomic bomb had sustained his livelihood for four or five months.

“Was that all?” said his elder brother with a look of surprise.
Yet his elder brother’s business too appeared to be in severe recession.
That too could be inferred from his sister-in-law’s tone when she privately criticized the young couple’s lifestyle.

“Having the company’s deficits forced on us—there’s nothing we can do,” said his elder brother, his face troubled as he pondered for a while.

“If need be, I could sell those stock certificates.”

They were stock certificates his deceased father had put under his name, kept in his elder brother’s custody long afterward.
If sold, they would amount to 15,000 yen.
Two years ago he had relinquished land from Mother’s inheritance; now he parted with Father’s.

When he returned after ten days away, Tokyo was rainy.
An invitation to the farewell party for E, who was leaving to study in France, had also reached him.
One cloudy, drizzly evening, while out in Kanda, he decided to visit Miss U’s house for the first time in a long while.
When the young lady appeared at the entrance wearing a deep green dress, it startled him.
But the green season had arrived throughout Kichijoji as well.
He kept sinking into memories of May in Hiroshima during his boyhood.

(*Mita Bungaku*, July 1951 issue)