Pathway to Japanese Literature

The Daikagura had been making their rounds through the hot spring town since early morning, but as the town—lined with buildings on both sides of the slope—was small, the sounds of shamisens and gongs could be heard all the way from its entrance.

Now, they were performing their act in front of the souvenir shop at the end of the slope. The area in front of the souvenir shop was a square just large enough to turn a car around, so the footing was probably good. The Daikagura performed their act for a long time. Since they had been making their rounds to nearly every house since morning, there were few spectators left now. By the pillar of the souvenir shop, a man holding a child stood alone. The rest were groups of children. Even those groups of children were now merely playing among themselves while idly gathering around them. At times, they engaged in coarse rustic banter or fanned each other’s heads with their folding fans, but when they finally began their water performance in earnest, they executed it so skillfully and seriously that even Naoko—watching from above—was unwittingly drawn into their intensity. Not relying on indifferent spectators, they seemed to be performing their act themselves and enjoying its execution. The man’s black formal kimono had changed color at the hem from being exposed to dust day after day as he walked. Grazing the eaves of board roofs characteristic of snow-heavy regions, the crimson tassels of their water performance tools flickered, and a man in a purple kimono beating a drum—these lent a springlike hue to the desolate hot spring town.

Naoko watched until they had left, pulling the small cart packed with all their props.

“After all that performing, I wonder how much they got… About a yen?”

Senkichi remained half-crouched before the long charcoal brazier in the tatami room, “Well, around here they wouldn’t give even one yen—fifty sen at best, I’d say.”

While talking, he kept moving his brush across the half-sized sheet of paper he held. “Nah,” “Hmm—”

Before long, “How’s this? It’s somewhat similar, don’t you think?”

When she saw what he had brought, it was a sketch of Naoko entranced by the Daikagura. In the curve of her cheek turned sideways, in the trailing tip of the slipper caught on her toes and dangling—Naoko distinctly recognized herself there.

“You can draw this well? Mr. Senkichi.” “It was just a coincidence. Since you were watching so intently, I thought it looked rather interesting—but the feeling comes through, doesn’t it?” “That’s impressive! At this level, it could really be something.” Senkichi was a young man living as a merchant in Nihonbashi who had some artistic inclinations—he wanted to study painting among other things.

The third floor had many vacant rooms because it was a time when hot spring cure guests were sparse. Through the quiet hallway, the two of them returned to where Sōko was, carrying the sketch. “That was a long Daikagura performance.” “But in return, I ended up creating this masterpiece.” “Take a look, will you? “Isn’t it?”

Parodying Kichiemon’s Kōchiyama mannerism, everyone laughed, dismissing the sketch entirely. Senkichi said he wanted to go for a walk; Sōko objected because of the wind. In the end, only Naoko and Senkichi went out together.

Senkichi changed into what looked like light serge and came out with a walking stick. “With this much wind, the Sesshōseki should be safe.” “Let’s go take a look.” “Ms. Sōko, you’ll end up missing it.” “It’s fine. She’s not coming despite her whims—if she wants to come, she can come alone.”

Naoko took the lead and descended the narrow, gentle slope from in front of the shop where the Daikagura had been performing earlier. “Do you know the way?”

“Yeah.” In preparation for summer, road repairs and building extensions were underway here and there. At that slope too, on a meager patch of level ground, a three-story building that seemed starved of sunlight stood precariously. Following a stone wall of jagged rocks that looked ready to crumble with the next rain, they turned and passed beneath the eaves of what resembled a souvenir shop more than a proper path, emerging where a cliff rose on one side and a river flowed on the other. Along the riverbank stood several dilapidated houses, and in one of them, several Ebisu figures molded from a yellow mud-like substance lay drying on the wooden floor within reach of the street.

“What a harsh path this is.”

Naoko walked in silence. This path was not new to her.

A few years ago, she had walked this path many times with her now-divorced husband. She recognized the small shrine enshrined in a hollow of the cliff.

When they crossed a bridge, the road continued along the river on their left. Here and there along the right-hand stone wall remained narrow paths barely wide enough for one person—left behind by massive landslides. It was indeed a rubble-stone wall. As she walked, Naoko found her gaze drifting two or three times toward the house atop that stone wall. Though the Kobayashi Ward office residence where she had stayed for five days must surely have been somewhere nearby, she saw no trace of any such house. Only indistinguishable rundown houses crowded the area—impossible to tell which were newer—while a single barber shop jutted out a red-and-blue striped pole from its eaves.

For Naoko, the memories of that time were not pleasant ones. However, they were not the kind of memories one could entirely forget within just a few years. In contrast, the sheer extent of change in their surroundings gave her an unexpected, vaguely astonished feeling. When she looked, the river’s width had also been reduced by about half. Senkichi swung his walking stick carefree, “It’s so desolate… it’s incredible,” he remarked with the wonder of a city dweller.

“It doesn’t measure up to Yugawara, you know.”

“Huh?” “Yeah, I get that… but sulfur springs really are something else.” “The only things that look like proper houses are the inns.” Not only in this area but also when one stepped just behind the main street lined with inns, everywhere resembled the reclaimed lands of Hokkaido.

They came upon the place where the Moto-yu Communal Bathhouse stood with its signpost. The road forked into two paths there. “Which way?” Looking around, Naoko gave a wry smile and,

“Well, I’ve gotten completely lost now,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be the right side, I wonder?” Because two men had ambled ahead of them, Naoko made that suggestion, but when they went a little further, that path turned out to be a dead end. “Well now, some questionable directions these are—isn’t there someone we can ask? Let’s try asking.” “It’s fine. Let’s go this way then.”

One of the communal bathhouse’s windows stood open. A strong sulfur scent lingered as they walked past several deserted bathing pools visible below. Numerous wooden ladles hung from partition walls separating the baths. "I," "Nakamura," "S.S.," and other markings were inscribed in ink on the ladles’ undersides.

When they passed that point, it became a completely desolate wasteland without a single dwelling. On both the right and left, hills pressed in, and the entire center was an expanse of burnt stones and sand. A single narrow path, packed with footprints, traced its way sporadically through the desolation all the way to the distant foothills. Rough, whitish rock fragments were mixed with sulfur that had solidified by the roadside. As if some violent force had clawed through the strata, not a single flat patch or spot of soil and grass remained within sight; when she looked back the way they had come, only a few azaleas bore late spring’s flowers atop the summits of the hills flanking either side. It was a forest. The sulfur scent grew increasingly strong.

Oppressed by nature and walking briskly in silence, Naoko felt a sorrowful yet joyous emotion. Even this place had at some point become completely different from the scenery she once remembered. The path’s condition was different too. It appeared there had been a large landslide—the hills that had tumbled down in a chaotic mix of boulders and mud were also transformed. The entrance to the hot spring further up should have been somewhere around that bamboo thicket, but she couldn’t locate it. The fact that she couldn’t find it no matter how much she looked filled her with both sorrow and joy, and Naoko, glancing repeatedly in that direction, felt a sharp emotion pierce through her. The nature she had associated with dark lifelong memories now stood before her as something entirely new!

“Only clouds soar above the stones.”　　　　　　　Bashō When they reached where the stone monument became visible, Senkichi took out a pure white handkerchief and covered his nose. “From here, the path we took actually smelled worse.” “Really?… No, this reeks!” Senkichi pressed the handkerchief he’d briefly lowered back against his nose. After gazing awhile at the black rounded stones, they began their return along the path climbing the hill to their left. At one spot, a patch of ground about one tsubo in size—along with a large azalea—had come sliding down the slope. Though uprooted, the seven- or eight-foot wild azalea bore vivid birch-colored blossoms.

Senkichi was the first to return to Tokyo. Naoko too was soon to depart, but after half a month in those monotonous mountains, returning to the same suburban house felt utterly dreary. She wanted to go straight back to the heart of nighttime Tokyo and be jostled by the tangle of lights and people—bright and dark. Planning to invite even her brother out for dinner somewhere, Naoko called her parents' house upon arriving in Ueno. "They've stepped out for a moment—please wait a bit."

“Hello? This is a public phone, so please hurry.” Even so, around the time Naoko began growing uneasy about how long she’d been waiting, Kōichi came out. “Oh, it’s been a while—did you come back today?” “I’m at Ueno now—don’t you want to come out?”

After thinking for a while, Kōichi—

“I think I’d better stay home tonight,” he said.

“A couple of friends are supposed to come help me with drafting—and Mom’s not feeling well, so you should come home.”

Naoko gazed through the taxi’s clouded window at the scenery of Yamashita and Ike-no-hata, where lights were beginning to flicker on—still sensing something urban in their aspect.

It appeared a gardener had been at work, for beside the entrance of the Komagome house stood a newly installed ground cover she had never seen before. Delicate pale pink flowers tinged with lavender bloomed among slender leaves. As she looked at them, Naoko passed through the dark entryway without ringing the bell. She was about to open the tearoom door when— “Oh!” Chiyoko came running down from the second floor, her bobbed hair bouncing and the hem of her uniform billowing out. “Mother isn’t feeling well?”

“Yeah.” “Big Sister, when did you get back?” “I just got back—is she sleeping?”

Chiyoko nodded uncertainly, as if somewhat perplexed. And with a girlish air, “She’s tired,” she said. Naoko sent Chiyoko to ask whether her mother would come downstairs or whether she herself should go up to the second floor.

“She just woke up, so she says she wants to rest for about thirty minutes.”

During that time, Naoko took a bath. The tap water felt refreshing after so long, and the lively voices of children beyond the hedge, along with the sound of a piano a little farther away, were delightful. The bubbling vitality of daily life intertwined with the sensation of soap lathering around her body, and Naoko poured water over herself vigorously again and again while standing.

With a lighthearted feeling, Naoko went up to the second floor.

“How are you feeling?” “Ah.”

On the bed where she had half-risen, Masako listlessly turned her head and looked at her daughter entering.

“I’m just so troubled by how unclear everything feels—how was the hot spring?—you came all this way.” “Your voice sounds strangely withered—what’s wrong?”

Masako directed her gaze toward Chiyoko, who was lying prone at the foot of the bed, “It must have been bad with all sorts of things piling up, huh?” she said. In a feeble posture that seemed to fold her at the abdomen, “I’m worn out because I have no appetite at all,” she sighed.

In the light of the stand placed on a footstool to avoid glare, Naoko saw the plate of stewed fruits and the cup of red wine that had been left untouched. They appeared to have been left there untouched since at least the afternoon. Naoko called the maid and had her clear all of that away.

“If you keep looking at it sitting right beside you like that, your appetite still won’t come back.” “What did you manage to eat today?” “Since I can drink as much milk as I want—yesterday I had about two cups of milk, and today I ate a little kudzu gruel too.”

Masako said laboriously in a small voice, “Ah, ah”

Having said that, she first lowered her elbows, rested her shoulders, and lay down.

When Chiyoko had said downstairs, “She’s tired,” there had been a subtle expression, so Naoko had thought it was likely due to her frequent bouts of insomnia. Masako had been suffering from diabetes for several years, which had caused various disorders in her nervous system. “So it wasn’t just today that you’ve been resting a little?”

“Returning from Kōzu made it worse—it’s been about six days now.”

The fact that Kōichi and Chiyoko seemed indifferent to their mother’s condition caused Naoko to feel a strange, unsettling sense of unreliability. “I feel so drafty and cold. Could you close the shoji for me?”

When the young daughter had left, Masako explained her condition in detail to Naoko. Naoko grew more anxious than she had been before hearing it. “Even if that was temporary and had healed, being this weak isn’t good—and first of all, having no appetite or anything...” “Why don’t you have a proper doctor examine you?” Masako said as if to explain, “I did have someone examine me—Dr. Kubo.” “Since it’s common during menopause, you have nothing to worry about—it’s just fatigue.”

Before long, her father Shōtarō returned.

“So, are you able to eat a little something now?”

Seizing on that, Masako half-jokingly chided,

“It’s your fault for telling me to come to Kōzu in the first place.”

she said.

Naoko went out to the kitchen and had a chicken ordered to prepare cold meat. To the maid standing by the kitchen counter, she asked, “Did you prepare anything for this evening?”

When she asked,

“No, I didn’t prepare anything.” “Because Madam said she didn’t wish to partake…”

The situation of her mother—bedridden with only the hired help and her young daughter—pierced Naoko’s heart. Late at night, she brought vegetable soup and salad, but Masako, though delighted, “How delicious this looks—perhaps I’ll treat myself a little,” said only that before taking a mere sip. She spoke this way to avoid discouraging Naoko.

“It will surely develop flavor by tomorrow or so.”

When she was alone with her father, Naoko earnestly urged that her mother be seen by a specialist. “If you keep attributing everything to diabetes and menopause and it actually becomes too late, it’ll be disastrous!” Shōtarō, “Hmm… Yes, you’re quite right.”

He nodded. However, he seemed unable to muster the resolve to finalize those arrangements. Naoko was concerned about it due to her grandfather’s cancer, but Masako did not entertain such suspicions in her mind—and even if she had harbored them, she placed no trust in doctors above all else. About thirteen years ago, she had been told it was cancer and nearly undergone surgery. At that time, Masako argued with a renowned specialist in that field and stubbornly refused to allow the incision. Later examination revealed it had not actually been cancer. The condition appeared instead to have been an ulcer-like issue in her pylorus; Masako had hardly consulted any doctors afterward and healed herself through sheer endurance and natural remedies. “I know my own body best,” she said this time as well.

After ten o’clock, Naoko went to the detached building that Kōichi used as his workspace. Kōichi was down to a single undershirt, his face still flushed with excitement. While showing Naoko his nearly completed work, “If Sis stays here, I can’t tell you how heartening it is—since they never talk about anything, just a bunch of fools.” he said.

On the nearby stand sat the oil-based clay model of the house Kōichi had been drafting. He, “Don’t look at the lightbulb.”

he cautioned, turned on a two-hundred-candlepower bulb, and photographed it. This was his graduation project.

The next day, Masako remained in bed and could still hardly eat anything. “It’s never taken me this long to recover before,” she herself began to doubt. “They say the scar in my pylorus can’t be helped—it sometimes makes a whooshing sound, you know... I have this strange sensation.” Naoko sensed it wasn’t that her mother remained unaffected—rather, in a way, she feared doctors. When Naoko pressed her to undergo an examination, she argued with evident displeasure and soon began launching into entirely unrelated topics.

“Lying here like this, I keep thinking about the past—how truly regrettable it is that I didn’t ask Grandmother more while she was still with us. She herself must have wanted to share those stories, you know? Around springtime, she talked and talked until I was quite at a loss.”

In the Western-style house in Tsukiji where they had lived around Meiji 25-26 [1892-1893], there were splendid Western paintings and a large mother-of-pearl lacquered cabinet. "When I was young, my cousin and I ate all the rock candy Grandmother had hidden there and got scolded," she said. "The Western paintings and cabinet were swindled away by a corrupt steward named Nagai when we moved to Mukojima—but then that Nagai himself was killed by someone in Asakusa a few years later," Masako recounted leisurely, almost cheerfully. During the Mukojima era, there were many stories that Naoko had heard. Then came stories of the time surrounding Shōtarō’s trip abroad.—The entirety of her mother’s life up to that point rose vividly before Naoko’s eyes.

Naoko felt her mother’s aging with piercing clarity, and from the very implications of what she herself had just said about her grandmother, her mother’s unceasing reminiscences felt as desolate as water.

In the afternoon, a young man working at the Reconstruction Bureau came to visit. He recounted how during land readjustment while relocating the temple cemetery, they had dug up Yagyū Tajima-no-kami’s grave only to find nothing inside. “How peculiar,” Masako remarked with interest. “I wonder what could have caused that.”

Masako looked at the young man and Naoko with an interested expression. At such times, her eyes revealed the heavy, imposing intensity characteristic of her usual self. But even during that time, Naoko felt her heartache growing. Half-laughing, “This old lady is so stubborn and insists she absolutely won’t see a doctor.” “Mr. Tsuchiya, could you do me a favor and try persuading her?”

Naoko said to the guest.

When Tsuchiya left, Masako, lying down,

“Part of it must stem from psychological factors too,” she said. “Lately I feel I’ve lost all will to live—not a single flicker of expectation stirs within me anymore. It’s an utterly chilled state of mind. If this is what they call enlightenment, then perhaps I’ve become enlightened, but…” Naoko involuntarily retorted forcefully, “Enlightenment isn’t something cold—it ought to be warm.”

And she said with a laugh,

“If you start talking like a miser, I’ll set fire—” “What on earth—” “Well now, what a wretched old woman’s shack I’ve become.” She gave a wry smile but, “Truly, when I was young and saw people living in splendid homes, I’d think, ‘How enviable—I wish I could live like that too.’ But these days, I just wonder who on earth will inherit this house after us—I don’t feel envious at all.” “It rather leaves me with this peculiar loneliness.—And… lately I’ve come to understand Father’s limitations… and realized no greater success can be expected.”

Silently lying down beside her mother, Naoko listened to those words, feeling them deeply in her heart. Within Mother’s heart, a new turning point was approaching. Naoko sensed that this somehow resonated with her own heart.

Shōtarō had to travel to Hokkaido. During his absence, Masako would feel uneasy being left alone like this, and Naoko, for her part, couldn’t rest until she had Masako examined by a reputable doctor at least once. They decided to stay for three or four days and temporarily returned to the suburban house.

The rain had begun at dusk, and by the time Naoko boarded the suburban train past eleven, it had turned into a downpour. It was a steady drizzle, typical of the pre-rainy season. The train dashed recklessly along the dark country road as it shook violently. Rain struck the window glass, glistening under the interior electric light. Naoko stood up from her seat before reaching the station and peered carefully out the window. I wonder if someone has come to meet me. The hour was late—with no prior arrangement made—so she couldn’t truly expect anyone, but walking alone through the deserted dark town in her dispirited state felt utterly daunting.

The moment the train stopped, a face moved abruptly in the corner of the waiting room. It looked very small. But it was Sōko. Naoko sensed a special consideration in Sōko’s gesture of going out of her way to come meet her, making her all the happier. Sōko stood up, clumsily bundling the geta and umbrella all at once,

“Here, take these,” she said.

The others were already asleep. While drinking tea in Sōko’s room, Naoko talked about her mother’s condition. “So?—Did you have someone examine her?” “Not yet.” “That’s impossible!”

Sōko let out a loud, angry voice. “How could you be there and let this happen?!” “So when I go tomorrow, I’ll make the arrangements myself—let’s not count on Father anymore, all right?” While seeing her mother’s face before her eyes had been worrying yet lacking urgency, now as she spoke with Sōko, Naoko felt an anxiety resembling fear. The enormity of what a parent’s aging meant to their child—this stabbed through Naoko’s heart.

——

Sōko took a drag on her cigarette, scattering a cloud of smoke. And she looked at Naoko’s face. Naoko, also caught up in her inner feelings, stared intently at Sōko’s face watching her when suddenly she slightly opened her mouth and made a strangely pained, terror-stricken expression. Her eyes fixed on Sōko’s face took on a questioning look. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Naoko shook her head to indicate it was okay and, after a moment,

“It’s nothing… I’m just being a bit oversensitive.” She said and cleared her throat. It was because she disliked putting it into words that Naoko had spoken this way, but in truth, there was a reason. As she looked at Sōko’s face, Naoko recalled a certain dream—one where her teeth fell out. While going about some task, all her upper teeth had slipped loose one after another in the order they’d first emerged. Shocked and grief-stricken, she pressed her hands to her mouth, but it filled with a gritty crunch beyond control; when those hard teeth spread into a crackling mass within her mouth, a loathsome despair lingered vividly even after waking. She’d had this dream more than once. Though not superstitious, Naoko found herself unable to maintain composure now that this sensation had abruptly resurfaced.

After taking a bath and going to her room, she found a new white mosquito net hung over the bed. It was a round mosquito net suspended from the ceiling. Comforted by its crisp freshness, she lay down—yet sleep eluded Naoko. When she followed the anxiety tightening her heart, it expanded endlessly in the darkness until its intensity made her very core tremble. This was an obsessive worry—an obsessive worry. Rigid with concern, Naoko thought. Their conflicting attitudes toward life had often led to clashes. Yet despite everything—how profoundly I love my own mother. Looking back now with reverent clarity, she felt her mother too had lived striving wholeheartedly for this very reason—that now it was no longer herself but her mother’s turn to need understanding and love. But discovering that parent—the ever-giving mother who had been her childhood pillar of strength—as someone fragile needing her care struck Naoko with uncanny emotion. There were bound to be things she failed to grasp. She would love this impatient mother—this enigma—if only for memories of her vibrant prime. At times raging; at others laughing through tears— ——

From a newfound awareness of love, Naoko felt her mother all the more as someone she could not part with in this world and shed tears.