Pathway to Japanese Literature

The Great Kagura had been making its way through the hot spring town since early morning, but as the town lining both sides of the slope was small, the sounds of shamisen and gongs could be heard from its entrance. Now, they were performing tricks in front of the souvenir shop at the end of the slope. The area in front of the souvenir shop was spacious enough to turn a car around, so it must have provided a good stage. The Great Kagura performed their art for a long time. Since they had been moving through nearly every house since morning, there were already few spectators. By the souvenir shop’s pillar stood a man holding a child. The rest were groups of children. Even those groups of children were now just playing among themselves while half-heartedly clustering around them. In between, they engaged in vulgar repartee typical of rustic manzai or fanned each other’s heads with folding fans, but when they finally began the water performance in earnest, they executed it so skillfully and seriously that even Nahoko—observing from above—was naturally drawn into their intensity. They seemed not to rely on indifferent spectators, instead carrying out their tricks themselves as if reveling in the quality of their execution. The man’s black formal kimono had discolored at its hem from daily exposure to dust as he walked. The red tassels of water performance tools flickered beneath board roof eaves characteristic of snow-laden regions, while a drum-beating man in a purple kimono stood nearby—these sights lent spring-like hues to the desolate hot spring town. Nahoko watched until they had left, pulling along the small cart in which all the tools had been stored.

Nahoko watched until they had left—them pulling along their small cart loaded with all their stored props.

“After all that performing, I wonder how much they received… About one yen?” Senkichi remained half-crouched before the long hibachi in the tatami room. “Well, around here they wouldn’t pay a whole yen—fifty sen at best.”

While talking, he busily worked his brush across the half-sheet-sized paper he held. “Hmm?” “—Hmm.” Before long, “How about this? Looks a bit like you, doesn’t it?” When she saw what he had brought, it was a sketch of Nahoko absorbed in watching the Great Kagura. At the curve of her cheek as she looked away and the slipper dangling from her toe with its tail-like tip drooping down, Nahoko distinctly felt her own essence. “You can draw this well? Senkichi-san.” “Senkichi-san.”

“It’s just coincidence—I thought it looked interesting since you were watching so intently.” “But you can feel it coming through, can’t you?” “Skillfully done—at this level, something might come of it.”

Senkichi was living as a merchant in the Nihonbashi area, but he was a young man with some artistic inclinations who wanted to study painting.

The third floor had many vacant rooms, as it was a time when hot spring guests were sparse. Through the quiet hallway, the two returned toward where Sōko was, carrying the sketch.

“That was a long Great Kagura performance.” “But in exchange, we got such a masterpiece.” “Look here now—isn’t it?” Everyone laughed at their parody of Kichiemon’s Kōchiyama mannerisms, leaving the sketch forgotten. Senkichi said he wanted to go for a walk; Sōko objected because of the wind. In the end, only Nahoko and Senkichi went out.

Senkichi changed into what appeared to be a lightweight serge suit and came out with a cane.

“With this much wind, the Killing Stone should be safe enough. Let’s go take a look.” “O-Sō-san, you’ll end up missing it.” “It’s fine—I’m not being selfish by coming. If you wanted to join, you should’ve come alone.”

Nahoko took the lead and descended the narrow, sloping hill from in front of the shop where the Great Kagura had been performed earlier. “Do you know the way?” “Yes.”

In preparation for summer, road repairs and building extensions were underway here and there. At that slope as well, a three-story building with seemingly poor sunlight stood on a small patch of level ground. Following a stone wall of rough-hewn stones that looked ready to crumble in a single rain, they turned and passed beneath the eaves of souvenir shops that barely qualified as a path, emerging where one side was a cliff and the other a flowing river. Along the riverbank stood several ramshackle houses, and in one of them, multiple Ebisu figures—crafted from a yellow, mud-like substance—lay drying on a boarded floor within arm’s reach of the street.

“What a dreadful road.” Nahoko walked in silence. This road was not unfamiliar to her. Several years ago, she had walked this road many times with her now-separated husband. She recognized the small shrine enshrined in a hollow of the cliff.

When they crossed one bridge, the road ran alongside the river on their left. Here and there, narrow paths barely wide enough for one person remained along the right-hand stone walls despite massive landslides. It was indeed a wall of rough-hewn stones. As she walked, Nahoko found herself glancing two or three times toward the house atop the stone wall. The Kobayashi Ward office building where she had stayed for about five days must certainly have been in that area, yet nowhere could she see any trace of such a house. However, indistinguishable rundown houses of similar appearance clustered throughout the area, and a single barber shop protruded a red-and-blue-striped pole from its eaves. The memories of that time were not pleasant for Nahoko. However, it wasn’t the kind of thing she could completely forget in just a few years.

In contrast, the drastic transformation of their surroundings gave even Nahoko an unexpected, hazy sense of astonishment. When she looked, the river’s width had shrunk to nearly half its former size. Senkichi swung his cane back and forth with nonchalance, “It’s so wild—downright spectacular,” he remarked in his citified way. “Well, it doesn’t hold a candle to Yugawara.”

“Huh? “Well, I know that much... But sulfur vents do make a place feel different.” “Only the inns look like proper houses here.” Not just in this direction—even when turning slightly off the main street lined with inns, everywhere took on the look of Hokkaido’s reclaimed lands.

They came upon the Motoyu Public Bathhouse and a place with a signboard. The road forked into two paths there. “Which way?” Nahoko looked around and forced a wry smile, “Oh dear, I’ve gotten all turned around.” she said.

“Right, don’t you think?”

As two men sauntered ahead of them, Nahoko had said so, 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 could ask?—Let’s try asking.”

“It’s okay, let’s go this way.”

The window of a communal bathhouse stood open. A strong sulfur smell hung in the air as they walked past several deserted bathing tubs visible below. Numerous ladles hung on the wooden partitions separating the tubs. On their bottoms were written in ink characters like "I," "Nakamura," and "S.S."

Once past that point lay a completely uninhabited wasteland. To both right and left pressed hills, their midst a field of burnt stones and scorched sand. A narrow path compacted by countless footsteps continued tenuously through it all toward the distant mountain foothills. Amidst rough whitish rock fragments, sulfur had solidified along the roadside. As if strata had been violently clawed apart by some fierce force, not one flat area nor patch of soil or grass remained visible as far as the eye could see; turning to look back the way they had come, only a few azaleas clung to the summits of flanking hills, bearing belated spring blossoms. Forest covered everything. The sulfur smell grew ever stronger.

Under nature's oppressive weight, walking hurriedly in silence, Nahoko felt a bittersweet stirring within herself. Even this place had transformed completely from the scenery she once remembered—the road's layout altered beyond recognition. What appeared to have been a massive landslide had left the hillsides a chaotic jumble of boulders and mud where they collapsed together. The entrance to the deeper hot spring that should have been somewhere among Shinohara's bamboo grass fields remained unfindable no matter how she searched—this very elusiveness filled her with poignant yearning as she kept glancing toward where it ought to be, each look sharpening her emotional ache. Nature itself, which she had believed forever bound to dark lifelong memories, now lay before her eyes reborn as something startlingly new!

On the stone, things that fly are but clouds.　　　　　　　Bashō When they reached where the stone monument stood visible, Senkichi took out a spotless white handkerchief and pressed it to his nose. “It was actually smellier along the way here than it is now.” “Oh?… No—it’s foul! Foul!”

Senkichi pressed the handkerchief he had momentarily removed back against his nose. After gazing for a while at the black rounded stones, they set out on their return along the path that ascended the hill to their left. At one spot, an area of about one tsubo of ground—along with a large azalea—had collapsed down the slope. Uprooted yet still standing seven or eight feet tall, the wild azalea bore vivid birch-colored blossoms.

Senkichi was the first to return to Tokyo. Nahoko too would soon be leaving, but after half a month in these monotonous mountain surroundings, returning to that same suburban house felt utterly dreary. She wanted to go straight back to the heart of nighttime Tokyo and lose herself in the bright and shadowy tangle of lights and people. Thinking she might invite her younger brother out for dinner somewhere, Nahoko called her parents' house upon arriving at Ueno.

“They’re coming to the annex, so please wait a moment.” “Hello? This is a public phone here, so make it quick.” Even so, around the time she began worrying about the wait, Kōichi appeared. “Oh, it’s been a while.—Did you get back today?” “I’m at Ueno now—don’t you feel like coming out?”

After thinking for a while, Kōichi said: “I should stay home tonight.” he said.

“A couple of friends are coming to help out—huh? Drafting—and besides, Mother’s not doing well, so you should come home.”

Nahoko gazed through the clouded taxi window at the scenery of Yamashita and Ike-no-hata, where lights were beginning to come on, yet still feeling it had an urban air.

It appeared a gardener had been at work, for by the entrance of the Komagome house, a newly planted undergrowth she had never seen before had been arranged. Delicate pale lavender-tinged pink flowers were blooming amidst slender leaves. While looking at them, Nahoko passed through the dark entryway without ringing the doorbell. As she tried to open the sliding door to the parlor,

“Oh!”

Chiyoko came running down from the second floor, her bob-cut hair bouncing and the hem of her school uniform puffed out. “They say Mother isn’t feeling well?”

“Yes.” “Sister, when did you get back?” “I just got back.—Is she sleeping?” Chiyoko nodded with a somewhat troubled look of comprehension. And then, with a girlish demeanor, “She says she’s tired.” she said. Nahoko sent Chiyoko to ask whether her mother would come downstairs or if she herself should go up to the second floor. “She says she just woke up and wants to rest for about thirty minutes.”

Nahoko took a bath in the meantime. The tap water felt pleasant after so long, and she found it delightful—the lively voices of children beyond the hedge and, a bit further off, the sound of a piano playing. The frothy sensation of life became intertwined with the lathering soap bubbles around her body, and Nahoko stood there again and again, vigorously dousing herself with water.

With a lightened heart, Nahoko went up to the second floor.

“How are you feeling?” “Oh…” Masako, half-risen on the futon, listlessly turned her head and looked at the daughter entering the room.

“I’m troubled because things just won’t clear up—how was the hot spring?—you came all this way.” “Your voice sounds awfully feeble—what’s wrong?” Masako turned her gaze toward Chiyoko, who lay prone at the edge of the futon, “I suppose all sorts of things building up made it worse,” she said. In a posture that weakly curled at the abdomen, “I’m tired because I’ve had no appetite at all,” she sighed. By the light of a lamp placed on a footstool to soften its glare, Nahoko saw the plate of stewed fruit and cup of red wine left untouched. They appeared to have been left there since at least the afternoon. Nahoko called the maid and had everything cleared away.

“Having it always beside me and watching over it just makes my appetite even worse.” “What did they serve today?” “Since you can drink as much milk as you want—yesterday you had about two gō of milk, and today you also had a little kudzu gruel.” Masako said laboriously in a small voice, “Ah, ah...”

With that, she first lowered her elbow, settled her shoulder, and lay down. When Chiyoko had said downstairs that she was tired, there had been a subtle, peculiar expression, so Nahoko had thought it must be the result of her frequent insomnia. Masako had suffered from diabetes for several years, which had caused various disorders in her nervous system. “So you weren’t just lying down for today after all.” “Returning from Kōzu would be bad—it’s been about six days now, hasn’t it?”

The fact that Kōichi and Chiyoko seemed indifferent to their mother’s condition caused Nahoko to feel a strange, unsettling helplessness.

“It feels so drafty here—could you close the shoji?” When the younger daughter left, Masako explained her condition in detail to Nahoko. Nahoko grew more anxious than she had been before hearing it. “Even if that were temporary and healed—it’s not good for you to stay this weak! And first of all—” “Why won’t you let a proper doctor examine you?”

Masako said defensively, "I did have someone examine me—Kubo-san." “Since this tends to happen with menopause, there’s nothing for you to worry about—it’s just fatigue.”

Before long, her father Shōtarō also returned.

“How about it—can you eat a little something now?”

Seizing on that, Masako half-jokingly chided, “It’s because you insisted I come all the way to Kōzu that things got worse.” she said. Nahoko went out to the kitchen and had them order a chicken to prepare cold cuts. To the maid standing by the kitchen counter, “Did you prepare anything for dinner?” When she asked, “No, I did not prepare anything.” “Because she stated she didn’t wish to eat…”

The circumstances of her mother lying in bed with only the maid and her young daughter pressed upon Nahoko’s heart. Late at night, she brought vegetable soup and salad, but Masako, though pleased, “How delicious this looks—perhaps I’ll treat myself to it.” She said this, but only took a single sip. She spoke, trying not to let Nahoko become disheartened. “If we wait until tomorrow, the flavor will surely develop.”

When she was alone with her father, Nahoko earnestly recommended having her mother examined by a specialist. “If you keep dismissing everything as just diabetes and menopause, it’ll be disastrous if it really does become too late.”

Shōtarō, “Hmm, hmm—well, yes, you’re absolutely right.” And he nodded. However, he seemed unable to make up his mind to settle the arrangements. Nahoko was concerned about it due to her grandfather’s cancer, but Masako did not entertain such suspicions, and even if she did, she placed no trust in doctors. About thirteen years ago, she had been told it was cancer and had nearly been operated on. At that time, Masako argued with the renowned specialist in that field and managed to ultimately prevent the incision. In hindsight, that was not actually cancer. It appeared to be an ulcer-like condition in the pylorus; Masako hardly consulted any doctors, healing herself through endurance and reliance on natural power. She said once again that she knew her own body best.

After ten o'clock, Nahoko went to the annex that Kōichi was using as his workspace. He was down to his undershirt, the excitement still lingering on his face. He showed Nahoko his nearly completed work while,

“If you’re here, sis, I can’t tell you how much steadier it makes me feel—it’s just that those blockheads never talk about what matters.” he said. On the nearby stand sat the completed oil clay model of the house Kōichi had been drafting. He,

“Don’t look at the light bulb,” he cautioned, turned on the two-hundred-candlepower bulb, and photographed it. It was his graduation project.

The next day, Masako remained in bed and could still hardly eat anything. “It’s never taken this long to recover before, and yet...” Even I began to doubt it. “They say the scar on my pylorus can’t be helped—sometimes there’s this whooshing sound. I just have this... sense about it.” Nahoko sensed that her mother was far from composed—if anything, in some way afraid of doctors. When Nahoko pressed her to undergo an examination, she would argue unhappily and eventually launch into entirely unrelated topics.

“Lying here like this, I keep thinking about the past—how I truly regret not asking Grandmother more while she was alive. She herself must have wanted to share those stories too, you know? Around spring, she’d talk and talk until I was at my wit’s end.” In the Western-style house in Tsukiji where they had lived around Meiji 25 or 26, there were splendid Western paintings and large mother-of-pearl-decorated display shelves. When she was young, she and her cousin had eaten all the rock sugar her grandmother had hidden there and been scolded. When moving to Mukōjima, those Western paintings and decorative shelves had been swiped by a wicked steward named Nagai—but then, several years later, that same Nagai was killed by someone in Asakusa. Masako narrated these tales leisurely and cheerfully. During the Mukōjima period, Nahoko had heard many of these stories as well. Then came the story of Shōtarō’s departure to and return from abroad—the entirety of her mother’s life up to that point rose vividly before Nahoko’s eyes.

Nahoko felt her mother’s aging keenly, and from the very lips with which her mother herself had just spoken of her grandmother, she found the tireless reminiscing as lonely as water.

In the afternoon, a young man working at the Reconstruction Bureau came to visit. He told them how during land readjustment for relocating the temple cemetery, they had dug up Yagyū Tajima-no-kami’s grave only to find nothing inside. “Oh, how peculiar,” Masako said. “I wonder what became of it.” She looked at the young man and Nahoko with keen interest. In those moments, her eyes regained their usual imposing presence—that strong, weighty air so characteristic of her mother. Yet even then, Nahoko felt her own heartache deepening. With a half-laugh,

“This old lady is so stubborn and absolutely refuses to see a doctor. Mr. Tsuchiya, please try persuading her.” And Nahoko said to the guest.

When Tsuchiya left, Masako, lying down, “Part of it must be coming from my mind too,” she said.

“Lately I feel like I’ve lost all will to live—not a shred of expectation stirs within me anymore. It’s an utterly cold sensation… though perhaps you could call it enlightenment.” Nahoko found herself reacting intensely. “Enlightenment isn’t something cold—it should be warm!” And, laughing, she said. “If you start saying stingy things, I’ll light a fire—”

“—What—” Masako said, “What a blasted old crone’s hermitage.”

She gave a bitter smile, “Honestly, when I was young, whenever I saw people living in splendid houses—ah, how enviable—I’d wish I could somehow live in such a house myself. But lately, I find myself wondering, ‘Well, who on earth will inherit this house after us?’ I don’t feel the slightest envy anymore.” “Instead, I feel strangely lonely.—And… lately I’ve come to understand Father’s limitations… and I’ve come to think we can’t expect any greater success than this.”

Silently sitting beside her mother, Nahoko listened to those words and felt them in her heart. A new turning point was approaching within her mother's heart. Nahoko felt this seemed to touch her own heart somewhere.

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

The rain had started in the evening, and by the time Nahoko boarded the suburban train past eleven, it had become a downpour. It was a drizzling rain, characteristic of the approach of the rainy season.

The train hurtled violently along the dark country road as it rocked. Rain lashed against the windowpanes, glistening under the interior lights. Nahoko rose from her seat before reaching the station and peered intently out the window. Would anyone have come to meet her? The hour was late and no arrangements had been made, leaving little hope—yet the prospect of trudging alone through the deserted dark streets in her dispirited state filled her with dread. When the train jerked to a halt, a face twitched abruptly in the corner of the waiting area. It appeared remarkably small. But it was Sōko. Nahoko felt both touched and relieved by Sōko’s thoughtful effort to come greet her. Sōko hoisted up an awkward bundle of geta and an umbrella all at once before standing.

“Here, take this.”

she said.

The others were already asleep. While drinking tea in Sōko’s room, Nahoko spoke about her mother’s condition.

“So?—Did you have someone examine her?” “Not yet.” “How could that be?” Sōko’s voice rose in angry emphasis. “You were right there with her!” “That’s why I’ll handle everything myself when I go tomorrow. Let’s stop relying on Father.”

While looking at her mother’s face before her eyes, Nahoko’s worry had been just that—worry—without any sense of urgency. But now, talking with Sōko, she felt an anxiety akin to fear. The immense significance of a parent growing old for their child—that pierced Nahoko’s heart. —— Sōko took a drag of her cigarette, scattering the smoke in a burst. Then she looked at Nahoko’s face. Caught up in her inner turmoil while staring back at Sōko watching her, Nahoko suddenly parted her lips slightly, her features contorting into an oddly anguished look of terror. In Nahoko’s eyes gazing at Sōko’s face, a questioning look surfaced.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Nahoko shook her head to indicate she was okay and，after a brief moment，

“It’s nothing… I’m just being a bit oversensitive,” she said, clearing her throat. Nahoko had said this because she disliked voicing it aloud—but in truth, there was a reason. While looking at Sōko’s face, she remembered a certain dream. It was a dream of teeth falling out. While she was doing something, her upper teeth had all slid out at once in the order they had grown. Shocked and grief-stricken, she tried to hold them back with her hands, but they filled her mouth as a crunching mass—impossible to contain—and when those hard teeth spread out as a crunching mass in her mouth, a loathsome, despairing feeling lingered clearly even after she awoke. She had seen the same dream more than once. Though not superstitious, Nahoko could no longer maintain her composure now that this sensation had suddenly revived.

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. Though comforted by its crisp coolness as she lay down, Nahoko found sleep elusive. When she followed the anxiety tightening her heart, it spread endlessly through the darkness—so potent it made her very soul quiver. This was an all-consuming worry, an all-consuming worry. Nahoko lay rigid with dread as the thought gripped her. She and her mother had so often clashed over their differing approaches to life. And yet—how profoundly I love my own mother! Looking back now, Nahoko felt with reverent clarity that through those struggles, her own wholehearted way of living had finally been understood—and that it was no longer herself, but her mother, who stood in need of being loved. Yet to discover this mother—who since childhood had always been the strong one, the giver—as someone fragile, as someone she herself must now labor for, filled Nahoko with uncanny emotion. Of course there would be things she couldn’t comprehend. The short-tempered mother, the mother beyond understanding—she would love her if only for those memories of her mother’s vibrant days. At times growing angry, at others laughing through it all— ——

Nahoko, awakened to a new awareness of love, felt her mother all the more impossible to part with in this world and spilled tears.