Pathway to Japanese Literature

Guidepost: Part One

Chapter One I

Beneath her body, the train came to a stop with a heavy clunk, lurching dully and heavily. The jolt roused her. Nobuko opened her eyes with that thought. But directly before Nobuko’s eyes stood a square table covered with a green and white checkerboard-patterned tablecloth. Nobuko's handbag and Motoko's document case lay jumbled atop that table, and when she shifted her gaze, several trunks of varying sizes, two wicker baskets, and a large food-storage hamper made of willow branches—prepared in Harbin—stood piled beside the white-painted entrance door in a manner that suggested they had been hastily deposited there. They were visible in the dim light. Motoko was sleeping on the bed placed against the far wall in a T-shape relative to Nobuko’s position. That too was visible in the dimness.

This was Moscow.

Nobuko suddenly awoke with clarity. They had arrived in Moscow. —Moscow—.

They had arrived at North Station yesterday after five in the afternoon. In northern countries’ winter cities, twilight had fully set in; through the taxi window on their way from the station to the hotel stretched views of the already darkened city—the flowing hues of streetlights and lively snow that swept past those luminous shadows. Before Nobuko, who pressed her face against the taxi window to peer outside, city streets now being swallowed by a vast night tinged with rusticity passed by—revealing glimpses of light in low places, shops in half-basements along the sidewalk occasionally casting fan-shaped illumination that flashed abruptly onto the snow-covered walkway. The pedestrians had become black silhouettes briskly traversing the labyrinth of light and snow. In those scenes lay an unexpected warmth one would never anticipate in a European metropolis.

Today was their first day in Moscow. —That first glimpse. —Nobuko could no longer suppress the emotions welling up within her. Carefully raising her upper body so the creak of the bed wouldn’t wake Motoko, she lifted a corner of the window curtain. She craned her neck to peer outside.

Outside the double-paned window, snow was falling. The light snowfall that had greeted Nobuko and the others upon their arrival the previous evening appeared to have continued through the night. From unseen heights came thick, fast-falling snow that piled on the scaffolding of a large construction site across the narrow street and heaped upon the mushroom-shaped roof of a sentry hut at the site's entrance. The snow-choked side street lay deserted. No sounds reached her ears. Before the quietly snowing construction site, a lone sentry paced slowly back and forth, his rifle slung over his shoulder by a leather strap. He wore a pointed felt winter cap bearing a red star, dragging the long hem of his leather-lined fur coat almost along the snow's surface as he walked. From her third-floor curtain corner where he couldn't notice her, a smile touched Nobuko's lips. The sentry walking through the snowfall tilted his ruddy young face upward, letting the endless cascade of flakes strike his skin directly. The young sentry seemed fond of snow. He must have loved his country's rich, solemn winters—this snow brushing against his warm face surely brought him joy. To Nobuko, who cherished snow herself, she felt she understood the emotion behind his snow-kissed face.

“...Nobuko-chan?”

From behind came the voice of Motoko, who had just awoken. Nobuko pulled her head back from where she had been holding up the curtain.

“Did you wake up?” “Ahh... Slept well. Wonder what time it is.” Now that she mentioned it, Nobuko realized she hadn’t checked her watch yet.

“It’s half past eight.”

Motoko remained silent for a moment but, still lying on the bed, "Why don’t you open the curtains?" she said. Nobuko pulled the heavy maroon cotton twill curtain forcefully. Outside light streamed into the narrow room. The full view of the snow-lashed window came into sight, brightening their pale green walls. Yet this illumination only served to accentuate the whiteness of snow falling beyond the large pane.

“This is hopeless. Let’s turn on the light, Nobuko-chan.”

After pressing the switch and turning on the light, Nobuko opened the door and peered into the hotel hallway, sticking only her head out. The dim December morning atmosphere and the falling snow that had muted all sounds from outside struck Nobuko as novel. At the far end of the hallway, only the figure of a cleaning woman with a bucket could be seen. The door to the room diagonally across the hallway remained closed, and a nickel samovar had been placed at the end of the corridor. The samovar was a remnant from last evening when Akiyama Uiichi had invited Segawa Masao and others to his room to entertain Nobuko and her companions.

When she closed the door and returned, Nobuko wore an unconvinced look,

“I wonder if everyone’s still asleep—”

she whispered. “It’s dead silent.”

“Hmm.”

Motoko, who had been calmly preparing herself, “Let’s see.”

When she stood up, she began taking the items that had been left hanging over the back of the nearby chair one by one and briskly preparing her attire.

Even when the two of them ventured out into the hallway, it remained hushed and devoid of people. Nobuko and the others knocked on a door marked with the number 57 written on a small oval Seto-ware plaque above it. “Yes?” A meticulous Russian reply came from right behind the door. As Motoko placed her hand on the handle, the door opened inward. “Oh, good morning. Come in…” Akiyama Uiichi, who had come to Moscow about two months earlier as a cultural state guest commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, had been constantly accompanied by a young man named Utsumi Atsushi—a graduate of the Russian department at a foreign-language school—whom he had brought from Japan. The one who opened the door was Utsumi.

“How was it—your first night’s sleep…” Akiyama Uiichi, seated on a bench facing the table by the window, greeted them with a stylish nod and asked Nobuko and the others. “Slept right through... It’s really coming down, isn’t it?” The windows of this room—which Motoko approached while saying this to look outside—both faced the main avenue, and through the swirling snow, the rows of rooftops along the street stretched into the distance.

“I hear the snow was late overall this year—was it the fourth when the first snow fell—” Utsumi pronounced the words with a slight Akita accent, enunciating them with the same meticulousness he used when speaking Russian. “This must be the settled snow now. Once January comes and this snowfall stops, every day will be clear skies—then Russia’s true severe winter begins.” Akiyama, too, seemed moved by the first truly wintry Moscow scenery he had seen,

“Well then, shall we inform Mr. Segawa?” he glanced back at Utsumi. “Was this all before breakfast?”

“Yes. I thought we would do it together once you were up.” “Oh, my mistake.”

With an awkward expression, Nobuko apologized.

“We overslept…” “No, it’s quite all right. After all, we only just woke up ourselves… But we’re no match for the Soviet people—they’re truly energetic. They’ll be engaged in lively debates, laughing and dancing until dawn, and then they’re punctually at work by nine o’clock…”

Thereupon, Segawa Masao entered, dressed neatly in a black suit and striped trousers. As Japan's representative Russian language expert, Segawa Masao too was a state guest. Sanai Mitsuru, a theater specialist, had departed from Moscow for Berlin about ten days prior. “Good morning. How are you? Did you sleep well?” Akiyama Uiichi, true to his role as a proletarian artist, had swept back his somewhat long, half-white hair in a topknot-like style. Segawa Masao, in keeping with his professorial demeanor, had his hair neatly parted and sported a beard. That was truly each person’s own distinctiveness. Speaking of distinctive traits, Utsumi Atsushi had soft hair combed smoothly across his broad forehead and wore black-rimmed Lloyd glasses; that hair, those glasses, and his thin-lipped expression reminded Nobuko of Russian university students from the late nineteenth century. Utsumi Atsushi himself did not seem entirely displeased with that impression.

Before long, the five Japanese gathered around the table, called for tea utensils, bread, butter, and such, and began their breakfast with last night’s leftovers—pickled cucumbers, cheese, and beautiful red ikura—that had been stored on the shelves of Akiyama’s nearly empty clothing cabinet. “Russian people have long been portrayed in novels as frequent tea drinkers, but it’s strange how actually coming here makes one want to drink it.”

Segawa Masao said. “In Japan too, people in places like Shinshu often drink tea—generally speaking, isn’t that how it is in cold regions?” Akiyama Uiichi responded in his characteristically didactic tone.

In his usual enlightening tone, Akiyama replied. Even as she ate thinly sliced delicious pickled cucumbers on buttered bread, Nobuko’s eyes kept drifting toward the snow falling outside the window. Moscow’s snow……stirred vivid emotions that refused to let Nobuko’s heart settle. Speaking purely of the snow itself—for several days after departing Harbin on the Trans-Siberian Railway, from when it skirted Lake Baikal until emerging into Great Russia, Nobuko and the others had watched the endless Siberian snow of mid-December through the train window from morning till night. That was the snow of the wilderness. At stations wrapped in snow and icicles, the bells announcing train arrivals and departures clanged, clanged, clanged through Siberia’s frozen glittering air. The white solitude was beautiful. When the train arrived at Novosibirsk, Nobuko—who had stepped onto the snow as usual to breathe the outside air—was startled to find the frozen, sparkling air so solid it wouldn’t enter her nostrils. Laughing in surprise, she kept coughing. It was minus thirty-five degrees there. It was not that the snow was rare, but rather that this life in Moscow—where so much snow fell—was what stirred Nobuko’s premonitions.

As the meal was nearing its end, Segawa Masao—

“Now then, what does your schedule for today look like?” Segawa asked Nobuko and the others.

“We haven’t exactly settled on anything yet.” Motoko answered, her light brown suit complementing her black hair perfectly. “Though I was thinking of stopping by the embassy briefly—since we’ve arranged to have our letters sent there care of the embassy…” Akiyama Uiichi listened in silence, his small frame shaking his crossed legs.

“Well then, let’s settle it this way.”

Segawa said, starting to rise from his seat. “In another thirty minutes or so, I’ll need to head out to VOKS for some business anyway, so I’ll show you around. Since VOKS is a place we’ll have to visit sooner or later anyway.”

“That sounds good. Visiting VOKS is important indeed.”

Beneath thick, long eyebrows, blinking his disproportionately small eyes while nodding as if to himself, Akiyama Uiichi said. “All foreign cultural figures receive assistance there, you see.” “Well then, that’s settled.”

Segawa concluded the discussion in his businesslike manner. “The embassy is quite close to VOKS too.” VOKS was the abbreviation for the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations based in Moscow. This All-Union Society not only maintained branches in every Soviet city but also stationed personnel in countries worldwide. Nobuko and the others had met with Dr. Parvin—who resided inside Tokyo’s Soviet Embassy—about their passport visas. That giant of a man with ash-gray eyes had also been one of VOKS’s Tokyo-based agents. This visit by Sanoi, Akiyama and the others as state guests had been entirely arranged through VOKS’s mediation.

Following Segawa, Akiyama Uiichi called out from the table still set with tea utensils to Nobuko and the others, who were about to return to their rooms to prepare for going out. “At VOKS, you can see a stunning beauty." “Apart from Italian and Japanese, she apparently speaks every other language under the sun.” “She’s the very model of an Armenian beauty—well, do take a look for yourselves.”

He said with a laugh.

Following Segawa Masao, who wore an Astrakhan hat crafted from black lambs' belly fleece and a coat with matching fur collar, Motoko and Nobuko stepped out into the snowfall-filled thoroughfare. At the entrance to the large construction site before the hotel, a heavy freight wagon had just begun to enter. With his chest exposed in a fleece-lined winter coat resembling those of sentry soldiers, and the earflaps of his winter cap flapping against both stubbled cheeks, the carter,

“Davai! Davai! “Davai!” he bellowed encouragement to the horse in a deep voice while bracing his hands against the shafts and straining with his entire body to guide the horse across the inclined plank. She had learned that the word “Davai” meant “give me.” The carter had shouted “Davai! Davai!” in an encouragingly hearty tone, but what could that mean?

To Nobuko, who was a step behind,

“Nobuko-chan!” Motoko called out loudly.

At the street corner just outside the hotel, three sleighs stood waiting for passengers. Motoko was boarding one of them. Segawa Masao, carrying a large box-like object wrapped in a Japanese wrapping cloth under his arm, took his place beside Motoko. “Nobuko-chan, stand up front.” “Where should I stand?” “Here—there’s plenty of room to stand.” Segawa Masao said while drawing back his winter-booted feet. “It’s only six or seven minutes—you’ll be fine.” “Might even be fun.” “...There, like this.”

Entrusting the box to Motoko, Segawa had her half-sit on his knee. Having loaded three passengers, the sleigh slowly turned the horse’s head away from Tverskaya Boulevard—where it had been facing—and began advancing at a brisk pace down the street lined with house windows. Snow fell upon the driver’s round hat—a vivid emerald-green woolen cloth trimmed with fur—and upon the collars and chests of Nobuko and the others’ coats as they rode. It was windless snow. The sleigh soon emerged onto a street running parallel to Tverskaya Boulevard that cut lengthwise through Moscow. It was a shopping street where no streetcars ran. Bakery. Bookstore. Grocery store. Shops—many of them deserted, their wares unidentifiable. A flower shop whose show window was entirely frosted white, making the colors of the flowers invisible. On the narrow sidewalk in front of the shops, men wearing quilted half-coats for warmth, felt-lined boots, and carrying bulging briefcases tucked under their arms walked briskly, their shoulders and chests whitened with snow. Women with brown woolen shawls draped from head to shoulders walked slowly, baskets looped over their arms. There was a boy walking as if strolling, chewing sunflower seeds and spitting their shells onto the snow.

The street was old-fashioned, its three-storied shops lining up through the snow, the air carrying the scent of snow mingled with a faint whiff of horse dung. The sleigh carrying Nobuko and the others passed by the iron fence of the National Music School and soon came to a stop before a building with wide steps on its right side. As the three of them climbed the low stone steps, Motoko slipped on the snow from some sudden impulse, lurched forward, and planted her gloved hands on the steps. Motoko immediately straightened up. They entered the main entrance directly.

That was the VOKS building. Even while checking her winter boots at the shoe storage, Nobuko surveyed with keen interest this structure built in the early twentieth-century new style (Nouveau). It must have originally been constructed as the private residence of some wealthy Muscovite. The transom of the grand door separating the entrance hall was stained glass, where flowers with soft petals resembling California poppies bloomed magnificently, their vines rendered in sweeping arabesque patterns. Following these stained glass curves, the frame of the massive door—set with exquisite quality glass—had been crafted with swelling contours that grew more pronounced toward the base, evoking leaves cradling those resplendent glass blossoms. Directly inside stood a front staircase. Its marble handrail featured undulating Nouveau-style curves shaped like elongated flower stamens. It had likely been fashioned in imitation of French design. Yet nowhere in the ornamentation could one discern purely French tautness of line. Every contour's weight and solidity remained unmistakably Russian, the mansion's opulence proclaiming itself a Russified interpretation of French taste.

When they selected this building as the office for cultural relations abroad, the members of Moscow's relevant committee must have all considered it beautiful and chosen it believing it possessed value worth showing to visitors from foreign countries. But could those people have foreseen the profoundly meaningful charm—nearly approaching humor—in how this building's splendor, while imitating French style, was so thoroughly imbued with Russian character?

Nobuko, her interest further piqued, was guided to a room on the left side of the hall. That space served as the reception room, where several guests who had arrived before them were already seated on armchairs scattered freely across a somewhat faded pale pink carpet. This space had apparently originally served as a winter guest room. The ceiling with its curvilinear molding was kept relatively low to create comfort and warmth, while a deep-set bay window facing the street projected inward with spatial depth. There sat a potted cactus. At the far end of where they entered was another bay window, before which stood a large office desk. There was only one more office desk, located in the left-hand corner of that not-too-spacious room. Over there, a plainly dressed woman in a white blouse was handling administrative work.

The beauty that Akiyama Uiichi had specially noted was an Armenian woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight with features so striking that one would have known without being told. Dressed in a black skirt and a pale pink blouse, wearing beautiful earrings, with porcelain-pale skin, Near Eastern-style long eyebrows, marvelous eyes, and round, intensely red lips, she was in charge of the desk at the far end of the room they had entered. “Ah, Professor Segawa!”

With brisk businesslike charm, she rose from her chair. Then, shaking out her well-styled black hair in loose curls around her neck, she extended her hand for a handshake from across the desk. Simultaneously turning smiles toward Nobuko and Motoko standing there as new guests, she emerged from behind the desk to shake hands.

“This is Ms. Gorushkina, the administrative head here.” Then, one by one, he introduced Nobuko’s and Motoko’s professional backgrounds and explained that their visit to the Soviet Union was undertaken in a personal capacity.

“Welcome.” The beautiful woman, with the efficiency honed through her work, abruptly addressed Nobuko and the others in English. “We wish to accommodate your convenience as much as possible—how long will you be staying?”

Motoko hesitated slightly.

“Mr. Segawa—”

“Mr. Segawa, if you’d be so kind—please give this reply.” “We plan to stay as long as our travel funds last—and provided the Soviets don’t throw us out—” “How delightful.” Gorushkina laughed aloud and grasped Nobuko’s hand. “So you mean to take your Moscow sightseeing at a leisurely pace?” “Naturally we’ll require your help in many matters, but step by step—” “What I truly want is to learn how to buy oranges in Russian soon.”

“Oh, have you taken a liking to the oranges?”

This time, Nobuko burst out laughing. Gorushkina laughed along, her large black eyes—with their strikingly prominent eyelashes that drew attention—lit up with wit. And she said, "After touring the Soviet Union for half a year... there was even a guest who remarked that what they liked best in the end was our pickled cucumbers."

Segawa Masao told Gorushkina that he wanted to meet Madame Kameneva.

“Just a moment, please.”

Gorushkina, while writing in a notebook and handing it to the woman at the other desk, “Will everyone be meeting her?”

Gorushkina asked.

“Why don’t you take this perfect opportunity to meet her?”

After saying this to Nobuko and Motoko, Segawa, “Please,”

Gorushkina then politely dictated in a clear manner: "Yoshimi Motoko (Russian Literature Scholar/Translator), Sassa Nobuko (Writer)."

With this, matters concerning Nobuko and the others reached a temporary conclusion, and Gorushkina began handing the prepared documents to the three Americans who had been waiting and explaining them.

At that moment, a man entered with quiet, long strides—an extremely tall, thin man around forty with a flushed face. “Good day, Professor Segawa.” Hearing that voice, Nobuko involuntarily looked at him again. It was the first time she had encountered someone who spoke in such a deep voice. Since this appeared to be his natural register, Novamirsky—the man Segawa introduced to Nobuko and the others—greeted them in that same subterranean tone, as if his Adam’s apple had slid down into his chest. In his hand was the light blue slip of paper that Gorushkina had earlier handed to the woman at the other desk.

“Just a moment, please.”

Novamirsky, who had left the room, soon returned. And, “Madame Kameneva will be delighted to receive you.” While delivering this in his signature subterranean voice, he inclined his torso slightly toward Nobuko and the others as one might bow to society matrons.

Passing by several offices with doors left open, the three of them were guided to a secluded corner of the building. Novamirsky—whose head alone rose considerably higher than Segawa’s—stood before a door, focused his attention inward, and knocked carefully. They heard the low voice of a middle-aged woman respond. Novamirsky opened the door,

“Professor Segawa.” After addressing him,

“Please, come in.”

He remained outside and closed the door.

There was a spacious room unified in tones of light gray and pale blue. In the left rear of that square hall, devoid of unnecessary decorations and excessive furniture, stood an imposing desk. Before it sat a woman with a bobbed haircut wearing a white blouse and gray suit, examining documents. The woman—who appeared to be between forty and fifty with broad shoulders—did not lift her gaze from the papers in her hand until Segawa and Nobuko’s group had soundlessly walked across the thick carpet and come within five or six steps of her desk.

“Good day. We apologize for intruding on your busy schedule, even if only briefly.” At Segawa’s courteous words, the woman looked up from her documents. “Good day.” Then, rising from her chair, she turned toward Nobuko and the others and managed something resembling a smile. To Nobuko, that first impression of her was truly peculiar. Madame Kameneva—who bore a heavy, square jaw exactly like that of her brother Trotsky—stared fixedly at her interlocutors with eyes showing white around the irises, her molars clenched as she strained to maintain a smile across her face. Nobuko, with the sensitivity of a young woman, felt a vague awe emanating from that expression.

Segawa Masao, appearing already accustomed to such expressions from Madame Kameneva, shook her hand courteously without any particular concern, then introduced Nobuko and Motoko. Madame Kameneva, “It is a great pleasure to make your acquaintance.” That was all she said. Segawa expressed his gratitude in a long, professor-like speech regarding their recent sightseeing excursion, then stood up, untied the furoshiki-wrapped bundle that had been placed on a chair by the wall, and brought over the precious box measuring just under two feet in length. That paulownia box was a doll case. When the glass lid was slid aside, from within emerged a Fujimusume doll clad in an exquisitely dyed long-sleeved kimono, shouldering a branch of wisteria blossoms and wearing a lacquered sedge hat with red cords. Segawa stood the exquisitely crafted doll—measuring about a shaku and five or six sun (approximately 45-48 cm)—upright on Madame Kameneva’s desk.

“As a memento of our acquaintance.” “And for the further deepening of friendship between Soviet and Japanese cultures.” On Madame Kameneva’s dark-complexioned face appeared a faint yet unadulterated curiosity. “It’s quite beautiful!” With only the intonation of those words conveying her admiration, Madame Kameneva raised her upper body from the swivel chair she had been leaning back in and took the Fujimusume doll in both hands. “It is an exquisitely crafted work of art.”

Madame Kameneva did not employ a single exclamation—such as “Oh” or “Ah”—that European women often use in such situations. The famous production area for Japanese dolls was Kyoto, which in Soviet terms would be comparable to Kiev; this Fujimusume had been crafted by a particularly distinguished shop in Kyoto; and that the doll’s attire, being formal wear, was an exact miniature replica of what humans used. Segawa explained these points in meticulous detail.

“Of course, as you are well aware, not all Japanese women wear such aesthetic attire daily—their everyday lives are rather trying, you see…” Listening silently to Segawa’s explanation while nodding in response, Madame Kameneva kept observing the doll in her hands with her characteristic eyes showing white around the irises. From their chairs, Nobuko and the others once again gazed fixedly at Madame Kameneva’s demeanor. To Nobuko, it felt as though she could hear—not what passed through the heart of the bobbed-haired Madame Kameneva as she examined the doll, but rather what thoughts traversed her mind. Though its colors were delicate and intricate, that large doll—utterly devoid of vitality, crafted from clay that carried a faint odor of glue—stood worlds apart from Madame Kameneva’s entire being. Madame Kameneva, in fact, while her curiosity was stirred, was attempting to display on her face a sense of novelty toward an uncivilized culture.

Madame Kameneva let out a breath that resembled a sigh and, remaining silent, gently placed the doll on her desk.

Once again, it fell to the polite Segawa to introduce some new topic of conversation. As her astonishment steadily swelled, Nobuko found it increasingly strenuous not to exchange glances with Motoko at her side. Could such interactions even exist? That Madame Kameneva hadn't offered a single casual remark to Nobuko and the other young women—even after Segawa's presentation of the Japanese doll—struck her as profoundly unusual. Judging by Madame Kameneva's demeanor, she didn't appear to hold any particular animosity toward them. She simply lacked interest.

Reflecting on this, it became apparent that Madame Kameneva’s manner of engagement had not fully settled into her position as chairwoman of this cultural liaison society—a role that was cultural yet also incorporated elements of social diplomacy. In this spacious room with its quiet lighting unified in gray and subdued aqua-blue tones, it often felt as though the inner consciousness of Madame Kameneva—sitting there alone—would concentrate somewhere entirely removed from these encounters with foreigners who did not share her language or these discussions of international culture. Madame Kameneva seemed to be in a perpetual state of discontent for reasons known only to herself.

Segawa seemed to be searching for a new topic, but—

“Ah, you had something you brought along, didn’t you?”

He glanced back at Nobuko and the others. "Why don't you present them now?"

The atmosphere was utterly ill-suited for the presentation of heartfelt gifts. However, Motoko—somewhat sulky and flushed, her face made beautiful by that very flush—stood up, retrieved the gifts they had brought: a tie-dyed crepe silk ceremonial cloth and a hand-painted fan adorned with birds and flowers, and placed them on Madame Kameneva’s desk. And though she could speak Russian, she did not utter a single word, instead using a slight gesture to indicate that they were presenting it, and in that instant, an indescribable smile flickered at the corners of her mouth. That was a sour, bitter, sharp smile—incomparable to Madame Kameneva’s bitter, ponderous smile that seemed to hover on her face with molars clenched. Nobuko caught the momentary, exceedingly complex creases at the corner of Motoko's mouth. Nobuko formed a genuine smile for the first time since being shown into this room.

Even toward Nobuko and Motoko’s gifts, Madame Kameneva offered only the briefest of remarks, praising their beauty. As for the words "thank you," it seemed to be Madame Kameneva’s custom not to utter them. When this presentation ceremony concluded, Madame Kameneva fell silent once more. Even though Segawa Masao’s words were unrestricted, there existed nowhere in the bright, cool-toned hall any natural opportunity to utilize them.

The three of them went outside there, regarding the meeting as concluded.

As if she couldn’t wait for the door to close, Motoko—

“It’s dreadfully stifling, isn’t it? Is that what cultural liaison is all about?”

she said in a tone thick with anger. "I don't care how important she thinks she is—saying 'thank you' wouldn't have cost her an ounce of dignity."

Segawa moved the black mustache beneath his nose in a startled manner,

“I did say it! Didn’t I say so?”

He glanced back at Nobuko walking beside him.

“Well… I didn’t hear it.” “...Is she always like that?” “Is that so?” “That’s odd… She didn’t say it?” “I was certain she’d said it...”

“It’s as if we’re being granted an imperial audience—positively daunting.” Segawa listened to Motoko’s remark with distracted attention, his manner suggesting he was inwardly preoccupied with confirming whether Madame Kameneva had indeed failed to utter any word of thanks.

At that moment, Novamirsky emerged from around the corridor’s corner. Then, from beneath thin carrot-colored bushy eyebrows, he shifted his agile gray gaze, trying to decipher the expressions of the three who had just finished their meeting with Madame Kameneva. Novamirsky started to say something but wisely swallowed his words. Everyone returned in silence to the reception room beside the main entrance, where a lively commotion swirled around the beautiful Gorushkina.

A few blocks down Malaya Nikitskaya Street where the VOKS building stood, this street met the first of two large tree-lined boulevards encircling Moscow in a ring. Along the outer side of the promenade, a tram passed slowly. Here, the road coming from Malaya Nikitskaya branched into five radial directions. Evidently there had once stood a gate here leading into Moscow, which was why it was called the Nikitsky Gate. While being explained to by Segawa Masao, the tree-lined avenue glimpsed from the sleigh appeared beautiful through snow falling at the same rate—large linden trees with branches piled high with heavy-looking snow stretched far into the distance. The tree-lined promenade had benches heaped with snow, and the deep folds of a bronze statue's greatcoat—standing tall at the edge of the avenue with its back turned to the street—had collected snowdrifts only on the windward side.

Nobuko and the others' sleigh proceeded diagonally along one of the vertical arms at the five-way intersection where roads branched both vertically and horizontally. It was not a commercial district. They passed places where an imposing iron gate fronted a soot-blackened, dilapidated five-story building visible beyond it, and others where small wooden houses painted in rustic maroon leaned with age along narrow walkways. Modern European-style buildings stood side by side with old Russian wooden cottages along the same promenade, and the sight of snow falling thickly through this juxtaposition made a profound impression on Nobuko.

The Japanese Embassy stood somehow mismatched yet imposingly on the right side of a lonely street whose charm lay precisely in that irregularity, with its substantial gate, inner courtyard, and carriage turnaround. Nobuko and the others emerged into the corridor outside the second-floor office through an entrance just before the main entrance with its carriage turnaround. Through Segawa’s introduction, Nobuko and the others wrote down their full names and addresses, and requested the safekeeping of their mail. The counselor was out, and Nobuko set out for home without presenting the letter of introduction she had received from his friend, the president of Bunmeisha.

The three who had returned to the hotel immediately trooped noisily into Akiyama Uiichi’s room.

“Ah, you’ve returned.” “How was it? Did you see the bearded lady?” With apparent interest, Akiyama immediately inquired, his small eyes glistening. “The bearded lady?” “Ah, that Armenian beauty has a mustache by her upper lip.”

Now that he mentioned it, there had indeed been a shadow of downy hair on her round, crimson upper lip. It was amusing how thoroughly Akiyama Uiichi had scrutinized even the finest details about this VOKS beauty. “We met her… She’s such a vibrant person.” “She’s rather remarkable, wouldn’t you say?”

Utsumi Atsushi’s earnest expression gained a certain nuance. “Mr. Akiyama took quite a liking to that Caucasus beauty—he was very pleased indeed that she resembled Japanese women.” he said. From the pocket of the coat she had hung by the room’s entrance, Motoko took out a large box of Russian cigarettes and came to the table, addressing Segawa. “Thank you for all your assistance.” She bowed dutifully. “But really—that beauty’s striking enough, but this Madame Kameneva woman’s quite something else.”

“…………”

Akiyama remained silent, fluttering his eyes. Segawa too kept silent. For Segawa, there appeared to be an emotional resistance—as if Motoko were taking offense—to admitting that Madame Kameneva had failed to offer proper thanks for such a substantial gift. Wordlessly, he exhaled cigarette smoke. “Is that woman always like that?” As Motoko pressed forward, Akiyama deftly sidestepped the matter, “One might say she’s rather formal by nature—yes, that could be said.”

Segawa, when pressed for agreement,

“By nature, she isn’t one to say much,” he said. And then he continued: “However, I find it interesting that Madame Kameneva serves as chairwoman of VOKS. In a certain sense, one could say it eloquently demonstrates the political boldness of the Soviet Union. It’s interesting that they’d unperturbedly keep his female sibling in such a position even amidst all this criticism against Trotskyists.”

Akiyama Uiichi, his small frame suited to the diminutive hands he rubbed together as if in prayer, accompanied by the podium gestures he often employed, "Kamenev has been expelled, you see—along with Zinoviev—" Motoko remained silent but eventually smiled with extreme sarcasm, "I see." she said. "So all foreigners visiting VOKS are meant to be duly impressed in that regard—not a bad method, is it?"

Whatever the case might be—as if to demonstrate an obstinate insistence on declaring her dislike—Motoko, “Being under the care of a VOKS that has a woman like that is downright unappealing.” she said. Upon hearing this, Akiyama flushed with irritation. His small eyes grew intense, his expression tightening. “That is a personal sentiment. To understand the Soviet Union’s complexity, one must always remain unbiased and open-hearted.” “Ms. Yoshimi, you’ve been quite acerbic since day one.”

Segawa laughed with what resembled a bitter smile. “But Ms. Yoshimi, don’t you think such cultural facilities are worthwhile?”

It was Utsumi who had asked that. “I have no objection on that point.”

“Isn’t the issue fundamentally about both the facility itself and the substantive value of the work being carried out there?”

“……” “Since places like that operate under a committee system just like elsewhere, you can’t have things decided by one person’s leanings alone.”

As if supplementing Utsumi’s words, Akiyama added. “VOKS is a department removed from the political center, you see. It must be ideal for placing someone in such a complex position.” Nobuko listened intently, determined not to miss a single word from anyone. Even though all these were being discussed in Japanese, they were debates Nobuko had never heard in Tokyo. And even during the week that Motoko and Nobuko had spent in a violently swaying train compartment on the Trans-Siberian Railway up until yesterday.

“What’s wrong, Ms. Sassa?” Segawa turned his face to Nobuko, who had been sitting there without saying a word since earlier, and spoke. “Are you tired?” “No.” “Then what’s wrong?” “It’s nothing really—but I do wish I could understand Russian soon. Even just seeing the VOKS building was so fascinating... This place… even unpleasant things fascinate here. It’s strange.” “Even unpleasant things fascinate… Hahaha. You might be absolutely right about that!”

Segawa laughed in agreement and regained his cheerfulness.

“Since our paths will often diverge from now on, let us dine together today.”

Segawa made that proposal.

The hotel’s dining hall had green-papered walls, just like every room upstairs. The space appeared to have been converted from an ordinary room into a dining area—its narrowness evident in tables lined with white rough paper instead of tablecloths, where crude knives, forks, and spoons of varying sizes were laid out. Though it was three in the afternoon, the light resembled evening. Through two windows overlooking neighboring rooftops stretched a view of snow falling all day from the darkened sky with undiminished intensity. On the central long table where Nobuko and the others sat, flowers had been arranged—a pot blooming with large pale lavender chrysanthemums. Around their stems coiled broad ribbons of pale pink-dyed wood shavings like pillars at a garden party, forming a large bow where green crepe paper wrapped the pot’s base. White rough paper for tablecloths, crude cutlery, and this floral centerpiece. Nobuko felt with unending fascination how Russia—that vast nation—was at one extremity a country so intimately bound to Mongolia.

A waiter wearing a large white apron that wrapped all the way around his back and a not-very-clean napkin draped over his arm served everyone a rich, fatty borscht that looked delicious. The menu was monotonous, and that waiter—wearing a shrimp-colored shirt and tie, his chestnut hair and beard meticulously combed up with a styling iron—sported a ring on the pinky finger he used while serving. While eating the veal cutlet, Nobuko suddenly recalled—

“Something amusing happened during dinner—is it all right if I talk about it?”

Nobuko glanced back at Motoko. “What?”

“When we arrived in Harbin, pretending we’d already grown accustomed to Russian living, we stayed at the ‘Golden Horn’.” “Neither Japanese nor English worked there.” “When noon came and we tried to eat lunch, they said the dining hall wasn’t open yet, so we ordered an expensive special meal to our room.” “When we asked for dinner around seven, they said the same thing again.” “So for about two days there, we ended up eating some rather peculiar meals, didn’t we?”

“Ah, it must only be in Russia—a place with the custom of holding dinner from three to five—” As Akiyama said this, Segawa laughed—“That was an oversight unbecoming even of you, Ms. Yoshimi.” “Dinner times appear quite often in novels too, don’t they?” “—That’s precisely the pitfall of the red blanket. Haven’t you too, in secret, done similar things yourself?”

“I was perfectly all right.” Segawa insisted with a tone oddly laden with implication, making everyone burst into laughter. “Why did you stay so long in Harbin again?” “We had to buy monkey fur, you see.”

“Monkey fur?”

“For the lining of the coat.” Nobuko felt somewhat dejected about the monkey fur. Since they were going to line it with fur in Harbin anyway—reasoning they could properly adjust it to her body then—her thick black woolen coat had been haphazardly sewn in terms of length and such. When purchasing the relatively lightweight, durable monkey fur at Churin in Harbin, it had been arranged by Motoko’s journalist friend. Caught up in the moment, Nobuko ended up having the fur attached without taking precise measurements of the coat’s length. Imagining her small, round figure dragging the overly long black coat—its ill-fitting width never quite right—she felt faintly awkward about the humor others must perceive in it, though she herself could only sense it dimly.

As they were eating the sugar-preserved dried apricots, plums, and jujubes served for dessert, Segawa glanced briefly at his wristwatch and— “Mr. Akiyama, will you be going to М・Х・Т (Moscow Art Theatre) tonight?” Segawa asked.

“Well…” “As for the tickets—you received yours the other day as well, didn’t you?” “Did you get them—Utsumi?” “...” Utsumi tilted his head and remained silent, as if trying to recall. “Tonight’s performance is *Armored Train*—how about it—won’t the two of you go see it?” When Segawa said this, theater-loving Motoko’s face flushed slightly.

“How feeble.”

Motoko made that characteristic gesture of stroking her chin upward. “I’d love to see it—but getting tickets now would be impossible, wouldn’t it?”

Ivanov’s *Armored Train* had been translated into Japanese, and Nobuko had read it.

“The tickets are with me.” “Well... may I have those?” “I happen to have three tickets that should serve your purpose.” Nobuko, “How wonderful!” Her eyes lit up with heartfelt delight. “It’s truly a blessing that we can see our long-awaited М・Х・Т performance tonight.” “Oh right, Ms. Yoshimi, you were translating Chekhov’s letters, weren’t you?” Then Segawa remarked in a manner that showed he now thoroughly understood Motoko’s interest in the Art Theatre. Once matters were settled, Akiyama began effusively praising the play’s excellence.

“That is something you should see. “It’s truly splendid.” Watching Akiyama emphasize his point by clasping his small hands together, Nobuko wondered what sort of personality this Uiichi Akiyama truly had.

That morning too, when they went to VOKS, it had actually been Segawa Masao who suggested it and invited them. It was Segawa who proposed it and decided they would go; once that was settled, it was Akiyama who passionately emphasized the importance of visiting VOKS. Now too, when the topic of М・Х・Т (Moscow Art Theatre) came up at this table, Akiyama repeated the same manner. Segawa began talking, Segawa provided the tickets, and once it was decided they would go together, Akiyama Uiichi passionately extolled the brilliance of М・Х・Т.

The Moscow Art Theatre was indeed close to the hotel, just as Segawa had said. Proceeding up Tverskaya Street in the direction opposite Red Square, turning left a short way up then right at the wide intersection, they had not gone far when they saw a glass canopy jutting over the narrow sidewalk under reflected light—that single spot alone brimming with cheerful brightness in the dark snowy night street. People coming from behind overtook Nobuko and her companions, their lively chatter growing more animated as they quickened their pace. Others approached from the opposite direction trying to enter the theater. The brightness concentrated before the theater made the ceaselessly falling snowflakes gleam white, through which black human figures moved incessantly. At the very moment these shadowy people pressed against the main doors to enter, their upper halves were abruptly bathed in strong illumination—accentuating the brownish sheen of leather coats and the red-and-black rose patterns on women’s cream-colored shawls.

Amidst that crowd, Nobuko and the others checked their winter boots. Then they went to another cloakroom elsewhere and checked their hats and coats. Around Nobuko—in front, behind, and to either side—women who had arrived wearing shawls of gaudy floral patterns, fine chintz prints, or else utterly commonplace brown and gray woolen ones were each removing those very shawls. When the shawls came off, all sorts of Russian women’s faces emerged from beneath them— faces with deep wrinkles, vibrant skin, and the gazes of middle-aged housewives bearing the marks of domestic life. Next came the padded winter coats of indistinct hues and plush thickness being shrugged off with visible effort. When women’s bodies emerged from within them, there arose a fresh stimulus—the sudden exposure of a single supple figure radiating warmth.

Segawa’s tickets were for box seats located midway on the right side facing the stage. “This is an awfully ostentatious spot.” Motoko—wearing the same kinako-colored suit she had on that afternoon—sat down in the front-row seat beside Nobuko and spoke to Segawa behind them. “The tickets VOKS provides for any theater are usually box seats.” “Well, you are state guests after all.” “Hey!” Interrupting her, Nobuko—wearing a silk dress with beaded clasps at the shoulders—pressed her own hand down atop Motoko’s and demanded attention.

“Chaika (seagull) is here!” “Where?” Nobuko gestured toward the stage. A heavy grayish curtain hung imposingly over the broad stage before the opening. At the center where the curtain’s left and right sections met, a seagull with wings spread wide—soaring between sky and water—was embroidered in braided threads of muted hues. “It was on the entrance door too—didn’t you notice?” The seagull—the sole decoration at the center of the plain curtain, enclosed within a horizontally elongated square with rounded corners—was printed on the pale blue ticket tucked inside Nobuko’s handbag (one corner torn off), its left edge bearing the design, and also adorned the cover of the program placed atop the velvet-lined railing of their box seats. The Moscow Art Theatre had made a significant departure in modern drama’s history with Chekhov’s *The Seagull*. During rehearsals for its premiere, when the theater had not yet been completed, the actors practiced in a bitterly cold building resembling a storage shed, relying on candlelight. Nevertheless, all the actors burned with hope and pride that they themselves were creating truly new theater, undaunted by the cold. The one who had recounted this was Olga Knipper, Chekhov’s wife. *The Seagull* remained an emblem inseparable from MKhAT’s artistic life.

Nobuko was astonished that a play whose dialogue she couldn’t understand could prove so utterly captivating. Not only was *Armored Train* easier for Nobuko to grasp because she had read it beforehand, but the Art Theatre actors—well-drilled, unified, each a consummate performer—vividly portrayed with dramatic effect, scene by scene, the heroic deeds of peasant partisans who had fought in the civil war during those revolutionary years. Elshinin, the protagonist played by Kachalov—who in Act One had been entirely subsumed within the peasant crowd, an indistinct presence whose very location remained unclear—gradually grew into leadership of the partisan group as the acts progressed and as revolutionary tensions among the region’s peasants escalated, emerging through the accretion of his own minor actions and tentative initiatives. *Armored Train* was a play that assigned no fixed protagonist from its opening moments. It chronicled and demonstrated how protagonists of particular events and actions organically arise amid real-world struggles.

Segawa, intently watching the stage, whispered to Nobuko and the others in the front row of the box seats. “Look—Kachalov’s Elshinin has begun to stand out somewhat in this scene, hasn’t he?” The audience was so engrossed in the belief that the play was being performed for their sake and that they were watching it. From the box where Nobuko and the others were seated, down to the lower orchestra seats and up to the back of the second-floor balcony, spectators were packed tightly. No children were visible, but people of all ages and appearances—every variety of dress and countenance—sat motionless in seats faintly lit by dim light, thousands of eyes fixed unwaveringly on the stage. Though the audience in this theater seemed generally restrained and modest in demeanor, when they reached a certain point, a ferocious wave of applause erupted, shaking the entire hall. No matter how one looked at it, this ovation was not meant solely for Kachalov’s masterful performance. At that moment, the audience sympathized with the partisans' decisions and actions.

Nobuko was moved by this new spectacle that connected MKhAT’s venerable realist stage and audience seating with such passion. Since Russia had become the Soviet Union, she felt tangibly that both plays and novels had become entirely different from before. How many men among the audience filling this hall must have personally experienced parts of this story of Partisan Elshinin between 1917 and 1920? The entire course of all they had fought for in the revolution was reproduced almost exactly on stage—save that they had lived through it to sit in this theater tonight and watch it unfold—and there must surely have been such men among them. Even if their posts differed and thus there were some variations in their experiences, every man—and of course woman—who had ridden those towering waves of courage and terror, tears and jubilation in that year of 1917, that month of October, must possess at least one story of their own. Wasn’t *Armored Train* speaking directly to “their own stories”—those narratives deeply etched into the lives of these people? Wasn’t it that the actors of MKhAT, by performing *Armored Train* so magnificently, not only satisfied the audience but also made a very large portion of them recall their days of struggle, awakening pride in them that they had not lived in vain for this new history, as well as an awareness of the potential power still expected of them?

*Armored Train* brought down the curtain on its heroic tragedy amidst a mysterious tremor that shook both stage and audience as one.

On Tverskaya Street past eleven o'clock, a fine crystalline powder snow continued falling, finer than what had come down earlier in the evening. A sleigh that had come hoping to catch the theater's closing but missed its chance now lumbered along, following in the direction Nobuko and the others walked. Nobuko clung to Motoko's arm—Motoko wearing her brown coat—driven less by the precarious footing than by a desperate need to steady her violently shaken heart.

“Are you that cold?”

Noticing the faint trembling in Nobuko’s body as they walked pressed closely together, Motoko asked with concern. "That’s not it—I’m fine!" Feeling powdery snow melt pleasantly against her flushed cheeks yet unable to calm this lingering post-performance tremor in her heart—Nobuko remembered being sixteen or seventeen, watching Strindberg’s *Countess Julie* for the first time at a private theater owned by a wealthy man in Kamimeguro. That had been her first modern play. How morbidly peculiar Countess Julie’s love affair was! How chillingly the whip had cracked! Yet electrified by the production’s indefinable atmosphere, she had trembled all through the rickshaw ride home.

The small theater had been built among the trees to resemble a log cabin. In its smoking room hung a foreign-style lantern fitted with colored glass. University students and people connected to literature and theater stood or sat clustered there, smoking cigarettes and engaging in animated conversation. Not only had the play itself—which seemed to be transforming into a young woman—moved Nobuko, but the atmosphere of that small theater’s audience had filled her with such rapturous joy and curiosity that she couldn’t stop trembling. Twenty-nine-year-old Nobuko trembled with similar intensity as she walked through Moscow’s December night streets toward the hotel amid swirling powdered snow. This emotion felt fresh—so visceral it stung her skin—yet carried profound existential weight. With her small round face glowing like a luminous body, Nobuko wore an enraptured expression as she unconsciously clung to Motoko’s arm all the way into their hotel room.

Tonight, it was decided they would have tea in Nobuko and the others' room. The tea set was ordered, and Akiyama and Utsumi came gathering.

“So—how was it?” While surveying Nobuko and Motoko’s moved faces with satisfaction, Akiyama rubbed his small hands—their middle fingers ink-stained—together. “You must have thought MKhT truly lives up to its reputation.” Segawa asked Motoko, who sat beside Nobuko on an uncomfortably hard springless bench, doing nothing but smoking. “Ms. Yoshimi, what did you think?” “Hmm.”

Motoko, her complexion beautiful, said bluntly, as though angry at herself. "I've decided, as a general rule, not to be immediately impressed by everything here." "I see... By the way, what about tonight's MKhT—are you still resolved not to be impressed?" "That's what's so annoying!"

Motoko said in the same indignant tone. “It’s frustrating, but I can’t tell a lie.” “So you were impressed after all?” Segawa and Akiyama laughed very heartily. Utsumi, seemingly disapproving of Motoko’s emotional display, silently shook his head like a nineteenth-century Russian university student.

“Perhaps it’s not just the play that’s interesting.” “The audience and the stage resonate so intensely—how utterly unique... How utterly unique it is!”

“Ms. Sassa, did you think so?”

Akiyama’s eyes sparkled. “I share the same view—there’s no audience as enthusiastic and sincere as Moscow’s. Like children, they live through and experience the stage together. However, Mr. Sanae said he was quite disappointed when he came to Moscow this time. MKhT’s audience has completely changed—he said their clothing is all over the place and their manners are rough—” “So, was Mr. Sanae wearing a tuxedo, then?”

“That wasn’t the case.” “The audience isn’t about their clothing.”

Segawa, who aside from his expertise in Russian was a master flutist in the traditional art passed down through his family, spoke from his own stage experience. “An audience that unconsciously breathes life into the stage—that’s what makes for ideal spectators.” “Whether you call it the shifting of eras or the passage of years,” Motoko responded, “there’s a certain poignancy when you think about it. Mr. Sanae and Sadanji had founded the Jiyu Gekijo in 1909. He was only twenty-five or twenty-six then—not much older than me—but during the first performance’s curtain speech, he made remarks about respecting the third-floor audience.” She paused to relight her cigarette before continuing. “Though when we called them ‘third-floor audience’ back then—looking at it now—they were really petty bourgeois types, mostly students. And would you believe it? The naturalist writers tore into him for that pretentiousness.”

Segawa said, “Come to think of it, when I met Stanislavsky at the Art Theatre office recently, Mr. Sanae’s manner of speaking struck me as somewhat evasive.”

said. “Mr. Sanae was only praising the technical aspects of the Art Theatre.” Motoko had been listening attentively to the conversation, but now, lighting another long-stemmed Russian cigarette, she asked. “What kind of person is Stanislavsky?” “He’s quite impressive. That said, he’s now completely white-haired.” “Anyway, MKhT’s inclusion of *Armored Train* in their repertoire this time has groundbreaking significance—after all, they’d stubbornly maintained *The Cherry Orchard* and *The Lower Depths* until now.”

Segawa spoke approvingly of the steady progressiveness inherent in the white-haired Stanislavsky. “That’s right. It’s precisely in that regard that I feel respect for him.” “Whether it’s *The Cherry Orchard* or *The Lower Depths*, the direction methods have gradually evolved—they haven’t remained confined to the realism of Chekhov’s era.” “The fact that they executed *Armored Train* so realistically—and with such thorough research—while clearly finishing it through dialectical production methods is truly remarkable.” “It’s probably the epitome of this season, isn’t it?”

While listening to the conversation, Nobuko blinked her eyes. What exactly did they mean by "dialectical production methods"? In the single volume on historical materialism that Nobuko had read, the term had been used in relation to philosophy, but...

Motoko said nonchalantly,

“How exactly does it differ from realism?”

and posed the question to Akiyama. Akiyama, slightly embarrassed, rubbed his hands together,

“In short, isn’t it simply pushing proletarian realism one step further?” he explained. “Even when standing on the same class footing, it’s not about merely depicting phenomena through superficial realism from start to finish—isn’t it rather about capturing the form and direction of movement as they actively and progressively advance toward class necessity, even while grappling with friction?”

After remaining silent and lost in thought for a while, Motoko,

“Is that so...” she muttered skeptically. “Take tonight’s *Armored Train*, for instance. That kind of thing is natural—and realistic, don’t you think? The very process of partisan leaders emerging from among the farmers themselves—when there’s no commander descending from above—so if realism is pursued to its logical extreme, shouldn’t it naturally lead precisely there? In the first place, trivialism isn’t realism at all.”

Akiyama Uiichi, with the practiced knack of someone accustomed to responding to questioners, “In today’s Soviet Union, I take it we can understand that ‘dialectical method’ is being advocated as one of the driving slogans?” he said while deftly sidestepping further debate. “In the grand scheme of things, they are undoubtedly striving to dynamically concretize realism—though of course—”

While savoring the strong tea poured into a thick octagonal glass cup with evident relish, Segawa looked up in surprise, “Ms. Yoshimi, you’re quite a formidable debater,” he said, stroking his beard. “Until now, I had thought Ms. Sassa was the one fond of debates.”

Motoko and Nobuko involuntarily exchanged glances. Motoko, as if disgusted with herself for appearing compelled to affirm Segawa’s perceptiveness, “It’s true,” she muttered. And then, she blushed slightly.

“Nobuko-chan, what’s gotten into you?” “Me?” Nobuko smiled helplessly, wondering how she might explain this feeling so that others would understand. “It’s just... like this.” Hearing that response, they all laughed cheerfully. Nobuko was by no means indifferent to what Motoko was debating or to the skillful manner of Akiyama’s responses. Rather, she had been listening with sharp attentiveness. However, unlike Motoko—who could detach herself from the profound sensory impressions they had absorbed at the theater—it was simply not in Nobuko’s nature to do so. Within Nobuko’s senses—so to speak—everything she had seen and felt since morning now brimmed to overflowing, and even the sight of Moscow’s streets beneath falling flurries—the morning snow, then the snowy nightscape after the theater—registered with vivid immediacy, each scene perceived in its purest essence. Nobuko, rather than analyzing the Moscow Art Theatre’s production methods, found herself more deeply enveloped—as a solitary spectator—in the human emotions evoked by their successful effects.

The group's conversation naturally died down.

At that moment, from somewhere far away, a faint music-like sound came drifting in. "What is that?" Like a young animal twitching, Nobuko pricked up her ears. "Isn't that La Marseillaise?"

Through the snowy night, a melody drifted slowly, faintly from somewhere. “Hey, what’s that sound?” Akiyama pricked up his ears for a moment,

“Ah, that’s *The Internationale* from the Kremlin clock tower,” he said. “It’s twelve o’clock.”

As they listened, the sound of the clock striking the hours from one to twelve in heavy, clear tones eventually reached their ears. The metallically pure and unselfconscious resonance possessed, through that very unselfconsciousness, a power to move those who were listening.

“Well, it’s finally tomorrow. Shall we call it a night?”

After everyone had left, Nobuko lifted the curtain and looked outside again, just as she had that morning. An arc light from somewhere was blazingly illuminating the construction site across the street, lighting up the late-night avenue where fine snow fell. A sentry with a rifle slung over his shoulder by a leather strap was pacing back and forth along a short stretch. Moscow does not sleep. Nobuko, feeling this way, gazed for a long time at the late-night street illuminated by arc lights where fine snow was falling.

Two

In the autumn of 1927, approximately twenty-odd individuals from various countries around the world were invited to Moscow as cultural dignitaries for the Soviet Union’s tenth anniversary commemoration of the revolution. Among them appeared names like France’s Henri Barbusse—who after writing “Under Fire,” a novel protesting war’s cruelty following World War I—stood at the forefront of movements toward a new society and literature. The members of Japan’s New Theater movement who had attended, including Sanoi Mitsuru and others, left Moscow at the end of November once the celebratory events had concluded, and Sanoi himself departed for Berlin.

By the time Nobuko and her group arrived in Moscow after December 10th, the initial relocations of festival guests had mostly concluded. Nobuko and her companions did not know which foreigners from other countries had remained in Moscow after the event’s conclusion, but in any case, Akiyama Uiichi and Utsumi Atsushi planned to stay for several more months, while Segawa Masao remained until his departure for Japan at year’s end. These people had moved from the Hotel Bolišaja Moskovskaja to the Hotel Passage. Having sent a telegram to Akiyama Uiichi and been met by him, Nobuko and her group naturally settled into a room at Hotel Passage where Akiyama and the others were staying.

From her very first day of life in Moscow, Nobuko’s heart found itself drawn—with both affection and tension—to the rhythms of daytime existence here and the ways night unfolded. Nobuko’s sensitivity had been opened up, and she could not help but receive stimulation from everything she saw. Beginning by taking stock of the small neighborhood where she lived, Nobuko approached life in Moscow—a city brimming with an unusual vitality.

Radiating out from the Kremlin in eight directions ran several main streets. All were old streets with stories spanning centuries if one traced their histories, but one of them—a road that had once been the highway to Tver—was now called Tverskaya, a prominent thoroughfare. This grand avenue stretched straight from the wide square outside the Kremlin walls far into the distance, passing through the 1812 commemorative arch of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow along its course, while skirting alongside Eagle’s Forest—the most splendid primeval forest park encircling Moscow.

On the left sidewalk, just five or six blocks from where Tverskaya Street began, there stood a large display window—desolately dim and empty. Inside the thinly dust-layered display window lay not a single item resembling merchandise—only models of human and feline internal organs. These models were colored waxworks of commonplace medical specimens. Above the show window hung a sign reading "Central Publishing Office." Yet whenever Nobuko passed by, it remained equally dim-lit, dust-ridden, shuttered, and devoid of human presence. On the opposite corner of this building's same side, the large-scale construction of the Central Post Office was progressing. The first narrow entrance on the left down the alleyway between them marked Hotel Passage where Nobuko and her companions lodged.

On its entrance door, which resembled that of an office building, a daily menu was posted as proof that it was a hotel. Moscow was suffering such a severe paper shortage that Nobuko and her group had discovered colored papers being repurposed in unexpected ways immediately upon arrival; the menu here was printed on large yellow sheets using pale purple ink from a konnyaku block. When Nobuko walked all the way around from Tverskaya Street, she came to realize that both the Central Publishing Office—with its gloomy display window resembling a medical equipment shop—and the Passage Hotel each belonged to opposite sides of the large four-story square building occupying that block.

Nobuko and her group changed rooms at the hotel on their third day in Moscow. They moved to front-facing rooms on the fourth floor. From the wide window of this new room, neither the arc light that had etched itself in Nobuko's memory—illuminating a snowy late-night construction site—nor the figure of a young sentry in his greatcoat remained visible; instead lay visible part of a collapsed great roof. The rusted steel frame of this old roof lay desolate nearby as December's driving snow filled the sky—an unexpectedly exposed scar of destruction amidst the vista of distant rooftops stretching along the avenue. As Nobuko stood by the window gazing endlessly at the falling snow, white flakes kept swirling down one after another, slipping swiftly into dark gaps between steel beams. The snow seemed endlessly devoured—staring fixedly at this sight made her head spin. This same unceasing snow fell too upon the neighboring massive construction site. There around-the-clock building work progressed. Late at night arc lights blazed fiercely over the site. In these stark contrasts Nobuko felt Moscow life's dynamic colors burn vivid.

The large roof left to ruin had originally been a glass-paneled ceiling and served as the promotional hall on Tverskaya Street. That must be why this small hotel bore the rustic-sounding name "Passage (Kankōjō) Hotel." This small hotel—more shabby than simple—lacked anything remotely resembling a hotel at its entrance save for the menu posted on the door, and indeed, the entire building bore not a trace of hotel-like character. Inside the front door, the entrance hall contained nothing more than a single potted palm and a bare round table, from which the staircase began. When one ascended the marble stairs worn down by footsteps to the second floor, a narrow corridor lay between, lined on both sides with identical white-painted doors. The door of one room was left open day and night, and that was the hotel’s office. Carpets had been laid in the corridors from the second to the fourth floor. A carpet with a pattern of flowers and leaves in red and green against a black background—the sort of design seen on those table covers draped over guest desks in Japanese village offices—

When Nobuko noticed this carpet, she found its rustic charm amusing and came to love it. There was no trace of pretentiousness anywhere in this small hotel. People lived. Life has its work. Each room of the hotel was equipped based on such an unpretentious understanding of living. In every room, there was one corner table for drinking tea and a large desk for work. On the desk was a lamp with a white-green shade attached to its inner side, and there was a two-color inkstand. On the wooden floor—polished in the Russian style with polishing powder—two beds covered in mouse-gray blankets were placed apart here and there.

Within this small hotel, there was one spot that must have struck Nobuko and her group as especially comical. It was the bathroom. On the first day they were to bathe, Motoko went down to the second floor first at the appointed time. Before long, Motoko returned, the wooden heels of her Caucasus shoes—which she was using as slippers—clattering as she walked.

“What’s wrong?” “Wasn’t it heated?”

The bath required applying at the office the previous day to use at a designated time. “Well, it’s heated… Come take a look.” “What’s wrong?” “Just come and see.”

Nobuko, wearing a white Fuji silk blouse beneath a purple Japanese haori, followed Motoko—clad in a thick striped woolen men’s-cut gown—and opened a door labeled “Bathroom” with a Seto-ware placard beside the kitchen. “Oh my…” Nobuko involuntarily laughed at the bathroom’s preposterous spaciousness. The floor, tiled in faded white squares discolored with age, stretched absurdly wide, its surface pocked with shallow puddles. On the left-hand white-tiled wall hung a cracked mirror speckled with fly stains, beneath which sat a washbasin. The Seto-ware bathtub stood installed on the opposite wall—had all Russians been such giants in the not-so-distant past? Both in length and depth, this timeworn tub with its dulled sheen loomed imposingly large, like a stage prop from some comic opera. At its head rose a black cylindrical unit combining firebox and water tank, flanked by two or three thick birch logs meant for heating bathwater. The sight of Motoko—her bobbed hair framing sloping shoulders and smooth skin—pacing furiously around this grimy, cavernous space while muttering “Damn it!” at her own voluptuous chest struck Nobuko as exquisitely comical. But practically speaking, what could they do? Being even shorter than Motoko, Nobuko already had to lie inverted—or rather, hook her head over the faucet end—when bathing in normal-sized tubs.

“I’ll drown.”

The two of them finally decided to bathe at the same time. By positioning themselves crosswise, even their small frames could avoid the danger of slipping under. Given the cold climate and Muscovites' nighttime habits of theater-going and late hours, people here appeared to have adopted afternoon bathing as their custom. In December, Moscow's daylight lasted barely eight hours a day. On days of heavy snowfall, they kept the electric lights on all day long.

By around ten o'clock that morning, Nobuko and the others had finished their morning tea. After waiting for the cleaning woman to finish tidying the room, Motoko settled at the desk facing the window with copies of *Pravda* and *Izvestia*. Nobuko took out her coat and placed it on the bed, then—unusually for her—turned to face the mirror attached to the wardrobe, studying how to wear the small brown felt hat. As for this small hat, it marked the second chapter in Nobuko’s hat saga. The black hat Nobuko had brought from Japan was far more elegant than this one, adorned with a beautifully colored thin ribbon. A few days after arriving in Moscow, Nobuko came to dislike that hat for being too pretty. In snowy Moscow, women walked briskly with woolen shawls draped over their hair or hunting caps on their heads. As for those wearing regular ladies' hats, all of them were simple, small felt ones. The local people wore headwear suited to their climate. When snow clung to Nobuko’s decorative hat—adorned with a beautifully colored ribbon—and the moisture caused it to lose its crisp shape, its feebleness appeared pathetically inadequate, filling her with an irritating frustration. Moscow in snow was a season both harsh and splendid, as Chekhov had loved it wholeheartedly—and yet. ——

When she was walking along Moscow Art Theatre Street, there were several women’s hat shops there. At one of them, Nobuko’s eye was caught by a small brown hat adorned with a simple golden ornament.

Nobuko and Motoko entered that shop. And they were shown the hat that was displayed in the shop window. It pleased Nobuko, but when she tried it on, it didn’t suit her. The hair got in the way. Nobuko realized for the first time that the reason all the women of Moscow wore their small hats so smartly was because they had bobbed hair. Nobuko, who had been holding the brown hat in her hands while thinking for a moment, said in a terribly natural tone,

“I’ll cut it,” she said.

“Cut it?—You sure?”

Such a Motoko had already gotten her hair bobbed back in Harbin. “I’ll really do it—okay?” “Well, it’s not a matter of good or bad.”

“Then say so, please. “Anyway, I’ll have to have it properly redone later…”

Through these circumstances, the brown hat came to rest upon her bobbed head. Nobuko left Motoko, who had begun immersing herself in reading newspapers at the desk, and went out from the hotel. Tucked under Nobuko’s arm were a pamphlet titled *The Golden Water* and a Moscow-made notebook with red-dyed edges.

Nobuko ascended Tverskaya Boulevard straight to Strashnaya Square, crossed through the square, and entered a side street beside a pharmacy opposite the Moscow Evening News building. And she ascended to the third floor of the building whose stuccoed gable above the main entrance bore a painting of a mermaid frolicking in the waves. This building seemed to have once had an elevator, but now only the screen door of its casing remained.

The door Nobuko had rung opened immediately, and a woman in her mid-thirties wearing a black skirt and a slightly faded light blue sweater appeared. It was in this house, with this woman, that Nobuko had begun learning the basics of Russian.

It was VOKS that had first introduced Maria Gregorievna—her lusterless chestnut hair parted down the center in the Russian style and arranged into thin strands at the temples—to them. It was here that Novamirsky had recommended in his astonishingly basso profundo voice when consulted by Nobuko. On the first day of her appointment, Nobuko had found her way to this building using the written address notes and map she received. Maria Gregorievna’s small-wrinkled round face showed both kindness and eagerness, putting Nobuko at ease. Immediately they began with *The Golden Water*. When their brief lesson ended and they were chatting in broken English, the entrance bell rang.

“Oh, welcome back!” “Already?” Maria Gregorievna’s voice sounded surprised as she went out to answer. The other party seemed to be a man, but his voice remained inaudible. Nobuko was about to leave when Maria Gregorievna next appeared— “Ms. Sassa, good afternoon.”

Novamirsky entered, announcing in an unmistakable bass voice. Next, Maria Gregorievna appeared there. “This is my wife,” he formally introduced her. “How are your lessons going?”

That this was Novamirsky’s home came as an utter surprise. Nobuko suddenly found herself at a loss for words, “Thank you.” she answered. “You certainly introduced me to an excellent teacher, but I’m afraid I may not be a good student.” “That’s not the case. I can tell from my experience, you know.” Just like Novamirsky, his wife Maria Gregorievna said earnestly, her face slightly red at the tip of her nose.

“Ms. Sassa, you have such a quick ear, you know.”

Even so, it still came as a surprise to Nobuko that this was Novamirsky’s home. When she had spoken with him at VOKS, Novamirsky had seemed like a complete third party. His wife, her work—he had spoken of them all with such detachment, his very expression that of a third party. Novamirsky, leaving the spoon in the teacup Maria Gregorievna had brought, held it between his index and middle fingers as he drank with evident relish,

“Have you seen the Revolution Museum?” he asked. “Yes. I saw it.” “That has a unique significance. For the time being, I believe it’s a type of museum that could only exist in Moscow.”

After pausing slightly to rephrase, Novamirsky,

“I was put in prison for seven years,” he said. “I was an anarchist.”

he said. “In October, I met Lenin and talked for two hours. At that moment, I changed my previous ideology—developed it—development—you understand, right?” This story was no more surprising to Nobuko than Novamirsky’s appearance here. Was Novamirsky—a play on the characters for “New World”—his real name, or was it something like how Ulyanov became “Lenin”? There had been a time when this became a topic of conversation among Nobuko and the others. Maria Gregorievna, supporting the elbow of her left hand pressed against her cheek with her other hand, was listening to what Novamirsky was saying, but—

“Our revolution has been subjected to quite a lot of criticism. But if only those critics could understand even a little of how we had been living up until then!”

she said.

“The revolution certainly claimed no small number of sacrifices. But it gave life to thousands upon thousands more people. That is an even more undeniable fact.”

Before the revolution, Maria Gregorievna had been an officer’s wife. “What a life that was! “Back then, I could think of nothing but dying. “But who would raise my little boy and girl? “Then October came. “And then, my children and I began our lives anew.”

At the children’s wishes, the boy came to live here with Maria Gregorievna, and the girl went to live with her father.

Motoko also began attending Maria Gregorievna's lessons. Motoko started reading Pushkin's *Eugene Onegin*. After Maria Gregorievna's instruction sessions, Nobuko seldom returned straight to the hotel. From Strasnaya Square, she would occasionally walk along the snow-muffled tree-lined avenue toward Nikitsky Gate. At that hour, unless heavy snow fell, the promenade teemed with infants and children brought outdoors. Babies swaddled completely in quilts showed only tiny red faces as they rode in carriages being pushed along the walkway. Children bundled in ear-covering winter hats, mittens dangling from strings, and thick coats that made them resemble bear cubs pulled wooden sleds. Lying flat on their stomachs atop the sleds, they slid down brief slopes between elm trees weighed with snow until reaching the lower path.

A Chinese woman with bound feet, wearing black quilted trousers and a winter hat, had a basket hanging from her arm and was selling thread balls strung along a rubber cord stretched between her fingers. The thread balls were embroidered in a Chinese style with red, yellow, and green colored threads. At the entrance to the tree-lined avenue stood a street stall selling sunflower seeds, apples, and tobacco at five kopecks per cup, while another stall nearby offered sausages and kvass. The owner of that stall was a dark-faced Tatar who stared sharply at Nobuko with piercing pale eyes as she passed by, eating bright yellow millet kasha from a pot. Against the snow's whiteness, the Tatar's face appeared profoundly black, while the millet's yellow blazed with eye-stinging brilliance. These chromatic impressions sank into Nobuko's heart like paintings or music.

The tree-lined avenue stretching left from Strasnaya was rich in poetic charm, while its counterpart extending to the right remained perpetually forlorn, children seldom playing there. Through snow-draped trees where the spire of an old church loomed in the distance, people in leather coats and newsboy caps hurried along clutching briefcases. Their stride spoke less of strolling than of darting between obligations—coats snugly cinched at the waist, eyes narrowed with singular focus that admitted no distractions. Feeling their gazes brush past her indifferently, Nobuko walked the avenue studying each face in turn. To her, even this held profound fascination.

When she descended Tverskaya Street all the way to Okhotny Ryad, she emerged at the food market. Cooperative stores that sold dairy products, tea, sugar, vegetables, and other goods under a ticket-based system were lined up. Across the sidewalk on the opposite side, every conceivable kind of food stall was lined up in a long row. There were halves of whole pigs. A vendor sat with their legs spread wide, a bucket wedged between them, selling salted cucumbers whose pickling brine had frozen crunchily. There were large, pale yellow lumps of dairy products. There were skate wings. There were apples and mandarins too. Those who were selling eggs—putting them into baskets and walking through the crowd to do so—were mostly elderly women. There was an old man selling crushed chicken. Mingling with the ceaselessly flowing crowd, an old man walked right in front of Nobuko. A meat seller had set up a stepladder and placed one board atop it. In front of it, an old man stopped.

“Old man, this is fantastic meat! Perfect for borscht!”

Could that really be called good meat? To Nobuko's eyes, the mass was black, and she could not discern what kind of meat it was. Without a word, the old man extended his soiled finger and gave the meat a tentative poke.

“Huh?” “How about it?” Having placed the birchwood bag containing meat at his feet, the seller urged him on while shifting his knee-high winter boots restlessly in the snow. The old man did not speak. Nobuko’s eyes were drawn to the infinite wariness etched into the old man’s face—surrounded by a scruffy beard streaked with white. Even if told his name was such-and-such, he would likely still not change that suspicious expression of his. At these street stalls, everything sold ran thirty to forty percent above official prices. Though goods were plentiful, both sellers and buyers engaged in a battle of wits through sheer force of will. Nobuko noticed that amidst Okhotny Ryad’s bustling crowd, there were scarcely any men or women who resembled workers. And those with children were scarce as well. ――Beyond the snow-blanketed rectangular square stood an old church jutting toward the roadside, while on a red placard stretched across the neighboring building glared stark white letters: “Eradicate Illiteracy!” The crowd moved through such squares, staining their snow.

The store where Nobuko would go to buy chopped cabbage and ikura for their supper after her long walks through the city was located just a short way from the hotel. From the steps at the entrance of the semi-basement store all the way to the tiled floor, sawdust was scattered. The smell of damp sawdust, the smell of pickling tubs, the smell rising from smoked goods crammed on the shelves. All these intermingled, filling the store with a tart, astringent scent that felt somehow nostalgic.—Nobuko returned to the hotel with her coat now carrying winter's scent, color in her cheeks and vivid brightness in her eyes.

Motoko was, as usual, at her desk just as Nobuko had seen when leaving. Seeing Nobuko enter, Motoko turned around on her chair,

“How was it?” Motoko asked. This had meant, “How were things out there in general?” In Motoko’s voice was a tone that rejoiced in this change after having spent a full three hours alone. Nobuko began to speak. Motoko also lit a new cigarette.

“But you know, these little bits of fun are like life’s rainbows—by the time you talk about them, half has already faded away.”

Nobuko said regretfully. “I really wish we could go out together.—” While glancing fleetingly from the book spread out on the desk to the wristwatch placed beside it, Motoko said, “Well, as long as reading the daily newspapers remains a job in itself, there’s no helping it.”

she said resignedly.

The newspaper—in Nobuko's eyes, which had been dewy and bright with the various impressions she had just received, a faint hardness surfaced.

When she woke each morning to find newspapers slid beneath her door, Nobuko would gaze at Pravda's large pages—packed with illegible characters—turning them this way and that. And to Motoko, “While you’re reading, could you tell me bits here and there—just whatever parts you can?”

she requested. At that moment, Motoko—who had been reading the front page of Izvestia—did not respond immediately. “So, how about it?” “Why don’t you just read the Daily Moscow, Nobuko?” “Why?”

Nobuko said rather surprised. "The Daily Moscow remains The Daily Moscow." "The Moscow Evening News differs from Pravda." "That distinction holds true."

It was hard to believe that the English-language newspaper edited primarily for foreigners could have the same content as Pravda.

Around early autumn that year, an incident had occurred in which an international counter-revolutionary organization—one that had been organized across nearly the entire Donbass coal mining region, the Soviet Union’s largest coal-producing area—was uncovered. For years, engineers from the imperial era, engineers who were Communist Party members and Trotskyists, German engineers, and hundreds more had engaged in sabotage, lowered production efficiency, and deliberately left aged pit props in place to induce disasters—all with the aim of disrupting Soviet production. This had been discovered.

Nobuko had read that article too in Japanese newspapers while still in Japan. The Japanese press had framed this incident as exposing both a critical failure in the Soviet new society and open defiance against Stalin. The Donbass Affair trial had commenced around the time of their arrival in Moscow. Full-page spreads, sometimes extending to two pages, reported detailed developments alongside sketches of counter-revolutionary groups. As covered by newspapers across the civilized world, every Moscow-published paper carried these articles. Yet Nobuko sought to grasp not merely the world-shaking events' progression, but their deepest underlying significance. Such unrelenting class hatred. A conspiracy meticulously planned and executed with deadly seriousness. The defendants' confessions at trial—delivered with theoretical rigor surpassing mere rationality—revealed how profoundly committed they'd been. Here burned passions for destruction and obstruction rivaling those fueling Soviet construction; Nobuko yearned to trace these hatreds to their source—to pinpoint the conflicting interests that birthed them. The French aristocracy and royalists had invited foreign armies during their Great Revolution, permitting their homeland's devastation to preserve noble privileges. By what fervor did Trotskyists become foreign capitalists' vanguard? Mere indiscriminate sabotage? Could powerlust truly ignite such deranged passion?

At that moment, Nobuko once again—

“Then—just the main points of the editorial—no good?” Nobuko asked. Motoko said, “You don’t have to fuss so much.” “Someone like you is just fine the way you are now. You should just walk around, look, and listen.—You’ll be able to read eventually anyway, won’t you?” Even though she couldn’t read them properly, Nobuko kept buying not only the Daily Moscow but also Komsomolskaya Pravda—with its simpler writing style—each time she went out, bringing them back to examine.

The period when Motoko and Nobuko spent their days together from morning till night lasted a mere five days or so—perhaps a week—after arriving in Moscow. Motoko created a regular daily study schedule, excluding the evenings when the two went out to see plays. In addition to reading Pushkin with Maria Gregorievna, Motoko also began studying pronunciation and grammar exclusively by having another female teacher come to her.

The female teacher who specialized in linguistics came from across the Moscow River to teach at the hotel on Mondays when they didn’t attend the theater, during the time after dinner. That evening when the teacher arrived, Nobuko dragged a corner table to the farthest wall from Motoko’s study desk as she had done before, settling there to work on her usual transcription of “Golden Water.” Bathed in the green-shaded lamp light that accentuated her jujube-shaped face, Motoko asked Nobuko about idioms and etymologies she couldn’t grasp. When that ended, the pronunciation drills began. This reached only Nobuko’s ears and occasionally caught her interest. Back when they had learned to count from one to ten thousand using the Berlitz pea-green book—for instance with five written as “pyāchi”—Motoko had pronounced it exactly as spelled. So Nobuko too had assumed it was meant to be drawn out as “pyāchi.” Yet when combined with ten to form fifty, the stress shifted backward, making the five sound almost like “pechi.”

The teacher and Motoko were cheerfully pronouncing various combinations while occasionally laughing together, when suddenly the teacher’s voice took on a tone as if she had detected something,

“Please—once more.” Urged the teacher. The character Motoko was carefully repeating was "atta". Nobuko was transcribing into a cheap paper notebook with smudging purple ink by the wall on this side of the room. “Boris the peasant suffered greatly. For the golden water—oil—that was supposed to bring him wealth and happiness had dragged him into endless deceit.” Nobuko, who was looking up the character for “hikkurikomu” in the dictionary because she didn’t know it, was at the desk area,

“Why do you say that?” At Motoko’s voice—now tinged with anger as she countered—Nobuko lifted her head. “I pronounced it exactly the same all three times though.” The issue with “atta” remained unresolved. Nobuko thought, Oh dear. Nobuko, who couldn’t distinguish between the soft rolled R and the hard trilled R, had been mercilessly laughed at by Motoko during their Russian lessons at the house in Komazawa. That Motoko, now in the language’s homeland, was unexpectedly struggling with these very R sounds. The teacher made Motoko pronounce that utterly commonplace character once more. Again she silently expressed disapproval and shook her head. Her gaze at that exact moment met Nobuko’s eyes, which had just lifted from the notebook. The teacher, as if struck by sudden inspiration, called out from across the room where she had remained seated beside Motoko,

“Why don’t you give it a try? —*Byla*.”

the teacher said to Nobuko, who was at the far end of the room.

Nobuko, confident in her lack of skill, pronounced the word without particular effort. “Once more.” Nobuko obediently repeated it again. “You see? “Your friend can pronounce it. “Now you try.” This came as a complete surprise to Nobuko. As she glanced over apologetically, Motoko gave her a sidelong look accompanied by a bitter smile. Then, “We’ll practice this again next time.”

Byla was put on hold, and the teacher left. As soon as the door closed behind the teacher, Nobuko came out from between the long sofa and table pressed against the wall.

“That’s odd—what was all that about?” “I can’t make sense of any of it.” “Was my ‘byla’ actually correct?” “It must be fine.”

Motoko failed to strike the match once or twice before lighting her cigarette. And then, resting her fingers on the long-stemmed Russian cigarette as if holding a pipe, she sat on the chair she had shifted toward the center of the room, puffing on it and thinking— “Nobuko-chan.” she said in the same displeased voice.

“What?” “While I’m working on something, get out of this room.”

“—I could do that, but…” Where was I supposed to be during that time? Nobuko was perplexed. Nobuko was not yet accustomed enough to Moscow to stroll aimlessly through the snowy night streets. When she thought about it, nearly two months had passed since leaving Japan, and all that time they had been living in nothing but a single room. “Hey, I have an idea—let’s rent two small rooms here.” The rate for their current spacious fourth-floor front room was six rubles and fifty kopeks, with an additional ten percent tax.

“We can’t afford such luxuries.” “Even the smallest room here costs five rubles.” “If we do that, there’s no way we can cover book expenses.” ……

It was Motoko who had to systematically purchase books. It was also Motoko who handled the final accounting for their travel expenses. “Hey, Nobuko, please.” Motoko said this with tears in her eyes, in a manner that acknowledged the selfishness of her request yet conveyed how utterly helpless she felt. “It’s only for a little while, so go stay in Mr. Akiyama’s room or somewhere else.” “It’s fine. Don’t worry anymore.”

However, after getting into bed that night, Nobuko lay awake for a long time with her eyes open. The hallway light filtered through the glass above the door, casting its glow on a high corner of the wall in their darkened room. The only sound was the clattering noise inside the steam pipes, and Motoko’s bed lay quietly over by that wall. Motoko had been so tormented over the pronunciation issue. To what extent was she responsible for that? Nobuko did not fully understand this point, and found it hard to sleep. If there was any fault in Nobuko, it was not that she tried to push Motoko aside in this new Moscow life, but rather that her own interest in their life here was so intense it inclined her to rely on Motoko—who understood the language. Indeed, Moscow’s life from morning till night had pushed Nobuko’s spirit—once as narrow and stifling as a single bottled jar—out into a vast, strong external world. After marrying Tsukuda, that failure, and the divorce. Furthermore, in the years since living with Motoko, Nobuko’s existence after turning twenty had been like a single bottle. Through the narrow mouth of this bottle, filtered through the funnel made sensitive by Nobuko’s fervent desire to live well, thick impressions of life had slowly accumulated over time. Yet this liquid of life lacked the fermentative power to refresh Nobuko’s heart or cool her eyes—though at times it flowed in hot, at others cold, and sometimes so painfully it threatened to burst the bottle itself, Nobuko could never allow herself to be mindlessly swept along by it even momentarily. If considered as a middle-class environment, Nobuko’s surroundings were not peaceful. Yet the very upheavals only served to make Nobuko keenly aware of her own existence—which never quite aligned with them. At the very brink of that anguish, Nobuko had come to Moscow.

When the suffocating bottle-like existence dissolved in Moscow's high-energy life, and she discovered this exposed self—this self so exhilarated by seeing, so delighted by feeling, even becoming childlike through the thrill of learning—Nobuko clasped both herself and Moscow to her heart. In Moscow, not all impressions merely accumulated within Nobuko's inner being through a narrow funnel as they had during her life in Japan.

Considering that they were enveloped by Nobuko’s subjectivity, the events she witnessed and the things she heard were of a grand scale, complex in nature, and possessed a serious necessity and significance all their own. The historical three-dimensionality of Moscow life—where the old and new intermingled in uncanny fusion—activated all of Nobuko’s knowledge and senses with startling vigor, drawing forth ever more fascination for living itself.

Driven by that fervor, Nobuko naturally drew closer to Motoko—yet Motoko seemed intent on constantly keeping a fixed distance from her. It wasn’t just with newspapers. When they had been in Moscow for three or four days, somehow the colored button on Motoko’s coat came off and got lost. Motoko said, “Nobuko-chan, go buy it while you’re out sightseeing.”

“Oh, that’s impossible.” Nobuko shook her head with playful sweetness, as if joking. “The word ‘button’ wasn’t in the Berlitz book.” “Didn’t you bring the dictionary precisely for this? Look it up.”

When told this, Nobuko opened the Japanese-Russian dictionary without uttering a single word of protest and found the entry. "Found it?" "Found it." "There, that's settled. Now go take care of it."

Holding a scrap of paper with the words "button" and "brown" written in katakana, Nobuko went out onto Tverskaya Street. After managing to find a clothing store, she somehow bought a large brown button and brought it back. Even minor grocery shopping had gradually become Nobuko’s responsibility in Moscow without her quite noticing when. “Isn’t this perfect...? You’re interested in everything anyway...” That could indeed be said, and Motoko’s educational method had instilled confidence in Nobuko for each task. If not for Motoko’s strict training, Nobuko would never have been able to speak even ten words at the ironworkers’ club just two weeks after arriving in Moscow. When they attended that club meeting through an introduction from VOKS, neither Motoko nor Nobuko had imagined they would be made to stand on the platform. However, the chairperson introduced Nobuko and the others to the approximately three hundred people who had gathered that night. Catching only the words "Japanese woman writer," Nobuko—

“Oh, aren’t they talking about us?”

she whispered in a small voice to Motoko. "…………" Motoko, who had been silently nodding and listening to the chairperson’s words until the end, "They’re telling us to give a speech—Buko, you do it." Motoko said.

“Why?!”

The chairperson approached the perplexed Nobuko and the others. And then, “Please go ahead.” “Everyone is delighted.” Without addressing either of them specifically, he gave a slight bow. Motoko settled into her chair so heavily that even a bystander could notice. “Nobuko-chan, say something!” “What should I... What do I say? Huh?”

While they were arguing back and forth, lively applause urging them on welled up from the crowd. “Davai! Davai!”

Such voices could also be heard. The day after arriving in Moscow, upon hearing the cheerful calls of a carter urging on his horse, Nobuko found herself climbing onto a podium draped in red cloth without knowing what to say. Her small frame, as if trying to hide itself, moved past the tall speaker’s table and edged toward the very front of the podium. Directly below her eyes, a dense crowd of union members—men and women with varied faces—lined up and gazed curiously at Nobuko on the platform. That air emboldened her. Nobuko spoke each word with deliberate pauses,

“Everyone,” Nobuko said. “I have only just arrived from Japan two weeks ago. “I cannot speak Russian.”

Immediately from behind came a resonant older man’s voice, “You’re doing just fine!” There was such a remark. Everyone laughed. Nobuko, on the podium, also involuntarily smiled. And, not knowing what to say next, she paused to think for a moment, “Japan’s progressive workers want to know about your lives.” she tried to say. However, that proved too heavy for Nobuko’s grasp of grammar to bear, and what she had tried to say failed to reach her listeners. Nobuko sensed this,

“Do you understand?”

And, turning to everyone, she tried asking. The middle-aged woman in the front row directly below Nobuko immediately shook her head. Nobuko was troubled, but this time she spoke straightforwardly, “I support you all.”

Nobuko said. The voice of the older man from earlier answered again in a resonant tone.

“Now I understand!” And vigorous applause arose.

This was an unexpected experience for Nobuko. At the same time, it was an event that more concretely connected Nobuko to Moscow's emotional landscape.

The sensitive Motoko found her fluency paradoxically constrained by the academic rigor with which she had learned Russian. Moreover, Motoko was striving to accumulate the scholarly harvest befitting a linguist who had come all this way within the limited time of two years. Beside Motoko’s strained nerves was Nobuko, who bore none of the externally imposed responsibilities, expanding and flowing freely according to her nature as she sought to absorb everything around her—a presence that perhaps occasionally grated on Motoko. Nobuko also thought so.

If asked how to live without living as she was now living, Nobuko wouldn't have known. Yet her way of life hadn't been conceived alongside Motoko's plans—something methodically considered ("Nobuko should live like this"), decided upon, and then initiated. Within Moscow's twenty-four-hour cycle, Motoko had drawn a bold line demarcating herself as Motoko. In spaces avoiding collision with that line—the peripheries and leftover margins—the details of Nobuko's Moscow existence began stitching themselves together autonomously. This was how Nobuko lived. Could it truly be that none of this ever entered Motoko's awareness?

When Motoko decided to begin studying Pushkin with Maria Gregorievna, Nobuko innocently remarked, "What about something new?" Classics could be read even after returning home. Because even the very words used in post-revolution literature had changed. That was what she had thought. Then Motoko flashed a brilliant smile and retorted, "And would that be helpful to you?"

For a moment, Nobuko couldn't grasp the meaning. Nobuko looked at Motoko with an almost childlike expression, "Me?" parroting back while meeting her gaze. Seeing Nobuko's eyes, Motoko suddenly shifted to a serious tone. "I'll be studying classics for a year." As she spoke, Motoko's face flushed faintly red.

“There are more than enough novelty seekers everywhere.” “However, Russian literature has an abundance of old yet splendid works.” “If current literature has any meaning, it’s because it has proper historical sources—Shchedrin and Saltykov, for instance.” “It’s too much trouble and doesn’t pay, so no one does it.” “So I’ll tackle it thoroughly from the foundations.”

The reason Motoko had secretly blushed at her own words became clear to Nobuko only much later. If honesty was by nature incompatible with baseness, then Motoko was not base. Motoko was never anything but dishonest with Nobuko. Yet to Nobuko, Motoko's unstable moods—so candidly directed her way—felt painfully raw.

In the hotel’s midnight hour, where snow fell into the holes of the large ruined roof outside the window, Nobuko lay thinking as she listened to the clattering steam pipes. What, in essence, was this thing called "mood"? And she felt a vague terror. For Nobuko had felt, for the first time, a self that despised moods. And throughout the several years they had lived together, she had never once disregarded Motoko’s moods. Even as she lay there brooding through that night, in this Moscow life that advanced relentlessly without rest, what single positive act was being orchestrated by moods? What single failure was being salvaged through these moods? Nobuko, having come this far, felt the meagerness of the two women they were, entangled in such emotions.

III

The next night, when the female teacher came to Motoko’s room, Nobuko took care to open the door herself. Then, passing each other in exchange, she closed it and stepped out into the corridor.

In its usual quietness, near the stairs of the narrow hotel corridor, a lamp with frayed edges—shaped like the glass cups from Japanese ice shops—was lit. Under that bright spot, having brought out a chair, the hotel maid Shura worked on drawn-thread embroidery with white linen. Having left the room, Nobuko approached nearby and leaned against the handrail. Shura kept moving her hands as she worked, "Do you need anything?" she asked. "No. It's nothing."

Tonight again, Nobuko had thrown her Japanese purple haori over her white blouse. “Isn’t it cold here?” “It’s not warm—” Shura, wearing an old maroon jacket with worn-out fur and stretched-out knit, her pale hair tightly coiled at the nape of her neck, was thin. The back of Shura’s ear, where she wore small golden hoop earrings, showed pronounced emaciation even in the bone. Straining herself to speak using the few words at her disposal,

“Shura, are you well?” Nobuko asked. Shura, without lifting her eyes from her drawn-thread work, said, “My lungs are bad.” “Do you understand? Lungs—here—” “Here—” While saying this, she pointed to the chest of her jacket—missing one button—and looked up at Nobuko. Nobuko was surprised to find a youthful quality in Shura’s face that hadn’t been apparent from afar. “I understand—Japan has plenty of tuberculosis too.” “It’s because I have no skills—I can’t do other work. But I’m not scared—my turn to enter the sanatorium will come soon.”

At that moment, someone came up the stairs. Shura stopped talking and picked up her needlework. A man no longer young - wearing a leather cap and quilted half-coat - ascended while stealing glances at Nobuko before entering a door. Soon a bell rang in the maid's room beside the washroom. The man must have ordered tea or something. Shura departed toward the maid's room at the corridor's end, chair and needlework in hand. --This hallway really is uncomfortable after all.

Nobuko went down to the third floor, counting each step one by one to kill time. It was twenty-six steps. She knocked on the door of Akiyama Uiichi’s room, located on the right side of the corridor laid with a plain floral-patterned carpet. “Please come in.”

A young woman’s voice answered cheerfully. When she opened the door, Akiyama Uiichi and Dorya Tsyn were sitting pressed closely together on a hard, springless bench pushed against the wall, while Utsumi Atsushi was leaning against the desk by the window.

“Good evening—I’m not intruding, am I?” “Come in, come in!” Dorya Tsyn said in rapid Japanese. “Our studies—we just finished, right, Mr. Akiyama? Isn’t that right?” “Yes—please come in.” The sight of Dorya and Akiyama sitting pressed together like that resembled a smaller brown bird with a gray head and black necktie clinging tightly of its own accord next to a round, plump crimson bullfinch perched on a branch. The young Utsumi Atsushi’s modest distance from Dorya was also amusing. It was from this graduate of the Oriental Language School with the rare name Dorya Tsyn that Akiyama had been learning Russian lately.

“The way Ms. Dorya and Mr. Akiyama are sitting there side by side is just like two red bullfinches.” Nobuko said laughingly. “Red sparrow? — What’s that? I don’t know.” “What do you call them? Red bullfinch?” Utsumi, who had been asked by Nobuko, tilted his head and said, “Hmm,”

he tilted his head. Nobuko hurried to avoid upsetting the puzzled Dorya, “Little bird,” she said in Russian. “Two little birds… two robins.”

“Oh, robin! I know!” Dorya exclaimed in a mix of English and clapped her hands with evident delight. “Robin! I’ve read about them in English poems. They’re such beautiful little birds. Don’t you think so, Ms. Sassa?” “That is a beautiful little bird.” “Don’t you think so? Ms. Sassa?” “That’s right. “Ms. Dorya is a crimson red bullfinch, and Mr. Akiyama is a bearded red bullfinch.” “Oh, how wonderful!”

Dorya, thoroughly amused and laughing heartily, sprang up from the bench at the back of the table. “Ms. Sassa, you’re adorable!” Having said that, she embraced Nobuko. Dorya hugged her tightly, then promptly released her and went to the wardrobe, where she stood before a mirror reflecting dazzling light to examine her full figure. Gazing at herself in profile, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her skirt. She surveyed her own figure—her rosy-cheeked round face framed by blonde hair that spoke of half-Asian, half-European heritage; her slender legs that defied expectations set by her ample bust—and seeming satisfied with what she saw, began practicing the Charleston alone, humming a dance tune under her breath. Lifting both elbows and looking down at her feet, she busily shifted her enamel shoes’ heels and toes inward and outward in quick little movements.

“Ms. Sassa—can you dance the Charleston?” “I learned this yesterday.” “It’s difficult.” “The Russian soul and Charleston’s rhythm—they must clash.”

Nobuko too spoke in broken Japanese, trying to make Dorya understand. Dorya kept moving her feet in hurried, clumsy motions for a while longer, but "That's true," she said in Russian with a serious expression, stopping her feet's frantic shuffling. Clasping her hands behind her back, she walked around Akiyama's room as if searching for something interesting. As she fiddled with the haori draped over Nobuko's shoulders, Dorya began recounting how she'd been taken to Japan as a child by her parents to see the sights.

“What was it called? That beautiful mountain park with the hot springs—” “Where could it be? Hakone, perhaps?” Akiyama said. “Oh, Hakone! There, I had someone buy me a box there. It was made by gathering tiny, tiny pieces of wood and crafting them neatly—and it even had a secret pocket.” “Ah, a Yosegi parquetry box—it’s a savings box,” Utsumi concluded with a cautious expression.

“Where is that box now?” When Nobuko asked that, Dorya Tsyn visibly deflated. She shrugged her shoulders,

“I don’t know.”

she said sadly. “We lost a great many things.” “My parents were very wealthy.” “They were very wealthy merchants.” Dorya said this in Russian, slowly and solemnly.

Akiyama implicitly supplemented, directing his words toward Nobuko.

“It seems Ms. Dorya’s parents are living somewhere in Siberia—that’s correct, isn’t it?”

“Yes, yes.” Dorya nodded repeatedly at the word “Siberia,” pulling down the corners of her brightly rouged lips with an expression of irretrievable bewilderment, her lower lip jutting out in such a manner. This too had become vaguely apparent to Nobuko. Dorya’s parents had gotten mixed up in some sort of economic disturbance incident.

“Ms. Dorya, where did you become so skilled at Japanese?”

Eventually, having completely changed the subject, Nobuko asked. To Dorya, who had been unexpectedly drawn into reminiscence by the mention of Hakone parquetry, Nobuko’s Japanese remained unintelligible. Utsumi interpreted in a meticulous tone, like a teacher. “Oh, Ms. Sassa, do you really think my Japanese is good?” Dorya herself, as if clinging to that opening, tried to regain her former cheerfulness.

“I do.”

“I’m truly happy.”

Her voice carried genuine sincerity. Dorya had built the foundation of her Moscow life on her linguistic abilities—a bit of English, a bit of Chinese, and Japanese.

“When I speak Japanese, I don’t think. I just try to speak as quickly as possible, without pausing.”

And she inserted just one Russian word to prevent her last phrase from trailing off,

“I’ll keep talking,” she said. “Do you think they’ll imagine I know everything just because I speak so smoothly? I speak so smoothly—they must think I know everything! Pretty clever, don’t you think?”

Dorya’s youthful frankness had everyone laughing heartily. Akiyama Uiichi nodded repeatedly in understanding as he rubbed his hands together. “We Japanese are far too deficient in this regard. We lack boldness. We’re perpetually terrified of making errors, you understand.”

Though she remained silent, Nobuko was astonished by the contrast between Dorya and Shura, whom she had spoken with earlier in the hallway. What a striking difference there was between Dorya—who never truly relaxed her guarded gaze even when excitedly mimicking the Charleston—and Shura's composure as she sat thin in a threadbare yet clean jacket. Dorya in her enamel shoes must be struggling so.

Dorya Tsyn was going to a friend’s birthday party starting at seven that evening. She was supposed to wait in Akiyama’s room for two or three companions who would come to fetch her. Dorya herself had said nothing about it. Akiyama had explained the arrangement. And then,

“I wonder what time it is now?” He made as if to check his watch. Nobuko knew it was time to leave. Akiyama disliked having Nobuko and the others present when someone came to visit him. He always naturally created an atmosphere where Nobuko and the others would hold back. “Well, then.” As Nobuko began to rise from her chair, Dorya—with a look of surprise as she glanced between Nobuko and Akiyama—half-rose from her seat,

“Why are you leaving?”

she said in a foreign-accented voice with rising intonation. “Please.” “Please.” “Ms. Sassa.” “There’s plenty of time.” “I’m happy to hear your Japanese.” “Truly beautiful.” Akiyama, however, made no particular effort to stop her and said to Nobuko, who remained standing, “Ah, when I went to Madame Nikitina’s place the day before yesterday, she said, ‘Why haven’t you all come?’”

“Oh...” “You should go. Many different writers attend—it’s quite interesting.” “Yes… thank you.” Nobuko listened to Akiyama Uiichi deliver this two-day-old message in his typical manner, smiling wryly to herself. Madame Nikitina was a philologist and professor at a technical college in Moscow. As the wife of Nikitin—who had served as Education Minister under the Kerensky government—she had established a literary group called the Saturday Society. Three days before Segawa Masao left for Japan, an Evening of Japanese Literature was organized featuring Segawa and Nobuko. Polnyak, who had visited Japan, served as chairperson, while Nobuko gave a brief lecture on the history of Japanese women writers since the Meiji era. That night, Nobuko abandoned the Western dress that constantly made her anxious about how her back appeared and instead attended wearing a Japanese kimono with embroidered hems.

When the lecture ended, several people shook hands with Nobuko. Madame Nikitina was also one of them. Nobuko found pleasing both Madame Nikitina’s striking Russian-style features and the substantial dignity of this learned older woman. With an affectionate gaze that carried an unconventional air befitting her upturned nose and distinctive countenance, Madame Nikitina looked at Nobuko—who still seemed ill at ease in these surroundings—

"You spoke very well indeed," she encouraged. "We gained knowledge we hadn't possessed before. But I imagine you haven't had much experience with such occasions?" Nobuko answered truthfully. "In Japan, I've never given a single lecture. Even in Moscow, this was my first time." "I thought so. You kept pulling at this part of your kimono—"

Madame Nikitina pointed at the front overlap of Nobuko’s kimono. “You were tugging at it there.” “Oh... Was I really...?” “Forgive me for noticing such a peculiar thing.” Laughing, Madame Nikitina made as if to wrap her arm—clad in russet velvet—around Nobuko’s shoulder.

“Because the embroidery there was so beautiful, my eyes kept going to it.” “Then your small hand would tug at that spot.” Madame Nikitina had recommended that Nobuko and the others join the Saturday Society circle, and a few days later they even took photographs together. But what sort of people actually comprised this Saturday Society? Nobuko’s group had somehow kept postponing attendance. Given that Akiyama Uiichi had gone just the day before yesterday too, he must be one of their regulars.

“The other day, some rather unusual people came—Alexeev, a poet born in Siberia. He said to me, ‘You’re precisely the sort who ought to be with a proletarian writers’ group rather than sitting around in places like this.’” In this manner, Akiyama Uiichi would always passionately recount to Nobuko the various things he had experienced. Yet without fail, they were always matters he alone had already witnessed and places he alone had already visited. And then, invariably, Akiyama Uiichi would,

“It would be good if you could go by all means.”

He would say such things, but he never invited her in advance regardless of the situation, nor did he ever suggest going together next time. Furthermore, he never gave concrete instructions like “You should go see this in this order.” Nobuko, who had greeted Dorya and was about to leave the room, “Oh, Mr. Akiyama and everyone—what will you be doing for New Year’s?”

She stopped with her hand on the door handle.

“When I went to the embassy today to pick up letters, there was a notice posted! On New Year’s Day, they’re holding the *Shihōhai* ceremony at eleven o’clock, so all Japanese residents are to attend—” “Is that so?” Utsumi remained silent, his mouth twisting as if he’d tasted something sour. “It feels so strange... the *Shihōhai* of all things... I wonder if we’ll really have to bow after all...” With a troubled look, Akiyama was blinking his small eyes beneath his large eyebrows. “I suppose we’ll have to go after all.”

he said as though there were no alternative.

“When it comes to civilians in Moscow, there’s pretty much only us... After all, we’re being observed in far greater detail than we imagined.”

In the room where Dorya was present, Akiyama spoke reluctantly. Then with a regretful expression, he looked at Utsumi,

"I had been careless - in that case, we must conclude Leningrad by the thirty-first." Akiyama had reportedly been invited by VOKS in Leningrad as part of his continuing sightseeing activities as a state guest.

As she slowly climbed the stairs back to her fourth-floor room, Nobuko found herself pondering the four Japanese individuals who had chanced to meet at this small Moscow hotel called Passage—each living out their lives with their own thoughts and plans. Motoko was also quite on edge. Akiyama Uiichi, too—how meticulously he must be trying to prepare a gift bag filled exclusively with his own souvenirs. Akiyama Uiichi was a Japanese proletarian artist. In trying to vividly impress his distinctive qualities in Moscow, he seemed to distinguish himself from Nobuko and the others—whose positions were undefined—in every action he took. At the same time, it never allowed Nobuko and the others to forget that they and Akiyama were entirely different in qualifications, and thus, even when observing the same Moscow, they had completely different ways of viewing it. Despite this consciously held position, Akiyama Uiichi was fretting over the embassy’s *Shihōhai* ceremony and was trying to cut short his stay in Leningrad. To Nobuko—who had not lived in Moscow long enough to intuitively grasp the full implications of what Akiyama meant by being “observed in minute detail” with such brevity—his attitude came across as the restlessness of someone who did not wish to be thought ill of by either side. Ever since she was in Japan, Nobuko had been told ad nauseam about the fearsomeness of the GPU in Russian life, but she had not heard a single word spoken about the existence of Japan’s meticulous perspectives or their methods of signification.

Taking advantage of the deserted staircase, Nobuko swung her hands—each gripping a corner of her purple haori’s sleeves—wide to the right and left as she bounded up the steps two at a time. The hotel’s only two waiters, when carrying things to the third or fourth floor, would support large trays heaped with items on their shoulders with an underhand grip—like soba deliverymen—wave a lightly soiled napkin in one hand, and bound up the stairs two steps at a time with irritated eyes, in the same manner Nobuko was now imitating.

IV

Early that New Year, Tōdō Shumpei came to Moscow. For Nobuko and the others, this too was an unexpected event. Three months earlier, when Nobuko had visited her father Taizo and Tōdō Shumpei regarding the passport endorsement, there had been no hint of this. Tōdō Shumpei’s current trip was also, on the surface, in a personal capacity and had the purpose of Japan-Soviet friendship. The Soviet side had prepared a grand welcome reception. When the report appeared in newspapers, Akiyama Uiichi—

“So he’s finally arrived, has he?” Akiyama said with a profoundly emotional expression. “This politician’s political theories are rather peculiar—if you listen closely, they’re as self-serving as any bourgeois politician’s and not particularly modern—but among Japan’s established politicians, he at least possesses a certain breadth in trying to understand new things. The Soviet Union is a young country with the vitality to create a new culture. Therefore, Japan must collaborate—that’s essentially the position here.”

And then, he fell silent for a moment, lost in thought—

“Behind the current government’s dispatching of this individual lies the Manchuria-Mongolia issue as well, I should think,” he said.

Having also been helped with her passport when coming here, Nobuko went to pay her respects at Hotel Savoy where Tōdō Shumpei was staying.

In a magnificent, spacious room with a long chair upholstered in gold-trimmed brocade silk, Tōdō Shumpei stood surrounded by a crowd of people, leisurely puffing on a cigar. Those surrounding him in his morning coat were all Japanese. Guided by a secretary-like man in a suit who had been waiting in the antechamber, when Tōdō Shumpei saw Nobuko approaching his side, he turned his face—adorned with pince-nez and a wedge-shaped beard—

“Ah… we meet again.” he said in a bright tone resonating with a Tohoku accent.

“How are you finding Moscow? “Have you grown fond of it? “Do you write home now and then?” While half-listening to Nobuko’s brief response, Tōdō Shumpei turned his pince-nez-adorned face to survey the area, then beckoned over a man in his fifties with close-cropped hair wearing a grayish woven suit from among the four or five people gathered by the far wall.

“Ms. Nobuko. This person is a doctor of Chinese medicine, you see. I have great faith in this person’s medicine. Let me introduce you. If you fall ill, by all means get medicine from this person.” While greeting the doctor of Chinese medicine, Nobuko involuntarily laughed and said, “It would be quite convenient if you could even diagnose the illnesses I’ll develop before my return.”

Tōdō Shumpei’s stay in the Soviet Union appeared scheduled to last less than half a month. “No, no.”

The man in the gray suit observed Nobuko’s complexion with a physician’s gaze for an instant— "You appear perfectly healthy."

he said.

"My duty is to leave you all in a state where you no longer require me."

Tōdō Shumpei, who had been speaking with someone, turned to Nobuko at that moment. "Your Russian has improved quite rapidly, I hear." he said.

Nobuko talked about how she had been reading only publications from the Literacy Promotion Association.

“Ha ha ha!” “Ah, I see now.” “They’ve made things quite convenient in that regard here.” “When I see your father, I’ll give him a full report on how you’re doing.” “That should put his mind at ease.” The locked antechamber leading from that grand room also contained a considerable number of people. They were all Japanese—since arriving in Moscow, this was the first time Nobuko had seen such a large gathering of her compatriots. There appeared to be more Japanese visitors at the Savoy than all the staff combined at Moscow’s modest embassy. Having moved from Tōdō Shumpei’s side to the antechamber, Nobuko—who had been sitting on a chair gazing about before her departure—was approached by a man of average build wearing a black suit.

“Excuse me—are you Ms. Sassa Nobuko?” “Yes.” “How are you finding Moscow—” As he said this, he took a seat in the empty chair beside Nobuko and produced his business card. The card bore the name Hida Reiji, with his position as Berlin correspondent for the Asahi Shimbun printed beneath. Hida Reiji—Nobuko studied the gaunt, plainly dressed journalist with a gaze that seemed to grasp at some half-remembered thought. She had a vague recollection of having once read an article by someone named Hida Reiji about the petty bourgeois class. And she dimly remembered finding it interesting. Nobuko said, looking again at the business card.

“Mr. Hida… I believe I’ve had the chance to read something you’ve written—” “...” Hida formed a smile that resembled a bitter laugh and, in a tone that went beyond mere lip service, said bluntly,

“Well, those things aren’t anything significant anyway—”

he said. “I’d like to hear your perspective on Moscow.” “If you were to write something about this… I’d be in trouble, because I really don’t understand anything at all.” “That’s not what I meant. But you see, since we’ve had the chance to meet, I would like to hear your impressions of Moscow.”

“Moscow is such a strange place,” she said. “It’s a place that enthralls people—though I still can’t even read a single newspaper…” The journalist Hida Reiji—revealing teeth stained ivory from years of smoking—laughed at Nobuko, who had begun speaking with vigor only to shrink into dejection moments later. “Not reading newspapers hardly makes you unique here—no need for concern.—Now then, what parts of Moscow appeal to you? The newness—” he leaned forward slightly, “—or the oldness?”

“For me, everything’s fascinating right now. It’s certainly chaotic, but even in that mess, don’t you feel it inching forward? I think it’s an incredible force. Somehow I feel like the future has no bottom... Or am I wrong?” “—” “Spatially, the most condensed is New York. Temporally, the most condensed is Moscow...”

Hida took a cigarette case from his pocket and, slowly placing one between his lips, “Ah, I see.” he said. After remaining silent for a moment, he continued— “By the way, are you aware of what’s called the Russian scissors?” he asked. Nobuko had never even heard such an expression. “In other words, it’s the very foundation of Russia’s potential that you’re sensing.” “Russia has long been called Europe’s granary.” “For ages, Russia exported wheat while importing machinery from abroad—this reciprocal relationship, this ‘opening of the scissors,’ shaped Russia’s destiny across eras.” “In Imperial times, the scissors’ handles were firmly gripped by landowning nobles.” “They lived as Europe’s wealthiest aristocrats while keeping agricultural methods backward.” “Even resources like oil and coal—over half were foreign-managed concessions sold off by them.—Thus Russians endured endless poverty atop infinite wealth.—Like bejeweled Indian kings towering over skeletal subjects.”

Out of courtesy, having visited Tōdō Shumpei at the Savoy Hotel with its rose-colored silk-lined walls, encountering Hida Reiji there had been unexpected for Nobuko, and moreover, the conversation developing into such topics was something she could never have anticipated. “In Moscow these days, no matter where you go, you can’t help but see industrialization and electrification everywhere.” “If you wanted to criticize it, you could find endless faults.” “Certainly, advanced countries finished dealing with such matters ages ago—but in Russia, the meaning differs.” “This determines the possibilities for new Russia.” “In any case, Russia must first catch up to modern industry’s global standards and then surpass them—otherwise socialism can’t possibly take root.” “Even that phrase ‘Catch up and overtake,’ as some mockingly call it, isn’t just a play on words.”

While gazing into Hida Reiji's eyes that glimmered with human-like intellectual curiosity, Nobuko thought how utterly different he was from anyone else she had met in Moscow. This feeling pleased her. Whether Japanese journalists or officials in Moscow, all the people Nobuko encountered seemed to maintain an atmosphere of avoiding discussions about Russia beyond a certain threshold. That boundary was exquisitely subtle yet unyieldingly difficult to breach.

Nobuko’s face took on an expression burning with intellectual curiosity. “I’m so glad I could hear your thoughts,” she said. “So—?” “Well, no—it’s not as if I have any particular brilliant insight on that matter.” Hida Reiji said in a tone that concealed himself—a manner which seemed inherent to him. “If one thinks socialism itself was completed through the revolution, that’s utterly absurd—even in Russia, they’ve only just acquired the conditions—the possibility—for socialism. Moreover, these conditions—once acquired—are not some well-behaved creature that will sit quietly in the hands of the class that raised them, like a lapdog.”

That was something even Nobuko dimly understood. Even taking just the Donbass Affair as an example, the meaning of Hida Reiji’s words was proven.

“The fact that you explained all this to me in Japanese is truly remarkable.”

Nobuko expressed her friendship and thanked Hida. "Since coming here I've felt so many things." "I've felt them so strongly—"

I want to hear so much more of these stories. Nobuko restrained the words that had nearly escaped her lips, fearing they might foster an awkward sense of overfamiliarity. In Hida Reiji's demeanor lingered an inner refinement uncommon among newspaper reporters, mingled with a tinge of melancholy.

“Whether one likes it or not, the fact remains that this experiment has already begun across one-sixth of the Earth’s surface.” He resumed speaking in fits and starts. “Humans strike me as remarkably stubborn creatures—they don’t flinch even when confronted with perfect logic.” A complex smile flickered in his eyes—one that seemed to endure humanity’s baseness while regarding it with irony. “Depending on your perspective, they’re exactly like wolves.” “When a strong individual gets surrounded and bitten from all sides, those attackers won’t stop until they’ve tested that strength to its limits.”

At that moment, parting through the crowd, a burly-shouldered man in plain clothes approached the two by the wall.

“Quite the lively conversation you’ve got going here.”

The man gave Nobuko—dressed in a dark blue silk dress with bobbed hair—a lingering glance that registered her femininity, then deliberately ignored her and addressed Hida in an overbearing tone. Hida remained silent, relit his cigarette, and twisted his smoke-narrowed face slightly aside as he said, “Well, have a seat.”

he said without making any particular move to adjust the chair he was sitting in. The three were silent. Then, Hida turned to the man and, “Have you met Iiyama?” he asked. “Nope.” “I was looking for you.” “Hmm.” Seeming to recall something, the man put the pipe he had gotten a light for from Hida into his mouth and strode off toward the hall. “I wonder what his business is… that person…”

While watching his retreating figure, Nobuko murmured to herself. "He’s a military man." Still keeping her eyes on the burly-shouldered man’s retreating figure, Nobuko’s gaze seemed to narrow sharply. Akiyama Uiichi had said that we were being closely watched—might those watchful eyes be lurking even among this group?

Nobuko, soon preparing to leave,

“Is Berlin better than here?”

Nobuko asked Hida Reiji. “Well, whether you could say it’s better than here or not—Berlin has become quite a significant place these days. “The Nazi movements are in a delicate state, you see.” “It’s quite fascinating in many ways.” “When will you be coming to Berlin?” “I have absolutely no plans.” “Please do come. “It’s just one night from here—I’ll show you around.” “Even if I’m busy, there’s someone at home who can…” “Together?”

“I got married in Germany.”

Hida Reiji, who had escorted her to the room's doorway, and Nobuko shook hands and parted.

Walking from the secluded area of the Savoy Hotel occupied by Tōdō Shumpei’s group toward the front along the crimson carpet, Nobuko recalled the life of her newspaper’s correspondent stationed in Moscow. That couple, due to Moscow’s housing shortage, had turned a mansion’s greenhouse into their dwelling—beneath its glass-paneled ceiling, they hung every conceivable object as makeshift curtains and lived amid a faint soy sauce aroma.

As she was about to exit from the hotel’s hall—decorated with palm plantings—to the entrance,

“Oh, Ms. Sassa, what a pleasure to meet you!” Nobuko encountered Claude approaching her as he removed a mouse-gray soft hat—uncommon for Moscow—from his prominently balding head. Twelve years prior, when Professor Conrad and his wife—Japanese language instructors from Leningrad—had visited Tokyo, Claude had attended their welcoming reception as one of the diplomats fluent in Japanese. His demeanor—wearing a black suit with an inadvertent tuxedo-like flair, his truly triple-folded jowls quivering like a turkey’s wattle as he spoke fluent Japanese—with its polished affectation, gave the distinct impression of a foreigner versed in the demimonde. Having formed that impression at the gathering, Nobuko—limited in her social circles—had never learned when Claude had returned to Russia.

However, not long after Nobuko had come here, one evening, there was a man who called out to her in the corridor of the Art Theater. That was Claude. The way his triple-folded chin quivered when he spoke remained unchanged from before, but that uncomfortably sleek sheen he had possessed when they met in Tokyo was now gone. The suit he wore looked like an ordinary suit. Claude had also come to the Japanese Literature Evening. And now they met once again in this Savoy Hotel's corridor. Claude said in a charming tone,

“How are you finding Moskva’s winter?”

Claude said. "Is the heating system in your hotel satisfactory?" "Yes, thank you." "I do like winter, and the steam heating is generally adequate." "You are familiar with Japanese winters, after all..." Nobuko smiled wryly, her expression carrying a slightly different implication as she spoke. "Do you recall the experience of snow viewing in Japan?" "Oh yes! Yukimi—" Claude momentarily wore an expression as though caught between a vision from distant memories and the immediate reality before him. But immediately extricating himself from that impasse, Claude,

“Ms. Sassa, there is someone I would very much like to introduce to you.” “When would be convenient for you?” Claude said.

Nobuko had no prior engagements apart from her language lessons and plans to attend plays. “I see. Then, Thursday at 15:00—that is, 3 PM—please do come to my place.” Claude tore a page from his small notebook, wrote down his address and a map for Nobuko, and handed it to her.

Alongside Bolshaya Moskovskaya stood the large, aged Hotel Metropol building, facing the Kremlin's outer wall. On the appointed Thursday, Nobuko entered from beneath the blackened iron arabesque porte-cochère of the main entrance. What had originally been a gaudy hotel catering to foreigners like the neighboring Bolshaya Moskovskaya had, after the Revolution, apparently become housing reserved for certain people belonging to Soviet institutions unknown to Nobuko. When she presented Claude’s written room number at reception, access required circling around the building’s side and entering via a rear staircase. Nobuko finally deciphered these instructions and traced her way around the massive structure’s exterior walls.

Facing an inner courtyard where drum cans lay half-buried in accumulated snow—their forms dimly visible—a dark staircase gaped open. The surroundings were desolate, the staircase gloomy. Though Moscow’s streets would already be lit at three o’clock on a winter afternoon, not a single light burned in the hotel’s back staircase or courtyard. Nobuko cautiously climbed the dark stairs to the third floor. When she pushed open the heavy winterproof door facing the landing, she entered a corridor that at last held ordinary brightness and the vitality of human habitation. Yet every door stood tightly shut, with no trace of people nearby. Nobuko walked to the very end and pressed the bell of her destination’s door. Footsteps approached, followed by the clatter of a chain lock being undone. Claude was the one who opened the door.

“Good afternoon—”

“Oh, Ms. Sassa! Well now, please do come in.”

Though Claude’s manner of speaking was polite, he had removed his jacket and still wore a smoking jacket thrown over his shirt with the collar undone. Claude understood Japanese customs thoroughly. The fact that he, a foreigner, so completely grasped how women were treated in those customs made Nobuko uncomfortable. “Have I come too early?”

She said slightly spitefully, remaining standing at the door.

"You seem quite busy though..." "Ah! My apologies. "I was engaged in writing..."

Claude looked at his wristwatch. “It’s the appointed time—please come in.” Guiding Nobuko to a chair by the window, he himself went to the far side of the room where two beds stood side by side, properly adjusted his collar and donned his jacket there, then returned.

“Thank you for coming.” “The other guest should be arriving shortly.” The room where Claude lived was an unusual space. Large and dimly lit, between the area where two beds stood and the window-side spot where Nobuko sat, there existed a sense of division—as if demarcated by Japanese thresholds or lintels—that naturally partitioned the areas. Through the window, the snow-covered street at dusk could be glimpsed, with the pale glow of arc lamps reflected upon it. The view from the window heightened both the interior’s murkiness and its disordered atmosphere. Nobuko sat there silently, gazing out through the glass, when Claude—

"I live here with Mr. Bukharin's father."

Claude said. "You know Mr. Bukharin, don’t you? His father is in this room." Nobuko was unmistakably gripped by curiosity. The only book on historical materialism she had read was one written by Bukharin. "Bukharin’s book has been translated into Japanese." Nobuko said with a slight laugh. "Does Mr. Bukharin’s father also have a round head and round eyes?"

Claude took Nobuko’s simple question with extreme seriousness—though what exactly he made of it—

“Mr. Bukharin’s father is a splendid man, you know.” he said, as if correcting something.

“We work together quite pleasantly.” But Nobuko had no idea what line of work Claude with his triple chin was currently engaged in here in Moscow—

Claude repeatedly raised his wrist to check his watch.

“Ms. Sassa, the other guest will be arriving shortly.” “I have some business to attend to and will be going out.” “Please take your time and talk between yourselves.” “…That should be acceptable, yes?”

If that arrangement suited Claude, Nobuko had no particular need for him to remain. "The guest who will be arriving shortly is Chinese. A female doctor of law." What motive could that person have for wanting to meet her? "But we—that lady and I—what language could we possibly use? My Russian is terribly poor." "You needn't concern yourself about that. She speaks English quite fluently."

Looking at his watch again, Claude stood up from the chair. “Excuse me. As there’s no time left, I must take my leave to prepare.” After gathering what appeared to be documents in the dimly lit back area, Claude returned to the low wardrobe. Facing the mirror there, he began brushing the remaining brown hair on his balding head.

At the distant window edge, Nobuko sat with her back turned diagonally toward Claude. At the edge of her eye was reflected an unexpected sight—a new bottle of Pinaud’s eau de quinine. Nobuko felt a sensation akin to shock. In Moscow, in this cluttered and dimly lit bachelor’s room, it was unexpected to discover a brand-new bottle of eau de quinine—a scent that, since childhood, she could only recall as that thick, sweet fragrance mingled with her father’s body warmth. This toiletry was also not something one could ordinarily obtain in Moscow. The bottle of eau de quinine, glowing a beautiful deep red like garnet and placed before the mirror, did more than remind Nobuko of her father—it made her all the more suspicious of Claude’s way of life. Imported eau de quinine. And Mr. Bukharin’s father. What connection did they all have with Claude? In Nobuko’s heart, the sensation that she had arrived at some unfathomable place was gradually intensifying. At that moment, the entrance bell rang with a resounding clang.

“Ah, that must be our guest.”

Claude, who had left, soon returned guiding a woman wearing a large brown overcoat. When she removed her overcoat with wolf fur on the collar and took off the soft black woolen shawl that had been covering her head, a woman nearing forty, wearing a dress with a high collar, appeared. In this Moscow where both men and women often had flushed cheeks and angular builds, the Chinese woman’s muted cream-colored skin and neatly combed black hair imparted a sense of calm to Nobuko’s eyes.

Claude, who was mindful of the time, hurriedly introduced the Chinese woman and Nobuko to each other.

“This is Dr. Rin,” Claude said in Russian as he introduced the woman. “Her husband too is a doctor of law, now returned to her homeland.” “The Ms. Sassa Nobuko I spoke of earlier,” he continued. “A progressive Japanese woman writer.” Then, while Dr. Rin and Nobuko were shaking hands, Claude added, “Now then, please take your time.”

And with that, Claude put on his overcoat and left the room. At last, having clarified the purpose of coming here today, even in the same dimly lit and cluttered room, Nobuko felt more at ease. Nobuko, her heart gradually loosening and relaxing, naturally smiled and looked at Dr. Rin. “…………”

Perceiving Nobuko's amiable demeanor with her calm, intelligent eyes, Dr.Rin looked at her with a smile-laden gaze befitting an older woman and said, "Well now—where should we begin our conversation?" Her voice was clear yet reassuring. Nobuko intuited this woman was accustomed to handling young people. Moscow's Sun Yat-sen University had drawn swarms of female students from China. Nobuko often saw them on the streets—their jet-black hair cut straight into shoulder-length bobs beneath hunting caps. Since China still exacted cruel, bloody vengeance against revolutionaries, even these Moscow-bound students bore traces of peculiar tension beneath their youthful single-mindedness—visible in their high cheekbones and sun-kissed complexions. Their resolute expressions differed completely from both the bound-footed women selling embroidered thread balls along tree-lined avenues and the laundry proprietresses in basement shops—these were the faces of a new China. Dr.Rin appeared with a composure, depth, and faint melancholy unlike any of those Chinese countenances.

Dr.Rin might be a professor at Sun Yat-sen University. That almost certainly seemed correct. Yet, even though she herself had not clearly disclosed her political stance, it felt rude to keep questioning the other party about such matters. Nobuko said, "How did Mr.Claude introduce me to you, I wonder?" She gave a concise account of herself. It had only been a short time since coming to Moscow. that she had come to Moscow to observe and learn, and such. ——

“Your plan isn’t bad, is it? After all, everyone is most strongly influenced by facts.” Dr. Rin had graduated from the political science department of a university in New York and held a degree from there. In Nobuko’s memory, various scenes from the year or so she had spent around that university came vividly back. She recalled the sight of hundreds of green-shaded reading lamps attached to the large semicircular desks in the grand library when night fell. Squirrels played on the lawn where elm tree shadows flickered. Female students would often leap over the old, uneven cobblestone slope in front of the dormitory on Amsterdam Street and come running into the small coffee shop across the way. Everywhere seemed lively, casual, and full of enjoyment.

There, Tsukuda’s figure—always wearing a top hat with gloves properly fastened—made a gloomy entrance. Clinging to that arm, Nobuko herself then emerged—her youthful round face flushed with excitement amid confused thoughts—wearing a cherry-adorned hat and draped in a mantle. As if cutting through memories threatening to expand endlessly, Nobuko recounted to Dr. Rin how that university had held a ceremony conferring honorary doctorates upon Belgium’s imperial couple, who heroically resisted German invasion after the Great War.

“Ah—that was just a little before we returned to our country.”

The plural "we" caught Nobuko's ear. Had Dr. Rin and her husband been in America together? "We haven't been in Moscow long either—we came last year, you see."

Borodin had withdrawn from Wuchang last year as well.—Nobuko gradually began losing grasp of why she found herself sitting across from this Dr. Rin with her impressive credentials.

What had Claude intended in introducing Dr. Rin to Nobuko? Dr. Rin’s way of speaking carried an undercurrent of warmth, but it was clear she had come here at Claude’s request specifically to meet Nobuko. While considering several possible scenarios that might exist between herself and Dr. Rin, Nobuko hit upon one possibility and grew increasingly perplexed. Could Dr. Rin have misunderstood—thinking Nobuko had some serious problem she needed to confide? Perhaps that she had come legally with a passport but wished to engage in political activity of some sort? And wasn’t she now waiting for Nobuko to broach the subject, sitting there with her skirt spread comfortably as she leaned against the table? Otherwise, given how Dr. Rin carried herself—clearly someone who meticulously planned her daily schedule—Nobuko couldn’t imagine her bothering to come to this dim Metropol room without even tea just for idle chatter. What should I do? Nobuko had no particular issues requiring Dr. Rin’s counsel at present. In Nobuko’s face—broad forehead fair-skinned, bright openness between the brows—one saw abundant sensitivity and understanding, but no clearly directed willpower. Her inner state was just as soft and unsettled as her expression. What she consciously recognized and willed was simply the desire to live well. At a loss, she had no choice but to return to explaining herself. Nobuko began somewhat abruptly.

"I have no political knowledge or training—though I strongly feel the contradictions in society."

Dr. Rin gazed calmly for a moment at Nobuko’s face—Nobuko who had abruptly begun saying such things without any preamble—but, “The literary figures of our country were the same way until very recently.” she said calmly. And though she seemed to be thinking, adjusting her slender, well-shaped arms slightly deeper onto the table, Dr. Rin asked Nobuko. “What do you think of Moscow… Do you think life here will change you?”

In such a boiling pot, could anything remain unchanged? "Moscow is boiling—no one can live here without being boiled." Checking herself with each word, Nobuko spoke slowly,

“But, Dr. Rin,”

She said in an unreserved manner, opened through trust. "It's not as if everyone always boils in the same way at the same time, is it?" "......" "I want to boil true to myself. Taking all the time I need—through the inevitable process—" After remaining silent for a while, pondering what Nobuko had said, Dr. Rin reached out her right hand and took Nobuko's plump, tapered hand, which was resting clasped on the table.

“Follow your path. You will discover that.” After that, the two of them fell silent.

Outside the window, the evening darkness deepened, and under the pale light of the arc lamps, hurried figures moved black against the snow. While keeping her eyes on that view, Dr. Rin murmured almost as if to herself, pensively. “Between the people of our country and those of yours—I wonder which side leads a harder life.”

Dr. Rin’s words were quiet and soft, with a resonance that seeped into one’s heart. Nobuko realized that throughout her conversation with Dr. Rin, from beginning to end, she had done nothing but say "I" this and "I" that, and suddenly became conscious of the narrowness of her own existence as an individual. And Nobuko felt embarrassed. However, Dr. Rin seemed not to have noticed how intensely moved Nobuko’s heart had been as she continued gazing at the snowy evening scene outside the window,

“Within the Chinese populace lies a great—one might even say immense—potential, hidden away. In both men and, of course, women.” “And yet the Chinese people not only remain unaware of that potential—they don’t even understand the need to become aware of it.” Suddenly directing a smile filled with affection toward Nobuko, Dr. Rin—

“Have you seen the female students at Sun Yat-sen University?” she asked.

“Those girls—they’re all truly young, even immature, yet brimming with passion.—Lovely girls—don’t you think so?” In that “Don’t you think so?” manner of asking was contained a warmth and consideration that no one could resist. Truly, how long would those black-haired girls survive—returning to their country to fight for the freedom of the Chinese people? Nobuko solemnly contemplated their lives. Dr. Rin’s voice carried a brief yet boundless resonance that valued passionate young lives.

From the dingy, dark back staircase of Hotel Metropol, Nobuko emerged onto the snow-covered street illuminated by arc lamps. Though her meeting with Dr.Rin seemed to have ended inconclusively, it carved into Nobuko’s heart an image of someone she had never known before. Within Dr.Rin's slender chest—if opened—lived hundreds and thousands of Chinese people enveloped in deep love, including female students with black bobbed hair cascading over their shoulders. Compared to that—what would emerge if she were to open the chest beneath her own white blouse? First: myself. Then the family lineages of Tsukuda and Dōzaka.—And how could these possibly connect to the fates of hundreds and thousands? Nobuko walked on in her small black coat through the crowd of pedestrians briskly overtaking her along the path where snow creaked beneath winter boot soles.

5

When January came, Moscow saw continuous clear skies. Beneath a high winter azure stretched windless midwinter sunlight that made snow-covered roofs, drifts, and frozen trees along avenues sparkle dazzlingly—at times pink-tinged, at others pale blue. The Moscow River's frozen surface had hardened completely. From the deep-snow bank, one could see a single thin black trodden path running diagonally from this shore with several bare poplars standing blackened to the opposite shore where a small hut-like structure stood isolated. Beyond this crossing path that appeared as a black line on the river's white frozen expanse, figures moved while ice-skating. Against the snow, these figures looked small and dark.

With the arrival of this season, Red Square’s scenery gained picturesque depth. Tverskaya Street met one of the gates in the Kremlin’s outer wall. Around the arch of that gate—its plaster weathered and recesses deep—street stalls appeared daily atop the snow. As everywhere, first came sunflower seed vendors and apple sellers. Shoeshine stands. Postcard peddlers. Those displaying shabby bags and kerchiefs of Caucasian silk in primal color schemes. The gate’s perimeter teemed with Red Army soldiers in ankle-length greatcoats, harried men and women in leather jackets, and babushkas carrying baskets who looked prepared to meander between stalls for hours, their platok headscarves fluttering. Amid this flow moved even foreigners like Nobuko in black coats—well-tailored yet awkwardly fitted—but she remained captivated by the stark contrast between scenes unfolding inside and outside the archway. Passing through into the snow-blanketed square’s full vista, the once-bustling crowd abruptly thinned, leaving only sparse passerby shadows—a desolate white midwinter standing solemn in its austerity.

The Kremlin walls, decorated with Tatar-style curved spear-shaped ornaments, rose high along the square’s right side, where a gate stood at their farthest edge. A clock tower loomed there. Each night, the melody of The Internationale echoed from that tower, carrying even to the window of Nobuko’s hotel room overlooking the broken roof. From within the Kremlin walls, among the many building roofs, golden crosses glittered at uneven heights like a clustered forest. At the square’s far end, a red-and-white Byzantine church stood with its bulbous spire and cross as if defying the snow’s flat whiteness. Beside it lined an old church built up in muted yellow and green like chrysanthemum-patterned stone. These churches had been constructed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Along the square’s left side stretched solid government-style buildings, their hundreds of windows gazing down upon Red Square.

Across the snow of the square stretched two trodden paths, thin and distant. One path was the route taken by pedestrians coming from Tverskaya Street—passing alongside the red-brick building of the History Museum, moving before Lenin’s Mausoleum, crossing the square, and descending from beneath the clock tower to the Moskva River embankment. The other path traced a hyperbolic curve from the arch attached beneath the large building on the left, leading out to another gate opposite the Kremlin—referred to as the China Gate. On the white snow, the two trodden paths looked like thin threads. Sparsely, the people passing through there formed a single line and hurried along the trodden path.

Nobuko loved the full view of this snow-covered square.

In the white snow of Red Square, a circular stone well-like structure jutted up grayly. Since no one approached it, the snow encircling this stone well glistened with pristine thickness. Though invisible from afar, inside the shallow stone structure stood a fairly low platform. It reached just the height for a large kneeling man’s extended neck—thick chains lay coiled beneath. This was the famed execution site frequently used when Moscow served as Russia’s capital. At this block, Stenka Razin and Pugachev had their thick-bearded, burly peasant necks—curly-haired—beheaded to bleed out. They made the groans of Russia’s nameless masses their own cries, ascending Mother Volga’s currents to confront Moscow’s tyrannical Tsar. The Song of Stenka Razin, its melody steeped in valor and sorrow, had spread even to foreign shores.

When Nobuko gazed upon both the execution site and the tips of golden crosses that stood like a forest from the Kremlin walls, her view unobstructed across the snow-covered expanse, she was always struck by an epic impression. Over generations, when various people were made to kneel at this execution site as nameless Stenka Razins or Pugachevs, how densely must crowds have poured into this square through all its gates. They pitied those condemned to beheading, projecting that terror and pain into their own large, honest bodies; crossing themselves repeatedly, they must have held their breath and stared at the merciless act of decapitation. To these crowds' appeals, to this blood-soaked execution site, what the Kremlin-dwelling Tsar's clan brandished was a forest of crosses. The road to the Moscow River too was blocked by two great churches resembling intricate sugar sculptures. Nowhere in this square could any human element responding to its seething emotions be found.

In the capital of any country, its square is interwoven with narratives of popular history. This very quality makes squares fascinating and poignantly alive. Gazing at Red Square blanketed in snow—with its rich tonal gradations and beauty—Nobuko felt herself resonating with humanity’s persistent passion for suppressed uprisings.

That day, unusually, Motoko had gone out for a walk together. Having reached the end of Tverskaya Street just before the Kremlin gate, Motoko and Nobuko stopped at a confectionery shop and bought half a pound of sugar confections. For Motoko, such shopping was an exceedingly rare occurrence. “Here—just one.” Nobuko pinched a chocolate wrapped in strawberry-patterned paper from the paper bag and put it in her mouth, then walked together with Motoko—whose cheeks were similarly puffed out—to the square’s entrance. That day too, they had intended to make a circuit around that area.

The severe cold was brilliantly clear, with street vendors out in greater numbers than usual, and on the two black trodden paths of Red Square as well, a continuous line of pedestrians streamed ceaselessly. Motoko, who rarely strolled around this area, "I suppose this view does have character after all."

They stood at the edge of the square and gazed around in all directions. Then they turned their eyes toward Lenin’s Mausoleum, where something resembling scaffolding was visible along the Kremlin walls. “The work hasn’t advanced one bit.” Lenin’s Mausoleum—which had preserved his remains in their original state and been open to public view—had been under renovation since Nobuko’s group arrived in Moscow and remained closed.

“Will you go see it once it’s repaired?” “What?” “The Lenin Mausoleum—it’s one of the world-famous attractions, you know.” Motoko looked at Nobuko with her customary sardonic smile. “I won’t look.” Without even feigning a laugh, staring distantly ahead, Nobuko answered.

“It gives me the creeps—and it’s strange.” “Lenin, being dead, might not be bothersome...” “Despite all the work they’re putting in, they should just quit those childish tricks.—That’s exactly why people badmouth them.”

The two walked along the trodden path toward the China Gate. In days of old, when caravans gathered in Moscow from many nations—as depicted on the stage of the opera *Satoko*—might there have been a haunt here for tenacious Chinese merchants who had crossed Mongolia? By the China Gate as well, all sorts of street stalls had set up. This side had mostly food items. Even tvorog (cream residue) in buckets was being sold. Motoko and Nobuko walked around looking at such items, and Motoko—true to form—asked the price of a whole chicken, something that would be pointless to buy while living in a hotel. And they came up to an apple seller. The elderly man sat listlessly on a small wooden platform, selling apples piled in a pyramid-like shape. Their shapes slightly raised at the shoulders like tense posture, their thick cream-colored skins blushed with red like a child’s flushed cheeks. The apples were a particularly delicious variety, thin-skinned and fragrant. They were also priced higher than merely red, flat, round apples. Motoko,

“These apples look delicious.” She stopped to look, “Pachom (how much)?” She asked the price in a casual manner. The apple seller, peering shrewdly through eyelids that barely seemed open, appeared to recognize that the one inquiring about the price was not a Russian woman, “Eighty-five kopeks.” he answered with exaggerated brusqueness. “That’s expensive.” Motoko, crouching down, began haggling as she took the fruit in hand and examined it.

“Make it seventy-five kopeks.” “If it’s seventy-five kopeks, I’ll take six.” Motoko’s habit of haggling when shopping was something that could fairly be called a quirk. In Japan as well, Motoko had haggled so persistently that Nobuko felt awkward just being with her. When given even a token discount, she would already feel satisfied and pay. Unfortunately in Moscow, both the sleds waiting at crossroads and street vendors often provoked Motoko’s habit. When such exchanges began, Nobuko would stand aside and quietly listen in on the haggling.

“Come on, seventy-five kopeks... that’s fair, right?”

The apple seller stubbornly, “Eighty-five kopeks!”

The apple seller insisted loudly. At that moment, a young female vendor—who had placed a basket of unknown contents covered with cloth on the snow right next to him, thrusting her hands one after the other into the sleeves of her reddish-yellow goatskin coat to warm her fingertips while stomping her long felt winter boots as she watched this bargaining—spoke through her clamped-together white, sturdy-looking front teeth in a tone of mockery that couldn’t be imitated:

“Kitayanka! (Chinese girl)” “(Chinese girl)” she said. She had imbued the initial and final “ki” sounds with a peculiarly sharp resonance, just like when a girl exclaims “Ee!”— Instantly, Motoko demanded sharply. Leaving the apple seller behind, “What did you just say?” Motoko approached the vendor woman wearing a flower-patterned headscarf. The young woman with red, plump cheeks—startled by Motoko’s rebuke—briefly looked caught off guard, but immediately adopted an even more confrontational expression than before, consciously parting her red lips over white teeth,

“Kitayanka!” she said. She said this directly into Motoko’s face as she approached and laughed—“Ha ha ha ha!” The instant she laughed, Motoko’s leather-gloved hand struck the woman across the face. “You idiot!”

Motoko, her face altered by agitation, cursed rapidly in Japanese and glared at the woman. "How dare you make a fool of me!" Again in Japanese, Motoko spat out the words in one breath. The sheer unexpectedness made Nobuko momentarily lose grasp of what was happening. Equally dumbfounded, the vendor woman regained her composure and, while pressing the cheek Motoko had struck with her left hand, swung her right arm wide, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"

She flapped and brushed the front of her goatskin coat while shouting in a tearful voice. “Hey! Hey! This woman hit me! Hey! What have I done wrong?! Hey! Hey!”

The young vendor’s shrieking immediately drew a crowd of four or five people. The passersby who had gathered pressed closer to see the shouting woman clearly, forming a circle that pushed Motoko backward. “What’s going on?” Some stopped and muttered to themselves in low voices. Motoko, nearly shoved out of the circle by the swelling crowd, stood rigidly glaring at the woman—every nerve in her body taut from sudden agitation. Satisfied with the assembled audience, the vendor pressed her cheek and drew a breath while pretend-crying, ready to unleash proper insults against her assailant and exact revenge through the crowd’s momentum. Just then, from the roadway behind her, a gaunt middle-aged man in a half-coat and hunting cap approached with smooth intent. The instant Nobuko registered his sharp movements and vigilant expression, she thought: This is trouble. Things were escalating. She intuited it viscerally. Nobuko abruptly entwined her arm with Motoko’s and pulled her free from the circle, whispering urgently:

“Hurry, we have to get out of here!” Motoko’s nerves were overstimulated, making her movements strangely sluggish; unaware that such a man had approached, she resisted even as Nobuko tried with all her might to pull her away and start walking. “No! He’s coming!”

Fortunately, the people surrounding the vendor woman had not yet turned their attention to the connection between the woman feigning sobs and Nobuko's group. After putting two or three yards between themselves and the scene, Motoko finally seemed to understand the implications of the turmoil she had stirred up and stopped resisting Nobuko's pull on her arm. The two walked briskly for several yards until gradually—without either initiating it—they broke into a trot, then finally broke into an outright run before spilling out onto the street before Bolshaya Moskovskaya. When they became aware of it, a shabbily dressed boy had glued himself to Nobuko and Motoko's side as they ran, keeping pace with them while shouting.

“Hey, Chinks! “(Chankoro) Chinks!” “(Chankoro)” he continued jeering and prancing around them. However, here, there were no passersby who took notice of it.

Nobuko and Motoko finally returned to their normal pace. Then they began walking along the broad sidewalk bordering a small park-like planted area, its blue-painted fence peeking out from beneath the snow, heading toward the hotel. It was only now that Nobuko’s knees began trembling violently from exhaustion. Her right arm—which had pulled Motoko with all her strength—quivered unpleasantly in tiny spasms. Nobuko felt like crying. “...Don’t let them catch us...”

Nobuko was utterly exhausted, and under the pretense that she had fallen ill during their walk, the two returned to their room.

Nobuko flung her hat onto the bed and sat unbuttoning her coat for what felt like ages without speaking. Motoko sat down beside her too and smoked a cigarette; she also stayed silent as though at a loss for words. Nobuko’s face was still drawn tight with tension as she licked her parched lips in apparent distress. “Let’s have some tea.” Motoko stood up to order tea then poured it out into Nobuko’s hands. When Nobuko had drunk about half the glass,

"Oh, that's right!"

Motoko retrieved the sugar confections they had bought earlier from the pocket of her coat that hung on the entrance rack. By the time she started her second cup of tea, Nobuko finally spoke in a strangely hoarse, low voice, sounding sorrowful—

“I absolutely never want to do that sort of thing again.”

she said. “……” “Resorting to violence—you mustn’t do that! Whatever reason there might be… especially over something like hurling insults—” Motoko remained silent for a while, letting cigarette ash fall onto the edge of the tea saucer, but— “But they were mocking people—don’t you see? What was that! The way she spat ‘Chink’!” Motoko repeated it just as the vendor had done—imbuing the upper and lower “k” sounds with a snarling resonance that bared her teeth.

“So you should’ve just said it with words.” “You think words would’ve been enough?!” That was Motoko’s signature blend of blunt humor. Nobuko couldn’t help but smile bitterly. “But hitting someone… Why?”

That the insult "Chinese woman" could send Motoko into such a frenzy—the sheer intensity of her irritation was something Nobuko simply couldn't fathom. "Well now, Nobuko-chan's the refined type, aren't you?" "A proper lady through and through." "I'm different—I'm Japanese..." "So you see, there's no reason to get worked up. People like that can't distinguish anything properly. There've always been more Chinese here than us anyway."

The people Nobuko and her companions saw on the streets were Chinese men and women; as for Japanese people—let alone Japanese women—there were not even ten of them in all of Moscow. As for those Japanese women, the embassy-affiliated individuals were dressed far more splendidly than Nobuko and her companions—let alone ordinary people—and were striving to present themselves unmistakably as noblewomen through their appearance. Even Nobuko and her companions could not distinguish between Japanese and Chinese people. At Moscow’s Far Eastern University, a considerable number of Japanese people should have been coming from Japan over these past several years to receive training as revolutionaries. As Nobuko and her companions were walking along the tree-lined street near the university, they suddenly noticed that the pair of men approaching from the other direction had a vaguely Japanese air about them.

“Could they be Japanese?”

Motoko also took subtle notice; approaching gradually from both directions, they passed each other at close range. Nobuko and Motoko had only confirmed that those two men were not ethnic Russians. They couldn’t even clearly distinguish whether they were Chinese, Korean, or Mongolian young men. If they had indeed been Japanese, those men would have spotted Nobuko and her companions—clearly Japanese women—from their side, stopped talking, and passed by as mere "Oriental faces" without a doubt.

Another time, on Tverskaya Street too, something similar had occurred. That time too, those ahead had been a pair. As they approached, chatting cheerfully, the movement of their mouths from afar gave the distinct impression that Japanese was being spoken. But when they passed each other almost brushing shoulders in the crowd before a certain grocery store, Nobuko found no definitive features that would conclusively identify those people as Japanese. Nobuko recalled those things.

“So given that, you could say it’s not unreasonable for that kind of woman to make a mistake.” “If they simply can’t tell the difference, then there’s nothing to be done about it. Even Japanese people can barely distinguish Westerners’ nationalities... It’s because they’re mocking me that it gets under my skin. Isn’t it always the same? With the Hōja and the Chinks—is there even one bastard who’s treated us as Japanese?” “……”

"Kitayanka"—(Chinese woman). As Nobuko quietly mulled over those words, she recalled Dr. Rin, whom she had met the other day in that dim, desolate room at Hotel Metropol. She was the very image of an authentic Chinese woman—a Kitayanka. But would that composed figure with her beautiful gaze—who had been bargaining with vendors—ever have been jeered at as a "Kitayanka" in the same mocking way Motoko had? From Nobuko's impartial perspective, it seemed Motoko possessed some quality that inadvertently invited such teasing.

Motoko would only approach the desk with the ashtray when tapping off her cigarette ash, otherwise pacing about the room with evident displeasure. As Nobuko’s mind gradually settled, the sight of those two cowardly women—who had struck out suddenly only to flee—began to seem both bitter and comical.

“You’re such a mystery, aren’t you?”

At Nobuko's now-gentle voice, Motoko's gaze softened.

“Why?” “But—you’re usually so self-possessed—" “In a way, you’re far more worldly than I am—it’s strange… To get so worked up over being called a Chink woman…” “……”

Motoko looked back at Nobuko, and once again, tension surfaced in her eyes.

When Nobuko was five or six years old, she was often frightened by stories of Chinese child-snatchers. However, the Chinese people young Nobuko actually grew familiar with were portly merchants with long queues who came to sell fabrics at their home in Dōzaka. The portly man always arrived by rickshaw. And unlike Japanese people, he did not use a lap blanket—spreading his legs clad in black cloth shoes, he clasped a large bolt of fabric between them. He wore a black hat adorned with a round, red fruit-like ornament atop his queue, and whenever he climbed into or out of the rickshaw, his long plait would be briefly tucked into the chest fold of his blue satin changshan. This Chinese fabric merchant,

“Good day, Jo-chan.”

He would always greet Nobuko with a smile. He stepped up onto the tatami-matted entryway and spread out various fabrics. With her husband abroad and finances tight, Nobuko’s young mother would pick up the beautiful Chinese textiles, gaze at them longingly, then reluctantly set them back down—all while the merchant patiently waited for her to give up. “Madam, this is quite affordable, right? “It’s top-grade cloth.” With such persuasion, it seemed that even Mother occasionally bought things like haori lining damask. From this Chinese man’s body, his fabric bundles, and the small Chinese peanut confection he had placed in Nobuko’s palm emanated a distinctly Chinese odor. The reason young Nobuko could so distinctly discern that Chinese essence was because there existed, on one side of her childhood life, the unmistakable scent of the West. Occasionally, thick cardboard boxes or wooden boxes would arrive from her father in England. Receiving such packages and opening them was not only an event for Mother Takayo and her three young children but a major commotion for the entire household. Nobuko had discovered that when opened in this way, the packages were filled with an entrancingly delightful Western fragrance. Even when smelled through the wrapping paper, that faintly lingering fragrance grew increasingly distinct as the package was finally opened and the inner box revealed itself—then, when the lid came off and packing materials burst forth in a spill, the Western scent assaulted Nobuko’s nostrils most intensely. The Western scent was exactly like the scent of Western confections. It had a light, sweet, and slightly pungent scent, just like the rare Western confections kept in Fūgetsu wooden boxes—beautiful treats adorned with silver particles that she seldom got to eat.

Nobuko’s feelings toward China—a blend of trepidation and nostalgia—later accumulated additional layers of meaning. As ancient Chinese poetry, Silk Road tales, and the opulent splendor of paintings and ceramics gradually permeated her life, she found herself perpetually drawn to both classical China and what had become modern China. There, she sensed laid bare an Oriental scale of abundance and desolation unimaginable in Japan—the artificial opulence of human existence juxtaposed with naked destitution.

When they were in Japan, it had been Motoko who went out of her way to visit a shop in Kudanshita that handled Chinese goods and bought a hexagonal Chinese-style brazier and a blue-green felt rug. Motoko, who possessed such tastes, would lose all composure, fly into a rage, and seethe with resentment whenever someone called her a "Chink woman."

In the hearts of the Japanese people, since the Sino-Japanese War, there had existed a sentiment of living alongside the Chinese while looking down on them—toward international students coming to Japan as well as toward merchants. In Japan, several terms for referring to Chinese people arose from that contemptuous sentiment. When Motoko was called “Kitayanka” in one moment and “Hōja” in another, those words transformed with lightning speed into derogatory terms for Chinese people, splattering against her face like a spray.

“Don’t you think so?—Don’t you think it’s psychological?”

Motoko glared at Nobuko with piercing eyes but then turned sharply away, "You might be a cosmopolitan." "Because I'm Japanese." "I can only perceive things through Japanese sensibilities."

On the lid of her cigarette case, she bounced a cigarette she had taken out, “Hmph.”

With just a snort, Motoko jerked the chin of her jujube-shaped face toward Nobuko. "What’s so grand about being a cosmopolitan! You think they’re saints or something?!" Nobuko averted her eyes from Motoko, who stood rigid in the room’s center clutching an unlit cigarette between her fingers while glaring. She had always lived by perceiving things as they were, her heart so naturally attuned that she felt no need to consciously assert her Japanese identity. Though born a Japanese woman—unable to possess any heart but a Japanese one—she lacked Motoko’s raw susceptibility to wounded national pride. Or perhaps she simply never acquired the habit of emotionally tethering every admired thing back to Japan.

The day after arriving in Moscow, when they visited the Moscow Art Theatre, Segawa Masao had repeatedly praised Kachalov and Moskvin, declaring how much they resembled Kabuki actors. To Nobuko, this remained utterly incomprehensible. If Kachalov and Uzaemon shared similarities, what meaning could there be in coming all this way to Moscow just to see the Art Theatre? When Akiyama Uiichi complimented Caucasian beauties for looking exactly like Japanese ones, Nobuko had felt something dark and painful stir within her at those words. That even those who lectured in Esperanto possessed this sensibility—of lumping all women together based on facial features—had painfully brought Tsukuda back to her mind. It also reminded her of Takemura’s emotions during that time in Komazawa, when their interactions had verged on intimacy. Both Takemura and Tsukuda had claimed—as if stating some universal male truth—that living with women who occupied themselves with knitting was pleasant. To Nobuko, who yearned to live more authentically than through such domestic pastimes—so fiercely that neither her mind nor body found rest— If only Japan’s customs were different—even Motoko might have expressed her femininity more naturally.

"You can’t even fully conform to Japanese customs yourself, yet you talk about ‘Japanese disease’— “That’s absurd.” Nobuko said. “You’re contradicting yourself.” “Anyway—it was wrong of me to strike first.” “I do admit that.”

Motoko said with unexpected frankness.

“The truth is, I’m angry on so many counts.” “At what?” “First, at myself…”

Having said that, Motoko blushed faintly. "And then, to Nobuko-chan—" "..." "I kept imagining how much contempt you must feel—yet there you were, hiding that scorn in your belly while putting on your perfect student act!" "—I thought." "I don’t feel contempt… but… what happened…"

Looking up at Motoko, who had come to stand before her, Nobuko smiled faintly as tears welled in her eyes.

“We’re not trying to live in such a way that we’d have to flee from the people here, after all—”

Six

On the pale green wall without wallpaper, a large world map was affixed. Nobuko lay on her side on the crude long chair beneath it, stretching out her legs as she mended her socks. The schoolgirl-like folds of her navy skirt spread beyond the long chair, while a silk ribbon in a rainbow of colors hung like a necktie at the chest of her light blue blouse. The table had been pulled close enough to reach. Japanese-style red silk needle holders and scissors lay scattered about, and beside them sat a book placed neatly. On its white cover was a picture of a crowd pressing forward with red flags. Ten Days That Shook the World by John Reed. The title and author’s name were printed in black Russian letters. The book was still brand new, having only begun service as Nobuko’s language textbook that very afternoon.

The light from the white ceiling fell straight and bright upon Nobuko's neck and shoulders—their neatly cropped simplicity verging on loneliness—as she leaned against the pale yellow varnished armrest of the long chair, moving her needle. Nobuko twisted her neck to glance repeatedly at the table. In that room where she could see thick smoke from birchwood fuel swirling blackly into the clear winter sky from the snow-laden chimney across the way, she recalled Maria Gregorievna's expression—a mixture of earnestness and unease—as the tutor opened the new book's first page and explained the relationships between political parties like the Cadets and SRs from Kerensky's revolutionary era. When faced with such convoluted matters, Nobuko's language skills left her grasping less than half of Maria Gregorievna's explanations themselves. Threading her needle, Nobuko called out to Motoko studying at the desk under the green-shaded lamp by the window across the room.

“Do you think you’ll have occasion to visit International Publishers soon?” “Hmm… Not sure.” “When you go, take me with you.” “Ah…” Reference materials on political factions like the Cadets and SRs had become indispensable.

Nobuko, having realized, came up with the idea that the best way would be to ask either Yasu or Kawano Umeko to send such a Japanese dictionary. In Japan as well, such books were being published in great numbers. Although they had brought the Genkai dictionary to Moscow as well, Nobuko hadn’t anticipated that a social science dictionary would become so essential to daily life. Even Motoko and Fukiko, who had been so thorough, had not anticipated that.——

Even though Tokyo and Moscow seemed so far apart, letters could arrive in just about two weeks like this... Nobuko lightly raised herself and reached out to take two letters from the table. Beside the letters lay a small pile of tightly rolled Japanese newspapers and magazines that still retained their curled shape even after being unsealed. On her way back from her lesson with Maria Gregorievna, Nobuko had stopped by the embassy during her usual walk and picked up the mail for herself and Motoko.

Nobuko kept the mending item with its needle stuck in it on her lap over her blouse as she pulled the already-read letter out of its envelope again. In handwriting whose snapping crispness—like stepping on dry twigs—held a peculiar charm, Kawano Umeko had written to inform her that the proofreading of the requested novel was complete and would soon be published. She wrote that come spring, she might go live awhile in Kyoto or Nara. It mentioned how Suda Yūkichi had resided in Nara for years now, and that a room for Umeko might be found near his house. The letter was jointly addressed to Ms. Motoko and Ms. Nobuko. Though unfamiliar with Takahatake town mentioned in Umeko's letter, Nobuko vividly remembered Nara Park on rainy days—the Japanese andromeda bushes there blooming with drooping white flower clusters. When she'd walked behind Kasuga Shrine, there'd also been wisteria scaling old cedar treetops to burst forth vivid purple blooms. On that day she'd seen those wisteria flowers, Nobuko had strolled along the mossy stone path with her younger brother Kazuichiro.

Returning Umeko’s letter to its envelope, Nobuko picked up another one. On the sturdy square envelope made of Kent paper, Nobuko’s name was written in a font resembling Gothic decorative lettering. Using the G-pen that had snapped off with a crisp sound—employing both horizontal and vertical strokes—to write such pattern-like characters had been one of Kazuichiro’s specialties. The contents consisted of collective writings from Yasuzo, Takeyo, Kazuichiro, Tamotsu, Tsuyako, and the Sassa family. Inside lay a bookmark Tsuyako had crafted by pasting a small piece of adorable yuzen chirimen fabric. “Today’s Sunday finds us all unusually at home. Once everyone had gathered, we decided to start with a joint letter.” Yasuzo’s fountain-penned script—more vigorous than his years would suggest—had dashed off a few brief lines with his characteristic haste. “In the near future, Mother plans to visit Maesawa again.”——

The next sheet was more than half filled with Takeyo’s writing. Nobuko stared blankly at the page as she recalled how her paternal grandmother would sigh while looking at Takeyo’s letters back when she lived in the countryside. “Mother’s handwriting’s so darn good, I can’t read a lick of it,” she’d say. That grandmother would take out horizontally bound notebook pages from her portable inkstone’s drawer, chew on the hardened tip of her brush, and keep meticulous records—one shō of soy sauce, two blocks of tofu, and household expenses. When receiving her mother’s letter—written in flowing cursive that ran from top to bottom of the stationery in one breath—Nobuko too felt perplexity rising foremost. To put it simply, Nobuko couldn’t read her mother’s letters. Even so, because it was her mother’s letter, she couldn’t settle for simply admitting defeat; driven by a sense that something important might lurk in those unread lines, she painstakingly deciphered it.

When she had read it through earlier, she had gone back to pick up the parts she couldn’t make out, tracing Takeyo’s characters—their thick black lines that could be called fluid yet writhed in slippery coils, stretching out only to coil back again. As she read through it in detail, Nobuko began to feel a sense of imbalance, a kind of discord. In that collective letter, it seemed to perfectly capture the very atmosphere of the people of Dōzaka gathered around the large dining table, chattering noisily and all talking at once. As for Kazuichiro too—he made no mention of the picture postcard Nobuko had written him last month about the opera she attended at Moscow’s Theater Square, instead stating that since graduating from art school this year would only require submitting his final project, he was currently devoting himself to cultivating a magnanimous spirit. Yasuzo, likely caught up in his busyness, had completely forgotten about the set of three picture postcards from the Tretyakov Gallery that Nobuko had specifically sent to her father.

Only at the beginning of Takeyo’s letter was there a line: "Thank you for keeping us in mind with that amusing picture postcard you sent the other day." It said everyone had been delighted to see it. However, it did not specify which postcard Nobuko had sent when, nor how exactly it had been amusing. Nobuko, who now had this letter spread out on her lap—just which picture postcard were they referring to? If she could have asked, Takeyo would surely have fluttered those glossy lashes of hers, assumed a slightly awkward look, and brushed it off with a "You know—the one you sent us recently!"

The tone of everyone’s letters made Nobuko vividly recall the scene of the dining room in their Dōzaka home.

And Nobuko suddenly laughed. In every corner of the dining room in the Dōzaka house, boxes and cans of all shapes were perpetually stacked. Beneath British-style deep crimson wallpaper with embossed arabesque patterns lay piled unapologetically—Nakamura-ya’s vertical can labeled “karintō” in eggshell hue, square biscuit tins striped dark green and vermilion, old tin cans rusting at their edges. It formed a curious spectacle. Underneath where Takeyo always sat at the central table rested two or three Fugetsudo castella boxes containing whatever scraps of paper and sundries she’d deemed indispensable at any given moment. Thus when some crucial note went missing in the Dōzaka household, Takeyo would invariably lead the charge—sweeping back her thick bangs to peer beneath the massive table. This custom had been so ingrained since Nobuko and her siblings’ earliest memories that even guests deemed intimate enough for the dining room would witness—and when necessary participate in—what Nobuko dubbed the “duck dive” right before their eyes. At times when Takeyo muttered “I’m looking for something but can’t seem to find it,” Nobuko would rally her four siblings to thrust their heads beneath the table in unison, deliberately hoisting their hips skyward like ducks paddling underwater.

On the mantelpiece of that dining room was displayed Yasuzo’s treasured Greek urn. When Nobuko closed the Komazawa house and stayed in Dōzaka for several days in preparation for departing to Moscow, a large kiln had been placed beside the Greek urn on the mantelpiece. Despite being cleaned every morning, the kiln that had by some chance been moved to an unintended place remained beside the Greek urn on the mantelpiece for many days. And by now, it had probably disappeared. The kiln had disappeared from the mantelpiece in the manner of tidying up where it had vanished without anyone noticing, and now there was no one left who knew its whereabouts.

These disorderly aspects stemmed from the disposition of Takeyo, who served as housewife. Had Takeyo meticulously unified every corner with her own luxurious tastes, or had it been unified according to Yasuzo’s preference for antique art, what a stifling house the Dōzaka home would have become—a place with no room for human freedom to grow. Nobuko felt grateful that within the Dōzaka house there remained at least such chaos. When recalling her girlhood, it was precisely because those gaps—unimaginable to outsiders—existed in the Dōzaka house that she could remember her adolescence as a wild sprout that had once managed to spill through those spaces and grow.

When Nobuko turned fourteen or fifteen and wanted a room of her own, she cleaned up the five-tatami room styled like a tea chamber beside the entrance that had become practically a storage space. She positioned the old desk crammed there to face the small garden where butterburs sprouted at the base of the Komatsu pine. From the pile of old books stacked in the storage cupboard, she haphazardly selected volumes with bindings coming apart—Suimasōshū, incomplete sets of Kōyō zenshū, Kokumin Bunko—and brought them back to create her own bookshelf. Among them, the only books truly bought for Nobuko as her own were two volumes: pocket-sized collections of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories.

Gaps and disorder still remained as one of the Dōzaka family customs. As years passed and their economic circumstances became more comfortable, all that disorder and those gaps had lost their former innocence, manifesting now in the family members’ disparate emotions and material waste. From a bench on a snow-covered winter night in Moscow, thousands of kilometers away, Nobuko could assert with conviction. The correspondence that Nobuko wrote at this hotel table in the purple ink that all Muscovites used—postcards and sometimes letters—would first have its seal broken by Takeyo, be read through by those present, and then, lest they get lost, be stored away in that familiar box under the table. The letters Nobuko stored in castella boxes might not disappear, but after just a little while, the people of Dōzaka would have completely forgotten all about them, even what was written. The people of Dōzaka were perfectly self-sufficient without Nobuko——

On the third page of the Dōzaka collective letter that Nobuko was poring over with mixed emotions, Tamotsu had written several lines. Delicate and evenly spaced, with the pen’s pressure lightened, the characters—resembling notebook entries in their precision—bore a rounded softness akin to Tamotsu’s plump upper eyelids. Was this truly a letter from a twenty-year-old youth about to enter his final year of high school? Next year he would be starting university— Tamotsu had penned these words in the joint letter with such uniformly thin strokes that it seemed he alone had used different ink and pen from the others. "When I entered Tokyo High School, you offered to buy me something I wanted as a congratulatory gift." "At the time, I couldn’t decide what that should be." "This time, as an entrance celebration present, I’ve had a proper greenhouse with boiler heating constructed." "This is exactly what I wanted." Tamotsu had even included a simple diagram detailing the greenhouse’s dimensions and steam pipe layout.

The Dōzaka household was full of gaps and disorder, but when the children received something from their parents or were shown something by them, there was a custom of formally making them say, "Thank you very much," with proper decorum. In their speech as well, having been raised to maintain proper distinctions with their elders, the fact that Tamotsu, now twenty years old, used the expression "had it prepared" could be said to unconsciously reflect that manner of upbringing. However, even as an elementary school student, when Tamotsu received a small amount of money from his mother to buy flower seeds, he had a tendency to meticulously record income and expenses and return the remainder. "The three yen I received from Mother, the such-and-such seeds I bought for so much"—listing each item in detail.

From what Nobuko had seen and felt of twenty-year-old Soviet youths' lives through her days in Moscow, Tamotsu's expressed sentiment about having a greenhouse built for him over something as trivial as high school admission felt utterly mismatched. What significance could merely entering high school or university hold for Tamotsu himself—who remained oblivious to how one must navigate this vast world's tempests?

For Takeyo alone, this must have seemed like an event that would shape the Sassa family's future. The eldest son, Ichirō, had been badgered by Takeyo into taking the Ichikō exam, but when he failed, he promptly entered an art school instead. Takeyo—with Meiji-era sensibilities where university graduation had been a marital prerequisite for women—placed immense significance and expectation on her son entering a high school that would lead to Imperial University. That Takeyo's congratulatory impulse born from such sentiments had become Tamotsu's own attitude of gratefully receiving these honors pained Nobuko. Even without harshness—shouldn't Tamotsu, as a youth his age, deeply consider his position within the family and the nature of the affection he received? Nobuko found it exasperating how Tamotsu—who surely harbored his own struggles—wedged between Ichirō and their sister Tsuyako, confined even his written topics within the framework of family gatherings. Why couldn't Tamotsu correspond more freely and openly? When she considered this, Nobuko realized that since coming to Moscow, Tamotsu had sent word twice—both times only through collective letters with everyone.

Suddenly, Nobuko found herself speculating about something that seemed impossible. Could it be that Takeyo was suppressing Tamotsu from writing letters to her in some way? "If you're going to send a letter to your sister, you must show it to me first." If the recipient were Tamotsu, there was every chance Takeyo’s command would be obeyed. Even when Nobuko visited the Dōzaka house and managed a quiet conversation alone with Tamotsu, Takeyo had tried so persistently to separate her from this so-called child of her passion that she couldn’t resist making Tamotsu divulge their discussion’s contents. When the relationship between Takeyo and Ochi—Tamotsu’s tutor—had grown beyond ordinary bounds, and Nobuko’s presence became an irritant within that ambiguous, heated atmosphere, Takeyo’s attitude in this regard became markedly pronounced. The incident involving Ochi had faded like sunset clouds vanishing with their colors, but Takeyo’s determination to sever Tamotsu from Nobuko’s influence remained undiminished. Whenever Nobuko made critical remarks about Tamotsu or Ichirō, Takeyo would declare, "I have the right to raise my children as I see fit." "Keep quiet." —as if Nobuko weren’t her own child, she confronted her. She believed keeping Tamotsu distant from Nobuko was a mother’s prerogative. At this thought, fierce flames of resistance burned in Nobuko’s eyes. If Takeyo possessed maternal rights, then she herself, as a sister, held human rights. And responsibility. Tamotsu must be brought out into the fresh air of true human existence——.

Nobuko set aside the mending from her lap and settled herself properly on the bench. And she placed the half-used manuscript paper she had brought from Japan on the table.

“Thank you for everyone’s collective letter. This time, I’m writing this letter specifically addressed to you alone, Tamotsu. We’re always talking with everyone else and never have any conversations just between us, do we? Why is that? Don’t you have even one story you want to tell me, Tamotsu? I simply can’t believe that’s true. I think it’s only natural—and a good thing—for a sister and brother living in different countries to share with each other how earnestly we’re living our lives. If there’s something on your side preventing this, Tamotsu—what could it be?”

Nobuko had anticipated that each line she wrote this way would be read through Takeyo’s eyes. “Could my poor letter-writing habits be the cause?” She could well imagine Tamotsu’s delight at having his greenhouse completed. From spring through summer of the year Nobuko was preparing to depart for Moscow—after declaring he’d exhausted all possibilities with cold frames—Tamotsu had done nothing but grow cyclamen through hydroponics on his study desk. His joy at finally obtaining a greenhouse was something she could genuinely share. Yet Nobuko felt anxious and frustrated by Tamotsu’s apparent mindset—how he accepted this gift strictly within the framework of a high school entrance celebration, failing to connect it to his own youthful struggles. From her perspective, she even believed Tamotsu should possess a more unguarded fastidiousness. Nobuko wrote exactly what she felt on the matter.

“Tamotsu, for someone with your health, abilities, and family circumstances, entering high school should be a matter of course, shouldn’t it? Parents everywhere rejoice in such things with all manner of parental motives and amplify their joy. But do those parents—amid their delight at their sons entering high school—ever pause to consider how many children across Japan cannot even attend middle school solely due to a lack of money?”

"Is your Tokyo High School really such a place—so full of rich boys that there isn't even a single poor student? If that's truly the case, then it's both frightening and despicable. Are the students being raised there so content with themselves that they don't even know how to use their imaginations about all the misfortunes that exist abundantly in this world?"

Unaware that her own elbow had knocked the red silk needle case to the floor as she wrote, Nobuko continued.

"I don’t know how much the greenhouse built for you cost, Tamotsu, but it must have required far more than a year’s tuition for a poor high school student. Have you considered that, Tamotsu? And to be fair—have you considered there might be young men out there, more talented and useful to humanity than you, working covered in mud simply because they lack such funds? Have you considered all these things, Tamotsu? A person without imagination cannot feel compassion or sympathy—let alone love for others."

While writing to Tamotsu, the entire life at the Dōzaka house—where everyone was displaying vigorous appetites while aimlessly squandering time and vitality—began to seem thoroughly repulsive to Nobuko. “Tamotsu, it’s you who must take pride in your youth. While savoring to the fullest the joys you possess, you should also clearly understand what significance they hold in this society. To accept what you’re given unconditionally—that’s spineless. What one ought to have, one must claim even if it requires insistence; and what one ought not to have, I believe one should not keep—even if you beg for them, even if they’re given to you.”

Across the plane of Nobuko’s emotions, the scene of Moscow First University rose up vividly. When heading toward Moscow First University along a street glistening with snow in the winter sun, the yellow outer walls of its large circular lecture hall crowned with snow rose before you. Encircling the upper part of those outer walls like a band, the characters written there were neither Latin nor biblical verses. “Knowledge to all who work.” On the yellow outer walls of Moscow First University’s circular lecture hall were now inscribed those very characters.

“Tamotsu, how immense is the meaning contained within these simple words! These four words demonstrate how in this country, the relationship between humanity and scholarship has at last been realigned as it should be. They attest that humanity has progressed to treating knowledge for the happiness of all people. I saw it again just yesterday. And imagining when those characters were inscribed on Moscow University’s ancient walls—I was swept up in waves of beauty and joy. Listen Tamotsu—the Soviet youth didn’t merely receive these words. They claimed them through their own struggle!”

As if trying to cast a sturdy rope across the vast sea separating them to reach Tamotsu, Nobuko poured her entire heart into writing that letter. "I believe we must cherish hearts capable of being moved by beauty as human beings living our lives. Let us be moved by beauty and thereby become courageous. Don’t you think so, Tamotsu? The beauty of flower cultivation lies not in that self-centered sentiment of displaying blooms in our greenhouse, but rather in drawing forth all the life’s beauty contained within that unassuming single seed."

With a resolve that did not shy from letting the rope meant for Tamotsu fall clattering before Takeyo’s eyes, Nobuko finished writing the letter. The thick letter’s folded creases had swollen too much, tearing the envelope. Deciding to seal it after weighing it down, Nobuko stacked books and dictionaries atop the quarter-folded letter.

Just then, Motoko finished a stretch of studying and moved her chair.

“Ahhh!”

Stretching her back in her housedress by spreading both arms out to the sides, Motoko pressed the nape of her bobbed hair against the back of the chair.

“Nobuko-chan, what’s wrong? You were awfully quiet, weren’t you?” “You were awfully quiet, weren’t you?” “Because I was writing a letter…” “Now that you mention it, I should probably write to my old man too.”

Among the postal items from Japan that had been brought from the embassy today, there were also a few letters addressed to Motoko.

Motoko, puffing on her cigarette with relish, “At least with your family there’s still someone worth writing to who’ll understand—that must give you something to work for. But with mine, no matter what I write, it’s like casting pearls before swine.”

“They just end up going through the motions in the same formulaic way... It’s just—”

Motoko, born in Kyoto to a father and family who had spent their lives as Kyoto merchants, was treated as an unexpected oddity among their clan. Moreover, the current housewife—the sister of that woman who had openly become his wife after Motoko’s birth mother died—was never accepted as anything natural in Motoko’s heart. Conscious of her precarious position, she made sure to fulfill her obligations as a dutiful eldest daughter in her treatment of Motoko without negligence, but beyond that maintained an air of complete detachment. Even after coming to Moscow, Motoko wrote letters only to her father.

Nobuko, who had just finished writing the letter to Tamotsu with her agitation still lingering, “Just once, I’d like to receive a letter from Mother that truly makes me feel she’s speaking to me with each and every word,” she said.

“Mother’s letters—she couldn’t care less whether the recipient can read them or not…” “—” Motoko, seeing Nobuko’s face like that, fleetingly flashed her usual wise and ironic half-smile. Now that she mentioned it, Nobuko wondered—had Father Taizo been able to read all of Mother’s smoothly flowing script? Long ago, during the span of nearly five years that Taizo had spent in London, Takeyo—then around thirty years old—had folded ganpi paper sideways, densely filled it with thin, fine characters written in a flowing hand, and penned hundreds of letters. When she was young, Takeyo would turn on the special shining nickel round lamp during such times—the prettier, brighter one—and write letters on ganpi paper at Taizo’s desk while he was away. Nobuko, then a young daughter of about five, stood by her side, resting her rounded soft chin on the table and gazing at it. That scene was always recalled as one of summer nights. Now that I think about it, those ganpi paper letters had also contained appeals—from the household’s desperate financial struggles to the oppressive pressure Takeyo endured, interpreted by her at least as her mother-in-law’s attempt to expel her during Father’s absence and install his cousin in her place. Imbued with heartfelt appeals and attachment, the inexhaustible thread-like cursive letters penned by the young Takeyo—what emotions must they have stirred in Taizo, living his student life in his forties at lodgings in Cambridge and London?

Nobuko, having come far from Japan and now immersed in Moscow's very way of life, found herself understanding that Taizo—and indeed all those living abroad—must have felt the letters received from their homeland within the atmosphere of foreign existence with a peculiar blend of reassurance and oppressive weight. “When Mother’s letters arrived, Father would immediately stuff them into his pocket and then surely go off somewhere alone—" “You know, people who spoke of it always framed it as Father’s devotion to his wife—but now that I’ve come here myself, somehow it doesn’t seem so simple anymore, does it?”

“Then what is it?” “We go retrieve our own letters here ourselves, don’t we? But if they suddenly come delivering them here with a ‘Here’s a letter from Japan,’ I think I’d still feel some kind of shock.” All the more so during the late Meiji period when Taizo had been living in London—the gap between the impoverished lives of the wife and children left behind in Japan and Taizo’s own existence there, austere yet enveloped in urban sophistication, had simply been too vast.

“With Moscow letters, no matter how much I write about food, at least I can be sure they’d never resent me for it.” Nobuko said with a laugh, recalling something pitiful. It was indeed from the time when Taizo had been in London. One time, Takeyo sat crying in the middle of the tatami room and exclaimed, “Father is such a cruel man!” Takeyo—her bobbed hair adorned with a false topknot and cotton shusu obi tied in a clam-shaped bow—said this to the young Nobuko standing before her. “Oh, look at this! What do you suppose is written here? ‘Allow me to introduce tonight’s dinner.’” Takeyo read out: “‘Steamed young chicken with something or other, and fruit compote.’ And then he says—‘Right about now, you must all be munching on takuan pickles over there—how pitiful!’ How dare he say such a thing!” The phrase had been written on a single postcard. Young Nobuko hadn’t understood the menu’s contents, but the disparity—that Father enjoyed some grand feast while they gnawed on pickles—had been etched with strange vividness in her child’s heart. Even now, Nobuko could recall Takeyo’s furious trembling voice and tears as she read “steamed young chicken” before her daughter. Whenever this memory surfaced, she invariably recalled the sweet-smelling sweet potato porridge that Mother and her three small children had often eaten in those days. The thickly simmered porridge—beloved by the children and consumed by the kitchen staff alike—would be ladled from the pot into a large pale-blue square bowl and placed on the chabudai low table. On that bowl was a pattern of a sparrow perched on a broken roof tile.

Even long after Nobuko had grown up, she remembered her father and mother continuing to quarrel over the wording of that postcard. Taizo explained that he had written it out of genuine pity for everyone. Nobuko of that time came to understand that her mother’s anger at that moment had never been directed solely at a single plate of steamed young chicken. Such feasts. The intoxication of wine. The carefree men’s laughter and conversation. Takeyo, who read novels and studied illustrations in foreign magazines, must have heard within such scenes the coquettish voices of golden-haired women—their waists cinched like wasps’, their lavish bubble-like skirts spread wide—making men forget the families they had left behind in their homeland.

“Even Sōseki—if you read what he wrote—suffered quite a bit in his own way during his time abroad.” “Not to mention his wife.”

Recalling the letter she had just written to Tomo, Nobuko’s gaze turned measuring as she contemplated the depth of the chasm between life at the Dōzaka household—so vividly peering through the letter’s lines—and her own life here.

As Nobuko living in Moscow, she could grasp her own stance relatively clearly regarding Japanese life in general and the way of life in Dōzaka that now reflected into her heart from a new angle. However, concerning how the members of the Sassa household and her friends back home—each remaining in their unchanged environments—might receive such assertions from Nobuko in Moscow, she had given it scarcely any consideration.

Nobuko loved each and every moment in Moscow, voraciously accepting every impression of life—a life that knew neither boiling nor stagnation—as her own harvest. Even the style of postcards Nobuko wrote to friends like Ume-chan had gradually changed since coming to Moscow. To her, this transformation had occurred so naturally that she hadn’t noticed.—“The window of my room at Hotel Passage—without wallpaper—faces Tverskaya Street.” When she wrote this, Nobuko could not help but include the impression of the ruined great roof visible below her window, where snow fell through skeletal steel beams and vanished into the void below—nor could she remain silent about how, just one alleyway beyond that ruin, the massive construction of the Central Post Office continued around the clock under the glow of arc lamps. The ferocious contrast between destruction and construction in this city ceaselessly agitated Nobuko’s emotions. She could not remain indifferent to the will of today’s Russia that spoke for itself within this striking contrast—bathed in the singular light of Moscow’s pale midwinter moonlight. Simultaneously, Nobuko could not remain silent about how, above all these things, the melody of The Internationale—pealing each night at twelve from the Kremlin clock tower—flowed forth, its tune crossing over rooftops to reach even the double-paned windows of her hotel room. When the morning sun glinted on the snow-covered eaves of Moscow, the plump Moscow winter sparrows lined up there, perching and chirping as they waited for steaming horse dung to drop onto the snow-piled road. Such a scene also drew in Nobuko’s eyes and mind.

The depictions of life appearing in Nobuko's letters had thus gradually grown more concrete, gained momentum, and were becoming something like a compressed symbol of Moscow's social life. As mentioned in today's letter, Ume-ko had taken over the remaining proofreading, and Nobuko had written through her lengthy novel—now nearing publication—in an utterly realistic style. That her prose had imperceptibly become more objective, developing into writing propelled by a tempo leaping from impression to impression, reflected the ongoing transformation of Nobuko's psyche since arriving in Moscow. Was this change born from her having grasped the profound reality of urban life in Moscow—of its socialist progression? Or did it stem from how even the historical reality observable here remained something Nobuko could only apprehend within the bounds of what freshly struck her senses?

Nobuko was not at all aware of such points.

Nobuko’s sensibilities as she lived each day merely shuttled briskly between the miscellaneous impressions that assailed her senses and the echoes arising in her heart. Motoko, who had been resting in silence for a while, casually glanced at her wristwatch.

“Nobuko, you’re forgetting again!” “That won’t do.” she said hurriedly in a scolding tone. “What about?”

With a blank look, Nobuko asked in return. “Room payment—” “Oh, right!” “You forgot yesterday too, didn’t you?—Go do it right now—go on!” Nobuko pushed the table aside and searched for her wallet made of red Russian leather amid the pile of newspapers from Japan. The hotel room fee had to be paid by 10 PM every night. Nobuko and the others often forgot to do so, letting two days’ worth accumulate. In truth, a fine was supposed to be imposed, but whenever Motoko or Nobuko entered the hotel’s second-floor office and handed over two days’ worth of payment with an apology for having forgotten, the fine was never charged. As she rose from the sofa, Nobuko, unaware that she had dropped her crimson silk needle case beside the table, stepped on it with the tip of her shoe.

“Oh!” Quickly picking it up, Nobuko brushed off the faint mark on the crimson silk needle case.

“Poor thing—”

Nobuko placed the needle case on the table, took the purple haori from the bed, slipped her arms through the sleeves, and left the room.

VII

It was an afternoon three or four days later.

As Nobuko ascended the hotel stairs slowly, her net bag holding ikura, salt-pickled cucumbers, and apples, Utsumi Atsushi descended from above—hands thrust into his coat pockets, his body weight shifted to his heels in an ambiguous manner that seemed both leisurely yet hurried. "Oh! Have you returned?" "Actually, I was just coming to visit your room." “Wasn’t Ms. Yoshimi there?” “She was there, she was!”

Utsumi nodded with a face that still carried the air of a nineteenth-century Russian progressive university student. “I had informed Ms. Yoshimi, but... Actually, Polinyak said he absolutely wanted you both to come tonight.”

Boris Polinyak, who had begun publishing works after the revolution, belonged to the Russian Proletarian Writers' Alliance and was an active writer. “Tonight?—How sudden.” “Oh, it’s not really that sudden.”

At that moment, Utsumi leaned his body toward the handrail to make way for another person ascending from below and lowered his voice slightly. "It’s something that had been requested since some time ago, I suppose." Two or three years earlier, when Polinyak had visited Japan, Akiyama Uiichi—who had been one of his hosts as a proletarian artist—appeared to have maintained fairly frequent contact with him since coming to Moscow. In the meantime, it seemed that Akiyama Uiichi had kept silent about the matter of inviting Nobuko and the others—which had been around since who knows when—until today, when it became urgent.

Nobuko asked,

“What did Ms. Yoshimi say she would do?”

Nobuko asked. As for herself, she felt indifferent about going or not going. Polinyak had merely visited Japan once before, and was not someone she particularly wanted to meet as a writer. "Ms. Yoshimi seems inclined to go," he said. "Since you were out earlier, I couldn't get a definite answer—it rather depends on what you decide to do." "Would you mind coming back with me for a moment then?"

“Of course!”

Upon entering the room, Nobuko placed her shopping net bag on the table and, while taking off her coat, said to Motoko,

“So you’re going to Polinyak’s place?”

Nobuko asked. "Nobuko-chan? What will you do?" At times like these，Nobuko rarely gave springing responses like "Let's go! Let's go!" "I'm being passive."

Then Utsumi furrowed his brows that were normally set wide apart, "That complicates matters. You must come tonight."

he said pleadingly.

“It’s really complicating things—Alexandrov has come and is waiting downstairs.” “Because of that?”

Surprised, Nobuko asked. "That's right. Since Mr. Akiyama was being so inefficient about getting to the point, the teacher finally lost patience and sent Alexandrov over." Alexandrov was also a writer who had attended one of those Japanese literature evenings. "Fine—I'll go check out Polinyak's place once." To Motoko's remark, Utsumi,

"Then I’ll leave it to you." He waved his hand twice with deliberate emphasis. "When it’s five o’clock, please come down." "Then."

And then, this time, he truly hurried out. “It’s not like there’s anything we can do when they tell us so suddenly—it’s only because today happened to be a day we’re here that it works out, but…”

Despite her complaints, when the time came, Motoko changed into a yellow-pink suit that suited her well and a white silk blouse without any fuss.

“Nobuko-chan, what are you going to wear?” “The usual—is that all right?” “That’ll do.” Standing before the mirror—raising the sleeves of her navy blue one-piece dress with white breast adornments and fastening a slender pearl necklace behind her neck—Nobuko became aware of Motoko watching her as she put on the matching hat to the leather coat she had recently taken a liking to and purchased, then crushed out her still-smoldering cigarette on the ashtray. “Well, let’s go.”

They went down to Akiyama Uiichi's room on the second floor.

“If we leave now, it should be just right.” While placing a small astrakhan hat on his head, Akiyama promptly stood up, and the four of them boarded a bus bound for the suburbs from Hunter’s Square. The streetlights illuminated the snow-covered road and large buildings in sharp relief as the massive bus—loaded with commuters returning from work—cut through the bustling Theater Square and began running along an unfamiliar tree-lined avenue; by this time, Nobuko had completely lost her bearings.

“Is it still quite far?” “Yes, it’s still quite a ways—are you all right?”

Nobuko and Akiyama Uiichi in front, Utsumi and Motoko behind, forming two rows, stood holding onto the brass handrails at the corners of the seats.

In Moscow buses, passengers boarded from beside the driver’s seat and filed toward the back; at the very rear was an exit with a folding door. Following the passengers getting off in small groups, Nobuko and the three others edged closer to the rear door one step at a time. “It’s a good thing you all could come.” Akiyama Uiichi said, stroking his beard—streaked with white—with his gloved hand. “They were quite persistent—said they wouldn’t believe in our friendship if I didn’t bring you tonight... Well...”

As Nobuko had not heard the circumstances leading up to tonight, she could only remain silent. However, even during that Japanese literature evening, Polinyak had repeatedly urged Nobuko and the others to come visit. ―― When the bus stopped at a certain stop, Utsumi, “We’ll get off at the next stop.”

he reminded Akiyama.

“Wasn’t it one more stop ahead?” Akiyama looked as though he wanted to peer outside through the window. But the bright windowpanes of the eighty-percent-full bus were all frosted white.

From the bus's exit—now resembling slippery ice steps from the snow compacted by passengers' winter boots one after another—Nobuko carefully alighted into the deep snow of the stop.

After the bus drove off, showing its red tail lamp, the area dimly visible under the arc lights resembled a wooded park in Moscow’s suburbs. Along black trees with snow-laden branches lining their path, Nobuko and the others walked through snow much deeper than in the city. Beyond the sidewalk stood houses encircled by Russian-style fences.

“This area is all former villas, you see. Polinyak’s house was permitted to be newly built just last year due to his literary achievements.” Crossing the snow-deep sidewalk to the right, Nobuko and the others entered through a low wooden gate. The entrance of a single-story house constructed in the Russian style with stacked logs appeared dimly in the darkness without any eaves lights.

Utsumi, with the air of someone accustomed to coming here, rang a doorbell attached somewhere out of sight. The sound of heavy, thudding footsteps was heard, and soon the door—double-layered against the cold—opened. “Ah—Mr. Akiyama!” The one who emerged was Polinyak himself. Noticing Nobuko and Motoko standing beside him, “You’ve finally come! Saa, dōzo—” Saying “Saa, dōzo” in Japanese, he guided the four into the inner corridor. Aleksandrov—who had apparently visited Hotel Passage earlier that day—also emerged from the back and helped the women remove their coats and scarves.

In a fairly spacious back room, a lively table setting had been prepared. A slender, blue-eyed, remarkably young-looking lady stood waiting at her seat by the table, smiling amiably at Nobuko and the others as they entered.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Even as Nobuko and the others exchanged greetings with the lady, Polinyak bustled about with cheerful urgency, “Enough now, enough! Take your seats here.” With that, he seated Akiyama to the right of the lady and Nobuko to his own right. Then immediately, “When you come in frozen stiff from outside—first things first! Down a glass of this! Clever or fool—all that comes after!” Having said this, he poured vodka from the bottle on the table into everyone’s cups.

“Here’s to our mutual health!” Motoko too drank about half her glass with vigorous abandon—touching the rim to her lips and tossing it back as if hurling it down. Nobuko raised her glass toward the lady, “To your health!” Having said that, she merely touched her lips to the liquor and set it down. “Why is that? Ms. Sassa. No! No! No! No!” Polinyak took exception to Nobuko not drinking from her glass. “Mr. Utsumi, please tell her.”

Coming to someone else’s house and not even opening the first drink was considered an unbelievable breach of etiquette in Russian custom.

“Have you understood? Ms. Sassa, there you go!”

Nobuko was troubled. “Mr. Utsumi, please explain it properly. I’m truly someone who can’t drink alcohol by nature—but please rest assured I can be perfectly cheerful without it…”

When Utsumi conveyed this, Polinyak— “What a pity.” Truly looking disappointed, he shook his large head with its fuzzy reddish hair. The lady who had been watching the exchange with a smile turned to Nobuko and the others. “I’m not good with alcohol either,” she said.

“But the vodka with lemon added is milder,” Madame Nikitina said. “Can you smell its pleasant fragrance?” Now that it had been mentioned, Nobuko noticed that among several identical transparent glass vodka bottles on the table, two contained finely chopped yellow lemon peel—the very bottles from which their drinks had been poured. Motoko’s complexion warmed with satisfaction as she remarked, “Adding lemon like this really improves vodka’s smoothness.”

She downed the remaining half as well.

“Bravo! Bravo!” Polinyak praised her and refilled Motoko’s cup anew. “Look here. Your friend is being brave.” “There’s no helping it. I just can’t do it.”

At the part where she meant to say "I can't," Nobuko instead said "Ya, nye magu" in the Russian she could manage. Polinyak repeated Nobuko’s soft pronunciation with amusement, “Am I not allowed?” he said. That sound did not resonate with the angularity of katakana but in hiragana, as if written "yaa nyemagu," with a supple quality. Nobuko herself had intended to pronounce it clearly, yet to everyone’s ears, it seemed to sound entirely foreign and soft. Alexandrov—a serious man with a large build like his master, his grayish-reddish light hair left fluffy—looked at Nobuko and nodded kindly while laughing.

Before long, the conversation turned to the question of which country had better-tasting alcohol—Japan or Russia. Then began a debate about drinking snacks. Finally freed from being continuously pressed to drink since entering this room, Nobuko could relax at last. The room being warmed by the pechka truly resembled a still-new Russian home, carrying the scent of Chan. The floor consisted of bare planks, while decorations and paintings hung sporadically on unpapered walls. The space shared a rough quality matching Polinyak’s own large frame and seemingly indifferent manner. It seemed like a dwelling for someone living life on their own terms.

Polinyak seemed to manage his relationship with his wife with the same rough manner. His wife—a young actress at the Moscow Art Theatre—sat there smiling quietly, her blonde curls hanging by her temples as if inhabiting her own world. In her atmosphere of gentle demeanor clad in pale-colored clothes, there was not the slightest hint of a housewife-like flush from having prepared tonight’s table. Yet there was no sign of her attempting to enjoy herself with artistic vivacity alongside her husband, the writer. She appeared to be nothing more than a young actress who was his wife.—merely one who had been chosen according to the preferences of Polinyak, the master of this house, and installed here as its housekeeper.

The atmosphere of the Polinyak couple was entirely different from the living environment of Maria Gregorievna, with whom Nobuko was taking language lessons. Maria Gregorievna’s cheeks—much like those of the tall Novamirsky, who spoke in a startlingly deep bass voice—were reddened by the severe winter air outside, and even the way the tips of their round noses gleamed showed a mutual resemblance between the couple. The two worked together as a pair, pooled the money they earned jointly, and maintained their life in a house furnished with worn red velvet furniture.

Filled with wild vitality and reveling in the literary talent overflowing from his body, Polinyak showed no apparent inclination to consider what psychological state his actress wife might harbor as a woman—posing even at home in her ingénue roles—so long as it didn’t disrupt his own comfort.

The conversation of the group shifted from talk of alcohol to discussion about plays. Motoko, who liked Osaka's puppet theater,

"When you went to Osaka, did you watch the puppet theater?" Motoko asked Polinyak.

“I saw it. That puppet theater was interesting.”

Polinyak explained and had Madame and Alexandrov—who had neither seen nor heard of it—listen. “On top of the main stage there’s another small stage that becomes the orchestra seats.” “The samisen and singing are performed there while the puppets act out the play.” “In foreign puppet theater—whether marionettes or hand puppets—they perform by hiding the operators from view, don’t they?”

Motoko said that in Russian, “That’s right.” She confirmed in Japanese with Akiyama Uiichi. “That’s right—just let me hear your voice,” Akiyama Uiichi said.

“Did you notice?”

Returning to Russian, Motoko spoke.

“In Japanese puppet theater, puppeteers called tayū appear on stage together with the puppets. The manipulated puppet and the manipulating tayū blend completely into a single rhythm, each becoming a vivid part of the other. That fascination is truly original.”

“Yes, yes, that’s exactly how it was. Ms. Yoshimi, you’re quite the theater connoisseur, aren’t you?” Polinyak said with interest, glancing toward his wife who sat listening with arms folded on the table. “But Noh struck us as rather eerie.”

“What exactly is Noh?” Alexandrov asked curiously. “Watch this!” As the alcohol began taking effect, Polinyak—seated facing the table—puffed out his chest and straightened his torso, pulled his chin down against his collar, glared straight ahead, and while slowly raising his arms in a broad curve, “Uuuh, uuuuuuh…” …emitted a deep groan somewhat reminiscent of Noh chanting. Alexandrov, who had watched unblinkingly, after pondering with an air of despair,

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Even I don’t get it.” Everyone burst into laughter.

“Poor thing! You should explain that even among Japanese people, those who appreciate Noh are a specialized group!” Nobuko said with a laugh. “It’s a niche classical taste, you know.” “What do you mean?”

Polinyak peered at Nobuko.

“Mr. Utsumi will tell you.”

When they understood the conversation, “Perfect!”

Polinyak looked back at Alexandrov,

“This proves we’re not ‘barbaric Russian bears’! Come now—a toast to this triumph!”

Everyone’s cups were filled to the brim with a fresh round of drinks. And, “To the peaceful slumber of blessed Noh!”

they toasted. Nobuko, once again,

“I can’t.” Nobuko found herself having to repeat her refusal.

Polinyak, “Nnnngh... c-caaan’t...”

Polinyak mimicked Nobuko with a rasping sound like a bird clearing its throat. And then, one after another, he threw two glasses of vodka into his mouth.

“It’s the same as how even things from our own country can be hard for us to understand.”

He exhaled cigarette smoke. "For example, 'The Days of the Turbins' being performed at M.Kh.T. (Moscow Art Theatre)—that's already been running for three seasons straight." "What's so interesting about it?" "I don't understand." "The audience of M.Kh.T. has traditions and particularly likes that sort of thing." Alexandrov calmly explained.

“Well, everyone says that.” “But I find it utterly uninteresting.” “So are you saying I don’t have the Soviet soul? —Mr. Akiyama?” “—Mr. Akiyama?”

With the vodka bottle in hand, Polinyak turned to Akiyama and said. “Do you find ‘The Days of the Turbins’ interesting?”

“That is a difficult play.”

He said that much in Russian and had Utsumi Atsushi convey the rest. "It's a difficult play for foreigners." "The subject matter is psychological." "If you don't grasp the dialogue properly following along becomes challenging."

At the time of the 1917 Revolution, many tragedies occurred in households of former nobility and wealthy intelligentsia. Within a single household, the older generation would only think and act counter-revolutionarily, while the younger people could not help but become revolutionary. In some households, because the exact opposite occurred. "The Days of the Turbins" had as its theme the painful historical days during the Revolution when old wealthy-class families had to crumble away moment by moment. Although she couldn’t understand the dialogue, Nobuko vividly observed—on the atmospherically dense stage—both the era’s rapid transformations unfolding before her, and the figures left behind by those changes: people who clung awkwardly, pettily, to their outdated social customs, desperately gripping faded scraps of finery whose splendor could no longer exist.

“Ms. Sassa, what did you think? Did you like that play?” “In today’s Soviet Union, there are people who’ve lived through experiences like those of *Armored Train*’s characters, and there must also be those who experienced *The Days of the Turbins*, don’t you think? I was strongly struck by that impression. And that isn’t something that only happens in Russia—Motoko-san, please tell them that.”

“That’s an awfully elaborate way to put it.” With several glasses of vodka pleasantly coloring her face, Motoko—her tongue seemingly loosened by the alcohol—relayed almost exactly what Nobuko had said into Russian. “Ms. Sassa, you have answered most wisely.” Half-seriously yet with an undeniably sarcastic edge, Polinyak gave a slight bow toward Nobuko. “I toast to your perceptiveness and your absurd vodka-hating liver!”

After the performance time came and Mrs. Polinyak left her seat, the speed at which Polinyak emptied his cups became conspicuously faster.

Akiyama Uiichi stroked his face—now flushed red up to his forehead—with his small hand, "Russians can hold their liquor well."

While nodding to himself, he said in a voice that had grown slightly nasal. “People from cold countries are all like that.” “That’s because the air is dry—it lets them drink this much.” Utsumi Atsushi, who still couldn’t handle much alcohol after all, picked up the vodka glass left on the table and held it up to the lamplight, inspecting it as if it were a test tube. Noticing this, Alexandrov— “Mr. Utsumi, the proper way to conduct a vodka experiment isn’t by looking—it’s like this.”

With the cup pressed to his lips and his head tilted back, he drained his own cup. "In Japan, you sip your liquor, don't you? Like wine—" "Whether one sips or gulps, I'm generally not good with liquor." Utsumi remarked, now somewhat weary of drinking occasions.

“Among the Japanese gods, there’s probably no Bacchus. What a pitiful state!”

Nobuko wanted a handkerchief. It wasn't in her cuffs or handbag. That reminded her—she recalled having hastily stuffed it into her coat pocket when leaving. Nobuko stood up from her seat and went through the inner corridor toward the coat rack in the entranceway. And just as she found the handkerchief, tucked it into her cuff, and was about to return to the room while fastening the snap, Polinyak came approaching from the other direction. In the not particularly wide corridor, as Nobuko tried to pass by moving to the left side, Polinyak—instead stepping toward that very side—planted himself in her path.

Thinking it was an accidental near-collision, Nobuko said, “I’m sorry.” While uttering this, she tried to slip past Polinyak—who stood blocking her path—to the opposite side.

“Nichevo.” A low voice sounded. In the next instant—through some combination of their movements—Nobuko’s body was scooped up sideways into Polinyak’s arms. Holding Nobuko cradled horizontally against his chest with both arms, Polinyak took slow, wide strides toward a closed door on the corridor’s left side, kicking it open with his foot to enter. Inside the room, a desk lamp burned.

So unexpected was it that when her whole body was swept up from the floor, Nobuko's composure left her. The instant the dim desk lamp's glow illuminating the wall entered her vision—Nobuko's upper body supported on his right arm, the backs of her knees on his left—she channeled all her strength into the toes of her rigid legs encased in pumps and tried to push her feet downward. "Put me down!" The words escaped Nobuko in English, a low involuntary cry.

“Put me down!” From atop Polinyak’s tall and powerful arms, no matter how much Nobuko strained her legs to slide down, it proved futile. Nobuko pushed against Polinyak’s chest with her left hand while, “I’ll scream! Help!” she said. Nobuko truly thought to call for Akiyama and Yoshimi. “Nichevo…” Polinyak repeated the word and came to a stop, leaning his back against the large desk at the room’s center. There, he lowered Nobuko onto the floor. Yet he kept a tight grip on her left arm and, with a drunkenly exaggerated motion, tried to bring his large flushed face close to hers. Nobuko attempted to pull away. Her left arm was seized even more firmly. To fully prevent his face from reaching hers, the shorter-statured Nobuko had no choice but to press herself flush against Polinyak rather than break free. Pressed together like this, Nobuko’s face became buried precisely at the level of the large man’s vest buttons—no matter how he craned his neck downward, his face simply couldn’t reach hers.

Nobuko’s right hand was free. Pressing her face tightly against the scratchy woolen vest, she moved her free right hand around from under Polinyak’s arm to the back and groped across the desk surface. If her fingers touched anything, she resolved to hurl it against the floor and create a noise.

Just then, footsteps sounded in the hallway. With the door left wide open, anyone passing through could not avoid seeing this scene inside the room no matter how they tried not to look. From the corner of her eye pressed against Polinyak's vest, Nobuko caught sight of red-haired Alexandrov standing at the threshold, watching them. With her hand still stretched toward the desk, she frantically repeated gestures urging him to come. After a couple of hesitant steps, Alexandrov suddenly strode briskly forward,

“Boris! Desist! This is wrong!”

While keeping a restraining hand on Polinyak’s shoulder, he allowed Nobuko to withdraw. Nobuko returned to the dining room with feigned composure. The table stood conspicuously bare where three people had vacated their seats simultaneously, now littered with leftover zakuski remnants, soiled plates, and scattered cutlery. At Polinyak’s place, an overturned vodka glass had left an expansive stain on the tablecloth. Akiyama Uiichi and Utsumi Atsushi lounged against their chairbacks in casual postures. In contrast, Motoko slumped deeply over the table with her elbows propped, drawing heavily on her cigarette. As Nobuko reentered and took her seat, the elongated ash at Motoko’s cigarette tip crumbled onto the tablecloth.

“—What’s wrong? Nobuko-chan.” “Nobuko-chan.” In a slightly concerned tone, Motoko called out from across the table. “You’re not feeling unwell, are you?” Nobuko, feeling her complexion had somewhat paled, “I’m fine…” she said. And she brushed back the slightly disheveled bobbed hair behind her ear—hair that had been tousled when Polinyak had scooped her up. Before long, Polinyak and Alexandrov returned to their seats one after the other.

“Well then, shall we move on to the warm dishes?” Though drunk, Polinyak spoke in his unchanged host’s tone and, without looking toward Nobuko, drew his chair closer to the table. Having circled around the corner of the table to sit at Polinyak’s right hand, Nobuko had naturally been edging her chair slightly away since returning to the room. “To our appetites!” The final toast was made. Alexandrov raised his glass to her with an expression of affinity whose meaning only Nobuko understood. Polinyak ceased his cheerful chatter and ate the newly brought hot soup. During the meal, it was mainly Alexandrov who spoke. The atmosphere of the room had subtly changed in this latter half. However, even Akiyama Uiichi, Utsumi Atsushi, and Motoko—who were gradually becoming intoxicated and yielding pleasantly to their drunkenness—seemed not to particularly notice this shift in atmosphere.

It was past eleven when Nobuko and the three others left Polinyak’s place and boarded the bus once more at the snowbound stop. This coincided with theater closing times—while all suburban-bound transport overflowed with passengers, every bus heading from Moscow’s periphery toward its center stood empty. Nobuko’s group found scattered seats and settled apart. Both Akiyama and Motoko appeared lulled from tipsiness into drowsiness by the bus’s warmth and its monotonous rocking along frozen nocturnal roads, soon slipping into comfortable half-sleep. Beside Nobuko’s seat lay a frost-whitened window where some diligent passenger had breathed against thick ice until melting a small round spyhole. When she pressed her face to this aperture, snow-laden boughs glowing pale under arc lamps and illuminated edifices flashed past her vision. Within this frost-sealed bus where nothing beyond could be seen, Nobuko—having unexpectedly discovered this singular portal—kept vigil at her peephole, watching midnight Moscow flicker past in intermittent glimpses.

As fragmentary scenes from outside passed by, fragmentary thoughts welled up and vanished in Nobuko’s mind. That peculiar sensation—as if her stream of consciousness had been abruptly severed when Polinyak suddenly hoisted her entire body aloft—still lingered in her nerves. Why had he done such a thing? Had he simply stepped into the corridor on some errand and playfully scooped up the petite Nobuko upon seeing her approach, there should have been a boyish grin of mischief on his face—and she herself should have burst into laughter after recovering from the initial shock. Yet Polinyak’s florid face framed by disheveled hair showed no trace of such open-hearted mirth. There had been that unmistakable tension—Nobuko instinctively stiffening her body in resistance. As a method for conveying a man’s feelings toward a woman, it struck her as appallingly crude. Could this be some rustic custom among the youths of Polinyak’s native Russian village? Or perhaps when hosting his actress wife’s theater companions, such raucous behavior was standard among drunken performers—their host included.

Nobuko found it unpleasant to have been scooped up like that at the place they had visited as guests. She felt there must have been some opening in her own demeanor. Nobuko recalled her "Ya ne mogu"—that faltering Russian phrase meaning "I can't speak." It was only now that she could begin to surmise how the gentle, overly polished Russian of Japanese women might register in the senses of a drunken man. Overwhelmed by humiliation, Nobuko instinctively turned her face away from the peephole in the frosted window.

When only two weeks had passed since coming to Moscow, Nobuko attended a meeting at the Ironworkers' Union Workers' Club. Suddenly made to stand at the podium, Nobuko—flustered—stated that she had arrived from Japan just two weeks prior and couldn't speak Russian. How had she pronounced "Ya ne mogu govorit' po-russki" back then—with what firm and impressive enunciation? She must have mumbled it even more mushily as "nye magoo" than she did now. Yet the two or three hundred men and women gathered in that hall had watched over the small-framed Nobuko fumbling through Russian with rapt attention, acknowledged her efforts, even called out encouragement. If those people saw Nobuko being hoisted up by Polinyak like some sack, how preposterous they would find it. They who had applauded her might feel themselves mocked by association. Nobuko deemed this reaction justified. And within her stirred a contradictory impulse—half wanting to voice this humiliation to them, half ashamed even to broach it. She found herself disinclined to mention this vaguely shameful incident even to Motoko.

Upon returning to the hotel, both Motoko and Akiyama—their mild drunkenness wearing off and leaving them chilled—hurriedly drank several cups of hot tea before separating into their respective rooms and promptly going to bed.

8

The next day, when Maria Gregorievna’s lesson time had been unexpectedly rescheduled and Nobuko was returning to the hotel along Tverskaya Street, the streets of Moscow were already lit. The black shadows of the crowd streamed ceaselessly through the light spilling onto the sidewalk as they moved briskly. Walking hurriedly among them, Nobuko suddenly noticed that the familiar evening scene of Tverskaya Street was beginning to be shrouded in fog. Resembling the evening mist that settles over late autumn in Japan, by the time she became aware of the fog thinly veiling the streets, it had already grown denser by the minute—shop lights dimmed hazily, and pedestrians on the sidewalk could scarcely see ahead. Through gaps between the tall buildings lining both sides of the avenue, ash-white fog could be seen flowing like smoke. Nobuko had never imagined walking through such fog in Moscow. In Nobuko’s heart, as she hurried through streets where visibility had abruptly vanished, there lingered a loneliness befitting one adrift in a foreign capital.

In the approximately two months since coming to live in Moscow, Nobuko had not experienced anything that would shake her general trust in its people or her trust in herself. However, last night’s experience—when she had been summoned to Polinyak’s place and found herself hoisted bodily from the floor despite having stood so firmly on her own two legs—had completely overturned the sense of stability she had maintained about herself. The fact that Polinyak had hoisted her up so effortlessly was also related to her physical strength. Compared to Polinyak’s size and strength, she was too small. There was not that much disparity in physical strength between Japanese men and herself. Exerting overwhelming strength, Polinyak had suddenly hoisted up Nobuko—a full-grown woman. In the truest sense of the word "rudeness," she felt it as such. At the same time, the innocent mood of her Moscow life—as if she had no reason or motive for others to act rudely toward her—had wavered. She was made aware that she herself possessed an element which might continue to subject her to humiliating treatment. The loneliness in Nobuko’s heart as she hurried along the wide, sloping sidewalk of Tverskaya Street—where February night fog flowed—was connected to those emotions she did not speak of even to Motoko.

That evening would have been when the teacher from across the Moscow River was meant to visit Motoko. Nobuko had needed to stay away for about two hours. But starting this week, the teacher had sent notice discontinuing lessons. Nobuko went to deliver unpaid tuition fees at Motoko's request—visiting the teacher who had mailed a postcard claiming illness. It was just past three o'clock when sunset began over a desolate suburban tract: Russian crows clustered like hanging bells on bare birch branches along a collapsing wooden fence, raising their pre-roost clamor. In the dim soup-scented room of a building facing that vacant lot, the teacher explained she must suspend instruction due to complications following an abortion. The scene lingered in Nobuko's memory—soot-stained snow across that district, broken fences in empty lots, the wingbeats of crows massed on naked boughs.

For that reason, it was a relief that Nobuko could remain in her room tonight. Motoko had taken up reading Plekhanov’s art theory as part of her own study. She read aloud and translated entirely on her own. At every Moscow theater they visited and in every review they read, the terms “dialectical staging” and “method” kept recurring, yet Nobuko and the others couldn’t quite grasp their concrete meaning. Meyerhold’s theater was performing Trust D.E., its program notes describing it as a dialectical production of a script critiquing capitalism. But what Nobuko’s group had witnessed struck them as employing nothing but extreme Expressionist techniques. Motoko’s motivation for taking up Plekhanov had also stemmed from such considerations.

As she diligently followed each word of Motoko’s reading of Plekhanov’s thesis, Nobuko discovered that this art theory was unexpectedly easier to understand than John Reed’s *Ten Days That Shook the World*. Plekhanov’s writing—which unfolded through systematic theoretical progression—proved easier for Nobuko to follow than Reed’s prose that chronicled the revolution’s tense, moment-to-moment shifts with journalistic intricacy and brisk tempo, precisely because it eschewed emotionality.

“When you look at it this way, novels are difficult, aren’t they?” “Well of course they’re difficult—the prose itself moves.” “For me, there’s simply no hope with novels. You have to wrestle with every single word.” “It’s because you’re not used to it.” “That might be part of it...” Since coming to Moscow, with listening and speaking taking precedence over reading and writing, Nobuko’s halting Russian grew worse still. Her spoken words served their purpose despite being riddled with errors. Her reading and writing skills remained woefully inadequate. Even regarding her broken Russian itself—she had begun feeling discomfort since last night’s “nye magu” incident.

“Among contemporary writers, whose prose is most accessible, I wonder?” Motoko was thinking, “I don’t know.”

Motoko said, “Prose that’s easy for foreigners to understand and prose that’s easy for Russians to understand seem to be slightly different things.” “Generally, Russians say new writers’ works are easy,” Nobuko continued, “but for us it’s the opposite—they’re full of dialects, idioms, and slang. Take Babel, for instance.” “The prose is solidly structured and satisfying,” she added, “but far from easy.”

That too had been surmised by Nobuko. “Is Kemper’s writing really that easy?”

There had been a time when Nobuko bought Vera Kemper’s fairy-tale-like book titled *Animal Life* from a bookstore and brought it back. Kemper’s deceptively simple prose used diction so characteristic of a Futurist woman poet that its cleverness might have been apparent if one could grasp it, but to Nobuko, it remained difficult.

“That’s certainly pretentious.” “But when we said her writing was difficult, she became terribly upset, didn’t she?” “Oh right, she’d told her husband something about it, hadn’t she?”

That was about half a month ago.

When Nobuko and Motoko were at Akiyama Uiichi’s place, Guttner entered—wearing a Siberian-style reindeer fur coat and a polar cap with long earflaps. Guttner, then twenty-three or twenty-four years old, was one of Meyerhold’s assistant directors. When Guttner had visited Japan shortly before Akiyama and his group departed as state guests, he was introduced as Meyerhold’s director. As the first theater practitioner from the Soviet Union, he was lavishly received by New Theater circles, who described the Expressionist stage productions then emerging as Japan’s newest plays as innovative works resonating with Meyerhold’s methods. Akiyama Uiichi and Utsumi Atsushi had come to Moscow together with Guttner when he returned home. Naturally, they came to understand the actual scope of activities young Guttner managed under Meyerhold within Moscow’s reality. Afterward, they appeared to have maintained perfectly ordinary relations. Nobuko and the others had met Guttner two or three times previously in Akiyama’s room.

That evening, Guttner—who had encountered them in Akiyama’s room—invited Nobuko and Motoko to Vera Kemper’s house the moment he saw them, as though that had been his sole purpose for coming. While lighting a cigarette for the youthful Guttner—still wearing his gaudy fur coat pieced together from yellow and snow-white pelts—Motoko smiled faintly,

“Even if we go suddenly, they might be at the theater, don’t you think?” Motoko said. “Kemper is home tonight. “I know.” His face—its thin, smooth skin flushed a refreshing red from hurrying through the cold—Guttner gazed at Motoko with eyes like a young deer’s,

“Let’s go.”

he said, then looked at Nobuko, “Hey, let’s go (Nu, poidyom).”

He said with a slight shake of his body. Motoko asked teasingly, "Isn't your meeting us here tonight rather deliberate?" "No,"

Having said that much in Japanese, Guttner explained he had come specifically to invite Nobuko and the others to visit their room. "If it were accidental," he countered, "all the more reason we should enjoy it, don't you agree?" In the end, the three of them went to visit Vera Kemper's residence. From the main avenue, they turned through several indistinct corners that Nobuko couldn't properly discern, entering a building whose entrance remained invisible in the darkness. They climbed multiple flights of stairs and pressed the bell of a door still shrouded in near-total blackness.

A slender woman in a pale-colored sweater appeared. That was Kemper.

They entered a square, spacious room from the narrow entrance hallway. The space was illuminated by dim electric light. In one corner stood a large divan. Occupying the opposite wall hung a French-style painting in pale tones—a life-sized portrait of a figure. Beneath it sat an old man in a rocking chair, his legs wrapped in a lap blanket. Nobuko and the others offered awkward greetings to the man resting his hands on the blanket before being led through a door into Vera’s study.

“Please look,” Vera Kemper said. “This is what Moscow’s housing shortage looks like. We’re practically living in the cracks of the walls.” The room truly was one of the most elongated spaces Nobuko had seen since arriving in Moscow. To the left stood a large window, and Vera’s desk had been placed near it—positioned to catch the light from the left side of what must have been a nine-foot-wide room. The divan where Nobuko and the others sat side by side was positioned to the left of the entrance door, accompanied by a small tea table and low chairs that marked this area as the reception space. The farthest third appeared allocated for sleeping quarters, where a tall wardrobe stood visible. Motoko said,

“We’re staying at a hotel now, but we’re thinking of looking for a room soon,” Motoko said. “Looking for rental rooms in Moscow is a far more difficult undertaking than finding employment—Guttner, the time has come for your friendship to be put to the test.” Apparently quite fond of his reindeer fur coat, Guttner—who had entered Vera’s room still wearing it and stood leaning against the door—soon excused himself, saying it was time to head to the theater.

Mainly Motoko and Vera did the talking. Kemper, who had written Futurist poetry, joined a literary group of fellow travelers after the revolution and wrote prose poems that took themes from animals and nature without directly addressing social issues. In French classics, there was Rostand’s *Chantecler*, and in modern times, they spoke of a woman writer named Colette who created witty works based on animals. Petite in build, Vera seemed to have maintained a consistent fondness for French art and fashion—whether or not she had ever been there. The conversation turned to Vera’s *Animal Life*.

“How was it? Was it interesting?” Vera asked with interest. Motoko replied bluntly, “I found it difficult.” “Rather than each individual character, the overall expression…” “—And you?” Vera turned toward Nobuko eagerly. “What did you think?”

"My Russian is still too poor to read literary works." "But…"

Vera Kemper gazed at the door with melancholy eyes before finally speaking. "We modern Russian writers are all required to write in a manner comprehensible even to masses who only learned their letters yesterday." Though she began with ironic inflection, Vera's words spilled out like a confession—the daily burden weighing heavier than any sarcasm. "That must differ from how foreign readers experience it."

“Why?”

“Foreigners may sometimes fail to grasp the living sense of language rooted in daily life.” “The reason we find your writing difficult must be because we’re foreigners……” “It amounts to the same thing either way.”

Vera’s room was home to a small terrier. The black-and-white spotted dog that had been curled up on the divan by the wall when Nobuko and the others entered now climbed onto her lap as she sat on that same couch, its intelligent black eyes gleaming. Out of respect for the dog’s doting owner, Nobuko kept it on her lap, occasionally stroking it while listening to her conversation with Motoko.

At that moment, a young, large-framed man wearing a black-and-white patterned skating jacket of distinctly American style announced himself from outside the door and entered. Vera remained seated by the small table, “This is my husband. Nikolai Krangel—director of Sovkino—our guests from Japan.” she introduced Nobuko and the others. “This one,” she presented Motoko as a translator of Chekhov, “and that one, a writer,” introducing Nobuko.

[Vera] introduced Motoko as a translator of Chekhov, "This one is a writer," and presented Nobuko. “I’m pleased to meet you.” Krangel offered a nod-only greeting—no handshake—and took position leaning against the entrance door exactly as Guttner had done earlier. His right hand disappeared into the pocket of his ash-gray trousers. — Through hushed marital exchanges unintelligible to Nobuko’s group, Vera inquired something of Nikolai in three clipped phrases.

“Yes, that was a good thing…” Vera trailed off momentarily but then looked up at Nikolai—who stood leaning against the door almost directly before her—and said, “What do you think about this?” “These ladies say my writing is difficult.” She kept her gaze fixed on Nikolai’s face as she spoke. Nobuko found Vera’s wifely demeanor—both pleading and coquettish—intriguing. Somehow in Moscow, Nobuko had carried a preconception that made such expressions from a woman writer feel unexpected.

Nikolai gave no reply but kept gazing back at Vera’s face, shrugging his shoulders and arching one eyebrow quizzically. This gesture seemed to say “What are you talking about?”—though it deliberately disregarded Nobuko and Motoko’s opinions. Still watching Vera’s face, Nikolai slowly lit a cigarette. He showed no intention of addressing the two Japanese women. When Nikolai had taken a couple of puffs, Vera—

“I’m bored.” Having said that, she made a movement as if gently stretching her slender frame. Nobuko looked at Vera Kemper with startled eyes. Vera’s words were spoken in a tone that blurred whether she found conversing with Nobuko and Motoko tedious or meant life itself had grown dull. Nikolai, leaning against the door with his weight shifted onto one long leg while smoking a cigarette, gazed at her with that look movie actors affect—peering from beneath one arched eyebrow.

“You might as well go watch some acrobatics or something,” he said. “...I’ve grown tired of acrobatics too—we Muscovites watch far too much of them as it is.” Vera’s remark about seeing too much acrobatics also sounded symbolic to Nobuko. In reality, there was only one theater in Moscow that performed acrobatics— Nobuko lowered the terrier puppy from her lap onto the divan. Then, in Japanese to Motoko: “Shouldn’t we head back soon?”

she said.

“Let’s do that.”

At that point, Nobuko and Motoko returned from Vera Kemper’s house.

On their way back, Nobuko asked Motoko: “When she said ‘I’m bored,’ was that directed at us?”

she asked. "Well... I suppose that's what she meant."

Motoko seemed to dismiss it as merely another of Vera Kemper’s literary poses, surprisingly paying little heed. Tonight, after some time had passed, when Nobuko finished reading a book with Motoko and recalled that scene again during their idle chat—how Vera had coquettishly appealed to Nikolai while keeping them both before her, how she had stared fixedly into Nikolai’s eyes while lamenting that writing was difficult, how she had declared herself bored—none of it returned to Nobuko with any pleasantness. In that atmosphere, there had been something that felt unnatural to them. What could they have done differently to prevent the Kempers from creating such an atmosphere? This question became entangled in Nobuko’s mind with the memory of being propositioned by Polinyak. Had she been different in some way, might Polinyak not have propositioned her like that? Nobuko began doodling on her open notebook with a pencil—hemp leaf patterns and incomprehensible circular connections.

The gentle yet stubborn angular face of Novikov-Privoy—with his seal-like mustache, whom she had met at the recent Japanese literature evening—came to mind.

That evening, the Privoy couple were seated immediately to Nobuko’s left. Novikov asked Nobuko if she knew a woman named Ohana-san. During the Russo-Japanese War, Novikov had been taken prisoner by Japan and was in Kumamoto, Kyushu. The Japanese girl who had been kind to him at that time was apparently named Ohana-san. In the Novikov household, the name Ohana-san seemed to have become a semi-legendary figure connected to his tumultuous past, and his wife in her white silk blouse chimed in from beside him,

“He’s absolutely determined to go back to Japan once more and meet Ohana-san,” she said with a laugh. “I have an obligation to properly thank Ohana-san,” he said. When the Kronstadt sailors staged a rebellion and they were implicated, the Privoy couple lived in exile in England until 1917 and spoke English. Due to Moscow’s housing shortage and lacking a settled study in his own home, Privoy was writing a novel titled *Tsushima* at the newly established “House of Creation” on Moscow’s outskirts.

While thickly tracing doodles of circles stacked like stone walls, Nobuko wondered whether that Privoy would ever try to proposition her, even if drunk. That was unimaginable. In Privoy, one could sense a character that made such imaginings impossible to sustain. However, both Polinyak and Privoy belonged to the same Russian Proletarian Writers' Union— "So what exactly defines a proletarian writer?"

After translating and explaining it to Nobuko, Motoko continued reading alone. “What do you mean ‘what kind’... What exactly are you asking?” Without looking up from the book’s pages, she flicked cigarette ash with her fingertip and asked in return.

“What I mean—perhaps ‘criteria’ is the word—the very idea of what defines such a thing.” “That’s self-evident, isn’t it?” Motoko answered in a voice tinged with irritation. “Isn’t a proletarian writer one who stands on the working class’s position?” “Well yes, but…” Nobuko thought that among writers who began after the revolution, even those called proletarian writers included some who belonged to that group through mere happenstance.

“Isn’t Polinyak like that too? Even if someone happened to be born into a non-wealthy class during the revolution, carried sacks of potatoes during the civil war, rode evacuation trains all over the place, and got *Naked Year* recognized... Proletarian writers aren’t about literary talent, are they?” “That’s precisely why Lunacharsky has cause for concern—‘possess the avant-garde’s eyes,’ as they say—” Nobuko suddenly wondered—if she had been a female worker from Japan, someone working in a factory or similar place—how Polinyak would have acted under the same circumstances. And Vera Kemper too. After all, had Vera hinted that they were uninteresting guests by saying, “I’m bored”?

The Japanese government did not grant everyone equal freedom to travel to the Soviet Union; consequently, those who could come openly were always either semi-official Japanese with special purposes or else half-baked cultural figures like Nobuko and her ilk. But even if—by some means—a female worker had come to Moscow... Nobuko intuitively realized that toward someone like that, neither Polinyak nor Kemper would ever have acted as they had toward her. Even were she a working woman—no matter how softly she might pronounce her words with lingering "nye" or "maguu" sounds, no matter how petite her frame might be in that characteristically Japanese way, small enough to be easily lifted by some hulking drunk—Polinyak would never have propositioned her as he had done to Nobuko. That female worker, even if from Japan, would through her laborer status have been connected to Soviet workers as a whole. To proposition such a woman would have been equivalent to propositioning any Soviet female worker—a preference regarding which the Soviet working people did not share Polinyak's views. Polinyak knew workers didn't remain silent when their female comrades were propositioned. Vera Kemper too must have shared this psychology that Polinyak operated under, despite their differing circumstances.

Nobuko blackened the scribbles until the notebook paper was about to tear.

People like that were servile in a certain sense. As she thought about Polinyak and Kemper, Nobuko arrived at this conclusion. They couldn't help but employ minds that flattered the proletariat. Of course, Nobuko was no female worker. But her not being a female worker didn't mean she had to be servile toward Polinyak, Kemper, or the Soviet working people. Since coming to Moscow, the working-class people and their various organizations had ignored Nobuko. Unless she approached them first, they wouldn't seek her out themselves. That was completely natural, Nobuko thought. Even though she'd absorbed a wealth of new sensibilities from Moscow life, there was nothing within her worth learning for these people. There might be novelty. There might even be a vague fondness. But being ignored versus joining the servile ranks—weren't these clearly separate matters?

—— With her hair closely cropped and her freshly white nape exposed under the electric light, Nobuko continued her doodling endlessly.

Nine

Around eleven o'clock the morning after a thick fog had descended over Moscow, when Nobuko left the hotel to mail letters, she was astonished to find every horse coming and going along Tverskaya Street sporting icicle beards. From a windless winter sky, the sun poured its glitter onto the snowy streets, making the horses' icy beards and manes sparkle. It was not only horses that walked adorned with icicles. The short beards of male pedestrians had turned crisply white, and the hair falling across the cheeks of women—bundles of blond or chestnut locks—were wrapped in thin threads of ice, now pure white.

Entering the tree-lined avenue, Nobuko felt as though she had wandered deep into the embrace of a frost-flowered forest. Until yesterday, the linden trees lining the avenue had merely borne frozen snow on their bare black branches; this morning, they had blossomed with delicate frost flowers even at the tips of their finest twigs. Each linden tree wrapped in frost flowers appeared larger than usual, shrouded in endless sparkle as they bent toward each other from both sides of the wide avenue, merging with the dazzling sky. The figures of pedestrians below appeared smaller, darker, and more distant than usual.

When February passed mid-month, Moscow’s severe winter began to thaw toward spring in this manner, seemingly out of nowhere. The winter season, once frozen solid and blanketed in white, began to sense spring—rising as evening mist on certain nights or alighting as frost flowers on branches on certain mornings. As this occurred, the natural harmonies that stirred passion in the people of northern lands permeated Nobuko and her companions’ sensibilities.

Around that time, Nobuko and Motoko began spending several days each week walking through various districts and alleyways of Moscow City. The two of them began searching for a room to rent. After nearly three months of hotel living, the monotony began to weigh on them. They wanted to reach more directly into the depths of Moscow life seething with chaotic turbulence. To do so, they had no choice but to find a room in a private household.

The first house they went to see with Maria Gregorievna’s assistance was located considerably far into the suburbs from the city center by bus. At one end of a vacant lot—reached after walking twenty minutes along a desolate snow-covered road through sparse woods beyond the bus stop—stood a new Russian-style log-built house. Here, the interior rooms too had exposed logs, and the flooring remained unfinished. In the bare room stood a single unpainted wooden square table. The housewife who showed them the room was an imposing, large-framed woman around forty, her hair wrapped in a white kerchief edged with narrow lace trim. She stood at the doorway with arms crossed over her heavy chest, her large, piercing eyes seeming to declare that behind her broad back lay concealed all the survival stratagems honed since the New Economic Policy of 1921. Appraising the fabric of Nobuko and Motoko’s coats and their fur trimmings with dagger-like glances, she explained in a cheerfully booming voice about the area’s fine air and former scenic fields, then quoted a monthly rent that was hardly cheap for the suburbs.

Not a single piece of furniture had been brought in, and from the window of that newly built log room—which reeked of cheap perfume—they could see a hollow where a few scrawny willows grew twisted. Now, it was indeed a field-like expanse entirely blanketed in white snow, but when the snow eventually melted, it became clear that beneath lay a vast garbage dump. Nobuko, while gazing at such scenery outside the window,

“Here, I’d be scared walking back from the theater at night. There weren’t any streetlights here,” Nobuko said. For one reason, this large-framed, sharp-eyed, teasingly cheerful housewife had made them intuit the severity of budgeting that daunted Nobuko and the others.

The fact that returning from the theater at night was frightening for women alone due to the long walk was something even the sharp-eyed housewife acknowledged. Maria Gregorievna—who had been entrusted by Nobuko and Motoko with what was considered Moscow’s most challenging task, finding a room—had finally obtained an address through some connection and, without knowing anything about the place herself, brought Nobuko and Motoko to see it.

As they left that house and made their way back along the snowy road to the bus, Nobuko thought that their life in Moscow was gradually drawing closer to the very entrails of Muscovite daily life. Moscow's entrails—with hues, undulations, and occasional stench and fever not discernible from Red Square or Tverskaya Street alone—were caught in the gears of history.

The street of the Vakhtangov Theater had alleyways branching like a web. One late afternoon, Nobuko and her two companions followed an address into a dead-end alley flanked by an imposing brown stone wall. The rental room occupied the basement of a soot-blackened two-story brick house at the alley's terminus. Opening the door beside the stairwell corridor revealed a space that gathered all the building's dimness and dampness into one oppressive chamber. For reasons unknown, both panes of its double window had been whitewashed shut. This gave the murky room the maimed quality of a disfigured thing. Through narrow unpainted slits in the glass showed the trunk of an elm tree standing slightly apart from the wall behind it - brown stone pressing close through frosted gaps. In that lightless hollow where no direct sun ever reached stood a pale woman wrapped in a moth-eaten brown shawl, her hunger-bright eyes locking onto Nobuko's group as she

“If you wish, I can also provide meals,” said the landlady earnestly. “I have some experience in cooking... and the market here has reasonably priced goods with plenty of variety...”

In the landlady’s fragmented words—her way of speaking like someone tugging at a coat—there lay the genuine plea of a person truly in need of rent money. After standing in that room for a while, there came a sense that somewhere in this house lay a long-bedridden patient who was straining every nerve toward these negotiations from an unseen place. Even if they were to endure this room, there was only one bed that Nobuko and the others could rent, and there was no additional cot there.

When they returned to the hotel after walking through such places, the cleanliness of the small-scale Passage and the simple rationality of its facilities felt newly refreshing. “When you look at it this way, finding a decent room isn’t easy at all, is it?” Motoko said while taking a deep drag on her cigarette. “In Moscow today, those who would rent rooms to foreigners are either hard-nosed types like that log cabin landlady, or else people who only have rooms like today’s—rooms so pitiful they make you worry about your health.”

Nobuko stared fixedly at Motoko, her expression contorted as if something deep within her ached. Having walked all over searching for rooms, Nobuko now witnessed up close how Moscow still retained poverty and cunning as humanity's age-old misfortunes. "Let's keep looking a bit longer. Okay?"

Nobuko said earnestly, "In Moscow, are those who rent rooms to foreigners truly only dubious characters or people left behind by the times? I want to know." "Well, we'll keep looking—we're truly searching—"

Motoko—who since her college days at women’s university had experience searching for rental houses and rooms—was silent in thought for a while, but— “Maybe we should try placing an advertisement, Nobuko-chan,” she said.

“In the Moscow evening paper or something—that might actually help us find a decent one.” “Let’s check the place we’re scheduled to see the day after tomorrow first—if that doesn’t work out, then we’ll place an advertisement.”

On the day after next, the three went to a small, compact house on Bronnaya Street. The yellow paint on its exterior walls had aged and peeled, and from outside one could see a potted cactus placed in the shadow of the double window frames.

The round-faced woman past thirty who answered the doorbell made Nobuko wonder if they had come to a stage door entrance. She had styled her blackish bob-cut into a head full of frothy curls like film actress Nazimova playing Camille. Her jersey outfit looked unfamiliar in Moscow, with red Caucasus leather house slippers completing the ensemble. Dressed in this fashion, the landlady looked at Nobuko and the others,

“Good day,” the landlady said in French. “Please, do come in,” she continued in French. Addressing Maria Gregorievna in Russian, she asked, “Are these ladies trying to rent a room together?” “Yes, that’s right, of course,” Maria Gregorievna replied. She opened her honest brown eyes wide with an embarrassed look and added, “They can speak Russian sufficiently. Please speak with them directly.”

she said with a face that made the tip of her round nose shine even more.

“Oh my! That’s delightful! I’ve rarely encountered foreign ladies who don’t consider Russian barbaric.” Nobuko and the others sat in the armchairs covered in chintz fabric.

“This room, you see, offers such a refreshing view outside.” “I’ve kept it as my private study all along, but—” The landlady tilted her frothy-curled head slightly, trailed off her words, then cast a coquettish look that seemed to entrust the rest to their imagination. “—How fortunate I’d be to share living quarters with cultured individuals like yourselves.” Two high-quality spring beds, a wardrobe, a study desk and other furnishings could reportedly be arranged immediately.

"I have certain conveniences at my disposal..." "Moreover, as I've engaged a part-time helper who comes by regularly, I can provide meals if you wish." "It would be white meat or chicken—you see, both my daughter and I have delicate constitutions and can only tolerate white meat..." When the landlady said this, Maria Gregorievna blinked rapidly. The more airily the landlady spoke, the further Motoko lowered her already subdued voice.

“So—about this furniture you’ll be putting in the room—are you covering the costs?” While beginning to take out a cigarette, she inquired with an amused gaze. “Oh my—that would require further discussion.” Maintaining an innocent air while using masculine grammatical forms for every Russian reference to “foreigners,” Motoko continued: “Moscow must be teeming with foreigners seeking rooms. With such a fine space, surely some would come even providing their own furniture...”

"...surely some would come even if they had to provide their own furniture," Motoko said. The landlady, with an expression that showed no awareness of Motoko having spoken of foreigners in the masculine form, “I have such trouble refusing,” she said. “In proper households, choosing who to live with is quite difficult, you see. I’ve dedicated my life to my daughter’s education.” The landlady twisted her body toward the door behind her and intoned her voice as if calling someone far away,

“Irina!”

she called out. As if waiting for it, the door opened immediately. A girl of about eight, wearing a red dress with an overly short skirt and tightly rolled curls cascading over her shoulders, appeared. “This is my daughter Irina. She takes ballet lessons from a teacher at the Bolshoi Theatre—authentic classical Italian-style ballet. Now then, sweet Irina, won’t you greet our guests?” Then the girl called Irina—as if responding to an encore on stage—beamed brightly, gathered her red dress’s skirt at both sides, deeply drew one leg back, bent her knee, and executed a curtsy. It clearly resembled a rehearsed routine; the landlady watched with bated breath as the girl slowly bent her knee, placed her remaining foot turned outward in dancer fashion, then returned to her original posture.

Maria Gregorievna praised, “That was beautifully done.”

Maria Gregorievna praised. The landlady, remaining seated on a low chair, looked up at her standing daughter; the daughter, still standing, gazed at her mother’s face—and at Maria Gregorievna’s praise, they exchanged satisfied smiles. The daughter withdrew to the other side of the door. “Well, what should we do, Nobuko-chan?”

Motoko consulted in Japanese.

"The location is good... but don't you think it's a bit overly complicated?" "I just can't bring myself to praise that child." "The location is convenient for us, and the room is nice, but after all, we are travelers."

Motoko explained while dividing her gaze equally between the landlady and Maria Gregorievna.

“It’s impossible for us to take on the burden of furnishing it ourselves.”

Tilting her head of frizzy curls slightly, the landlady assumed an innocent look of surprise. "Why ever not? When we purchase furniture, it always means that it can be sold again, you see." “And in reality, we don’t call something furniture if it can’t be exchanged at a good price.” Maria Gregorievna,

"In any case, an immediate answer would be difficult for both of us," Maria Gregorievna intervened and proposed. "What if we allow about two days' grace before giving our answer? Let's settle on that."

Looking back at the landlady in her red house slippers, "In the meantime, you may very well find tenants who better meet your requirements."

"That will be acceptable."

The curly-haired landlady rose from her chair with a posture that slightly thrust out her chest—the practiced mediation of someone accustomed to social dealings. "Then in two days—" "Please—Irina would be so delighted if we could live together."

The entrance door closed quietly yet firmly behind the three people. They walked in silence along the old-fashioned Bronnaya Street—empty of pedestrians—toward the tree-lined avenue. "What must 1917 have meant for women like that?" Maria Gregorievna hunched her shoulders within her maroon coat, its black fur trim showing signs of wear.

“I’ve come to understand that the type of woman who appears on Moscow’s stages isn’t an exaggeration after all.—You agree, don’t you?” When they exited Bronnaya Street and came to a fork, Motoko stopped on the snow-covered pavement. “Since we’ve come this far, why don’t we stop by the embassy and check for letters?”

The back side of the house they had gone to inspect was exactly where the embassy stood. Maria Gregorievna proceeded straight toward Nikitsky Gate to board the tram home.

Once they were alone, they circled around to the back of Futamata-dori. Nobuko began to speak. "That was quite something!" Nobuko said this and took a deep breath. "French—how was it?" "—She's a mistress."

Assertively, Motoko said. "The reason she doesn't keep a man around is because whoever's managing her affairs makes too much fuss." "There's no way we could endure living in such an irritating house." "If we stayed there, I can't imagine how many times a day we'd have to compliment her daughter."

Motoko seemed more interested in the lives of men who kept such women in Moscow. “Given that woman’s demeanor, the man can’t possibly be a politician,” she said. “He must be what you’d call an industrialist.” “Industrialists—you mean they exist here?” Nobuko asked. “Here?” “There are trusts and syndicates and such, aren’t there?” “……” The embassy with its gatekeeper’s lodge stood as a gloomy brown building beneath snow-laden trees that day too. On New Year’s Day, there had been a greeting ceremony for Japanese residents followed by a modest reception. The grand reception hall where guests gathered had been decorated with a luxury unimaginable from the building’s drab exterior. When first constructing this house, its owner—likely one of Moscow’s wealthy men—had probably sought to enjoy the sharp contrast between the severe winter’s white snow during social season and sleigh bells’ jingling. The main entrance was fully decorated in Egyptian style. Two thick ocher columns with bulging middles bore papyrus hieroglyphs painted in vermilion, green, and yellow, while surrounding walls matching the columns’ pale ocher depicted two Egyptians through bas-relief effects. Beyond a single hallway lay a French-style drawing room, while the grand dining hall featured high wooden wainscoting suited to English tastes.

The staircase leading up to the office to retrieve letters was inside a brown door separate from the main entrance. In the corridor outside the office stood a cabinet with partitioned compartments like post office boxes, each bearing affixed names of residents. Nobuko peered into the compartment labeled with her surname. In that instant, she was struck by an inexplicably abnormal sensation. That day, for some reason, the compartment lay empty of its usual clutter of rolled newspapers and magazines—at the bare bottom rested a single water-blue square envelope, perfectly flat. The address on its face showed Takedayo's handwriting. Within that partition, the thick azure envelope felt unnervingly animate. It seemed not merely alive but emotionally present there. Nobuko stared at it with peculiar intensity before plucking the letter from its compartment like capturing a living thing. Exposed to outside light, it revealed itself as merely thick paper—nothing extraordinary.

Returning to the hotel, the two finished dinner slightly early. That evening, they were scheduled to watch "Roar, China!" at the Meyerhold Theater. “Let’s take a sleigh, shall we?” “A sleigh? A sleigh... That’s extravagant!” “But the snow will melt soon! Then we won’t be able to ride one until next year—and who knows if we’ll even be in Moscow to ride a sleigh next winter?” Having completed her preparations to go out by putting on her coat, Nobuko stood beside the table with a gaudy scarf hanging loose and opened the water-blue envelope she had retrieved from the embassy that afternoon. From the first line of the practical stationery ruled with vertical lines, Takedayo’s nearly illegible cursive script cascaded over her today not like tangled threads, but like a scalding waterfall.

"I have just received your letter - with what joy and anticipation did I look upon this long-awaited correspondence from my dear daughter in a foreign land to her younger brother. However, my warm expectations were utterly betrayed. Just how cruel can you be?"

When she had written to Tamotsu previously, Nobuko had been in a clearly confrontational emotional state toward Takedayo. Nevertheless, when faced with Takedayo’s characteristic manner of expression, Nobuko bit her lip. Takedayo—agitatedly seizing a fountain pen in her diamond-glittering hand and sitting at her usual spot at the dining table to immediately begin writing—seemed to loom before Nobuko’s eyes across thousands of kilometers through the set of her shoulders. Between Tamotsu and herself, there was indeed the barrier she had imagined. The letter had been clearly addressed to Tamotsu alone, yet Takedayo had opened it and read it first. And regarding what Nobuko had written about the greenhouse built for Tamotsu’s high school entrance celebration, she launched into an attack on Nobuko without the slightest regard for how Tamotsu himself might feel about it.

With impassioned prose, Takedayo emphatically argued how Tamotsu, unlike the youth of today, remained pure-hearted and devoid of selfish pleasures. “By what right do you criticize the greenhouse that brings him his sole comfort? As both a human being and a mother, I feel an indignation I cannot suppress. You are a cruel person. The cruel blood flowing through the Sassa lineage—the same blood that has tormented me for years—courses through your heart as well. And you—in your life since coming to Russia—”

Having read that far, Nobuko felt the impulse to crush the letter. What a way to phrase it, Takedayo. Ever since Nobuko married Tsukuda—from the very moment of marriage—and then when she divorced and began living with Yoshimi Motoko—from cohabitation onward—people had persistently accused her of growing cold-hearted. Were Takedayo to come to Russia, she would concentrate all her prejudices and preconceptions into a single point to declare that since coming here, Nobuko had become even more callous. For Takedayo, it seemed there had never existed a time when Nobuko was warm-hearted. To Takedayo, the only temperament not cruel must have been one like Tamotsu’s. Nobuko turned pale and clutched the unread letter awhile before finally setting it down quietly on the table. With a stillness more saturated with disgust than if she had flung it away.

—

On the stage of the Meyerhold Theater was a large warship's deck. A European naval officer in white uniform berated a young attendant in shabby cotton clothes with a queue down his back, knocked him down, and kicked his supple body. Thus hatred accumulated. Roar, China! But why was Takedayo so skilled at provoking hatred like that? The thought flashed through Nobuko's mind as she watched from the dim audience seats. "The cruel blood that flows through the Sassa family's bloodline"—if this blood flowed within her too, then whose doing was it that made this blood pass to her? And through what act? Which of the children could have participated in Takedayo's such deeds? The stage now lay in gloom. Pale smoky light intensely focused on one corner of the ship's hold. There lay the corpse of the young attendant who had been kicked and died by hanging. The boy hadn't been kicked just today. Not yesterday nor the day before—from the day his labor began, from when he first came under a commander's authority, the boy's terror had taken root. Endless terror and despair toward tomorrows without end had driven the young attendant to hang himself. That same terror now trembled through the queue-haired people huddled in the ship's hold. It quivered through vast hordes of gray overworked laborers at the wharves. This massive terror verged on becoming hatred. Hatred was preparing to transition from emotion to organized action. Roar, China!

Their hatred stood great within history’s annals. In the audience seats, Nobuko felt a faint shudder and wrapped her arms around her chest. "I wonder which people lead harder lives—those in your country or those in mine." Dr.Rin had said this in her slow, soft voice—the Chinese woman scholar. That conversation had occurred in one of the Metropolitan’s peculiar rooms. Compared to the hatred now blazing across Meyerhold’s stage like wildfire—illuminating every spectator’s face with its bonfire glow—the hatred Nobuko harbored seemed antiquated and trifling. It clung to family ties and bloodlines. "Cruel blood flows through your heart too." "And you—through your life in Russia—" What did Russia hold? What would become of Nobuko? A great hatred beyond Takedayo’s petty judgments had overflowed into action on that stage. Through truth’s lingering radiance, even Nobuko’s meager hatred gained visceral clarity.

Two days had passed.

The day came to give their answer to the landlady on Bronnaya Street about the rental room.

“Nobuko-chan, go turn them down for me.” When they finished their morning tea, Motoko said this to Nobuko, who was clearing the table. “Because of the furniture condition?” “That’s right—didn’t you say even you couldn’t afford furniture?” “But will I be able to explain it properly...the wording...” “Does it matter? As long as they understand we’re refusing...” Meanwhile, Motoko wrote a room-wanted advertisement at the desk for the Moskovsky Vechernaya Gazeta. She described the seekers as two foreign women.

“How’s this for a rough draft?”

"If we wrote 'two foreign women,' I feared landlords might overestimate our financial means and send letters proposing rental conditions we couldn’t possibly meet," Nobuko hesitated, looking down at the scrap of paper. “Is this okay…”

She hesitated, looking down at the scrap of paper. "If we say 'foreign women,' doesn't it make people imagine us wearing fur coats or something?"

Motoko silently took two or three puffs of her cigarette while gazing at the text she had written, then pressed the draft paper into Nobuko’s hand. “It’s fine, it’s fine.”

She pressed the draft scrap into Nobuko’s hand as she stood beside her. “We are foreign women after all—I must say even our coats are fur-lined. The only difference is whether the fur’s on the inside or the outside.”

Nobuko left the hotel. In front of the construction site of the Central Post Office facing the hotel entrance across snow-covered pavement stood a large truck where steel materials were being unloaded. A Red Army sentry watched this work—the hem of his winter coat grazing deep snow—as steel beams were carried inside. Five older laborers wearing knee-high felt boots and short leather coats with wool linings hanging in tangled clumps labored at moving heavy beams between nose-wiping pauses.

After standing for a while on this side of the sidewalk watching them slowly lift and carry heavy beams while occasionally wiping their noses between tasks, Nobuko walked off toward Bronnaya Street. The house, with traces of yellow remaining on its aged exterior walls and low windows facing the sidewalk, today once again displayed a potted cactus in its window. As expected, with her head full of swirling curls but appearing today without makeup, the landlady led Nobuko to the entrance hallway. Using the simplest words she could muster, Nobuko declined to rent the room, explaining that their financial situation didn't allow them to buy furniture.

“Very well. Understood.” “(Khorosho... Ponyatno.)” The landlady replied in a curt, clipped tone utterly unlike the affected manner she had used when first showing the room to Maria Gregorievna and Motoko—a bureaucratic two-phrase response of the sort common in government offices. After a brief silence, she gave a slight shake of her curly head, as if attempting to stir up her own spirits,

“Ничего.” she said. "I thought you were with the diplomatic corps again."

Why had she thought that? As Nobuko stood there silently facing slightly upward while pondering this, the curly-haired landlady momentarily let her gaze—charged with entirely different thoughts—fall upon Nobuko's face. But as if suddenly catching herself, “Well then, goodbye.” The landlady reached out her hand toward Nobuko. “Goodbye.” When Nobuko closed the door and stepped into the snowy thoroughfare, she felt a pang of pity—this woman too must have genuinely wanted to rent out the room deep down. Like an actor on stage maintaining various costumed expressions day after day, her true self remained steeped in unease. Recalling how the landlady had uttered “nichevo”—more to herself than to Nobuko—Nobuko walked toward the Moskovsky Vechernaya Gazeta office.

When she reached the Nikitsky Gate, a streetcar was just passing by the tree-lined avenue, its roof displaying a white circular destination number. Because of this, through traffic had been blocked. On the sidewalk right beside Nobuko, a Chinese woman was selling balls embroidered with dark red and yellow threads, bouncing them on elastic cords she had hung up. As she watched the balls springing rhythmically, Nobuko suddenly thought of something. She turned around, retraced her path to the fork in the road, took the left branch, and passed through the embassy's gloomy maroon gate.

She ascended to the second floor where the office was located and peered into the corridor's mailbox. Nobuko's hunch was correct. Newspapers and magazines bound with thin string lay in a partitioned shelf labeled "Sassa". Since the Trans-Siberian Railway only ran on fixed days each week, it had been impossible for a single letter from Taketai to arrive separately like it did two days prior. Nobuko gathered up all mail from the shelf with sudden urgency. Descending step by step while loosening the string binding them, she checked what magazines had come. Chūō Kōron, which she'd had sent continuously since arriving in Moscow. Fujin Kōron. Among them she discovered a large international postcard that appeared to have slipped inside. Tamotsu's handwriting.

Nobuko hurried down the dimly lit stairwell with high walls and stepped outside. Standing by the fence of the embassy garden where deep snow buried the linden tree roots, she began to read the postcard. While reading, Nobuko unconsciously brushed the surface of the postcard a couple of times with her brown leather-gloved fingertips. Tamotsu's handwriting, as always, was a thin and faint pen script with delicate strokes. The small, evenly spaced characters frayed across the postcard that had been rubbed raw by its long journey—legible enough, yet frustratingly difficult for Nobuko to read with the intensity she wished to bring to them.

"Sis, thank you for writing me that letter." It began with those words. Nobuko thought, Thank goodness. Taketai had opened, read, and angrily returned the letter Nobuko wrote to Tamotsu as if it were perfectly natural. Yet she hadn’t hidden Nobuko’s letter from Tamotsu. That was just like Taketai’s way of doing things. "I read your letter again and again. Even now before starting this reply, I read it twice more. And I believe what you say is right. That you’d still think of me this much—though you’ve gone abroad and live an utterly different life—I was truly astonished."

In the simply expressed words, Tamotsu’s feelings—his renewed reflections on their relationship as sister and brother—came through clearly to Nobuko. "What you wrote about the greenhouse wasn’t simply meant to scold or reprimand me. Nor are you criticizing having had the greenhouse built for me. I understand that very well. You were only trying to make me aware of broader social relations."

Nobuko began to tear up. The tone of Tamotsu’s writing was grave and earnest; not only did it reveal a sincere heart striving to properly understand what his sister Nobuko was saying, but one could also sense Tamotsu’s own strongly strained will to have those around him confirm the validity of his interpretation. Tamotsu’s manner of writing evoked the scene of debate that had erupted in the dining room of the Ugakubo house over that single letter Nobuko had written.

"I had never once considered the greenhouse in the way you did." "I find this deeply shameful." A line had been drawn beside the final sentence. Using the same thin, faint pen strokes with which he wrote, he had added: "I find this deeply shameful." Nobuko felt Tamotsu's face—with its swollen eyelids shaded by youthful downy hair, his habit of sniffing through his nose when deep in thought—and the large knees protruding from his shrunken uniform trousers materialize before her in the snow where she stood reading. "I find this deeply shameful." —And Nobuko felt a single line being drawn through her own heart too. "I find this shameful," he had written. When Nobuko had penned that impassioned letter to Tamotsu, could she have imagined it would etch a line through his heart—as clearly as wheel tracks pressed into soft, fathomless black soil?

The door of the guardhouse beside the gate opened. The guard in a greatcoat started coming toward the garden where Nobuko was standing. When the guard realized that the person there was Nobuko, whom he occasionally saw,

“Good afternoon.”

Touching the brim of his cold-weather cap with his fingertips. And, while casting a glance at the postcard Nobuko was reading, he passed by. In the direction opposite the guard, toward the embassy gate, Nobuko also began to walk. While walking, she finished reading the postcard. "As for the greenhouse, since someone went through the trouble of having it built, I want to use it in a way that will make everyone happy. This summer, I want to grow melons and have Father, Mother, and everyone else at home eat them." At the end of the postcard written in that manner, having finally found some blank space,

"I want to write more letters to you, Sis." That single line was written in characters even smaller than the main text. The postcard contained nothing more.

In front of the benches along the tree-lined avenue, baby carriages stood lined up in abundance, their occupants sunbathing. On the promenade, small children played tag with abandon—woolen scarves neatly tied over their coats from behind—darting about and nearly colliding with passersby. With a gentle, pensive expression, Nobuko walked toward the square housing the Moscow Evening News office, carefully guiding aside each child who threatened to bump into her as she went. I want to write more letters to you, Sis. What did Tamotsu mean by that? Could it mean he'd been wanting to write more all along? Or that from now on he wished to write more frequently?

After completing her errand of placing an advertisement at the Moscow Evening News and emerging onto Tverskaya Street while returning to the hotel, Nobuko kept thinking about that matter incessantly. If it were simply that Tamotsu wanted to write more letters to her from now on, she could have smoothly accepted it based on the fraternal feelings contained in his letter. But if this meant his desire to correspond had been conveyed all along, then Nobuko couldn't help inferring Taketai's instructions at work—even in the fact that Tamotsu's message today had come on a postcard. Since he was sending it to his sister in a foreign country full of people who couldn't read the script, perhaps he had written such directly heartfelt words on a postcard. But if you're writing a reply to your sister, put it on a postcard. And show it before sending it, understand? It wasn't that Taketai hadn't said such things to Tamotsu.

Nobuko returned to the silent daytime hotel room where Motoko was also out. Sunlight from across the way, passing through the steel-framed roof, struck the double-paned windows, reaching to the edge of the corner table. Having set down the bundle of mail she had carried back on the table, Nobuko slowly removed her gloves and was taking off her coat when her eyes fell upon a folded white paper lying among the stack of books. That was Taketai's letter. It was Taketai's letter - the one Nobuko had placed there after reading only up to the line "You, who in your life since coming to Russia-", trembling with revulsion that kept her from reading another word beyond it. The letter taken from the envelope lay there, its thick folds swelling as the edges of layered stationery splayed open.

In the bright, quiet hotel room, sadness spread through Nobuko’s chest as she undid her coat buttons. Tamotsu’s heart was too tender. That tenderness made her feel the coarseness of her own heart. When Nobuko had expressed her convictions to Tamotsu—firmly believing in the rightness of her views—she now reflected on the vigor and eloquence she hadn’t realized she’d shown at the time, filling her with a secret yet piercing shame. Taketai’s eloquence—which sapped even Nobuko’s willingness to accept it—lay exposed there as a letter on the desk. Contemplating Tamotsu’s heart, tender to the point of sorrowfulness, Nobuko felt herself confronting a vision: Taketai’s fiercely possessive love for Tamotsu on one side, and herself—Taketai’s daughter—on the other, resembling her mother all too closely in that love’s intensity and ferocity.

Having removed her coat and now clad in a light-blue blouse, Nobuko rose again from where she had briefly been sitting on the sofa and began pacing back and forth across the cleanly polished brown floor.

The tenderness of Tamotsu’s heart made Nobuko feel the coarseness of her own heart’s texture, and through this, even feel ashamed. The aspects she disliked in Taketai compelled her to recognize their presence within herself. Yet even so, being struck by the tenderness of Tamotsu’s heart, Nobuko had never imagined yielding her own way of life to his path, nor could she conceive of compromising with Taketai’s way of living because of him.

Stopping before the double window, Nobuko pressed her forehead against the inner glass where the faint warmth of Moscow’s winter sunlight lingered, and while gazing at the thinly soiled snow frozen in the shadow of black steel frames, she felt a scene take shape within her heart. It was the surface of the sea. The surface of the sea glittered under delicate sunlight, grew faintly cloudy whenever clouds passed over, and was pure and brimming with life. Beyond that lay a cliff. The top of the cliff was thick with green grass, and the same sunlight that shone over the sea bathed both that green grass and the cliff’s midsection while its base was washed by the sea. Night and day, the base of the cliff was washed by the sea, and the sea raised waves because of that cliff. But the cliff was not the sea, and the sea was not the cliff. Yet wrapped in a single natural light, they existed that way.

Whether it was the sea or the cliff that held such qualities, Nobuko couldn't discern, but she felt the presence of both herself and Tamotsu there. The term "mediation faction," she realized with startling clarity upon this mental seascape, was a label bestowed by those who would never themselves require mediation. Tamotsu had been called an idiot by his classmates—she'd once overheard in their Dōzaka parlor—reviled as a born member of that mediating group. Back then, she'd understood the epithet solely in terms of his intellectual tendencies. Now she grasped that his friends must have meant it comprehensively—not just his reasoning, but that heartbreaking tenderness intrinsic to his being, a softness threatening to divert youthful convictions from their single-minded paths. To those friends, this very tenderness proved intolerable. Yet what could Tamotsu possibly do about such tenderness in his own heart...

Nobuko stood for a long time before the hotel's double windows, through which she could see the soiled snow of late February Moscow—its once-swollen drifts now diminished.

Chapter Two

1

It was a truly narrow room. If Vera Kemper’s description of her own residence—narrow and deep like an eel’s bed where she and her husband lived—as “a crack between Moscow’s walls” was apt, then the room Nobuko and Motoko found on the third floor of a building at the corner of Astozhenka could be said to be a “gap dwelling between Moscow’s walls and windows.”

The rental rooms that Maria Gregorievna and the three of them had walked all over searching for had no livable places, but surprisingly, there were three responses to the room wanted advertisement they had placed in the Moscow Evening News. One was from a landlord on the other side of the Moskva River. One was located down the entire length of Tverskaya Street, near Vorontsovsky Park. The last response was from a man named F. Lyubakov at Astozhenka 1-chome.

“Strange. It just says Astozhenka without specifying a town or anything. I wonder which area it’s in.”

The letter was written on a carelessly torn scrap of yellow paper with a chemical pencil whose marks, when rubbed or moistened, would rise to the surface like purple ink and remain indelible. It was a message written in masculine script, stating simply that there was a room at their place that met your conditions and that they could show it to you. Motoko, who had been hunched over the table examining a Moscow city map as if cross-referencing it with the spread-out letter,

“Hmm… So this place has such a name here.” “Nobuko-chan!” “The location couldn’t be more ideal!” Looking at the map from Hotel Passage where Nobuko and the others were staying, they would exit to Okhotny Ryad, keep right past the Kremlin’s outer ramparts, and find a small delta-shaped protrusion—that was Astozhenka. “If it’s listed as 1-chome, that must mean the very edge.” According to the map’s depiction, the location seemed close to the Moskva River, with tree-lined avenues apparently nearby. These very advantages paradoxically made Nobuko and Motoko skeptical. At an angle like a quartered apple wedge, it lay within walking distance from Tverskaya. The two had combed through Moscow in multiple concentric circles around Astozhenka with Maria Gregorievna.

“Strange… Anyway, Nobuko-chan, just go take a look at what kind of place it is.” “Alone?” Hesitating, Nobuko looked at Motoko. “Anyway, go check it out like you’re taking a stroll, okay? It’s practically right there. Let’s start with the closest one first.”

About an hour had passed when Nobuko came rushing back up the hotel stairs. Without even knocking, she flung open the door to their room and— “Wait! It’s wonderful—come quickly!” With her gloves still on, she took Motoko’s coat from the wall. “I told them I’d bring my friend right away, so they’re waiting for us.” “Really?”

“Really! It absolutely won’t get away!” The two hurried out to Okhotny Ryad and boarded a streetcar from there. “Is it still far?” “The fourth.”

When they passed the Kremlin, there stood a large church on a small hill to their left, its golden dome and cross glittering atop the snow. At that streetcar stop, Nobuko and Motoko alighted from the streetcar. "Oh my! This really does look like we're at the very base of a tree-lined avenue!"

“That’s exactly it!” Excited Nobuko took the lead and turned away from the tree-lined avenue beginning immediately to their right. Motoko, wearing a brown coat and tanned hat, followed alongside her at the sidewalk’s outer edge. After walking one block, a board fence with its gate left open stood to their right—the kind commonly seen around unfinished construction sites. A large notice on the fence declared “No toilet inside.” Without warning Motoko, Nobuko abruptly entered through the gate.

“What? You want us to go in here?” When Motoko followed her inside the gate, there was a narrow vacant lot where barrels and old lumber protruded from beneath the snow. Passing through it brought them to a fairly spacious inner courtyard. Four black trodden paths lay across the snow. A new, sturdy five-story concrete building stood in a U-shape around the inner courtyard.

Nobuko, still silent, began ascending the stairs from one entrance, following the very first of the four trodden paths. Bare light bulbs were lit in the entrances and stairwells. In the corner of the concrete floor, cement bags that appeared to be left over from construction remained piled up. The handrails were also made of concrete, sturdily jutting outward. Ascending the narrow stairs, Nobuko climbed step by step in silence, her face brimming with delight at surprising Motoko. The interior of the large building, which seemed to have been constructed only a year or two prior, held a faint scent of concrete mingled with the moderate warmth from its heating system.

When she reached the third floor, Nobuko stopped in front of a door marked with a white-painted 35 on its black insulated surface. “Here it is.” “I see. No wonder you got so worked up, Nobuko-chan.” When Nobuko had come alone earlier, there had been only the large-built landlady with a Marcel wave in her hair and a navy-blue dress, and a boy of about five. This time, Luibakov himself—a round-faced man with a reddish-brown mustache and bushy eyebrows—had returned. At the entrance hung a green visored cap of the kind that all Soviet engineers wore.

According to Luibakov, the building had been constructed by the Railway Workers’ Union Housing Cooperative. “The Railway Workers’ Union remains one of the largest among Soviet labor unions—excluding chemical industries—so this building was likely among Moscow’s earliest union-built structures.” Once the ten-year annual installment plan concluded, the apartment—with its four rooms, bathroom, and shared laundry drying area—would become Luibakov’s property. Utilizing the vacant room proved advantageous both for Nobuko and Motoko’s needs and for Luibakov’s finances. Consequently, he insisted he had no intention of demanding unreasonable rent.

The four of them—Luibakov and his wife, Nobuko, and Motoko—had discussed these matters in the very room they now sought to rent and he to lease. Luibakov, with his reddish-brown mustache, stood leaning against the wardrobe to the left of the room’s entrance as he spoke. His face, not unkind, bore a faintly greedy expression. Luibakov’s large-built wife, whose Marcel wave seemed somewhat mismatched with her plain appearance, stood in the space about a meter from the foot of the bed placed vertically just inside the door. Motoko sat on another large leather-upholstered divan—doubling as a bed—that blocked the wall at a right angle to the headboard, while Nobuko sat sideways on a chair facing the divan across the long table spanning the room’s width. The small room faced the exterior of Astozhenka’s corner building, so through the window behind Nobuko lay visible the snow-covered hill and large church. Motoko’s position on the inner divan resulted less from her choice than from Nobuko and the Luibakov couple crowding in after she had gone to inspect it, leaving her trapped between divan and table. Such was the room’s cramped dimensions.

Nobuko and Motoko were precisely a section one would have to search for on a map of Moskva, but Astozhenka was a place known to its people. The large cathedral on the low hill where Nobuko had alighted from the streetcar—using its golden dome glittering in the distance as her landmark—was called Khram Khrista Spasitelya (Christ the Savior Cathedral). It had been built in 1812 after Napoleon’s retreat from Moskva to commemorate Russia’s victory. That marble of varying types had been gathered from across Russia for its grand construction; that its great dome was sheathed in genuine gold; that the tones of its six bells—large and small—rang out with exceptional beauty from its towering bell tower all the way to Moskva’s outskirts—for these reasons, this cathedral stood as one of Moskva’s renowned landmarks. Since it was said to have been built far opposite Sparrow Hills—where Napoleon reportedly stood to view Moscow burning—the Astozhenka of the early nineteenth century was likely a desolate, suburban-like quarter along the Moskva riverbank outside the Kremlin’s walls. And surely those Muscovites who came sightseeing to Khram Khrista Spasitelya would arrive along snow-laden tree-lined avenues with sleigh bells jingling, then gaze out from the cathedral’s Ural marble grand staircase—now blocked by snow—at the pure white desolation of solemn snowscapes stretching in all directions.

The hill on which Khram Khrista Spasitelya stood was surrounded by a stone parapet, with a single narrow walkway winding all around beneath it, meeting the road that descended from the cathedral’s front stone steps facing the river. Another path—the one passing before the board fence at Astozhenka 1-chome where Nobuko and her companions came and went—extended all the way near the riverbank to what seemed like a dead end, where stood the Persian Embassy building with its tiles of lively colors inlaid. The riverbanks were desolate everywhere. Moreover, around the grand staircase of Khram Khrista Spasitelya—shut in by snow and where the flow of people had ceased—the desolation was all the more profound, precisely because the view opened up expansively.

Astozhenka 1-chome occupied an intriguing position. While the riverbanks stood desolate and wrapped in solitude, the tram-lined street formed a third- or fourth-tier shopping district where lights spilled across snow-covered sidewalks even at night. The inner of two tree-lined avenues encircling Moskva in a semicircle began precisely at the small square before Khram Khrista Spasitelya. This area always teemed with children and women carrying shopping baskets, accompanied by the chaotic bustle characteristic of an avenue's starting point. The terminus for trams arriving through Nikitsky Gate lay beyond this tree-lined thoroughfare. After discharging all passengers at the stop beneath the avenue, the empty tram would return to collect new riders from another station slightly ahead. The tram-stop street formed a residential quarter where snow-laden treetops of the avenue could be glimpsed from houses' front windows.

A person lived in a town, and before long, they no longer lived there. There was something uncanny about that fact. The view from Nobuko and Motoko's window changed from showing the steel framework of a collapsed large roof behind Tverskaya Street to revealing Astozhenka's Khram Khrista Spasitelya—massive yet devoid of aesthetic grace—and the scene at the entrance of the tree-lined avenue. This transformation carried an uncanny quality.

The double windows of their Astozhenka room lacked curtains, so the morning light—filtered through snowglow—suddenly pierced deep into the narrow space's interior. Waking on the divan that served as her bed, washed in that clean yet desiccated morning light, Nobuko would gaze at the pale blue enamel kettle gleaming on the massive table that jutted up beside her—the same kettle they'd used for tea the previous evening—and in those moments feel their lives had truly settled into the mundane apparatus of daily existence in Moskva. And for Nobuko, this very ordinariness held an inexpressible exhilaration and satisfaction.

At night, the lamplight from the green-shaded stand that Nobuko and Motoko kept lit indoors was reflected on the glass of their Astozhenka room’s curtainless windows. On the far side of a partition created by lining up books at the center of the long table was Motoko, while Nobuko’s place was on the near side, facing away from the door. After putting their young son to bed, the Luibakov couple went out to the movies together, leaving only the maid Nyura in the kitchen. The entire apartment was warm and still. At eight o'clock, Nyura—a Greek woman with dusky skin—knocked on the door,

“Tea is ready.” Carrying a tray with cups and a teapot, she entered with a pale blue enamel kettle in hand. Nobuko and Motoko had Luibakov’s kitchen prepare only their morning and evening tea while taking their main meals elsewhere. Now using ration booklets like ordinary workers, they purchased not only salmon roe and salted cucumbers but also basic provisions such as bread, tea, and sugar themselves. At teatime, Nobuko brought two cups of fermented milk (prostokvasha)—which she had first discovered at Astozhenka’s provisions store—from the window ledge,

“I wonder how Mr. Akiyama and the others are doing,” she said. When Nobuko and her companions had decided to leave Passazh Hotel and move to Astozhenka, Akiyama Uiichi gave them a volume of Ukrainian folk songs as a memento. It was a magnificent large-format book with a light blue cover featuring a distinctive Ukrainian embroidery design.

“This is something a Russian folk song researcher gave me, you know.”

While slowly signing the title page in Esperanto and Japanese script, Akiyama Uiichi said.

"I have no use for keeping it." It was a book introducing Ukrainian folk songs with accompanying sheet music. Akiyama Uiichi had said he would return after seeing May Day.

Nobuko continued setting up the dining table about one-third of the way along the end of the long table. She spread out a sheet of paper, took out a large lump of sugar, and using a nutcracker, broke it into pieces small enough to put into a cup. When Nobuko wondered how Mr. Akiyama and the others were doing, her sentiment arose from how—when viewed through the lens of their life now rooted in Astozhenka—their days at Passazh seemed to float at a different elevation on the same plane. A minor fact—for instance, that the samovar had never once been set up in Astozhenka’s kitchen— That very fact—which for Nobuko, who had always associated Russia with samovars—was a tangible realization of their new life. In modern-day Moskva, every single person boiled water each day using commonplace aluminum kettles on gas or kerosene stoves, without anything particularly different about it. They ate in their own dining room—undecorated with pink ribbons on colored wood shavings—or otherwise would dine at one of the not particularly tidy city restaurants that Nobuko and her companions had been frequenting lately, where roasted duck with pickled red cabbage was served.

In the Tverskaya district, the movie theaters that Nobuko and her companions often frequented were Daiichi Sovkino and Korosu—the latter housed in the splendid hall of a music school. After moving to Astozhenka, the small cinema Nobuko visited alone was on the third floor of the communal store where she bought prostokvasha and bread during daylight hours. At the top of worn white stone stairs—hollowed at the center from years of use—stood a glass-paned ticket booth where she purchased her admission. Beyond it, in the hall, five musicians past their youth performed Mozart’s chamber music. Within that sparsely attended space, dimly lit and lacking luster, the sight of these violinists, cellists, and flutists—all middle-aged, all in threadbare suits—playing Mozart with grave dedication, as though driven by scholarly devotion to their art, left a profound impression.

Before long, one of that day's screenings ended, and the auditorium doors opened. Looking at the people spilling out into the hall, every one of them seemed to be from the immediate neighborhood; though none wore expressions of particular liveliness or boisterousness, they all showed calm satisfaction. Here, they could enter wearing their winter boots as they were. On people's feet were the crude, sturdy valenki worn by laborers. Mingling with this same crowd, Nobuko watched the latest screening in turn. That week's program consisted of a cultural film about venereal diseases and a feature film depicting episodes from the Civil War era.

In their Astozhenka life, neither did the triple-chinned Claude appear, nor did Polinyak draw near anymore—he had grown distant. Nobuko’s mind gradually sank its weight down, the soles of its feet beginning to touch something with substance beneath them. This contact began awakening in Nobuko a desire to write.

Around that time, the snowmelt in Moskva began. Within the plank fence surrounding Nobuko’s building, on the streets, and along the tree-lined avenues’ very centers, countless puddles of varying sizes formed from melting snow. During daytime hours, snow from roofs and streets would melt with a clattering rattle through choked gutters—at first freezing solid again each night. The soft blue moonlight bathed this snow that melted by day and glazed over nightly with ice, continuing this cycle for several evenings until even nighttime no longer brought freezing. Then Moskva became puddle-drenched—true early spring had arrived. Horses and people alike splashed through muddy streets as life’s sounds—swallowed all winter by accumulated snow—surged forth from beneath thawing drifts. Through roads’ terrible mire, through life’s irrepressible stirrings, through every path’s glassy slickness threatening slips—beneath a winter coat grown abruptly heavy with it all—Nobuko sweated and flushed. When she opened the grocery store door, its interior felt deeper and darker than winter’s span; slackened air within mingled wet sawdust’s nose-stinging scent from floor scatterings with cured fish’s smoky reek. A single bright beam struck golden-brown scales of hanging smoked fish from some unseen source, making them gleam in darkness. Such transformations too were spring.

Nobuko’s desire to write her own things grew even more urgent.

With a throbbing glint in her eyes, when Nobuko returned from Maria Gregorievna’s lesson to the corner of Astozhenka, an old vendor—her woolen shawl slipped back on her head—emerged from a gap in the pedestrian traffic, “Miss!” the old vendor called out to Nobuko. And then she held out a bunch of flowers. “Snowdrops! “The first spring flowers—buy them for your happiness.” Nobuko gazed at the bouquet, took out a red Russian-leather coin purse with a zipper from her pocket, handed thirty-five kopeks to the old woman, and received the flowers. The flowers called snowdrops here had smooth, fan-shaped leaves, different from the fuzzy, upstanding leaves of the snowdrops Nobuko knew in Japan. In the center, where about five of those leaves formed a border, several pure white flowers with thick petals resembling white violets were gathered. Indeed, as befitting early spring flowers that had bloomed from beneath the snow, their stems were short. Holding the small bouquet between gloved fingertips as if plucking it, Nobuko brought her face close to inhale its scent as she climbed the apartment stairs. The pure white snowdrop flowers did not have even a noticeable fragrance. Even so, this was undoubtedly Moskva’s first spring flower. Nobuko filled a small glass cup with water and placed the bouquet there. And she placed it in her own domain on the large desk. Spring light sparkled on the thin rim of the glass cup. Outside the window, on the hill of Christ the Savior Cathedral, there too the snow had completely melted; in the irregularly reflecting brightness, the large golden dome appeared even more brilliantly golden.

―Nobuko began to write.

II

That day was Sunday. Motoko had been attending lectures in the liberal arts department at Moskva University nearly every day around this time. During Motoko’s absence, Nobuko enjoyed being alone in the room. And she was writing her impressions of Moskva to send to Bunmeisha, which was covering her travel expenses. Since Sundays were Motoko’s university day off—and consequently Nobuko couldn’t very well take a holiday from her writing in the room with its single table—the two rose leisurely, Motoko tidying the bed on her side (being taller) while Nobuko, being shorter, straightened the divan on hers.

Just then came a knock at the door, and Nyura thrust out her face—Greek-featured with a straight nose and sun-darkened complexion. Then, in thickly accented speech,

“There’s a visitor for you.” she announced. Nobuko and Motoko exchanged glances with expressions of surprise. Who could it be? The two of them had just woken up and were not yet properly dressed.

“There’s just no helping it!” Motoko said to Nyura, demonstrating a Russian-style gesture of throwing up both hands in helplessness. “Go check—we’re not properly dressed yet… Please, Nyura, go ask the visitor’s name.” While hurriedly finishing tidying up the bedding, Nobuko wondered aloud, “Who could it be this early in the morning?”

she said wonderingly. If it had been Akiyama Uiichi, he would never have come at such an early hour. Moreover, given that the attentive Utsumi Atsushi was with him and knew all about Nobuko and Motoko’s habit of sleeping in.

Nyura returned and once again stuck her head through the door. “The visitor says he’s Myano. He just arrived from Leningrad to Moskva,” she said.

“Myano?” Motoko made a bewildered expression. But, “Is he Russian? “Is he Japanese?” She asked again, having just realized. Nyura, who didn’t seem to fully grasp what defined someone as Japanese, stood fidgeting awkwardly by the door with a troubled look, rubbing her feet together. “He’s not Russian.”

At that moment, Nobuko,

“It must be Miyano,” Nobuko said. “That’s probably how Nyura heard it... right?” “Ah! Of course,” Motoko replied. “But Miyano—do you know him?” “I don’t.” “Who could it be?”

In any case, after asking Nyura to have him wait in the hallway, Nobuko and Motoko went to the bathroom. When she tried to return to the room after washing her face, Motoko, who had gone just a little ahead, "Oh! You've already arrived?"

Motoko’s voice came. A man’s voice answered in a low tone. Nobuko strained her ears at the sound. Had Nyura mistakenly let him through? To think he’d entered a women’s room in their absence— Nobuko found herself unable to leave the bathroom. Though wearing her usual purple Japanese haori, she had nothing beneath it but a slip.

Opening the bathroom door, Nobuko called out to Motoko. After putting on the blouse and skirt that had been brought for her and draping the haori over them, she returned to the room to find a man sitting on the chair by the foot of the bed near the door. Seeing Nobuko enter, he rose from his seat. With reserved politeness, “I’ve come rather suddenly. “I’m Miyano.” he said. “He’s been conducting ballet research in Leningrad,” Motoko explained.

“Since I came straight here from the station upon arriving, I’ve been imposing on you since morning…”

He remained seated there in his half-coat—its collar trimmed with fur—as though he’d only come for a minute or two of business. Nobuko found the contradiction between his stiff formality and the audacity of having entered the women’s room oddly striking. Aware that it was a mean-spirited question, Nobuko— “Are you acquainted with Mr. Akiyama Uiichi by any chance?” she asked. “No.—I know his name well, but I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him.” “I hear he’s still here.”

“Then how did you find out we were in such a place—” The unexpected visitor without a letter of introduction was in his mid-twenties and dressed in utterly ordinary clothes. At first glance, his face bore what looked like faint pockmarks, and his long eyelashes rather contributed to a heavy appearance around his eyes. The man named Miyano accepted Nobuko’s blunt questioning meekly, “I found out from the embassy.”

he replied. Nobuko found it suspicious. She couldn't grasp how someone who claimed to have come straight from Leningrad to Moscow could have supposedly inquired at the embassy—the sequence of events made no sense. After remaining silent for a while, Nobuko—

“—What day is it today?” Slowly turning to face Motoko while fixing her with a stare, she asked. “It’s Sunday!” The moment Motoko answered as if stating the obvious, she seemed to clearly grasp the intent behind Nobuko’s question. The embassy remained closed to the general public on Sundays. With a contemplative hum, Motoko exhaled a thick, forceful plume of cigarette smoke.

“Have you been in Leningrad all this time?”

This time, Motoko began asking questions. He explained that he stayed in Leningrad because prices were lower than Moscow's and housing shortages less severe. For similar reasons, he added that several Russian language students from the Foreign Ministry—future consuls and such—were also based in Leningrad. "About this ballet research—we're just amateurs, mind you—do you actually dance yourself?" "No, what I study might best be called dance history... You must understand, Russia has maintained a European and global position in ballet since the Tsarist era. Leningrad housed the former Imperial Ballet School, and even now preserves traditions that clearly make it Moscow's superior in ballet."

“Excuse me, but our tea isn’t ready yet.”

Nobuko interjected. “Excuse me—may I go ahead and begin?” “Please do—we’ve completely intruded on you…” “Why don’t you take off your coat?”

Clearly flustered, Nobuko pointed out.

“I can’t very well have you looking on while we have our tea…” She handed him a cup too and began to drink her tea with buttered bread and an apple. As she did so, Nobuko’s mood began to settle a little. She became aware that in her conduct toward Miyano—who had suddenly appeared—she had not properly conducted herself either in etiquette or practical terms. If his story was suspicious, then precisely that made it necessary to learn more concrete details about this Miyano. Nobuko realized this.

“They’re currently performing ‘The Red Poppy’ at the First National Opera and Ballet Theater.” Motoko, having lost the chance to change properly, talked while drinking tea, still in her house clothes. “What do you think of such things? “Wouldn’t you say it can’t be called orthodox ballet?” “In Leningrad, they’re performing *The Sleeping Beauty* this season, and I still found it splendid—of course, I also came here wanting to see things like *The Red Poppy*.”

The man named Miyano said, "My research mainly focuses on classical ballet as its subject." "After all, that forms the foundation."

he said.

Around that time in the Soviet Union, doubts were emerging about Italian ballet techniques. There was growing debate that methods requiring extreme training—like en pointe work impossible without rigorous discipline—should remain the domain of professional dancers, while popular dance ought to embrace natural movement. The group dances Nobuko had observed at workers' clubs, though collective in form, bore no resemblance to what was conventionally called ballet. Nobuko's expression shifted to one of dawning interest in the conversation,

“In Japan, was ballet your specialty as well?” she asked.

“Not exactly—I thought since I’m here anyway,” Miyano said. “I might try compiling some ballet research…” Nobuko stared again at his face with its thick, bothersome eyelashes. How strange he was, talking like this. If it had been a diplomat’s wife saying she wanted to learn Russian embroidery while her husband was posted here, that would have made sense. But this young man—what was his real purpose in coming to the Soviet Union? That he’d arrived without any intention of studying ballet, then casually decided to take it up simply because he was here—this unsettled her. For Nobuko and Motoko, coming to the Soviet Union rather than France had required not just clear objectives, but extraordinary efforts to arrange passports, visas, and funds. Yet—Nobuko pressed him again.

“How long do you plan to stay here?” “Well… I haven’t decided clearly yet. “I plan to stay as long as travel funds keep being sent…” Motoko formed a strange, wry smile at the corner of her lips. “Somehow you seem both enviably privileged and alarmingly precarious.” “That’s right.” “That’s hardly a stable situation.—Forgive my asking, but is it a magazine company or something that’s sending you the money…”

"I have an older brother in Nishikata-cho. That brother of mine sends it to me—but since he doesn't have any real influence, how long can that last?..." Even as he said this, Miyano showed not the slightest sign of anxiety, nor was there any indication he was trying to make his brother continue sending the money. After clearing away the tea things and going out to the kitchen, Nobuko was filled with vague suspicions. She couldn't discern why Miyano had come to them or what his purpose was. If he simply wanted to become friends, why hadn't he come introduced by someone—from the embassy, for instance? When she considered even the embassy, Miyano's circumstances became even more unclear to Nobuko. Even if he said he had come to ask for Nobuko's address at the embassy, it should have been closed this morning. ——

Without knowing the clear purpose of his visit—as they dragged on their disjointed conversation simply because they were fellow Japanese—she worried this might lead to sharing a proper dinner together or stretch into evening, an outcome that would be troublesome. Nobuko grew anxious. This state of mind was detestable even to Nobuko herself. Yet as their conversation dragged on awkwardly with only Nobuko and Motoko doing most of the talking, an inexplicable entanglement seemed to deepen—and Nobuko couldn’t shake the premonition that this would inevitably lead to complications. Nobuko stood in the kitchen for a while, overwhelmed by her thoughts. How could she naturally bring this unfathomable interaction to a close?

After a short while, Nobuko assumed a resolute expression and returned to the room. And then, in a pained, strained tone, “Hey,” she began to say to Motoko. “Forgive my rudeness, but isn’t it about time for us to go?”

Would Motoko unravel this sudden mystery? After all, there hadn’t been a single prior arrangement between the two of them to go out that Sunday.

Motoko, “Oh.” With that vague reply, she continued gazing out the window at the glistening golden dome of Christ the Savior Cathedral, absentmindedly smoking her cigarette. Even though Nobuko had said that, there was no sign of Miyano leaving.

Nobuko, growing restless again, left the room. Even if they were to go out, Nobuko was troubled about where to go. A place open on Sundays where a man would have trouble following them—where could that be? Nobuko finally thought of the tailor’s place. When she returned to the room, Motoko stood up on the other side of the table as if taking it as a cue.

“Well then, shall we go out?” She stated it with startling abruptness. “Would you care to join us part of the way?” With her characteristic terseness, Motoko had Miyano leave the room so they could change. Nobuko leaned close to Motoko’s ear—Motoko, who was in front of the wardrobe halfway through pulling out her coat—and whispered anxiously. “Do you know where we’re going?”

Motoko smirked. Then she went to the table and, while taking out her wallet from the drawer, said in a voice audible only to Nobuko who had approached her side— “Just follow along,” she said.

As they stepped outside, the essence of a clear Sunday in early spring filled both the town and the tree-lined avenues. Pedestrians walking more slowly than usual still wore their winter coats, though their knee-high felt boots were mostly light rubber overshoes. Between the roadway and sidewalk, melted dirty snow piles and streams of snowmelt water had formed, but today the middle of the pedestrian path had dried, revealing stones beneath. For Nobuko and the others, this marked their first day treading directly upon Moscow's springtime walkways.

“It’s starting to dry up.” Nobuko muttered in a voice that resented having come out under such circumstances, even as she delighted in the fine weather. Motoko had come to the corner of Astozhenka, positioning herself slightly ahead of the three. There she stopped. And then,

“Mr. Miyano, which way?”

She turned to ask. Just then, a streetcar bound for Theater Square approached from the gentle slope to their left at Sunday’s leisurely pace. Though they had barely left the wooden fence of the building where Nobuko and the others lived, Miyano appeared flustered by Motoko’s sudden question. Muttering “Well…” under his breath, he fluttered his heavy eyelids. “I’ll go buy tickets for *The Red Poppy*.”

“Well then,” Motoko tilted her head slightly beneath her tanned hat and nodded in acknowledgment. “We’ll be going this way, so…”

Miyano placed his hand on the brim of his hunting cap. “Since you may visit Leningrad at some point—we’ll meet again there properly someday.” Thus, Miyano remained at the tram stop.

Nobuko and the others naturally cut straight through the street corner with the tram stop and entered the tree-lined avenue. The tree-lined avenue still had dirty snow piled up in heaps, but down its center now ran a single strip of soft, moist black earth. Precisely because lingering snow still lay everywhere around them, the single strip of black earth that had emerged between those patches possessed a thrilling freshness. The glossy branches of linden and maple trees lining the avenue—already showing signs of budding—cast intricate shadows, while the lingering snow around their roots intensified the sensation of lush freshness.

Nobuko—her mood weighed down by that unfathomable guest—walked along the moist black earth path amidst passing crowds and let out a deep sigh as if... “Ah! I want to take off these winter boots!” she said. I want to strip away everything winter has crusted onto my body. The tree-lined avenue on this early spring Sunday presented a scene that put everyone in such a mood. Yet Muscovites—intimately familiar with their northern seasons’ weighty transitions—still hadn’t removed their galoshes or unbuttoned their overcoats. Melting snow...warm damp earth...the faint sap-scent of trees preparing to bud. As these elements intertwined—creating a soft yet dense atmosphere—Nobuko and Motoko walked down the tree-lined avenue together in silence for some time.

“I was so surprised.”

Nobuko said as they walked. “You can just handle things like that? I genuinely agonized over where to go.” “That’s just how it is.” Motoko answered in the leisurely manner of someone strolling with one hand tucked in their sleeve pocket, as one might in Japanese attire. “You just need to take the initiative.” “What do you think about that Miyano guy...?” Still hung up on it, Nobuko began to speak.

“You’ve become quite neurotic, Nobuko-chan.” “That’s certainly true—it’s so ambiguous, all this talk about my brother from Nishikata-cho—anyone becomes more serious about money matters when they’re abroad, you know? It’s almost as if he’s the type who’d pack up and leave immediately if told to go home—that way he talks…”

Recalling how Miyano moved through rooms—uncannily extracting his body without disturbing the air—Nobuko found this equally unsettling. Even regarding someone like Utsumi Atsushi, Nobuko and the others had no idea whatsoever why he'd come to the Soviet with Akiyama Uiichi. Though his manner suggested he alone might stay after Akiyama returned to Japan, they remained ignorant of what life he envisioned in Moscow. Yet Utsumi's every gesture felt naturally awkward—so unremarkably so that they detected nothing suspicious.

“Well, there’s all sorts of people out there—you just handle them as they come. It’s not like we’re doing anything wrong…” “Obviously. “Of course that’s true. “No one here would try to do anything wrong—not even the Soviet people themselves—so why…”

Nobuko faltered and cut off her words. Nobuko too hesitated to definitively label Miyano as someone engaged in shadowy work. After walking in silence for a while, she eventually continued in a low, displeased voice. “It’s like they’re sniffing around!”

“That’s their own business, isn’t it?” “It’s none of our damn business.”

Nobuko and the others had reached the point where the tree-lined avenue was interrupted by Albert Square. At the intersection where Tverskaya Boulevard crossed the avenue stood a statue of Pushkin. At this avenue's terminus stood a seated statue of Krylov, who had given countless fables to Russian children—a group sculpture showing the elderly writer in robe-like garments comfortably seated on a chair, leaning slightly forward as if telling a story, with three or four children at his knees tilting their faces upward in rapt attention. The pedestal bore high-relief carvings of famous scenes from Krylov's fables. Nobuko and the others stood awhile observing Krylov's amiable seated figure backed by budding linden trees, watching Moscow children play around it while splashing meltwater. On this Sunday avenue swarmed children walking with parents, while Red Army soldiers in long coats and pointed caps bearing red stars—holding small children's hands as they walked in multiple groups—left a deep impression on Nobuko.

Exiting the tree-lined avenue into Albert Square, as they passed by a stall, Nobuko— “What’s that?”

And with that, she approached the storefront. The newly released graphic magazine *Projektor*, featuring Gorky’s photograph across its entire cover, had several copies hung from strings.

III

When she finished viewing the last partitioned section of the exhibition hall, Nobuko slowly turned back and returned to the very beginning. At the Gorky exhibition commemorating thirty years of his literary career, various photographs and documents contributed by the Marx-Lenin Institute were displayed. However, having casually viewed everything to the end, Nobuko felt she had not seen any childhood photographs of Gorky among all these numerous images. Yet she couldn't be certain she hadn't seen them.

Nobuko once again began examining from the very beginning, following along the partition walls. There was a panoramic view of Nizhny Novgorod's old city where Maxim Gorky had been born and raised. Photographs showed the Volga River's docks and groups of stevedores, with the area around Nizhny's large garbage dump on its outskirts also captured. Brief captions were attached beneath the photographs. They stated he had "earned small change" by collecting rags and old nails from this dump to buy bread for himself and his grandmother. Yet there was not one photograph showing young Gorky scavenging through that garbage dump.

The array of photographs, arranged chronologically, showed Nobuko a view of Kazan City before her eyes, then unfolded scenes of the Azov Coast and Tiflis City—where crowds moved through Near Eastern-style customs. The captions narrated. What greeted fifteen-year-old Gorky in Kazan was not Kazan University, which he had hoped to enter, but the slums and dockworkers. Eventually, he labored fourteen hours a day as a baker. Here too, Gorky himself does not appear in the photographs.

Nobuko came to a stop before a photograph labeled "Kaban’s Quay" and gazed at it intently. Gorky was twenty years old. So the captions stated. At night, sitting on this riverbank, Gorky endlessly repeated three words while tossing stones into the water’s surface. “What should I do?” Following the chronological order of the displayed photographs, Gorky soon returned to Nizhny and attempted suicide by pistol on the banks of the Volga. An agonizing, isolated era of chaos. Even from this period, there were no photographs of Gorky.

It was not until 1900 that Gorky—familiar to Japanese readers—began to appear in photographs with his rugged visage: wearing a black wide-brimmed hat tilted slightly back, a coat slung over his Russian shirt, and long hair more reminiscent of a Russian artisan than an artist. From that time onward, he suddenly began being photographed in great numbers amid illustrious company. In every commemorative photograph, one could sense the profound impact Gorky’s emergence had made upon the earnest intellectuals of Russia and Europe. The elderly great writer Tolstoy, stern and angular. Chekhov, overflowing with gentle strength and wisdom. Stanislavsky and Danchenko, who began spearheading a new theater movement through the Moscow Art Theatre. Everyone—with that characteristic Russian earnestness—faced the lens alongside Gorky in these photographs. "Makar Chudra" "The Song of the Falcon" "Three," followed by "The Petty Bourgeois" and "The Lower Depths," along with other old editions, had begun appearing on stands beneath numerous commemorative photographs. The commentary emotionally declared that Gorky had gathered and depicted "fragments one might name as extraordinary, good, unyielding, and beautiful" from among the people wasting their lives in ignorance and barbarism under the Tsar’s tyranny.

The exhibition had finally opened just yesterday. In the bright, quiet venue where there were still not enough people to be bothersome, Nobuko retraced her steps once or twice to gaze at that spot. Since becoming famous and producing works, Gorky had been photographed so extensively, his very existence drawing interest from everyone. But as for Gorky up to that point—the child Gorky who had struggled so desperately to survive— In his youth, Gorky had suffered so profoundly among his vulgar and ignorant young baker colleagues that he had nearly taken his own life. That there was not a single photograph of Gorky from those most agonizing periods—only the towns that had formed the backdrop of his life’s struggle being captured—struck Nobuko with such profound emotion she found it difficult to leave that place. When a person’s path becomes settled amidst the ordinary world, people make space for their very existence, sparing no praise as they vie to take countless photographs. But when Gorky was still a child—wandering through garbage dumps battling hunger and depravity, uncertain whether he would survive his circumstances—and when, as a youth, he lived amidst trash-like existence, tormented by burgeoning desires for growth and vague premonitions of possibility without direction, those around him remained unaware and indifferent to his life. “At the moment people praise works like *Three* and *Makar Chudra* as literary masterpieces, do they find peace merely by receiving a romanticized sentiment about lives they themselves have never known?”

Discovering that not a single photograph had been taken throughout Gorky's childhood and youth, Nobuko felt she had become newly and sharply aware of an aspect of life. Tolstoy's childhood photographs were included even in his complete works. Lenin's too. What about Chekhov? Resting on the large leather-upholstered bench by the venue's window, Nobuko tried to remember. The photographs of Chekhov that Nobuko recalled were all from the period when he appeared here alongside Gorky. Had anyone ever seen photographs of Chekhov as a boy? As Nobuko searched through her memories, she found herself abruptly stopped by one realization: Chekhov too must have been poor in his youth—this was what had arrested her thoughts.

Chekhov’s father had been a liberated serf who lived as a street vendor in a town called Taganrog somewhere near the Sea of Azov. She recalled having read that. If that were the case, then Chekhov too must have lacked the kind of life where he could have his photograph taken occasionally as a boy. When she realized these things, Nobuko felt her underarms grow damp with a clammy awareness.

When the snowmelt ended and spring light began to overflow, she began to notice droves of Soviet youths taking photographs of each other on Moscow’s tree-lined avenues and within Moscow University’s campus grounds—sometimes against the backdrop of buildings on bustling streets. Just two or three days earlier, when Nobuko and Motoko were strolling through Brieul. Under a linden tree there, a photographer had set up an old-fashioned backdrop and opened shop with his tripod, much like one would see in places such as Nikko or Kamakura in Japan. A sign that read “Photos for 50 kopeks” was pasted to the trunk of a linden tree. As Nobuko and Motoko passed by, a young woman with a bobbed haircut was staring earnestly at the lens, the shutter about to be released. Nobuko sympathetically observed the rustic joy and tension on the plump girl’s ruddy face. She regarded it as a characteristically Soviet scene—a simple tree-lined avenue. But at the same time, Nobuko said to Motoko:

“When you see places like this, Russia really is the countryside of Europe, isn’t it?”

And, following her train of thought,

"In Europe, there’s apparently a way to tell Japanese people apart.—Did you know?" “I don’t know.” "If someone’s yellowish, wearing glasses, and walking around with a fancy camera, they’re definitely Japanese." “I see.” On the bench in the exhibition hall, what Nobuko recalled was this conversation of hers. The fact that there wasn’t even a single photograph from Gorky’s childhood or youth. And this reality—that not a single snapshot remained even of the grandmother whom Gorky had so loved and considered as vital as life’s sustenance for her storytelling—bitterly made Nobuko reflect on the superficiality of her own chatter. The harshness of the painful existence endured by Russia’s impoverished people. Those who were ignored. The fact that Soviet youths today were so gleefully chasing the spring light and taking photos of each other was by no means merely a matter of provincial curiosity.

Nobuko felt both guilty and relieved that those petty, snide Japanese words had not been understood by the people around her. In societies until now, photography had never been merely about taking pictures or not taking them. Nobuko learned this fact for the first time. In an era when photography was a costly endeavor, those who had their pictures taken were inevitably people with means—those who knew how to commemorate and preserve themselves, who possessed the methods to gaze upon these photographs and perpetuate their joys and affections indefinitely. Had photography in Russia of that time not carried such inherent class connotations, surely someone would have captured a snapshot of Gorky’s boyhood—that raw, untamed humanity steeped in romanticism. Even in Chekhov’s childhood, there might have been a photograph or two taken by his uncle.

The Soviet youths’ desire for cameras and their eagerness to have even a single photograph of themselves was not, as Nobuko had superficially assumed, some provincial curiosity. The impoverished people of old Russia—whose existence had been ignored by the wealthy and powerful, and who themselves had remained passive and indifferent toward their own being—likely possessed neither meaning nor interest, nor even the thought, to preserve their lives through photographs. Photography had been merely the pastime of those with money. In Soviet life today, the people’s fondness for photographs was undoubtedly because they found joy in their existence, their daily activities were diverse and ever-changing, and they felt a true sense of purpose in living. Behind this photographic enthusiasm seemed to lie countless existences—each consciously living with an awareness of their own significance, while society simultaneously acknowledged that very fact.

When it came to such points, Nobuko could not help but realize how distorted her own feelings toward photography had become. And she was struck by her own self-centeredness in having thought of both the irony directed at Japanese tourists in Europe and the Soviet photography craze as equally provincial.

From childhood through her photos taken with Madame Nikitina in Moscow, Nobuko had been photographed countless times—so many they could be called innumerable. It began with the infant Nobuko’s first photograph commemorating her hundredth day, labeled on the back in her father’s handwriting: “Sassa Nobuko.” There stood young Sassa Taizo holding the hand of his eldest daughter clutching a rubber pacifier, her grandmother in a quilted kimono coat, her brothers, and her mother. When she married Tsukuda in New York, Nobuko remembered one commemorative photo. Beyond conventional side-by-side portraits, she had arranged for their faces to be drawn close—their profiles captured from the side like a medal’s embossing. It emphasized Tsukuda’s sharply carved profile while tracing the contours of twenty-one-year-old Nobuko’s softly burning features. Six years later, after divorcing Tsukuda, she found herself unable to look at that photograph. The way it eternally commemorated their union through indelible chemistry became unbearable. Nobuko—who cherished life too deeply to ever tear diary pages—peeled that medal-like photo from its backing and cast it into the stove’s flames. She had grown to detest photographs.

From around eighteen onward, Nobuko had come to dislike photographs, stemming from her resentment of the very circumstance of having to be photographed. It differed from how strong-willed girls resisted arranged marriage photos out of humiliation. While Gorky had been exposed to life's harshness, Nobuko—from the opposite angle—had been thrust into society's glare prematurely. This originated from her having begun writing novels as a girl. Nobuko found herself photographed by newspaper and magazine camera crews even when unwilling. These images were invariably displayed alongside articles laced with prurient curiosity, veiled mockery of Takedayo's maternal concerns, and insinuations doubting Nobuko's future prospects. For Nobuko, this proved agonizing. Rebelling against such artificial circumstances, she had thrown herself into marriage with Tsukuda as if embracing an ordinary woman's life—yet there too photographs pursued her. They said Nobuko had entered this marriage abruptly and unexpectedly. Rumors swirled that pregnancy had left her no choice but to wed this American ruffian Tsukuda to salvage respectability.

All of these things were painful for Nobuko, distorting her very awareness. The reason Nobuko continued to harbor resentment toward her mother Takedayo—so intense it defied imagination—stemmed from Takedayo’s failure to understand this anguish of hers. While one might call it society’s expectations, from Nobuko’s perspective, Takedayo had insisted on dragging her daughter along to meet what she felt were irresponsible demands. Nobuko could not help but resist.

As she gazed at the red cloth-draped partition of the Gorky exhibition before her eyes, Nobuko found herself immersed in endlessly expanding thoughts, though the color of that decorative red cloth gradually blurred in her vision. No matter how fiercely she believed she had resisted her circumstances, Nobuko could no longer deny that she herself still possessed an unpleasantly slick, glossy sort of superficiality. While despising the photographs that sought to capture her reluctant self, Nobuko had ultimately been photographed. Standing there being photographed against her will, she felt worlds apart from those earnest, unassuming people who regarded photographs as precious treasures worth paying for from their hard-earned wages—people who cherished such costly mementos. This, Nobuko thought, was a sensibility polished by so-called culture atop middle-class shallowness. As this realization took hold, the exhibition's red decorative cloth grew even more indistinct in her sight. Acknowledging her own jaded nature pierced Nobuko's heart.

Nobuko descended the Renaissance-style front steps of the Central Art Museum in a forlorn manner, stepping out into the street one measured pace at a time. With the snowmelt completed and roads eighty percent dry, Moscow had suddenly transformed into a clamorous place. The rumble of trams mingled with the clatter of hard wheels from freight carts and carriages traversing the roadway paved with time-worn cobblestones—their iron-shod hooves striking sparks against stone as they passed. When Nobuko first arrived, Moscow had been a white city where snow muffled all sound. Then came meltwater streams babbling through streets, sunlight dancing across gurgling gutters, until Moscow grew musical with spring's boisterous splashing. Now with roads dried and parching spring air settling in, every noise—from tram clangor to human voices—reverberated off building facades of gray, faded peach, and peeling yellow.

Today, six months after coming to Moscow, even within Nobuko’s heart, the foundation had been laid bare. As though treading upon her own aching heart, Nobuko took the road back to Astozhenka. The Soviet people recognized Gorky as “our writer.” How deeply rooted a necessity must lie in that. Even as she walked, Nobuko could not help but think about that. The existence of children’s homes in the Soviet Union, and of children’s libraries. The fact that universities were open to working young men and women. The Soviet people felt pride and joy in having begun building such a society through their own efforts and sacrifices. The days of Gorky’s youth had been the life of besprizornye—homeless children, as termed in Soviet parlance. Gorky, who grew up learning to read from a cook on a Volga steamer, now watched over these children’s libraries emerging across the Soviet Union alongside his own searing memories. And that there were universities for all working youth. That universities unlike his own “My University” had taken root in the Soviet.

Gorky had to fight to live and to remain human. Just as all the Russian people had undergone that struggle. And every one of Gorky’s stories became a chronicle of those people’s sorrows, goodwill, and desperate striving. In the course of their persistent struggle—these people who resolved to transform their lives and live as humans—Gorky had been imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress and forced into exile in Italy. Gorky’s life stood, in its entirety, as the history of all honest and unsparing Russian people who devoted themselves to forging a better existence for humanity.

Nobuko, during winter's lingering days, had first confronted this self-directed question on her return from meeting the Chinese scholar Dr. Rin in a vacant room at the Metropol. Now, walking back from the Gorky Exhibition, she felt that same inquiry pierce her consciousness with renewed intensity. In Nobuko’s own view, she had always valued life and had never been indifferent to people’s destinies. As a woman and as a human being. But with whom did Nobuko live, and for whom was she a writer? For what kind of people could Nobuko be said to be an indispensable writer?

As she crossed Astozhenka’s corner with a cringing sensation in her shoulders, Nobuko recalled her own impertinent remark about the photographs. Nobuko thought anyone else would have come to despise Sassa Nobuko for that single comment. Such sentiments neither touched the reality of Soviet people’s hearts nor connected to the sincere hearts of Japan’s quiet, unassuming folk. In that instant, another photograph surfaced in her memory. It was one taken with Madame Nikitina. Nobuko remembered how she had gazed earnestly at the lens with her own solemn expression while following every instruction—one hand lightly resting on a small pearl necklace, the other arm draped over the back of a sofa visible beyond Madame Nikitina’s shoulder—posing so both hands would be fully captured. The bearded photographer had insisted on this arrangement, praising her plump hands as beautiful and declaring he simply had to photograph them. When she saw the finished image—rendered in what might be called German or Soviet style with its thick, heavy effects—Nobuko felt a flicker of embarrassment. Somewhat abashed, she said to Utsumi Atsushi who had delivered the photograph,

“Everyone ended up posing so much, don’t you think?”

she laughed. The fact remained that Akiyama Uiichi, Utsumi Atsushi, and Motoko—all captured there—had each posed exactly as the photographer had instructed. Yet in Nobuko’s case, the commonplace stylishness of her hand placement clashed discordantly with the East Asian weightiness of her broad forehead and features, and with that inner pressure radiating from within. When the photographer had praised her hands as beautiful, Nobuko had given no thought to what aspect of her life this might betray. Nor had she considered that this praise measured beauty not by the raised knuckles or strength of hands that create and labor, but by mere plumpness and smoothness. ——

For Nobuko, the way Polinyak had singled her out and all the thoughts she had wrestled with in relation to that incident were now recalled in a different light—prompted by the matter of the photographs. Until now, Nobuko had never considered her birth into a middle-class social stratum as something to be ashamed of. She had considered there to be no reason for shame. And Polinyak and Kemper had resisted pandering to the proletariat. Even when the young anarchists of "Ryaku" came during the time she lived in Komazawa, Nobuko had not altered that way of anchoring her heart.

Even if that in itself wasn't wrong, the glib thoughtlessness she had unwittingly acquired over time did not even align with Nobuko's own sensibilities. Nobuko entered the grocery store near the entrance of the tree-lined avenue while thinking such thoughts. She bought two cups of fermented milk and some bread. At the checkout counter, paying her money as the cash register clanged and she received her change, Nobuko realized that while she detested all the petit-bourgeois tastes she saw reflected outwardly in herself, she had been unaware of how those same tendencies within her—manifesting without her knowledge—had caused her suffering.

As she climbed the concrete steps of her residence, Nobuko kept tormenting herself with relentless thoughts. Even when coming to the Soviet like this, she had been forcing upon herself only those feelings of wanting to live properly. What had it truly been like, at the very core? It almost seemed possible to say that precisely because Nobuko had not been indispensable to anyone, she had ended up coming here. She was not anyone’s wife. She was not any child’s mother. In the sense of being a woman engaged in literary work—even by the standards of her own social stratum—Nobuko might have been a presence whose existence made no difference. And for the Soviet daily life that had continually drawn her interest from afar, as well as for the multitudes in her homeland living laborious lives unlike her own—Nobuko had not been among those people’s struggles and agonies, nor was she one who had persisted in living without being granted a place within this society. She remained far from being a writer for those people.

Until the appointed time to meet Motoko for the meal arrived, Nobuko lay on the divan in her Astozhenka room, lost in thought.

The Maxim Gorky Exhibition commemorating thirty years of his literary career gradually grew into a city-wide event as days passed. In mid-May came the announcement that Gorky would return to the Soviet after five years’ absence, and across Moscow—from factory club libraries to bookstore shops—dedicated “Maxim Gorky Corners” were established. In the empty display window of the Central Publishing House on Tverskaya Street where Nobuko and the others had once lived, a large portrait of Gorky was hung above a model of human internal organs.

IV

It was on a certain evening in early April of such times.

Nobuko stood by the window of her Astozhenka room gazing down at the evening streets below, listening to the city's din. Around noon that day while she was out, their room's window seals had been removed. When Nobuko returned and opened the door unaware, she was startled by the avalanche of noise that rushed at her upon entering. Though their surroundings had felt almost too quiet—even desolate—during snowy months, with the seals gone this small Astozhenka room now resembled a sound box. Perhaps because Christ the Savior Cathedral's polygonal marble edifice rose on a slight elevation directly before their building, every sound amplified itself before invading Nobuko's room. Streetcars passing along the building's front transmitted clattering and screeching noises from invisible sources despite there being no apparent intersection to generate such racket—conversation became impossible during these assaults. Yet Nobuko found herself not resenting their room's new noisiness that arrived with spring. The familiar night square vista could now be observed with its accompanying soundtrack—a freshness following northern lands' long winter seclusion.

At the table, Motoko was looking at the copy of Red Virgin Soil she had bought that day. “Today, Pereverzev gave a one-hour special lecture on Gorky,” Motoko said. “Oh, I imagine everyone was delighted?” “Ah, there was quite a lot of applause—since it was unannounced...” Professor Pereverzev had been lecturing on European literary history at Moscow University. This semester’s focus on the Romantic era portion was what Motoko had been auditing.

Nobuko had tagged along on Motoko’s first day of auditing the lectures. Despite being a liberal arts course, the tiered lecture hall was packed with male and female students spilling over to sit even at the edges of Professor Pereverzev’s podium. Some students stood listening. When the two-hour lecture—difficult for Nobuko to follow—ended and shifted to forty-five minutes of questions, an unusual scene unfolded. During this Q&A period, students appeared permitted to hold autonomous discussions among themselves. From several students standing beside the professor who had been taking notes while leaning against the blackboard, some directly answered questions or organized them by saying, “Your query was addressed last week.” Seated beside Motoko midway up the tiered classroom, Nobuko found her attention caught by one particularly vocal student from the group near the podium. The student was a petite young man with strikingly bright blond hair. Tilting back his freckled face to survey classmates packed into the lecture hall, he responded to a question about Hugo. In Russian—where H sounds become G—the small blond student in a faded grape-colored rubakha shirt called out “Gyugo! Gyugo!” while gesticulating as if at a union meeting. The scene brimmed with affectionate humor. Nobuko, recalling this tableau,

“So what did he say?” Nobuko asked Motoko about Professor Pereverzev’s lecture. “He talked about the romanticism found in Gorky’s works, but…”

Motoko’s voice had a disapproving ring. “Compared to revolutionary romanticism,” she said, “the romanticism permeating most of Gorky’s works is essentially petit-bourgeois in nature—or so he claims. Apparently, only *Mother* possesses class-based romanticism.”

Motoko’s cigarette smoke drifted through the green shade of the lamp stand. Nobuko,

“Hmm.”

she said. Come to think of it, in *The Lower Depths* that Nobuko and the others had seen at the Moscow Art Theatre, the role of the pilgrim Luka had been interpreted realistically. Moskvin’s Luka was performed not as a figure offering comfort or hope to the people of *The Lower Depths*, but rather as a master of idle talk who—while himself crouching in that lower-depths existence with no intention of escaping it—repeated fabricated tales of aspiration, rendering the discontented people ever more powerless. This point in particular had been explained in the program. The fact that Luka had been interpreted in that manner in the production added an even more realistic depth to the misery of *The Lower Depths*, compellingly conveying it to the audience. At least, that was Nobuko’s impression.

"Of course I understand there were times when Gorky's romanticism went overboard," she said. "As Chekhov pointed out." "But really—can you just flatly declare that only *Mother* contains proper revolutionary romanticism while everything else is petit-bourgeois romanticism?" Motoko spoke with a defiant glare.

“The theme of *Mother* is revolutionary and heroic,” Motoko said with her Kyoto-style underbite lips forming a sullen expression that made her look angry. “Therefore, what exists there is revolutionary romanticism—is that really all there is to it?” “What exactly is this ‘yearning’?” “Huh?” “What exactly is this ‘yearning’ that wells up in the human heart?” She spoke those words—expressing longing and anticipation—in Russian, whose very resonance spoke directly to the heart, forcefully and insistently. The sounds of early spring nights, now audible through windows stripped of their weatherstripping that day, occasionally drifted upward as Christ the Savior Cathedral’s golden dome floated faintly visible against the moonless sky.

After remaining silent for a while, Motoko wore an expression that contained pained resentment, "I dislike this aspect of the way of thinking here."

she said.

“They have to split everything into either this or that. Divide and compare—one side gets deemed valuable, the other worthless. That compulsion to rigidly categorize things—I can’t abide it.”

Motoko continued, as if driven by suppressed emotions. "Even Gorky is just one human being, isn’t he? How could there be only one instance of revolutionary romanticism appearing in the works of a single writer—with all others lacking it—when they must connect somewhere... Isn’t that very point of connection where the fundamental issue between humanity and literature lies? When it comes to socialism itself, I believe that’s precisely where its vital nerve resides."

Motoko concluded the discussion with irony. For Motoko to speak with such concentrated emotion was a rare occurrence.

Nobuko understood what Motoko was trying to say. However, Nobuko—who lacked language proficiency—unlike Motoko, had taken in a great many points from the Gorky Exhibition she had seen with her own eyes exactly as it was, points that made her reflect on herself. Such things often occurred between Nobuko and Motoko.

When it came to evaluations of Gorky's art in the Soviet Union, Nobuko—true to herself—could not help but harbor doubts stemming from what she saw with her own eyes. Shortly after Nobuko and the others arrived in Moscow, a caricature of Gorky had appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta (The Literary Gazette). It depicted an elderly Gorky wearing a white nankeen cap with fluttering brim like those worn by wet nurses, shaking a cradle containing *Childhood*. Nobuko found herself unable to like this cartoon. Precisely for that reason, it left an indelible impression. Then this year, another magazine carried a caricature showing Gorky forced into wearing a woman's skirt—an illustration of skirt-clad Gorky crouching by a hearth, listlessly stirring a large pot labeled *Forty Years*. Nobuko stared fixedly at this cartoon, feeling a twinge of fear that members of RAPP—the Russian Proletarian Writers' Union—might harbor attitudes toward Gorky that permitted such depictions.

Around this time, with Lunacharsky’s critiques as a starting point and in commemoration of Maxim Gorky’s thirty-year writing career, Gorky’s achievements in the history of the Russian people’s liberation and their art came to be reevaluated. As a result, all publications—including Literaturnaya Gazeta—began adopting uniform approaches toward Gorky. Last Sunday evening, in the issue of Prozhektor they had bought at Albert Square, there was a page featuring caricatures of Maxim Gorky. These were all reproductions from publications like Petersburg Gazeta during the era when Gorky—as author of *The Petty Bourgeois* and *The Lower Depths*—first began attracting public attention. One cartoon showed Gorky wearing his signature black wide-brimmed hat and rubashka, singing while playing a balalaika atop a monument pedestal. Three Russian vagrants danced around its base where stone carvings read: "To Maxim Gorky from... ...the grateful vagrants." Beneath another caricature that abruptly appended giant bare feet to Gorky’s portrait was inscribed: "A head that praises vagrants’ feet." Around a large mushroom-shaped caricature labeled "Gorky," clusters of writers’ faces sprouted like smaller fungi. Gorky—who had expressed bitter disgust toward petty bourgeois and intelligentsia in *The Petty Bourgeois*—now saw those same groups applauding him as "part of the readership masses," his fist clenched in irritation. These were all caricatures from around 1900. The newly drawn cartoon for Prozhektor’s Gorky special edition depicted an elderly Gorky in a suit—flaunting large nostrils beneath a drooping grand mustache—standing giant-like amidst a crowd: a woman hurling bucketfuls of filthy water at him; a man cradling a harp while laying snares at his feet; others brandishing liquor bottles and pens as they shrieked. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from his fingers. The mischief-making dwarves appeared modeled on Symbolist poets and writers who had fled to France after the Revolution.

There were several lines of explanation regarding "Maxim Gorky, who has no connection whatsoever with White émigrés abroad." Ivan Bunin had fabricated even the claim that Gorky had tuberculosis and spread gossip about it. However, it was written to clarify that in reality, Gorky had never suffered from tuberculosis at all. When Gorky went to Sorrento in 1923 on Lenin’s advice, Nobuko had also believed that the reason was his convalescence. Prozhektor denied this.

Gorky must have seen the painting of himself wearing that wet nurse’s hat in Sorrento, and must have gazed upon the depiction of himself as an old woman in a skirt stirring the pot labeled *Forty Years*. And now himself being portrayed as a giant as well. Whether he had tuberculosis or not—how must this belated debate appear to Gorky’s state of mind? Nobuko could not help but feel deeply concerned about such things. Gorky was preparing to return to the Soviet Union. What images lay before Gorky’s mind as he prepared to return to the Soviet Union? It was clear that these were not images of himself wearing a wet nurse’s hat or a skirt. Gorky’s heart must have been envisioning himself returning directly to the tens of millions of Soviet people. With that thought, Nobuko aged Gorky in her mind and saw his honest eyes in the photographs.

That night, when Nobuko stepped out into the hallway after nine o'clock, she noticed Nyura standing in an oddly awkward posture in the corridor between their room and the kitchen. Nobuko wondered if Nyura too wanted to go where she was headed, “Are you going?”

She pushed the washroom door. Nyura, who had a woolen shawl draped over her head as though she had just returned from somewhere, hurriedly— “No. No.”

She shook her head and disappeared into the kitchen. When Nobuko came out, Nyura’s head peeked out again briefly from the direction of the kitchen. While wondering what was going on, as Nobuko was about to enter the room as she was, from behind— “Miss!”

Nyura’s imploring voice called out. A little startled, Nobuko returned to the kitchen entrance. “What’s wrong? Nyura?” “Forgive me for disturbing you.” “It’s no trouble. But... has something happened? Are you unwell?” “No. No.” Nyura shook her head frantically again, her swarthy face with its high-bridged nose—half-Greek in cast—staring at Nobuko through dark eyes filled with bewilderment.

“Please listen, Miss. I have to hang the laundry. "I have to hang it before the mistress returns." “That’s what she said when she left.” Nobuko couldn’t understand why Nyura had to be so flustered about hanging laundry. “Nyura, you always hang them yourself, don’t you?” “Or does the mistress hang them?” “It’s me who hangs them.” “But I’m scared.”

As she said "I’m scared," Nyura’s eyes beneath her shawl widened as though she truly saw something terrifying there.

Nyura, seventeen years old and born in some small town along the Black Sea coast, had received almost no education. Nor had she been awakened to any sense of being a Soviet daughter. Even after being taught their names—Yoshimi and Sassa—Nyura persisted in calling them “young ladies” in the old-fashioned way that felt more natural to her. She addressed Luibakov as “master” and his wife as “mistress.” In Moscow, only hackney carriage drivers or street vendors at best would still call Nobuko and her companions *baryshnya*. Though even bakery clerks used “Ms. Citizen,” Nyura—apparently found by the Luibakovs during some southern summer holiday and brought back—lived an antiquated, lonely existence as a hired maid.

From Nyura’s words about being scared, Nobuko remembered the recent rumor about a thief having entered another wing of this building. “Nyura, where do you hang that laundry?” “The drying area.” “Where’s that?” “It’s upstairs.” “It’s the very top.”

It finally began to dawn on Nobuko. The drying area was on the very top of the fifth floor. Even though it was already night, Nyura was afraid to go there alone to hang the laundry—that was the reason. “I understand, Nyura. I’ll go with you.”

“Thank you, Miss.” “You are very kind.” “I’ll go put on my coat.” “I’ll wait.” Nobuko returned to the room and, taking out her coat,

“I’m just going to help Nyura hang the laundry,” Nobuko informed Motoko. “She’s scared to go all the way up to the top alone.” “But are you sure you’ll be okay? At this hour?” “But it’s inside the building.” “Well, that’s true, but…” “I’ll be fine. Well then.” She left the apartment with Nyura. Nyura properly closed the front door as she always did when going out. The bare concrete staircase had only small dim bulbs like candle flames on each landing, and in the stairwell—lined with sealed apartment doors and completely empty—their footsteps echoed through the silence. It was a loneliness that made Nyura’s fear understandable. The two climbed quickly and wordlessly up to the sixth floor. When they reached the top, they faced a glass-paned balcony that had been shut tight, while to their right stood a single door with another naked bulb above it. They stopped before it,

“This is it.” Nyura took a key from her pocket and opened the door. Illuminated by the bare light bulb, she could see ropes stretched across the entire low-ceilinged hall and various items hung here and there. The floor was sand-covered.

Nyura entered the drying area with Nobuko and locked the door from the inside again. Taking the lead ahead of her, she walked briskly past several rows of drying laundry and set down the bucket she’d brought beneath a rope stretched near the back. On the wall above the large nail holding up the stretched rope, the apartment number was clearly marked. Nyura started hurriedly hanging the double-bed sheets and undergarments on the rope. As Nobuko stood waiting on the sand-covered floor, Nyura seemed unable to settle,

“Soon—soon.” Nyura repeated.

“It’s all right, Nyura, take your time. “I’m not in a hurry, you know. “If we lock it, there’s nothing to fear—Nyura?” Nyura did not reply immediately, continuing to hang the laundry while sidestepping along the rope,

“A little better.” Nyura replied curtly. Nobuko laughed. The low-ceilinged, dimly lit drying area had a clammy atmosphere, and the air carried the persistent smell of soap that had never left this place.

“Why did you come to hang laundry at night today?” Nobuko asked Nyura while surveying the area. “Today wasn’t laundry day.” “So… an exception?”

“Yes. I just washed them earlier.” “The madam is in a hurry.” Nobuko felt sorry for young Nyura’s shabby figure as she hung laundry with her awkwardly long arms. The Soviet Domestic Workers’ Union had established that employers must pay a set surcharge for each hour of work beyond contracted time. Nyura probably knew nothing about such matters. Nobuko also understood that the Luibakovs found it not the least inconvenient that Nyura remained unaware of these things.

“Nyura, do you have parents?”

“They died, both of them. In 1921 from typhus—in 1921, so many people died.” Foreigners like John Reed had died from it too, and rare brave upper-class partisan leaders like Madame Larisa Reisner—whose collected works Motoko had recently bought—along with political officers had died around that time as well, as seen in the preface. “Are you all alone, Nyura?” “Yes.”

Having finished hanging the last undergarment, Nyura bent down to pick up the empty bucket she had pushed to her feet. But she suddenly stopped and looked back at Nobuko, who was following diagonally behind her. And then, suddenly, without any preamble,

“My real name isn’t Nyura,” Nyura said. “It’s Evdokia—but the people here only call me Nyura.”

Nobuko involuntarily stared at Nyura’s young face—dark-complexioned, with small blemishes dotting her temples. On her face was a plea regarding her own circumstances—circumstances that even Nyura herself did not clearly know how to put into words. A look of compassion appeared in Nobuko’s eyes. Nyura met her gaze. In the clammy air of the nighttime laundry drying area, thick with the pungent smell of soap, the two women stood facing each other between rows of hung laundry for a moment before finally walking toward the entrance door in silence. Nyura silently unlocked the door, stepped outside, and locked it behind them. Echoing their footsteps, they descended the deserted staircase once more.

When they had descended to the fourth floor, Nobuko asked. "Nyura, how much is your monthly salary?" “Thirteen roubles.” ………… As they were about to reach the staircase leading to the third-floor landing, Nobuko,

“Nyura, do you know about your union?”

she asked.

The other day, when she was walking along the street leading to Nikitsky Gate, she saw many women gathered in some kind of meeting inside a vacant shop facing the sidewalk, most of them standing. The open door allowed any passerby to enter. When Nobuko went in and stood listening, she realized it was a meeting of the domestic workers’ union. Remembering that gathering’s uniquely leisurely tempo—heavy yet earnest—she had asked Nyura about it.

“I know.”

“Then join it. If you do, you’ll make friends. Write your real name as Evdokia on those documents.” “I gave them to the master to fill out.”

“When?” “About three months ago.” Three months prior—that was when Nobuko and the others had not yet moved to Astozhenka. “Keep asking him often until he writes them for you, okay?”

By then they had reached the master’s door, so Nyura answered in a reserved voice, “Yes.” Nyura replied.

When they rang the bell, Motoko came out and opened the door. The Luibakov couple had not yet returned. “That took an awfully long time—I was starting to think something had happened.” “Was it? Sorry. We just weren’t in any hurry, right, Nyura?”

Nyura stood at the kitchen entrance removing her shawl and merely smiled silently.

Five

The next morning, Nyura brought the tea set as usual. Then, with a deep bow, she carefully placed each item—the teapot and pale blue kettle—on the table, before letting her overextended arms drop onto her skirt in utter despair,

“Oh no! I’ve fallen into such misfortune!” she groaned. “Oh no! Oh no!” As she cried out, she arched her chest back and slapped her patched brown skirt with both arms. This gesture perfectly mirrored that street vendor’s performance when Motoko had struck her face at Red Square’s edge long ago—the vendor who’d wailed “Oi! Oi!” while putting on an exaggerated show of tears.

“What’s wrong with you, Nyura?” Motoko asked disapprovingly at Nyura’s exaggerated demeanor. “They’ve been stolen! Oh no!” “What’s been stolen?” “The laundry—all the laundry I dried last night is gone. They’ve been stolen!” “The laundry from last night…” Motoko turned her surprised face toward Nobuko. “Is this about the laundry we did together, Nobuko-chan?” “Calm down, Nyura. The laundry we dried together last night—is it missing?”

“That laundry—by this morning, every last piece had disappeared—what did I do wrong?” Even without this happening, I wasn’t happy at all… Why was I cursed like this? “What would I need a large bedsheet for?”

Tears streamed down Nyura's cheeks. “Madam must think I’m the one who stole them. “I already called. “They’ll call police dogs and have them sniff all over my body. “Oh no!”

As if her greatest fear had materialized through the police dogs themselves, Nyura’s tears flowed even more intensely. “Nyura, you do clearly remember locking the drying area when you left it, don’t you?” “What does it matter that I locked it? The keys to get in there are in every apartment of this building... When those police dogs come, I’ll make them sniff every single person here—oh no!”

Nyura left the room without wiping her tears, her cheeks still wet.

What in the world had happened?

While recalling the scene of the late-night laundry area she had seen the previous evening and the deserted state of the staircase, Nobuko made a face of unease and looked back at Motoko. Why had only Nyura’s laundry been stolen? Water had been dripping from the wet laundry onto the sand still spread across the floor at that time. As for Nyura’s belongings, they had consisted of one of the birch boxes placed beneath the folding bed attached to the kitchen wall.

“—This is why you shouldn’t interfere in pointless matters,” Motoko said irritably. Not only would they face inconvenience, but if things stood like this, there might have been danger lurking somewhere even last night. With this implication, Motoko grew displeased and reproached Nobuko for her recklessness. “Was there anything valuable among them?”

“No. Two sheets, women’s underwear, towels… How strange—others had their laundry hung out just as much too…”

Nobuko couldn't believe the misfortune was limited to the Luibakov household alone. "Even if Nyura doesn't know about it, I'm sure others are having it done to them too—how disgusting." Motoko was preparing to leave for university and, in her characteristic way of speaking during such situations,

"I don't know about that," Motoko said, deliberately jutting her chin out slightly. "Let them bring dogs or whatever to sniff around."

And she left. Nobuko, now alone, tidied the table and settled into her usual spot. The half-written manuscript pages had accumulated to about thirty sheets, held together by a nickel clip. As she reread what she had written the previous day, she forgot about the burglary commotion that had erupted that morning. On indigo-ruled manuscript paper, Nobuko kept writing for a while with Moscow-made purple ink of inferior quality. She was midway through describing that recent Easter night.

Religion is opium. A sign bearing this declaration filled the display window of the anti-religious publishing house across from the Grand Moskva Hotel. Yet in 1928 Soviet Russia, countless churches still held Easter services. On Pascha's eve, sparse street vendors sold dyed eggs and altar flowers crafted from tinted wood shavings. At Christ the Savior Cathedral, beneath its golden dome, chapel walls blazed with hundreds of massive candles as singers from the Moskva First Opera and Ballet Theatre arrived to chant hymns. Nobuko and Motoko pressed into the throng surging toward the cathedral. The crowd's sheer size rendered Marx's maxim meaningless here. Women outnumbered men conspicuously. What caught Nobuko's attention was the peculiar texture of this congestion. For elderly worshippers clutching Paschal candles and crossing themselves at each prayer interval, the white-haired archbishop swinging his censer through gilt vestments presided over genuine devotion. But to most young attendees, this seemed merely another traditional spectacle. Clashes erupted throughout the crowd where these sensibilities collided. Here was history's hinge-point captured in human friction—precisely what Nobuko had yearned to document.

The trams still passed by with a dreadful noise from time to time. Each time, the small yellow mimosa flowers arranged in a glass on the desk trembled. Nobuko kept writing while feeling a tension like she was wrestling with something within her mind.

Since beginning to write her Moscow impressions, Nobuko became aware of a tension she had never experienced before. That feeling did not disappear even as she wrote on. When she began writing about these impressions of Soviet social phenomena, their complexity and sheer scale threatened to overwhelm Nobuko. Nobuko wanted to write her impressions of Moscow by expressing exactly the sensations and emotions she had directly perceived. Nobuko had always perceived Moscow through her eyes—through events and scenes, through color, movement, sound, and emotion. That tempo, that restlessness—sparks of emotion and landscapes, each with their own profound reasons. When she tried to express things as she had seen and experienced them, Nobuko’s writing style spontaneously became three-dimensional and vivid, developing rapid tempo leaps. And it was fragmentary as well.

Nobuko’s writing style, which shared certain qualities with Eisenstein’s films and Meyerhold’s stage productions, was unfamiliar to her herself. However, the stimulation of life naturally imparted that style to Nobuko, and she found herself writing in no other way. If one were to trace the circumstances of Nobuko’s actual life in Moskva, the city was not merely the external phenomena she described in her impressions—visible outside herself as she wrote. Through her eyes, Nobuko received various things into herself, and through them, she was excavating her very being. For example, like during the Gorky Exhibition. However, in that way—as Moskva, which deeply influences and sustains a woman’s inner self—Nobuko still lacked the power to depict it in her impressions. Nobuko had not yet clearly grasped herself—this self that was being shaped by these influences. Nobuko was writing these impressions by naturally limiting her themes through her own choices.

It was when Nobuko had finished writing about the argument between the old woman and young girl she had witnessed in the crowd on Easter night. There was a knock at the door. “May I come in?” Nyura’s tear-choked voice sounded. Nobuko remembered that morning’s burglary commotion. She thought the police dogs had arrived. She didn’t want those professionals seeing her manuscript filled with Japanese characters they couldn’t read. Nobuko hurriedly rose from her chair and began slipping the pages into a paper folder,

“Please come in.” She replied formally.

The one who entered was Nyura alone. She came in with a tear-streaked face and swollen lips. "What’s wrong, Nyura?" Nyura silently pressed her body against Nobuko’s side—Nobuko having sat back down in her chair—and stood there. From Nyura’s clothes came a faint smell of the kitchen. That Nyura had been unable to endure waiting alone in the kitchen—dreading the police dogs’ imminent arrival—and had finally come to Nobuko’s room became clear from her demeanor: though she had entered, she remained standing there as if utterly at a loss.

“Nyura. Stop being afraid. Dogs are honest, so it’s perfectly clear there’s no laundry hidden with you, Nyura.” Even with this encouragement, Nyura—still wearing a doubtful expression as she gazed out the window at the golden dome of Christ the Savior Cathedral—

“Madam suspects me.”

Deeply wounded, she muttered in a voice that held no possibility of healing. "Would Madam have kept me employed nine months if I were dishonest?"

Nyura drew in a breath that sounded like a sob, "Oh. It's so awful!" and twisted her entire body.

“They’ve always been like that.” Nyura began speaking in a breathless, agitated rush. Before Nobuko and the others had moved here, there’d been a lodger named Orloff—a man with a sinister goatee. Goateed Orloff had possessed everything specially made just for him. His special nickel-plated towel rack. His special wine glass. “And he always kept small coins scattered across his desk like rose petals.”

“Why did that man have to leave his small coins out like that—he was waiting for me to take them.” “I knew he was testing me.” “How many times did that man summon me at all hours, morning and night?” “Cute Nyura, please do this for me.” “Kind Nyura, do that.” Nyura said with hatred, “Cute Nyura, please do this for me,” mimicking the man with the goat-like beard, Orloff, as he would say, “Kind Nyura, do that.”

“Even as his mouth said those things, his eyes were always glaring at me.” “Every single time—even when he laughed—that man only smiled with his lips.”

Nobuko looked at the clock and stood up. “Nyura, I have to go out for dinner.” Nyura, suddenly seeming anxious that she had come to Nobuko’s place without any real purpose,

“Young lady.” Nyura looked at Nobuko imploringly. “Even if I told such things, please don’t tell Madam.”

“You don’t need to worry, Nyura. But you’re lonely—you’re too much alone—even though you have the union.” To Nyura, who was about to leave the room, Nobuko said while putting on her overcoat. “Even if the dogs come, you mustn’t be afraid—just keep reminding yourself that you’re an honest Nyura.”

At four o'clock, Nobuko went to the second floor of the vegetarian restaurant she had arranged with Motoko. Unlike regular cafeterias that tended to be crowded, she took a seat at a small wall-side table and propped the opposite chair against it as an indicator that someone would be arriving. Since Moscow's climate had grown springlike, Motoko had begun insisting that Japanese bodies needed more vegetable intake. This was how they came to visit the vegetarian restaurant once every three days.

While waiting for Motoko to arrive, Nobuko surveyed her surroundings with an inquisitive gaze that failed to blend in. Even in Moscow, more men than women frequented cafeterias. Here too men predominated, though those eating at this vegetarian establishment generally consumed their meals at a measured pace. Conversations between companions remained subdued, devoid of the animated discussions over neglected plates commonly seen elsewhere. Among the regulars sat a man with shoulder-length hair who resembled a Tolstoyan disciple. To Nobuko's eyes, everyone patronizing this cafeteria seemed burdened by either physical afflictions or private troubles—if not adhering to some personal dietary code while nursing unspoken reservations about the Soviet regime's relentless drive. The air hung thick with the humid mingling of carrot and spinach odors, chilled by the low vitality of these diners. Nobuko kept glancing restlessly at the round clock mounted high on the wall.

Motoko was twenty minutes late.

“Oh, I’m so late. Have you ordered something?” “I was waiting until you arrived…”

“Then let’s order right away.”

The two of them looked at the menu written in hard-to-read purple ink on pale pink paper and chose what to eat. “What’s wrong? Did they come?” Motoko asked about the theft investigation. “Nothing had come by the time I left.” Motoko, unexpectedly, did not dwell on it. “Well, whatever,” she said. “Our room doesn’t even have a single lock—if they want to let the dogs sniff it out, let them.” After moving into the Astozhenka apartment, Nobuko and Motoko’s living conditions had in some ways worsened compared to before. The room was cramped and packed, and with only one table, they had to use it from both sides. Just as even such cramped aspects of their new life in Moscow had become something ordinary that Nobuko had settled into, Motoko too, since coming to Astozhenka, had begun attending university lectures and had become less neurotic. Even though Nobuko was somewhat preoccupied with the theft incident, Motoko took the matter more lightly than Nobuko had secretly feared.

After leaving the vegetarian cafeteria, Nobuko and Motoko took a stroll and made their way to a used bookstore on University Street. The spacious store—its three walls lined with bookshelves reaching up to the grimy whitewashed ceiling—was dusty and perpetually lit by electric lights day and night. Beneath the table legs supporting a teetering pile of books that patrons constantly flipped through lay Kropotkin’s complete works bound with rope. By chance, Nobuko stopped before a table where volumes published solely between 1917 and 1921 were jumbled together. There lay Pushkin’s collected works, Gorky’s anthologies, and Lermontov’s poetry—all printed on coarse paper with smudged ink during the Soviet Union’s civil war and famine years—now intermingled with Proletkult pamphlets regarded as classical reference materials.

As Nobuko was shifting through the books on the table, examining them one by one, Motoko came over from another shelf carrying two leather-bound volumes she had selected. “Find anything?” “That Kollontai book we saw recently… Do you think a place like this would have it?”

“Well… After all, since they’re practically never being read anymore, it’s suspicious.” After Motoko left for the checkout counter, Nobuko continued looking at the books on the table for a while longer.

About a week ago, a women's magazine had arrived from Japan. In it, Niki Junsaku—a proletarian writer—had written an introductory article about Madame Kollontai's *Great Love*, which he had published in his own translation. With his characteristically flamboyant and unrestrained style as a writer, Niki Junsaku had laid out an argument that Kollontai's views on love and marriage represented the cutting-edge morality of the new century, insisting that those rejecting Japan's antiquated conventions ought to study her ideas—all while deliberately stimulating young women's curiosity and yearnings.

In the Astozhenka apartment, reading that article left Nobuko with a sort of shock. When she and her companions had first arrived in Moscow, Kollontai-ism was viewed as a typical example of sexual confusion emerging from a transitional period—when society from a decade earlier had been shifting from old to new. Rather, Soviet discourse continually emphasized disciplined sexual lives, the social responsibilities of marriage, and establishing families with renewed social purpose. *Great Love* was a novel Madame Kollontai had written during the Civil War era. It expounded the notion that from a materialist standpoint, new sexual relations required neither mutual responsibility after contact nor recognition of permanent forms like marriage and family. This error had been fundamentally critiqued. The materialist reality had gradually clarified itself to Nobuko—that true foundations for happiness in love and family life lay in improving labor conditions, expanding social solidarity facilities, and systematically resolving housing shortages, food distribution, and childcare issues. In every context, this understanding held firm.

The shock Nobuko felt upon reading Niki Junsaku’s article praising Kollontai-ism in the women’s magazine was not solely due to its decade-late introduction being handled so carelessly. When Nobuko read that article as a woman, she instinctively felt visceral discomfort, her chest tightening painfully. As a proletarian writer, did Niki Junsaku feel no responsibility toward socialism itself? Nobuko found herself unable to fathom the man’s true intentions. Around the time Nobuko and her companions had left Japan, catchphrases like “Marx Boys” and “Engels Girls” had circulated widely. Though Nobuko herself had rarely encountered them directly, rumors abounded of young men and women in rough work clothes roaming Ginza. During that era, journalism endlessly repeated three buzzwords: eroticism, grotesquerie, and nonsense. The tone of Niki Junsaku’s introduction to Kollontai-ism seemed aligned with the first of these. Through her feminine intuition, Nobuko sensed his interest lay not in theoretical rigor but in a masculine fascination with licentious sexual dynamics. More bluntly still, she discerned a perverse delight in how these fantasies—Japanese men’s ancient sexual liberties dressed in provocative new trappings—lured vulnerable young women toward ruin. If establishing families as foundations for socially guaranteed men, women and children to live joyfully while contributing meaningfully proved unnecessary—if marriage and parenthood could simply be discarded as Kollontai suggested—then what need existed for socialism at all? Driven by this fervor, Nobuko turned to debate Motoko.

“If they think socialism means nothing more than the proletariat seizing the means of production and political power,” Nobuko argued passionately, “then they truly deserve divine retribution… People aren’t enduring all this hardship just for that abstract ideal.” She leaned forward, her voice intensifying. “It’s precisely because we want better lives—our hearts and bodies, individuals and society united—that we’re straining every muscle…” As visceral disgust toward Niki Junsaku churned within her, Nobuko’s thoughts raced: What meaning lay behind the Soviet Union’s thousands of daycare centers and maternity hospitals? What story did those hundreds of worker cafeterias—however inadequate—tell about women’s unending daily struggles? If society truly disregarded marital responsibility, how could laws forcing deadbeat fathers to pay alimony even exist?

Beneath Nobuko's resentment toward Niki Junsaku's promotion of Kollontai-ism lay a woman's unspoken sentiment too subtle to articulate at the time. She had married Tsukuda in such a manner and divorced him in such a manner. Having lived with Motoko as two women for four years now, Nobuko had been no man's lover. Matters of love and marriage seemed to hold no immediate concerns pressing upon her present circumstances. Had anyone asked, she would still have answered that she was not contemplating marriage now. That response held no falsehood. It was not that Tsukuda had been a poor husband which made living together impossible. By conventional measures, Tsukuda had been an exemplary spouse. Yet for Nobuko, his very exemplariness as a husband had caused anguish. It was precisely his conduct as a good husband—his unexamined resolve to safeguard their peaceful, unencumbered household within their narrow private sphere—that had suffocated her. Thus in Nobuko's current mind that rejected marriage considerations, it was less that she had failed to find another man distinct from Tsukuda than that she resisted the very manner in which marriage and family—those institutions she had experienced—were structured.

Having spent nearly half a year in Moscow, Nobuko found within her emotions vague new expectations regarding marriage and family structures, alongside disjointed doubts that had begun to well up. In the Soviet life that Nobuko observed, social facilities were indeed being energetically created toward the possibility of happiness. However, within the narrow scope she had encountered, Nobuko had never once seen a single couple who demonstrated such a fresh and abundant union that her feminine heart burned with envy. Whether it was the Luibakov couple, the Kemper couple, or the countless men and women with arms linked walking down the tree-lined avenue—

However, when Nobuko considered how these utterly ordinary men and women—living within Soviet-style conventions of mundane diligence, busyness, commonplace conflicts, fickleness, and bureaucracy—were supported by social protections for each individual woman as worker, wife, mother, and grandmother through social contracts, protections that had never existed in Japanese society where she had lived no matter how exceptional one's qualities might be, she was nevertheless moved. Rousing herself through the fact that she too was a woman, Nobuko found herself invigorated. The expectations for her future as a woman—still somewhat muddled yet beginning to bud within Nobuko’s heart—along with what resembled conviction, protested against Niki Junsaku’s Kollontai-ism with a ferocity only women could comprehend.

Kollontai’s book was not at that secondhand bookstore after all. When she returned and rang Luibakov’s bell, Nyura’s face was bright as she opened the door. Immediately, Motoko—

“What’s wrong, Nyura?” asked Motoko. “Did they have a dog sniff it out?”

Then Nyura looked back to confirm that the door to the room where the Luibakovs lived was closed, and— “I didn’t need a police dog,” she said in a low voice, triumphantly.

"They found that other households had their sheets stolen in large quantities—look!" "They always find out afterward." Unable to express her overwhelming joy through any other means, Nyura hurried ahead down the corridor and opened the door to Nobuko and Motoko’s room.

VI

For May Day, Nobuko and her companions received admission tickets to Red Square from the Society for Foreign Cultural Relations.

That morning was thinly overcast, the air chill. In Moscow's streets, both trams and buses had stopped. Through avenues empty even of hackney carriages, scattered people hurried toward Red Square. The hundreds of thousands of marchers had all been sent out from their workplaces bearing flags and placards—those walking separately toward the square formed a scant minority, appearing to be those with some reason for avoiding the parade. Nobuko and Motoko too walked straight from Astozhenka down the main street before the Central Art Museum, mingling among those scattered passersby bound for Red Square.

Despite the cool May Day weather that hinted at lingering chill, people walking along the sidewalks were fully dressed in summer attire that morning. The shirts and rubashkas worn by men in faded maroon overcoats resembling raincoats and hunting caps were white or cream-colored. From beneath women’s half-coats fluttered hems of summer dresses so thin they made one wonder how they weren’t cold. Directly ahead of Nobuko and Motoko walked three young girls whose voile-like summer clothes peeked out from under black half-coats. Their heads wrapped in matching headscarves, the vivid knots at their throats fluttered like three large butterflies. Following their lead, Nobuko and the others quickened their pace in silence. The Red Square parade was set to begin at ten o’clock sharp—spectators had been instructed to reach their designated areas thirty minutes beforehand.

When they arrived at Hunter’s Square, Tverskaya Street was already packed with processions waiting for their scheduled start time. The vanguard bearing large crimson placards had reached the very edge of the pavement where Tverskaya Street met Hunter’s Square, and gazing up the gently ascending thoroughfare as far as vision permitted, one saw nothing but an unbroken surge of humanity and scarlet banners along Tverskaya Street. Propaganda banners spanned from window to window across the tall buildings flanking both sides. Looking past the square toward Bolshoi Theater Street revealed this side densely packed with vibrant red columns of marchers streaming from Moscow’s commercial and governmental districts. Hunter’s Square itself—its cobblestone expanse specially scrubbed clean—stood nearly empty that morning, containing through some invisible levy the colossal energy threatening to burst from every artery of the city. Only Red Army soldiers and militiamen stood scattered about maintaining order.

While crossing the empty, immaculately swept Hunter’s Square toward Red Square, Nobuko became strangely conscious of the awkwardly short length of her own legs as they moved one before the other. Nobuko had never before seen such a cheerful throng of humanity, nor had she witnessed such an orderly formation maintained by a massive crowd while they waited. Moreover, she had never before experienced crossing a square so immaculately swept that broom marks were visible, under the watchful eyes of officials as though it were some privilege. With a solemn expression, Nobuko entered the spectator seats on the right side of Red Square, built along the Kremlin’s outer wall.

Between the spectator seats reserved for various countries' diplomatic corps and those for private Japanese citizens like Nobuko and her group that they had entered, a high podium decorated with red cloth had been constructed. This appeared to be where the Soviet government leaders would stand. There was still no one visible there. In the spectator seats—merely partitioned off with thick ropes in a corner of the square—Akiyama Uiichi, Utsumi Atsushi, and other newspaper-affiliated individuals along with their wives had already arrived.

“Ah, you’ve arrived.” Akiyama Uiichi, wearing a hunting cap, nodded at Nobuko and the others as they entered.

“Unfortunately, it’s cold today.” “Even so, since it didn’t snow, it’s been a great help.” While answering, Motoko nodded to the newspaper correspondent and his wife standing diagonally behind her. The correspondent—his large frame clad in a lightweight overcoat buttoned all the way up—edged closer.

“Have you seen the recent Japanese newspapers?” he addressed Nobuko and the others. “Even if you say ‘recent,’ ours take several days coming through Siberia—is there some news?”

“Have you read about the Japanese Communist Party incident—?”

“Ah, I read it—it was an extremely vague article. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.” “Now that you mention it, Ms. Yoshimi—it wasn’t that you came here preemptively to escape, was it?” Motoko had been listening to the correspondent’s words with a vacant expression as he spoke with a faint smile, but suddenly she turned sharply toward him, “Even as a joke, that’s a nuisance.” she said decisively with a deadpan expression. Then, glancing back at Akiyama Uiichi with a somewhat sarcastic tone,

“Mr. Akiyama, what about you?” Motoko said. “Are you sure you’re all right?” “I was just inquiring with Mr. Shiojiri about the situation.”

With his usual habit of shaking his head as if nodding to himself, Akiyama Uiichi answered while stating the correspondent's name.

"It seems a considerable number of my friends have been arrested under these circumstances." As he spoke, Akiyama Uiichi hunched his shoulders slightly—a habitual gesture—and, rubbing his small hands together, leaned his upper body over the partition rope,

“—Still no sign of anyone?” He peered toward the podium adorned with red cloth decorations. The displeased expression on Akiyama Uiichi’s face was unmistakable as he listened to the correspondent’s remarks—delivered with an air of personal implication—about how Japan, which they had come all the way to Moscow to observe May Day only to soon return to, had been reported to have uncovered a secret organization called the Communist Party and arrested over a thousand people across the country.

As Akiyama Uiichi leaned forward to gaze at the red podium—apparently avoiding the conversation—Nobuko too recalled that matter with an unpleasant feeling ill-suited to the May Day morning mood. Nobuko and the others had read in newspapers from Japan that arrived just two days prior—an article reporting the lifting of censorship on Communist Party arrests from nearly a month earlier on March 15th at dawn, described with phrases like “authorities nationwide simultaneously commenced operations.” Under a bold front-page headline in the first edition, the article sprawled with elusive reporting—pseudonymous individuals holding secret meetings at Goshiki Onsen, university professors and students implicated en masse, internal discussions and written consultations—all framed as leaking fragments of conspiracy in an unrestrained, sensational tone that made no effort to conceal its agitation. On the headline of that April 11th Asahi Shimbun article sent from the Dōzaka house to Nobuko in Moscow stretched a long red ink mark. Drawn with thick red ink from a bank pen in large, sweeping strokes of modulated lines, this mark bore the unmistakable handwriting of her father Taizo.

When Nobuko saw the red ink mark on the March 15th article, she felt an unpleasant sting. Not only was the article itself vague, but to Nobuko—who knew nothing of such movements—even the fact of nationwide arrests failed to feel real. In Moscow, where the words "Communist Party" met one's eyes everywhere, even Nobuko—politically uninformed as she was—had come to think that since every nation had capitalist parties representing their interests, it stood to reason there should be a Communist Party for the working class too. The red ink mark left by Taizo's pen gave Nobuko the sensation that this scarlet hook was snagging some part of her body—still blissfully ignorant about Japan's reality—and trying to yank her into some cramped space, making her conscious of her resistance.

On the overcast May Day morning, standing within the partition ropes of Red Square's spectator seats and gazing at the still-empty red podium, Nobuko vividly recalled the shape of the red ink mark from the conversation exchanged between Motoko and the journalist. The feeling of resistance surged through her entire body once more. This resistance confronted Nobuko's tender heart—which had opened all her sensibilities to observe the May Day events—in a sharp instant of opposition.

In the spectator seats, the surrounding people glanced at their wristwatches and engaged in aimless conversation while periodically directing expectant gazes toward the entrance of Red Square. Among them, Nobuko’s short, round face above her modest navy blue spring coat bore an expression that seemed both fragile and stubborn.

At that moment, without any warning, a thunderous "Ura!" suddenly came roaring from the direction of Okhotny Ryad Square. The spectator seats abruptly grew tense and buzzed with anticipation.

“Is that Stalin?” “Well…” “Can you see?” “Nah.” Led by an officer astride a white horse with a long, bushy tail, a group of over ten men mounted on black horses entered Red Square from the direction of Okhotny Ryad Square. When they entered the square, the mounted group passed before the diplomatic corps seating at a canter along the square’s edge, proceeded beneath the red podium, and arrived just short of the spectator seats where Nobuko and the others were. Nobuko, who had been staring fixedly at the white-horse cavalryman approaching the spectator seats,

“Budyonny!” Nobuko exclaimed with startled delight. “That mustache! That’s Budyonny!” The officer mounted on the white horse bore an immense black mustache unlike any other, stretching beyond the width of his face to both sides. “It really is!” Motoko affirmed with amusement. When one spoke of the First Cavalry Army that fought for revolution in Ukraine from 1917 to 1920, its heroic tales had even become themes for plays. Budyonny, as that cavalry army’s organizer and leader with his Cossack-style mustache, commanded affectionate regard even from foreigners like Nobuko.

The group of mounted men passed before the spectator seats where Nobuko and the others kept their eyes fixedly trained, proceeding all the way to the farthest end of the spectator seating area. Just as they turned their horses' heads and headed back toward the entrance across the far side of the square at a slightly quickened canter, the Red Army's procession began pouring into the square from the gate near Okhotny Ryad as if signaled. In the blink of an eye, the square started filling up. Then a single large open car glided past the spectator seats where Nobuko and the others stood, heading toward the gate near the Kremlin riverbank.

“The car went by, didn’t it? Then Stalin must have arrived.” When Akiyama Uiichi declared this with conviction and leaned over the partition rope together with Nobuko, a passage of *The Internationale* rang out from the Spasskaya Tower’s clock in the Kremlin. Then, the moment the clock finished striking ten—one, two—several cannon shots thundered from a place not far from Red Square.

Thus began the May Day ceremony and procession in the chilly May air of Red Square.

From their directly opposite viewing seats, even when straining their eyes, Nobuko and her companions couldn't discern the scene atop the red podium. May Day greetings flowed from loudspeakers installed at the square's four corners—forceful yet lacking any exaggerated inflection, each word articulated with crystalline clarity. Unable to see the podium's upper section, Nobuko grew fretful and asked Motoko beside her,

“Is that Stalin speaking now?” “Is that right?”

Nobuko asked. “I suppose so—I can’t see a thing either.” As if drawn by the voice, Nobuko stood on tiptoe toward the unseen podium. She forgot about the article on the Japanese Communist Party arrests and the red ink mark her father had added to that article. When the speech believed to be Stalin’s concluded, Ura! cries for the Soviet regime and May Day shook the square and rattled surrounding building walls. Budyonny remained astride his white horse throughout, standing beneath the podium facing the massive Red Army formation.

Before long, a march song began to blare from the loudspeakers, and the Red Army began to advance. The large infantry units marched past; then a cavalry squadron, with the mustachioed Budyonny taking his place at the head of their ranks, rode off; and the mechanized troops rolled forward. Next, the workers’ procession marched into the square.

When Nobuko saw the densely packed procession of people in mismatched clothes wearing canvas shoes and holding placards, tears suddenly welled up in her eyes. How exposed these people were. How each of them clustered together with nothing but their bodies! The workers' procession that marched after the ruggedly armored mechanized troops laid bare the softness of human flesh and the warmth of hearts and blood so starkly that Nobuko felt her own body might be swept into that living wave. Old men and young men alike wore hunting caps; girls and matronly women workers wrapped their heads in colorful kerchiefs—all unified in modest neatness, yet the inadequacy of Soviet textile production was evident in the very bodies of the marchers. What a variety of faces! Each of those diverse faces contained its own life. Each held its own heart. Yet their hearts were united in this May Day march. Columns entering the square beyond the Kremlin walls—where red flags fluttered lazily high above—echoed heartfelt *Ura!* in response to slogans hailed from the podium toward the procession. The winding, snaking line of marchers turned hundreds of faces toward the podium as they passed beneath it and shouted *Ura!* The march song reverberated across the square.

Paying no heed to that, there were also columns that brought their own brass bands to the front. Even the roar of two planes that had been tracing circles in low-altitude ceremonial flight over the square now served as one of the joyous musical elements, while the grand procession—anticipated to number eight hundred thousand—flowed in through the gate near Okhotny Ryad and streamed out toward the Moskvoretskaya Embankment gate. As she gazed at the human wave filling that direction and the forest of placards swaying above them, Nobuko realized she couldn’t see the Execution Ground—the site she always regarded with particular emotion. In that part of Red Square, the Execution Ground—which normally revealed its circular form like a large gray stone empty well, narrating through its presence the history of people beheaded by tsars—had become hidden beneath waves of May Day crowds and placards. When marchers reached its perimeter, they were likely twisting their lines to detour around it, but from Nobuko’s vantage point, she couldn’t even discern that undulation. The Execution Ground had been swallowed up by the waves of May Day’s procession.

In Nobuko's heart flashed the shape of the red ink mark that had been added to the March 15th article, appearing vividly. It now floated in Nobuko’s heart as a symbol. In a form far more enormous than reality. The red ink mark that Taizo had added to the newspaper he sent Nobuko now stretched in form, looming phantom-like above the tens of thousands of people filling and moving across the Execution Ground. However, it must have been Nobuko alone who saw that ominous red ink mark. And it must have been Nobuko alone who resisted the sensation of being about to be placed beneath that mark. Nobuko felt with utter clarity that she stood under the shadow of a different history.

The May Day procession nearing its end moved through the square's dust—churned into a pulpy mess under hundreds of thousands of boots and grown feverish—its ranks thinning somewhat as it followed the march music that had played all day long. The final procession had passed. When Nobuko noticed and looked toward the podium, she found it had emptied at some point. Nobuko, Motoko, Akiyama Uiichi, and Utsumi Atsushi formed a tight cluster and emerged from the enervated Red Square into Okhotny Ryad.

This area was terribly congested. Through the jostling crowd that had just dispersed from the procession, a farm tractor carrying a girl with a red kerchief wrapped around her head came from the theater direction, scattering leaflets as it advanced. Nobuko and the others finally pushed through the throng and reached the paved sidewalk of Tverskaya Street. Here too, beneath red placards strung overhead, masses of people packed the space, the air churned and feverish with their heat.

“Nobuko-chan, let’s stop by Passazh for some tea on our way,” Motoko said to Akiyama. “Is Passazh open?” “Well… I suppose… It should be open.” “It’s open, it’s open,” Utsumi answered rapidly from beside them.

Utsumi Atsushi answered rapidly from beside them.

Nobuko and the others returned to Astozhenka with their shoes covered in dust. In the morning, there had been only sparse figures heading toward Red Square along the avenue where streetcars had stopped running, yet on their return journey, that same thoroughfare was now crowded with people walking home from Red Square. Everyone walked slowly in the weary May Day mood, holding small red paper flags and whistling as they went. "I'm exhausted!" When they entered the room, Nobuko immediately opened the window and threw herself onto the divan.

“Standing really takes it out of you.” Motoko began smoking with relish.

Normally, as soon as they opened the window, the sounds of horse carts traveling along the cobblestone-paved roadway and the clattering of trams would coalesce into a mass of noise that struck the large stone edifice of Christ the Savior Cathedral before cascading into Nobuko and Motoko's narrow, shallow room. Today, even when they opened the window, there wasn’t a single clamorous sound. The soft, vast quiet of afternoon enveloped the entire building and the city. As Nobuko remained still on the divan, only the faint murmur of passersby reached the fourth-floor window. For Nobuko, the May Day procession was profoundly moving. In this way, on May Day, the entire busy city of Moscow had stopped work to rest and celebrate. In the depth of the festive day’s atmosphere, there was indeed something that struck her heart. Because alcoholic beverages had not been sold at all since the day before May Day, today’s festive cheer remained entirely sober. In such things too lay an even greater joy—the sense that others shared Nobuko’s feelings.

Nobuko and Motoko rested for a while, then washed their dust-covered faces and changed their clothes. Then their throats became dry again. Motoko "Could you boil some water?" Motoko said to Nobuko. “It’s fine—it’s May Day, isn’t it?” Under the usual agreement between Nobuko and Motoko with Luibakov, water was only to be boiled in the morning and evening. When Nobuko went to check the kitchen, Nyura—who had opened the entrance for them earlier—was nowhere to be seen. Luibakov’s wife and child seemed to have gone out as well, leaving the entire apartment hushed and still. Nobuko found their light blue kettle sitting on the shelf above the sink. Nobuko was troubled by Nyura’s absence. Disliking the idea of acting on her own in their empty kitchen, Nobuko gazed at the light blue kettle while half-muttering to herself,

“Nyura, where’ve you gone off to?” she called out in a drawn-out tone. Then Nyura emerged from the balcony outside the kitchen’s glass door. Her face was slightly flushed from whatever she’d been doing.

“I walked so much my throat’s dry, Nyura. I wonder if I could have some hot water?” “Yes, ma’am.” Nyura immediately took down the kettle, filled it with water, and put it on the gas burner. “Thank you. I’ll come get the hot water.”

As Nobuko tried to leave the kitchen after saying this, Nyura—who had been hesitating—said, “Come here and see.” She pointed to the balcony door. In the corner of the narrow iron-railed balcony stood piled empty boxes and bags, with Nyura’s tin laundry tub placed among them. The balcony faced the building’s inner courtyard but received poor sunlight due to another wing protruding immediately to its left. Across the courtyard rose a concrete wall topped by two strands of jagged wire. Pressed against this barrier at wall-height sat the reddish-brown roof of a bread factory. On that roof—whether returned early from May Day marches or never having gone—three youths now horsed around. When Nyura stepped onto the balcony, a sharp challenging whistle pierced the air from among them.

Nobuko reflexively pulled her body into the shadow of the door.

“Hey! Fatty! Little girl!” “Come on over here!” The voices of youths shouting and laughing could be heard from the rooftop. From the opposite side, all the windows and balconies of this building that faced the inner courtyard were visible. The young men had likely discerned that all the windows were closed today and that there were no women working on the balconies, and seemed to be teasing Nyura on the sole open balcony.

A youth who had been lying along the gentle slope of the reddish-brown roof stood up while balancing himself, taking something from his pocket. Then, brandishing it toward Nyura's balcony, he barked out short phrases too garbled for Nobuko to discern. They roared with unified laughter. Another pressed fingers to his lips and shrilled a piercing whistle—something lewd in its intent. Nyura remained motionless on the balcony in her soiled May Day clothes, arms crossed over her flat chest, her stocky back turned defiantly as she stared fixedly at the bakery roof without yielding either laughter or retreat.

Nobuko quietly left the kitchen and returned to their room. In their room on the building's front side, Fram Frista Spasitelya's golden dome shone brightly through the open windowpanes, while faint traces of people traversing the festival streets drifted in. This was the festive front.

Precisely because one could grasp the depth of Moscow’s May Day joy, the balcony on the building’s back side held the desolate underside of the holiday. The sight of Nyura standing on the kitchen balcony made a strong impression on Nobuko. Nobuko’s heart had not forgotten the shape of the red ink mark—its form symbolically enlarged.

Seven

When May Day had passed, an early summer sprang forth through Moscow's streets. Every young bud on the street trees unfurled into leaves with astonishing swiftness. Bright rain fell, drenching the marble parapets of Christ the Savior Cathedral. As Nobuko lifted her eyes from the desk where she'd nearly finished writing her Moscow impressions and gazed through the freshly rain-washed window, she saw seven or eight sparrows aligned on a wire still glistening with droplets.

Nobuko had lately stopped writing letters directly addressed to Takeyo. There had been a time when Moscow was still covered in snow that Nobuko had been unable to finish reading a letter from Takeyo regarding her correspondence with Tasuku. Since then, she had occasionally written brief updates on postcards addressed to "The Sassa Family." From the Dōzaka house came messages that Kazuichiro had written or jointly composed - arriving even less frequently than Nobuko's Tokyo-bound postcards. As ever, they rambled without focus, reporting only about drives taken here and there.

For some time before and after May Day, Nobuko found herself frequently dwelling on the newspaper article marked with her father’s red ink. Taizo—as was his habit—had been reading that newspaper at the breakfast table where he sat alone, unconsciously grinding the molars that held his dentures, furrowing his bushy short eyebrows that flared at the ends, then immediately taking a pen from the inkstand on the table and hastily adding the red ink mark—Nobuko could grasp his expression as vividly as if she could reach out and touch it. In Taizo’s expression and in his method of having someone send that newspaper marked with a jarring red ink mark, Nobuko came to recognize a psychological distance between her father and herself that she had never noticed before.

In the article stating that Communist Party members had been arrested in Japan on March 15th—what could have been Taizo's intention when he impulsively added that red ink mark and had it sent to Nobuko? If Nobuko had been in Paris instead, would Taizo still have sent the newspaper like this? The mere fact that his daughter was in Moscow had caused Taizo to receive an unusual impulse from that newspaper article. Though Taizo himself likely couldn't find the words to express it, the red ink mark spoke volumes about the nature of the shock he had felt—and this realization filled Nobuko with sorrow.

Last autumn, when Nobuko and the others had decided to come to the Soviet Union, and when they went to the Dōzaka house about the passport matter, her mother Takeyo had said “Ro-shi-a?”—dragging out each syllable—and made a displeased face. In the nearly half-year since then, Takeyo’s letter—which Nobuko had read up to that point before being unable to continue—contained the words: “Your cold-heartedness began when you went to Russia.” When Nobuko had gone to ask her father Taizo for assistance with the passport matter, he had been pleased that she had managed to secure a loan through her own efforts and was now able to go abroad, and he did not express any opinions about her destination. In Taizo’s subsequent brief communications, there had not been the slightest indication of preconceptions or prejudice toward Russia.

However, when a newspaper article appeared revealing that Japan too—like other countries around the world—had somehow formed a Communist Party without anyone noticing, and that ministers and officials were now scrambling about in confusion upon discovering this fact, Taizo's mental equilibrium was instantly shaken. Though differing in degree, this shared the same essential nature as Takeyo's—an abnormal psychological response toward Russia as a place and toward Nobuko's presence there.

Nobuko had always had the habit of unconditionally approving of her father. No matter what her mother Takeyo might be, she had maintained the habit of believing in her father Taizo. That habitual sense of security toward her father was profoundly shaken within her. From birth, her father and mother had possessed fundamentally different temperaments—differences that over long years had been mutually reinforced through their interactions. To Nobuko, who had grown up between them, her parents seemed utterly dissimilar in both their ways of thinking and feeling. Yet now she realized she had been exaggerating these temperamental differences beyond their actual nature—a self-deception born of childish dependency. Father and Mother were, after all, husband and wife. When pressed, they had always lived as a couple protecting their shared interests. How strange that Nobuko had believed in some essential difference between her parents' ways of thinking—a difference she'd magnified for her own comfort and clung to all this time.

At the end of April when Nobuko visited the Gorky exhibition at Moscow’s Central Art Museum, she discovered there wasn’t a single childhood photograph of Gorky displayed. She compared this absence to her own abundance of photos preserved since infancy. This realization made her acutely conscious—almost painfully so—of her superficial attitude toward photography. While ruthlessly opposing her mother yet believing she could indulge her father uncritically, Nobuko now saw this configuration of her heart as bearing a similar ugliness. When it came down to it, how fundamentally different were Father Taizo’s vaunted notions of insight and common sense from Mother Takeyo’s pragmatic worldview?

Taizo disliked government offices and officials. So eager was he to quit the Ministry of Education's Construction Bureau, where he had just started working after graduating university, that he went to England as a young former feudal lord’s attendant. The only structures Taizo completed as a government architect were a few modest buildings at Sapporo Agricultural College. When Nobuko went to Sapporo at nineteen to see them, the school buildings stood lined up like an old-fashioned oil painting beneath elm branches. After returning from abroad, Taizo had continued working as a private architect.

Taizo often spoke of things like whether common sense existed or not as a basis for judgment. As if it were something that existed in England but not in Japan, he would say “common sense” in English, and to speak of people having low common sense or lacking common sense altogether was, for Taizo, something contemptible. But what exactly was this “common sense” that Taizo so solemnly proclaimed to exist or not exist? Even as she pondered intensely, when the appellation “Father” rose in her heart, Nobuko was moved by nostalgia. She recalled Taizo’s warm, large bald head that smelled of eau de quinine. In that beloved father, Nobuko felt a superficiality of the same nature as what she had discovered in herself. When you got down to it, even Father Taizo didn’t truly possess common sense strong enough to be called as such, yet there was something about him that made one use the English term “common sense.” If it were truly common sense imbued with discernment, then if there existed in a capitalist country the fact that the law bans the Communist Party, one should have understood that this very circumstance directly speaks to how that country possesses the social conditions giving rise to such a reformist political party.

Walking among the Moscow residents strolling under the arc lights of tree-lined avenues heavy with young leaves' fragrance on a May night, Nobuko felt peculiar realizing that within this flowing crowd, she alone bore that red ink mark. Even Motoko, walking beside her and occasionally linking arms, did not grasp Nobuko’s strange sensation. Life in Moscow had thrust Nobuko into vast, complex social phenomena whose very existence she hadn’t known while in Japan. Nobuko had grown all the more free and unrestrained. Then she discovered that various red ink marks she’d been unaware of until now were weighing on her alone—marks that touched none of the Muscovites moving about around her.

In this state of mind during evening strolls along tree-lined avenues, Nobuko would nearly voice a particular emotion to Motoko before holding back—a feeling she kept unspoken. It connected to what she had read in Bukharin’s dense volume that Motoko had acquired back in Komazawa during the autumn before their Moscow arrival, when they lived together in the house beyond the pomegranate tree. There in Komazawa, gazing at the lawn garden while reading, Nobuko learned capital’s role in modern society and the working class’s historical significance—discovering too the essential fluidity of their own petty bourgeois stratum, capable of shifting allegiance either way. Around that period, she first recognized the social relations embedded in her father Taizo’s architectural practice. Even as Sassa Taizo held memberships in the Royal Academy and American Institute of Architects, Nobuko understood he ultimately served those in Japan with means enough to commission buildings. This realization made her sympathize as a daughter with his simmering resentment toward clients’ whimsical demands.

However, the red ink mark overturned Nobuko's understanding once again. She came to understand the reality that Taizo's genuine dislike of officials had not inherently made him someone who disliked people with money.

There was a certain magnate whom Nobuko’s father Taizo would call "Baron, Baron"—a lover of art and music. At the same time, he was one of those who dominated political parties as part of Japan's major zaibatsu and held the reins of power in Japan. That magnate and Father Taizo had been acquainted since their time in England and likely shared a kind of friendship, but the family, including Nobuko, had never been brought into that circle.

Nobuko was about ten or eleven years old. Taizo was able to go to Hakone for some business, and Nobuko was taken along. It was summer, and Nobuko felt excited by the novelty of being taken by her father to this place called Hakone for the first time, while also feeling proud of the immaculate white linen dress she had been made to wear. They went to Hakone, ate a meal at a large inn, then Taizo mentioned the name of the magnate whom even the young Nobuko knew, and suggested stopping by his villa.

The villa that Nobuko was taken to by her father Taizo resembled a castle from the illustrations in girls' novels she knew. The entrance door with its massive iron hinges opened to reveal a hall whose ceiling soared uninterrupted up to the second floor. High above, a balustrade could be seen from which hung a beautiful crimson carpet. Flanking a large doorway stood Japanese armor laced with scarlet cords and foreign steel-plated suits of armor. The hall further contained vases and ornamental plates. All these decorations, illuminated by light filtering through the hall's stained glass windows—their green tinged with yellow—appeared imbued with an imposing vitality.

The girl Nobuko walked across the hall's carpet with her father, eyes wide with wonder like the spirited girl she was. She felt satisfied wearing a white linen dress that suited her perfectly, a pink ribbon wrapped around her head, and stylish British-made sandals. Nobuko had believed she would surely meet the mansion's master before their return. Yet Father Taizo merely took her through two or three rooms with the steward. When they emerged into the summer sunlight blazing upon bare earth moments later, she felt her expectations crushed—a humiliating, unpleasant disappointment. Only afterward did she understand her father had brought her there precisely because the master was absent.

Taizo, as a zaibatsu member, occupied a position opposed to that magnate while simultaneously maintaining seemingly friendly relations with people who controlled rival political parties. Taizo's disposition—completely lacking political interest or ambition yet endowed with wide-ranging interests and in some ways remarkably straightforward—likely made him an architect friend whom those living amidst such constantly tumultuous relationships found easy to engage with. Yet whenever Nobuko recalled the red ink mark, she found herself unable to avoid feeling conflicted about her father Taizo's sociability in those matters.

In those people’s residences—comfortable dwellings Nobuko had never seen—when the master and Taizo were exchanging pleasantries, if someone were to speak of the arrested Communist Party members, affirming at least the inevitability of their emergence, what expressions would the master and Taizo make? Taizo would surely condemn the lack of common sense in whoever had brought up such a topic while disregarding the setting. But what exactly was this "common sense" in that case? Wasn’t this Taizo’s judgment siding with the sentiments of those wealthy and powerful individuals who detested talk of the Communist Party? And wasn’t it Taizo’s judgment conforming to the conventional wisdom that deemed what they detested as undesirable?

Nobuko had secretly harbored pride in her father Taizo. As one of Japan's foremost architects. How she must have cherished this pride upon reaching literary maturity—that her father was neither bureaucrat nor industrialist, soldier nor politician, but an architect, an independent technician in the private sector. Yet it did not take long for Nobuko to realize Taizo's professional independence operated within narrow confines, his work fundamentally governed by those possessing the economic means to commission grand private constructions. Now she sorrowfully recognized how this social position imposed limits even upon Taizo's integrity, sincerity, sense of justice, and independence—how his gentlemanly demeanor concealed submission to invisible forces. Her own consciousness demanded no such obedience. Still, Nobuko found herself circling these thoughts. Were she seated beside that Baron as Taizo's daughter, what measure of freedom could she truly claim over her father's subservient sentiments? She felt certain she would present herself identically—a pleasing young woman currying their favor. Or else, repelled by awareness of yielding to their pressure, might she stiffen and withdraw entirely?

When Nobuko was sixteen or seventeen, Japan saw the formation of its first organization for Western music enthusiasts called the Philharmonic. The patron was that Baron who maintained a seemingly friendly relationship with Taizo. At that first concert, Nobuko dressed up and went with her parents to listen to the performance. When she was introduced to the Baron couple, Nobuko simultaneously felt both excitement and repulsion toward their polished aura. While experiencing two conflicting emotions, Nobuko remembered having presented herself as a clever-seeming, refined girl without realizing it. Such aspects were the infuriating slipperiness of Nobuko, who always hated acknowledging them in herself.

The circumstances of having nearly spoken to Motoko but ultimately refraining were part of this new emotional process Nobuko was undergoing—one that implicated both her father Taizo and herself. The moral views each person held had been shaped by the interests of the class to which they belonged. This held true even when applied to Taizo. That truth extended to Nobuko's own middle-class nature—like an Eve halfway through being born, she had partially emerged from it yet remained not fully liberated. There was no denying Taizo's sincerity and integrity within those confines. Yet the limitations Nobuko had newly discerned in Taizo—and in herself—could not be unlearned. For Nobuko, who had persistently affirmed her father and by extension her own affirmations, these realizations became an inner experience akin to glimpsing her own emaciated reflection at life's watershed.

There was a newspaper article stating that in connection with the March 15th Incident, the Ministry of Education had ordered the dismissal of certain professors from Kyoto University and Kyushu University who had been leading social science study groups, while the university presidents did not immediately comply. However, in the end, after receiving dismissal recommendations, Professor Takei Yamakami of Kyoto University and others ended up leaving the university. In the newspaper carrying a photograph of Professor Takei Yamakami in his chokuninkan uniform alongside the news article, there was an advertisement for the lengthy novel that Nobuko had entrusted her friend Kawa no Ume to proofread and had brought with her to Moscow, which had finally been published and released.

Soon, Kawa no Ume sent over the published book. In Moskva there were books aplenty, but their paper remained coarse and their bindings shoddy. Having seen only such volumes lately, Nobuko marveled at her own book's magnificence when it arrived. "What a wonderful book." Atop Astozhenka's desk where they'd unwrapped the parcel, Nobuko and Motoko jostled playfully while admiring the gilt-edged tome with its cover of handmade paper printed through woodblock with persimmons.

The novel centered on a young woman from Japan's middle class. Behind this story depicting the fierce friction between seething youthful vitality straining to overflow and its environment lay the trajectory of Nobuko's own unwelcome marriage and its collapse. Opening the book's pages—printed with vivid ruby-annotated type on high-quality paper—Nobuko remained standing before the table and read scattered passages from the novel she herself had written.

“Let me see it too.” Handing the book to Motoko as she reached out and tidying up the wrapping paper and string, Nobuko wondered whether the various feelings of Japanese women contained within this novel could truly resonate with Soviet women.

“Here, if anything, there are more instances where the male roles in this novel are portrayed as female—wouldn’t the people here relate to it better that way?”

When Motoko spoke of "the male position," she meant the protagonist's husband. The man had failed to understand his young wife's struggle against their suffocating environment, stubbornly clinging to his subjective belief that he loved her as a husband until he drove their complex relationship to ruin. "But isn't that fundamentally different?" Nobuko retorted, nervously tracing the woodblock-printed floral pattern on the book's case.

“Even in plays like Inga, a woman left behind by her husband still retains the capacity to develop herself independently, and moreover, her social life contains the very conditions that make this possible...”

If we were to take even one example—the persistent parental interference in a daughter’s life as depicted in Nobuko’s novel—it was a fact that had already been eradicated from the customs and sentiments of Soviet society. Amidst the roar of Moscow’s May Day procession, it seemed that only Nobuko—a Japanese woman and daughter—saw the red ink mark, symbolically enlarged. Moreover, it was that red ink mark drawn by the hand of her father, who firmly believed himself to be loving Nobuko. ――

Around the same time, correspondence arrived from Tasuku after a long interval. It was another postcard. The greenhouse was thriving with melons growing steadily, and he would soon have to select his department as part of his university enrollment preparations. What did I think? He was generally considering either philosophy or ethics. It was written in Tasuku’s usual meticulous small script with light pen strokes.

From around that time, the evening hours in Moskva visibly grew longer. Even at nine o'clock in the evening, Christ the Savior Cathedral's golden dome floated large in a dulled gold hue within the faint twilight, while across the city's old buildings coated in monotonous pinks and grays—all under a dim glow lacking reflected light—the deep green leaves of street trees appeared alongside them like a pastel painting. Sounds too began resonating distantly with an oddly softened quality.

Facing the vast sky where night was beginning to fade, in Nobuko and Motoko's curtainless room with its two open windows, it had somehow become two or three o'clock. In the hours after the trams ceased running, enveloped in a quiet, unchanging twilight, the view of Astozhenka's street corner with its sparse foot traffic—revealing a glimpse of the deep thicket along the tree-lined avenue where not a leaf stirred—formed a scene of captivating charm. They set out chairs on the small balcony beyond the window, and Nobuko and Motoko remained awake through the night. Nobuko worried about Tasuku considering philosophy or ethics for his university studies.

“Ethics as a specialty… It’s so like him that it makes me anxious.” In the pearly haze of twilight, Motoko struck a match—its flame burning small and beautiful—to light her cigarette. Brushing tobacco flakes from her lips with her fingertips, she said: “Philosophy would be better.” “But even philosophy…” Nobuko kept her distrustful expression unchanged as she considered Ochi’s inevitable involvement in Tasuku’s choice and Takeyo’s pretentious intellectual tastes shaped by that influence.

“If he studies philosophy, he’ll only become more trapped with no way out. Especially since he’ll probably end up studying someone like Kant...”

Recalling the lecture on Kant’s philosophy she had attended at Tokyo University’s summer course years ago, Nobuko felt a twinge of fear at the thought that Tasuku’s penchant for abstraction might be amplified and systematized by his affinity for Kant. When she imagined Tasuku becoming such a scholar, she felt as though any emotional anchor connecting his life to her own would be lost. “What he needs is an academic discipline that would boldly thrust him into society, but…”

"He might as well study economics. If not that, he could study philosophy using the methods they use in this country." "In that case, living would at least feel rooted in reality." But Tasuku, by his very nature, sought a pure truth that was completely untouched by any reality. This was something Nobuko understood with painful clarity. It stood opposed to dialectical materialism's approach—that method which immersed itself in the remarkable movements of human-nature relations themselves, affirmed those movements, and sought to uncover their governing laws. She remembered how Tasuku had once flinched at even hearing the word "materialism." He'd associated it with the characters for "selfishness" followed by "material," as if they formed a single condemning phrase.

For a while, Nobuko and Motoko fell silent as they looked down at the dimly lit street from their two AM balcony when the sound of a horse's hooves reached them from afar. The hoofbeats came echoing from Central Museum Street facing their balcony. Advancing toward Astozhenka at such a pace that they could distinctly hear four hooves striking in succession against the stone-paved road. After some time, a single horse-drawn carriage from Moskva appeared. It moved through the white-night streets as if both man and horse were sleepwalking. On the high driver's seat of the carriage pulled by a black horse with lowered neck sat the driver—wearing a green round hat trimmed with fur—who held slackened reins while tucking both hands into his overcoat sleeves, swaying with rhythmic nods. On the seat lay a drunk half-sprawled. Beneath his thin coat gaped the chest of his white Russian shirt as he clutched a guitar. The carriage disappeared around Astozhenka's corner with the same lethargy it had shown when first appearing before them. Long after its disappearance, the monotonous clop of hooves kept echoing off buildings along the dimly lit avenue until it finally reached Nobuko and Motoko.

The next day, Nobuko wrote a letter to Tasuku. For her, ethics could not be conceived as an independent academic discipline. Philosophy itself had been progressing in today's world. She wrote asking him to clarify what direction he intended to pursue in philosophy. About a week after Nobuko sent that letter, another postcard arrived from Tasuku. It described his summer plans with no relation to their previous correspondence. "I want to make this summer one of great enjoyment," he wrote. The text carried a decisiveness unusual for Tasuku. Written in his characteristic hand, it detailed plans for tennis matches, bicycle rides, and drives. When Nobuko picked up and read this postcard, she found it oddly abrupt. Yet the Moscow where she read Tasuku's message was already summer. An ice cream stall painted in gaudy red and pink stripes appeared at the tree-lined avenue's entrance, while book markets sprang up along the promenade. On Sundays, music played under linden trees reached their room. As Nobuko prepared for her trip to Leningrad, she instinctively interpreted Tasuku's summer plans through Moscow's seasonal transformation surrounding her.

Chapter Three

1

It is said that the white nights are most beautiful in early June. During that season, Nobuko and Motoko vacated their room in Astozhenka where they had lived for a little over two months and departed for Leningrad.

With the arrival of spring, Moscow began to dry out and grow dusty; after May Day passed, when suddenly summer-like sunlight came dancing over everything, the city took on the parched heat so characteristic of a flatland metropolis.

Nobuko and the others departed from Moskva's North Station on a train past eleven o'clock at night. The train was empty, and when she awoke from deep sleep, the scenery visible outside the carriage window startled her. The train traveled along a lonely expanse of wilderness dotted here and there with decaying fences. Shallow water soaking the grassy plain glistened beneath a dull gray dawn sky like spring meltwater. A grove of birch trees with fresh young leaves spread wide stood clustered within that water. The watery desolate landscape in white, green and gray hues gave the distinct impression they had entered lands near the northern sea.

The impression of northern landscapes glimpsed through the train window grew stronger upon entering Leningrad. This city facing the Baltic Sea, crisscrossed by canals, had been built in the eighteenth century. Its bridges teemed with activity, and though the former Nevsky Prospekt—now October Street—retained European elegance, the clumsily constructed German-inspired architecture of its main districts paradoxically emphasized the surrounding waters: the Neva River, Baltic Sea, and countless encircling canals. Leningrad held a strangely melancholic beauty.

Nobuko and Motoko stayed at the Hotel Europe overlooking the canal of the Small Neva River for about the first ten days of their time in Leningrad. There occurred an event they hadn't anticipated. One morning, they discovered through a newspaper interview article that Gorky was staying at the same Hotel Europe as them. "Oh—so he'd already returned from the south then." "That does appear to be the case."

Maxim Gorky, who had returned to the Soviet Union from Sorrento in May after five years' absence, was soon swept up in welcoming tides before departing for Southern Russia to inspect the Dnieper Dam construction and other projects. "I see..." As they exchanged glances—Motoko lapsing into silence with some unspoken contemplation—Nobuko felt her resolve crystallize. "Why don't we meet him?"

Nobuko suddenly and simply said. It was not out of a desire to meet him to see what kind of person he was, but from a simple emotion of trust in her counterpart that Nobuko came to feel like meeting Gorky. To put it simply, Nobuko had immersed herself so deeply in the world of Gorky’s works that her desire to meet him had become genuine, and the Gorky exhibition had instilled in her a sympathy for Gorky both as a person and an artist and compelled her to reflect on herself.

“What do you think?” “Let’s try inquiring about his availability.”

With a bright, wide-eyed expression on her wheat-colored face, Motoko joined in. "When would be good for us?"

"But—" "He's a busy man, after all."

“Shall we decide our plans after checking their availability?” “I do think that’s proper.”

Motoko drafted a note on a small piece of paper. "Two Japanese women writers wish to meet you. Might you spare us a brief moment? We await your response." Then they wrote their hotel room number and both their names. "By the way—how should we write the addressee? Just 'Maxim Gorky' like that?"

Somehow, that didn't settle quite right either. "Grazhdanin (citizen) wouldn't work either, would it?" Nobuko said with a burst of laughter, as though they were going to something as mundane as a ward office—a gesture that felt utterly incongruous.

“Would ‘Tovarishch’ be strange, do you think?” “That very sentiment, you know—originally intending to meet...” “Then let’s just write it like that.” “Yes, yes.”

The two of them took Motoko’s written note to the hotel’s front desk. And they had it placed into the key box for Gorky’s room. Gorky was in room eight.

The next morning, Nobuko and the others found the response in their key box. The following morning at ten-thirty, Gorky was to wait for Nobuko and the others in his room.

Nobuko wore a white summer dress with thin crimson stripes, and Motoko wore a white blouse with a beautiful hand-knitted silk tie at her chest; precisely at the appointed morning hour, they knocked on the door of Number Eight.

The large white-painted door was opened immediately. A startlingly tall young man with light chestnut hair seemed equally astonished by how diminutive the two women standing right before the opened door appeared. “Good day. What business brings you here?” he asked, stooping slightly. With slightly flushed cheeks, Motoko explained the reason for their visit.

“Ah, I’ve been expecting you,” he said. “Please come in.” They passed through the narrow anteroom and were ushered into the guest room beyond. From its window too stretched a view of Koneva. At the center of the room stood a marble table where, inexplicably, sat a lone plate bearing a single slice of toast.

Another door leading to the inner private room opened. Gorky emerged. He was accompanied by the young, tall man who had guided Nobuko and Motoko. Compared to his photographic likeness, Gorky appeared far more aged, his once-sturdy frame having shed much of its flesh. Yet the writer now wore a pale gray suit of soft fabric that revealed an air of desiccated sprightliness in old age—a quality no camera could capture. Seeing them side by side left no doubt this was father and son. Their statures matched perfectly, their bone structures identical. But how profoundly different were Gorky's face—imposing and ineffably complex—and his son's kind yet enervated features that seemed stretched too thin over excessive height. This juxtaposition of paternal legacy and filial inadequacy resonated through Nobuko. Gorky grasped each woman's hand in turn within his large, dry-warm palms as he welcomed them.

“Please have a seat.”

And, while settling himself into a spacious armchair, “This is my son.”

He introduced the young man standing beside him to Nobuko and Motoko. "He works as my secretary." Nobuko recalled there being a photograph of Gorky holding an infant—likely this person's child, she thought.

Gorky asked Nobuko and the others what they thought of the Soviet Union. Nobuko thought for a moment,

“I find it extremely interesting,” she answered.

“Hmm.”

Gorky seemed to be scrutinizing every implication contained within the simple expression "interesting," but before long— “Yes,” he said. “It can indeed be called interesting.” he nodded in assent. “The Soviet Union is conducting a large-scale human experiment.” Then rumors about Soviet writers who had visited Japan became a topic of conversation. Regarding Gorky’s works translated in Japan and the staging of *The Lower Depths*, it was primarily Motoko who spoke.

Motoko presented Motoko’s translated collection of Chekhov’s letters, and Nobuko presented Nobuko’s novel to Gorky. Gorky, saying it was a beautiful book, flipped through Nobuko’s novel and asked Motoko whether Japanese law imposed any special restrictions on women’s publications. Motoko replied, “Women can publish books of their own will—of course, within the bounds that censorship allows.” she answered. Gorky responded, “Is that so?”

he said, sounding surprised. "In Italy, when a woman wishes to publish a book, if she is a young maiden she requires permission from her father or guardian, and if she is married, from her husband."

And thinking gravely, "That seems rather peculiar," he said. "For Japan to deny women social recognition yet permit unrestricted book publishing—"

“I don’t think that alone means Japan is free for women.”

Nobuko managed to string together just that much Russian and said. “That’s probably because the old authorities in Japan never imagined women would write books.” “That could very well be the case.” As someone who had often witnessed such societal contradictions, Gorky laughed. Nobuko and the others also laughed. Among the three of them, the conversation soon turned to Japanese netsuke. At first, Gorky said someone had sent him a unique Japanese art piece called Nikke. As they continued talking, it turned out to be about netsuke.

Gorky sat in a low armchair, his face catching the clear June morning light from the side, revealing deep horizontal wrinkles across his forehead. The brightness streaming through the window from over the rippling Neva River fell upon both the shoulders and knees of his soft gray suit, illuminating even the tips of Nobuko and her companions' shoes on the carpet. Nobuko found herself gazing at Gorky's sincere, unembellished entirety rather than attempting to speak herself. There was none of the superficial polish that famous people acquire through their renown in him. His whole being seemed matte-finished - bearing the genuine humanity of one who, with age, had come to focus solely on what truly matters to people, and in that sense, an agreeable masculinity. Though deeply perceptive of many things, his spirit held no exaggeration. As Nobuko struggled through her halting Russian, Gorky listened intently - his large frame slightly hunched in the chair, elbow braced against his left knee - and when he nodded saying "That could very well be," his simplicity and sincerity filled her with boundless joy and encouragement.

Just as they were preparing to take their leave, Nobuko—prompted by Gorky—signed the title page of the novel she had presented to him in Russian. The characters proved difficult to write, and her attempt at formality only made them appear more clumsily rendered. Nobuko felt awkward about it, but Gorky, truly unconcerned by such matters, slowly— “Never mind.” While saying this, he twisted toward the window and blew across the still-wet ink of Nobuko’s signature. It felt natural—a naturalness that seized Nobuko’s heart. Whenever she was with Gorky, it seemed as though every literary world she had ever encountered was being reaffirmed through human multiplicity and authenticity.

After leaving Gorky’s room and walking down the corridor toward their own, Nobuko found her initial joy gradually shifting into a pensive, somber mood. When she felt drawn to Gorky’s profound humanity—unvarnished and deeply resonant—she reflexively recalled the superficial gloss that clung to her father Taizo. The worldly sheen of Taizo’s character struck her with vivid clarity. And there emerged the red ink mark. Nobuko ceased blinking, her mind fixated on that gloss and the crimson stain as if scrutinizing them side by side.

Nobuko felt that as long as an artist could be categorized with expressions like "individualistic," their essence remained narrow and underdeveloped—this she came to perceive through observing Gorky.

Then, five or six days later, Nobuko and Motoko moved from the Europe Hotel to the Scholar’s House beside the Winter Palace. This was through an introduction from the Leningrad Cultural Liaison Association and arrangements by Utsumi Atsushi, who had come to Leningrad after seeing off Akiyama Uiichi when he returned to Japan immediately after May Day.

It was on the banks of the Neva River; when one stood by the window, there below lay the black swift flow of the Neva. In the distance on the opposite shore rose the golden spire of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The window where Nobuko and Motoko stood side by side gazing at sunset over the flowing Neva loomed so tall that their figures appeared small against its frame. This was during White Nights when each day brought sunsets after midnight. Before them—their two Japanese faces with fine-textured skin illuminated full-front by western light—the sun whirled like a great crimson fireball as it sank between three massive smokestacks black against the far shore. The Neva’s current first darkened to steel-gray. Yet this same declining sun still blazing upon their faces set aflame the golden moldings along ceiling and walls of what had once been Grand Duke Vladimir’s palace chamber. Beside their sunset-viewing window stood a great fireplace; upon its ornamental mirror bathed in western light glimmered fragments of the room’s dazzling white stucco transom and ceiling.

The sunsets and sunrises of this season in Leningrad were quite a spectacle. The sun that had sunk between the first and second of three pitch-black smokestacks towering on the opposite shore began to rise again after a mere twelve or thirteen minutes—starting from a point just slightly to the side of where it had set. The sun rose more laboriously than it had set. Light streaked over the heavy steel-colored water of the Neva, which had begun to swell from the Baltic Sea’s incoming tide. On the riverside avenue, pedestrians vanished. The view at this hour was filled with melancholy and was beautiful. Nobuko was struck by how the city called Leningrad lay so near the northern edge of the world, and by the natural phenomenon where the Earth’s curvature revealed itself so distinctly in the sunset and sunrise.

Leningrad was not the capital of the Soviet Union. This fact made Nobuko and Motoko—who had spent half a year living exclusively in Moscow—realize the essence of life there that they hadn’t grasped until coming to Leningrad.

The Leningrad VOKS (All-Union Society for Cultural Relations) was located on the left side of the street leading toward Troitsky Bridge from Dom Uchyonykh (Scholar’s House)—the former residence of Grand Duke Vladimir where Nobuko and the others were staying. The streets in that area, paved with wooden bricks, were wide and perpetually quiet, with the verdant June foliage from gardens enclosed by iron fences characteristic of European aristocratic mansions extending their branches deeply over the sidewalk. Around the Winter Palace in that area stood buildings that seemed utterly devoid of human presence. On the right side of the same wide street stood a single large mansion surrounded by an iron fence. Through an iron fence with spear-shaped tips lined in gold, one could see a mansion with tightly shuttered windows, surrounded by rampant weeds that engulfed the large stone steps of its carriage entrance. The large, uninhabited stone house with its regular contours harshly illuminated by the summer sunlight stood silencing all sound on that already quiet street. As Nobuko and Motoko walked along the sidewalk bordering its long iron fence, a lizard darted through the weeds at their roots and vanished.

The desolate street opened toward a park where distant flowerbeds of pansies could be seen. A white-painted sign for Leningrad VOKS hung on the iron fence at the left corner. Lush green leaves cascaded from both sides of the elegant iron gate, a single gravel path cutting through tall summer grasses. When Nobuko and the others passed through the gate, they froze in astonishment. Before them lay an abandoned garden. Weeds grew thick beneath elm branches, scattered fragments of broken marble pedestals among them, while beyond the thicket stood an iron fence revealing glimpses of the riverside avenue. There flowed the Neva. Through gaps in the dense summer foliage and lower elm branches, the river appeared to rush swifter and mightier than Nobuko had ever witnessed. The midday gravel path—so silent they might hear the water's murmur—guided them to a slightly ajar door. This entrance at the edge of the sprawling building showed no trace of office functionality; without the freshly mounted Leningrad VOKS plaque on its outer wall, the surrounding desolation would have made them feel like trespassers.

Nobuko and the others followed the sound of the typewriter and entered a second-floor hall. It was an authentic aristocratic hall with walls covered in silk. An oval-shaped large table was placed in the center, upon which VOKS publications were neatly displayed. In a small room beyond there, a typewriter was clattering away.

When she called out and stood at the open entrance to that room, Nobuko was overcome by that strange sensation once more.

A young, beautiful woman sat alone in the middle of that rose-colored, ornately decorated room. She had brought out a French-legged tea table and was typing away on her typewriter placed atop it. Why was this woman—with her extremely delicate frame, smooth temples, and wavy bluish-blonde hair—typing away in the very center of such a room? It seemed that the young woman’s personal preference had led her to choose that particular position. As Nobuko and Motoko were having a conversation with the beautiful woman—one that wasn’t progressing efficiently in a businesslike manner—the middle-aged man in charge of the room returned from outside. He wore a pale cinnamon-colored tie, his well-groomed russet hair and pale forehead bearing an air as if the shadows of fresh leaves they had just passed beneath were still playing across them.

What a striking difference between the bustling activity of Moscow VOKS on Bronnaya Street—with its French-style decorative doors opening and closing all day long—and the tranquility here. Moscow VOKS was a soup pot boiling with bubbles and steam. The Leningrad VOKS here, located deep within the abandoned garden, was exactly like a pristine cut-glass hors d'oeuvre plate. There was not a single unnecessary thing. Everything necessary was provided. ——

Nobuko and Motoko would set out around nine every morning, passing through the cobblestone-paved backyard of the Scholar’s House to explore various parts of Leningrad. Smolny, where the Leningrad Soviet was located, and the Maternity Protection Institute. “Working Women and Peasant Women” Editorial Department. Pioneer summer camps located in the suburbs, and so on.

Every place that Nobuko and Motoko wished to visit—for which they had obtained introductions from VOKS—was located in towns far removed from Leningrad's bustling thoroughfares, including what was once called Nevsky Prospekt. The main avenues around the Winter Palace were paved with wooden bricks that softened the sounds of people and horses, but when they crossed the canal bridge where an old pot-seller woman spread out her sarafan skirt like a Gypsy to display pots of various sizes and entered another district, there—just as in Moscow—lay towns paved with worn cobblestones. Between the worn cobblestones lay straw scraps, paper fragments, and dried horse manure. The northern summer wasn't hot enough to make Nobuko and Motoko sweat as they walked, but the dusty, stifling heat haze of the streets had turned their shoes white.

Dressed in white linen blouses and student-like jumper skirts, wherever they went, Nobuko and Motoko made discoveries unknown to them in Moscow. In Moscow too, Nobuko and Motoko had visited numerous places. In particular, Nobuko had done twice as much walking and observing as Motoko, but wherever they went in Moscow, what they found was a single system—or mechanism—ceaselessly operating as part of Soviet society's vast organism. Even at a modern kitchen factory, Nobuko saw how thousands of meals were prepared daily and what steam pots were used. She came to understand how the factory divided responsibilities among departments while being guided through long corridors—how it housed literary circles, Communist Party cells, and union district committees. Though Nobuko also saw thirty People’s Nutrition Labor Union members in white jackets and caps working vigorously, their activities were so rigidly organized that she perceived only systematized operations themselves—nothing resembling the human texture of those performing them. Even the children's library followed this pattern. Like individual spokes disappearing in a rapidly spinning bicycle wheel, Moscow's people worked with such intensity that each person dissolved into their activities.

After going to Smolny, Nobuko and the others understood Leningrad’s tempo for the first time. Smolny was originally a noble girls' school where during the October Revolution era, they had established the All-Russian Soviet. On that historic October night when Cossack revolutionary machine guns had guarded Smolny’s columned entrance—and on its front staircase where countless people had once run up and down clutching rifles—there now existed on a certain June morning in 1928 as Nobuko’s group ascended it both refreshing summer light rays and a faint breeze carrying summer grass’s scent. Nobuko’s group had come to visit its Women’s Department both because they wanted to see Smolny itself and because they had never visited Moscow Soviet while in Moscow.

Nobuko and Motoko had intended to spend only that single day at Smolny. Depending on circumstances—perhaps just a few hours. Yet they ended up visiting Smolny not just the next day but also the following one—four days consecutively. At that time，the Women’s Department of the Leningrad Soviet was conducting training sessions to cultivate political leaders among rural women. About fifty women representatives selected from various local Soviets near Leningrad had formed a single class undergoing two weeks of instruction. Nobuko and Motoko，who had unexpectedly appeared there，were invited to a consultative meeting scheduled for the next day. The following day，they received an invitation from the head of the Cultural Department—who had observed the consultative meeting—to visit his department. On the fourth day，they were shown a small room in Smolny—formerly a maid’s quarters—where Lenin and his wife were said to have resided during the October Revolution period.

None of such things had been written in VOKS's letter of introduction. In Moscow, everywhere they went, only those sections of the letter of introduction that had been addressed were opened before Nobuko and the others. A single letter of introduction could not be used twice and was not common to two departments. At Smolny, the Women's Department door that had opened before Nobuko and the others proceeded to open one door after another, and one person after another appeared; these people each offered their own explanations, asked Nobuko and the others questions, and displayed a touch of humor. As Pashkin of the Cultural Department had said. —Pashkin turned his large frame—his corn-colored hair left tousled—toward Nobuko standing by the window and said:

“Well, what do you think? Our achievements are splendid—we’ve received this letter here from a woman in a remote rural area…”

The phrase "our achievements" was one of the expressions used in all report speeches at that time. “She has come to ask a question of the Soviet Cultural Department.” “Does Soviet authority permit husbands to beat their wives?” “My husband used to beat me before the Revolution.” “And he still beats me now—Vot!” Pashkin placed the light blue scrap of paper—bearing large characters written in the thick pencil from earlier—on the table, turned his large palm upward again,

“Vot!” With that, he shut his left eye. “Do you understand how vast a range of issues Soviet authority is held responsible for?”

Eventually, Pashkin’s eyes sparkled with humor as he focused his attention intently. “She didn’t take this complaint to the priest—she sent a letter to the Soviet Cultural Department instead.” “Here lies clear articulation of our decade’s significance.” “Will you send a response?”

Nobuko asked. “Of course we will,” he said. “We’ll forward this letter from our department to the Women’s Department. Unfortunately, Russia still has no shortage of husbands and parents who resort to beatings. The children joined forces too—we’ve established an organization to protect kids accustomed to being struck. Who told you about this?” Amid such exchanges, time at Smolny flowed with a gentleness Nobuko had never encountered in Moscow. Within this unhurried temporal current, she found herself granted the leisure to observe even the profiles and retreating figures of Soviet citizens’ emotions as they underwent transformation.

It was when they first went to the Women’s Department at Smolny.

The door to the neighboring room—from which came the alternating sounds of two typewriters—opened, and a slender woman wearing a white blouse emerged. Clad in a black skirt with a willowy figure, her pale skin gave her an air reminiscent of the young woman they had met at VOKS—that particular intellectual quality characteristic of Leningrad’s educated women. Before answering Nobuko and the others’ questions or explaining the Women’s Department’s activities, this woman first inquired what connection they had with the Communist Party. For Nobuko and her companions, this marked the first time they had been asked such a question at any institution they visited.

“We are non-party members.”

Nobuko replied. "We are not political activists either. Since we work in literature—but we do want to learn about your work." The black-and-white woman answered bureaucratically: "Mozhno, it's possible." With that single remark, she remained vague, mechanically tapping the palm of one hand with the pencil she held in the other. Provoked by this attitude, Motoko smirked with her characteristically sharp, ironic half-smile—

“Is the work of the Soviet Women’s Department supposed to be done solely for party member women?”

Motoko asked. The black-and-white woman looked at the two of them—Nobuko and Motoko—as if suddenly waking up, and spoke in a defensive rapid-fire tone. "That’s not the case. In fact, more non-party women than party members get elected as Soviet delegates." However, it was clear that this black-and-white woman had no firm grasp of the concept of the Orient and was seeing Japanese women for the first time. The young VOKS staff member also seemed to be meeting Japanese women—specifically Nobuko and her companions—for the first time, and with an elegance characteristic of such individuals, expressed an awkwardness that was difficult to gauge through a blend of shyness and sociability. The black-and-white woman at Smolny continued to avoid explaining the Women’s Department’s activities she was being asked about, instead posing questions as if soliciting a report on conditions in an unknown undeveloped region—asking whether Japan had universities for women and the like.

It was just when Motoko, growing increasingly impatient, was about to blurt out in Japanese, “There’s no point dealing with a woman like this!”

The door to the corridor through which Nobuko and the others had entered swung open forcefully. And then entered a large-framed woman with a healthy complexion - wearing a sarafan with gray base and small calico patterns over a simple white cotton short-sleeved blouse, her head cheerfully wrapped in a cream-colored platok. Upon noticing the two people by the window, “Are you guests here for our department?”

With an unaffected gait, she approached Nobuko and the others directly.

“Good afternoon.”

While shaking hands with her thick, powerful hand, she looked half at the black-and-white woman and half at Nobuko and the others. “Where are you from?” The black-and-white woman stood up from her chair. “This is our director.” Having informed them of this, she addressed the woman in the sarafan, stating that Nobuko and the others were Japanese women writers who had been introduced through VOKS and wished to learn about the Women’s Department’s work. The woman in the sarafan fluttered the ends of her cream-colored platok’s knot against her sunburned bare neck as—

“I’m very pleased,” she nodded at Nobuko and the others. Then the black-and-white woman slightly lowered her voice—though still loud enough for them to hear—as if to emphasize, “They are not party members,” she added. In that instant, Nobuko felt searing contempt and repulsion course through her chest. What did it matter if they weren’t party members? Every person was first and foremost a human being before they were a party member. And one was nothing but a woman or a man.—

The woman in the cream-colored platok remained perfectly composed, her gaze fixed on Nobuko and the others without altering the pitch of her voice. "That’s not a significant matter," she said.

“We work for everyone, after all…” After the black-and-white woman stood up and left, the woman in the sarafan took her seat.

“Well, where shall we begin? Since you’ve come all this way, we must make effective use of your time here.” The woman in the sarafan instructed another woman in the room and handed Nobuko and the others printed Soviet organizational charts. She explained that most women Soviet delegates—whether in villages or cities—were primarily active in education, sanitation, and food departments. “A great many women, especially in rural areas, have been overcoming illiteracy while simultaneously joining village soviet activities. In our region, though children are growing robustly, the women’s development has been truly remarkable.”

The woman in the sarafan took Nobuko and the others to the room where a political study session was being held for the women delegates. In the center of a fairly spacious, breezy white-walled room sat women of various ages—their heads wrapped in colorful headscarves, each forehead and cheek bearing the hue of rural sun and wind exposure—listening to talks on agriculture and electrification. Sitting on the vacant bench behind them alongside Nobuko and her companions, the woman in the cream-colored headscarf crossed her knees high beneath her calico-patterned sarafan, rested her thick bare elbows on them, propped her chin, and waited for the twenty-seven- or twenty-eight-year-old lecturer—her bobbed hair wrapped in a red scarf—to finish speaking. When the lecture ended, she introduced Nobuko and the others to the group. Then from among the trainees came a question—a female delegate around forty, steadfast and motherly with gold hoop earrings, asked Nobuko and her companions: “Do Japanese women have suffrage too?”

Nobuko found herself more intrigued by how this village Soviet women's delegate asked her question than by its actual content. What struck Nobuko most clearly was that this matronly delegate—with her unmistakably practical demeanor—wasn't posing these questions out of mere intellectual curiosity. Through her expanding village life filled with daily discoveries, through this fresh sense of existence where life's horizons now stretched vast and distant, the woman desperately wanted to understand how Japanese women were managing. With Motoko's assistance, Nobuko concisely outlined Japan's brief Freedom and Civil Rights era, its period of gender equality debates, and the discriminatory conditions women had endured from then to the present day. When the matronly delegate heard Nobuko's explanation,

“Just look at that!”

She poked the side of the woman of the same age sitting next to her, shoulders shaking as if in anger. "Our place was the same way back then." The woman in the sarafan, who had been sitting comfortably on the bench while attentively observing the atmosphere, said, "What do you all think?" Then she continued, "Given how things stand, doesn't it seem we might have more to ask each other and share? Let's hold a symposium tomorrow at two o'clock. How does that sound?"

In a manner characteristic of people from the countryside, they drew out their words slowly and heavily. “Khorosho!” “Ladno!” But responses arose from all around. Thus, Nobuko and the others unexpectedly found themselves returning to Smolny the following day as well.

It was exactly time for the main meal, and both the woman in the sarafan and the trainee women delegates trooped down from the lecture hall to the large dining room below. As Nobuko and the others began to part ways at the corridor corner leading that way, the woman in the sarafan—

“Why?” The woman in the sarafan stopped and looked at Nobuko and the others. “Where are you rushing off to? You should eat with us.” A middle-aged woman delegate walking alongside them—her hands bearing burn scars—nodded repeatedly at Nobuko, who hesitated. “Exactly!” she said. “During the revolution we all starved, but now there’s bread aplenty—no need for reserve!”

Riding the tram from Smolny to just before Nevsky Prospekt through the evening streets on her way back, Nobuko kept chewing over in her mind—again and again—the stark contrast between the woman in the sarafan and the black-and-white woman. Until the sarafan-clad woman returned, Nobuko had assumed the black-and-white woman might be heading the women's department. The black-and-white woman had indeed comported herself in ways that fostered such belief.

The fact that the woman in the sarafan—with her plain appearance and clear understanding of her duties, possessing the natural proficiency and confidence of a skilled laundress working with brisk satisfaction—was the true person in charge had, to put it strongly, made Nobuko regain her trust in what it meant to be Soviet. “Did you notice?” Clatter-clatter—in the train jolting over aged rails, Nobuko said to Motoko sitting beside her on the rattan seats.

“That tone she used when she said ‘Ms. Black-and-White is our head’! How nuanced that was! It was almost as if she regretted that person being involved at all, don’t you think?” “With all that posturing, Ms. Black-and-White must’ve graduated from university or such. That’s precisely what makes it so insufferable—” The next day they went to Smolny again, and the day after that too—each visit drawing Nobuko more strongly to Anna Shimova, the woman in the sarafan. Anna appeared five or six years Nobuko’s senior. A Party member since 1917, she had worked in her factory district’s soviet during the revolution. Her manner remained uncontrived whenever seen; both her movements and emotions flowed naturally. What stood out most palpably was her mental equipoise—blending straightforward humor with concrete focus—that instilled confidence in others, compelled them to work, and made them find joy in doing so.

It was during their final visit to Smolny. After having been shown Lenin's room and as they were preparing to leave, Nobuko and the others stopped by Anna Shimova's office once more. She was not there. When Nobuko's group had nearly left and descended to the third-floor landing, they met Anna Shimova ascending from below. Nobuko and the others expressed their thanks for the four days at Smolny that they had truly enjoyed while learning many things.

“I’m glad that you were satisfied.”

And when Nobuko and the others mentioned they planned to stay in Leningrad until autumn, “Do enjoy yourselves thoroughly, and let’s meet again in autumn.” As she said this and was about to bid farewell, Anna Shimova suddenly kept hold of the hand she had been shaking with Nobuko— “When this training session ends, I’ll be taking a vacation too.” she said. Anna Shimova spoke happily, her cheeks glowing with a smile.

“I have three daughters.” She continued in a soft, low voice.

"My husband has gone to the countryside to organize collective farms, but he'll be on vacation in a week." Anna Shimova,

“The three of us will live together—for at least a month—”

When Anna said this, Nobuko involuntarily—

“Congratulations!” Having said that，she spread her arms as if to embrace Anna Shimova. Anna Shimova’s happiness was so fresh that it struck Nobuko and infected her. She had three daughters. Her husband was coming on vacation from the countryside. She would also take a vacation once her training session ended. And then they three would live together. There was a rhythm of activity like a song and the robust joy of life there.

After she stopped going to Smolny, Nobuko found herself recalling Anna Shimova even more frequently—together with that whisper of joy like the refrain of a song. We three will live together—for at least a month. There, underpinning it all, was the resonance of activity so vibrant that even living together for a month became a rare joy.— Each time she thought of it, longing awakened in Nobuko’s heart. Anna Shimova’s way of life brimming with such jubilation. That crystalline sense of happiness that made even others joyful.

“Anna Shimova is wonderful, isn’t she? She’s so full of life—it practically radiates from her. Don’t you think?”

Leaning against the window where Leningrad's white nights were past their peak and growing dim, buffeted by Neva's wind while relaxed in slippers, Nobuko said to Motoko as if unable to contain her yearning heart. “Living like that—aren’t you envious?” Motoko, as if struck by fountain spray head-on, drew a slight breath before Nobuko's overflowing emotions. “Well, she’s the real thing, isn’t she.”

“It was so unexpected that we got to meet someone like her, wasn’t it?”

During the six months and more that she had lived in Moscow, there were indeed people whose visages became etched into Nobuko’s heart. The memory of Dr.Lin, the Chinese woman scholar they had met in a grimy room at the Hotel Metropol after being introduced by a triple-chinned Claude of indeterminate identity, made Nobuko grow solemn and earnest whenever she recalled that scene. Between your country’s people and mine, I wonder which endures a harder life. Those words of Dr.Lin’s, steeped in melancholy, lingered in the depths of Nobuko’s ears. Through such words from Dr.Lin, Nobuko came to realize that her own fate formed an inseparable part of the destinies binding tens of millions of unknown people across Japan. Yet the respect and sincerity she felt toward Dr.Lin did not stir within her any desire to become something other than herself. Between Dr.Lin’s richness and Nobuko’s meagerness lay an immense chasm. Yet within that solemn disparity, she sensed that Dr.Lin’s essence and her own were fundamentally connected.

The feeling with which Nobuko was drawn to Anna Shimova—the very emotion of attraction itself—had already begun pushing her beyond herself. This differed from the shared empathy that had flowed between Dr.Lin and her. What an extraordinary woman Anna Shimova was, she thought. Whenever this realization came, Nobuko—liberated from her own self-consciousness—found herself drawn into imagining the ideal way of life embodied by this singular woman.

It was an evening near June's end. Across the deserted embankment street that separated them from the river, the area around the window where Nobuko leaned seemed permeated with the rich nocturnal scent of Neva's waters. "Doesn't it seem strange to you?"

Bathed in the unshadowed light from the gilt-edged ceiling chandelier that enveloped her relaxed body, Nobuko continued. "Did you notice how Anna Shimova and Gorky share something in common?" "Hmm... Do they?" Leaning her left elbow on the edge of the table near the bed and fiddling with an unlit pipe between her fingers, Motoko blinked as though she couldn't quite digest this.

"Now that you mention it, since both of them come from working people, they might have something in common in that sense." "Not only that—nor is it merely that they’re people who lived through the revolution. Gorky was so thoroughly human—splendid like life itself—and yet you could feel him as a man as unadulterated as the scent of an aged cypress basking in the sun. In Anna Shimova, I can sense something similar. In her humanity, a woman is distinctly embedded."

“…”

Motoko silently stared intently at Nobuko. Then, with an unconscious gesture, she put the empty pipe between her lips. Nobuko began slowly pacing before the window. Through the glass stretched the Neva’s wide dark expanse, its opposite bank dotted with sparse, lonely street lamps. “Isn’t it beautiful,” she said, “how splendidly human people each possess their complete gender?” Walking with her back turned toward Motoko, Nobuko spoke in a voice rippling with longing—unaware that her companion had flushed crimson at these words.

"I want to bloom in full like that too." "Like them... How utterly human they are." "To blossom completely like that..." But Nobuko immediately continued thinking. What real method existed for her to make herself bloom fully? Not imitating anyone, not as temporary compromise—for this self of hers to achieve full flowering. The paths through which Gorky and Anna Shimova had lived and brought themselves to complete bloom—the more those paths contained substance that captivated the heart, the more uniquely theirs they became—were neither ones Nobuko could simply retrace nor ones that left any opening for imitation. Returning once more to the window ledge, her gaze—not truly seeing what lay before her eyes—resting on Motoko's brightly lit face, Nobuko kept pondering. Human goodwill might be vast and earnest, but for each person to nurture their honest will and hopes within it—how harsh must each individual's path be. That path's future lay blank before Nobuko. This fact alone was becoming starkly clear to her. Just as Nobuko started to open her mouth—

“Buko!”

Motoko’s low, pressing voice took precedence.

“What are you thinking—” Just as she was about to voice her complicated feelings—cut off at the start—Nobuko was left speechless.

“—Let me try to guess.” An unnatural half-smile appeared on Motoko’s smooth, wheat-colored cheek. “You’re thinking about things Buko never considered before—am I wrong?” Motoko’s voice and gaze—as though forcibly suppressing agitation—put Nobuko on guard. “Do you think so…? But why?” “There’s no need to dodge.”

As she said this, Motoko shifted her weight down in the chair where she sat with legs crossed. “If you’re going to be frank then out with it—you’ve always liked doing things fair and square, wasn’t that right... Buko?”

Motoko fixed her piercing gaze on Nobuko's face that betrayed bewilderment. With a derisive snort, she turned her face away only to snap it back again. "You needn't restrain yourself on my account," she said. "If you're so desperate to blossom completely, why not hurry up and do it? Fortunately"—she traced a line from chin to cheek with her pipe-holding hand while staring provocatively at Nobuko's rigidly widened eyes—"we've men here unlike Utsumi-kun."

“By all means, go discover your complete sexuality!”

Like gas igniting with a snap, Nobuko's emotions exploded.

“What do you mean by that?” Finally restraining the impulse to press in on Motoko, Nobuko retorted in a crushed voice from by the window.

“What do you mean?” “You know perfectly well.” "I don’t know—what could you possibly be misunderstanding..." Nobuko’s lips turned pale with revulsion. "I am—speaking of something complex." Motoko was clearly misunderstanding. Nobuko’s talk of “complete sexuality” and “blooming in full”—Motoko had taken these notions directly, interpreting them solely through relationships between men and women. Moreover, with her narrow skewed subjectivity, Motoko had confined the concept of “relationship” to crude depictions of sexual exchange,

The longer Nobuko looked at Motoko, the more she noticed herself being provoked by revulsion—from those darkly agitated eyes glaring her way, from that mouth whose corners were drawn down in a hateful, self-lacerating twist. Nobuko pressed her hand against her cheek that wanted to cry and turned toward the window.

Over the long bridge spanning the upper reaches of the Neva, a lit streetcar crawled slowly, diminutive in the distance. In their ordinary days, Nobuko and Motoko's lives passed by without particular awareness. But in moments like this—when Motoko believed some masculine shadow had fallen upon Nobuko—Motoko's emotional equilibrium would tilt from unexpected angles. Then she planted herself resolutely, her whole body asserting defiance. Watching Motoko's soft feminine form settle defiantly with such abnormal intensity, Nobuko—swayed by sorrow and revulsion—found herself confronting the concealed irregularity within their life as two women. In these instances, Nobuko always sensed greater abnormality on Motoko's side while—

Having married Tsuchida—a man much older—just after leaving girlhood, and having endured five years of a marriage where her heart found no peace—a marriage intermittent and ultimately destroyed—Nobuko had never truly blossomed as a woman in the sexual sense. She had come to live with Motoko without ever fully becoming, in the truest sense, either a woman or a wife. Yet regarding that delicate state of her womanhood, Nobuko possessed no means of comparison—and thus no way of knowing. Within Nobuko's sensuality—whose essence was fierce yet now lay half-asleep—and within the scope of her strong capacity for love still awaiting full expression, she found herself drawn to Motoko and lived accordingly. There were moments when Nobuko felt the urge to press her cheek against Motoko's; times when their lips met. She did not consider these emotions and expressions identical to those between men and women. That's different. Motoko is a woman. Even if one might say she left that life still unopened, Nobuko had loved Tsuchida. They had lived as husband and wife. For Nobuko, the distinction between men and women remained as clear as nature's own demarcation—she was bound to Motoko not as some compensatory substitute for a man, but entirely as a woman, as a friend—yet as a female friend toward whom she felt this impulse of cheek-pressing intimacy.

Since coming to live in Moscow, Nobuko and Motoko's life became far more relaxed and liberated than it had been during their time in Komazawa. The pain of being peered at by men—as if something perverse and grotesque lurked behind the surface of their existence—vanished. Even as she resisted and tried to forcibly present them as a pair, Nobuko's inverted sense of shame was erased. In Moscow, it wasn't merely because they were foreign women who had come together from a distant land. In Soviet social life, contact between men and women was liberated both rationally and emotionally, with matters between them handled through social responsibility according to each individual's natural course. In such an atmosphere, what might be called sexual curiosity—though superficially suppressed—differed from Japan's condition, where beneath one stripped layer of ulterior motives always lay a tautness of concealed excitement. Nobuko's disposition—taking in all things directly through her senses yet never lustful—harmonized with this Soviet atmosphere. And Nobuko, wounded by her painful marriage to Tsuchida yet retaining naturalness toward the opposite sex—this same Nobuko who had despaired of conventional Japanese marital norms—now began directing those feelings toward hope that could gradually align with societal transformations.

In Gorky and Anna Shimova's humanity, complete sexuality had been preserved and stood in full bloom. That Nobuko found this both beautiful and enviable was a shared resonance with the fertile possibilities of human fulfillment, and a profound recognition of the meaningful potential that an advancing society's essence granted to each man and woman.

The evening before last, Nobuko and the others were invited to the apartment of Oki, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs exchange student on a side street in Leningrad. There was a woman doctor named Yoko—Oki’s temporary lover—with Mongolian eyebrows, Mongolian lips, and thick black Mongolian hair. There were about seven other exchange students from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There was a woman introduced as Yoko’s sister—her skin weathered like primitive earth—who moved quietly between kitchen areas with a heavy braid trailing down her Mongolian-style robe. Where in that endless meal and wine-loosened conversation could there have been any real pleasure? What masculine allure could Nobuko possibly have found in these young men who—convinced they weren’t fools as they disparaged Japanese bureaucracy and tedious social customs—remained oblivious to how their very manner of speaking reeked of listlessness and tedium? At root, their talk hadn’t even sprung from such beginnings.

After a while, still facing the window, Nobuko said to Motoko, who was by the table.

“You over-acknowledge the way you feel about such things.”

“…………”

“If you’re being self-absorbed and think anger is justified just because you feel truthful—that’s mistaken.” “To have come all this way to the Soviet Union for this—some sort of lovers’ spat between women… I absolutely refuse—” “—Putting on airs—what gives you the right to lecture me?” “Nobuko always does this.” “Twisting logic to suit yourself—how vile.” “I disagree. “But when you start picking fights like that, what should I do?—What would appease you?”

Gradually calming down enough to speak, Nobuko turned her body—which had been facing the window—toward Motoko. “Back in Komazawa, during times like that, I would get scared and cry, or try to prove the truth. Still, if I did that now, would it put your mind at ease?” Nobuko slowly circled around the silent Motoko, then aligned the toes of her slippers and leaned against the tall mantelpiece.

“I don’t have to do that anymore—for each other’s sake. We usually manage to live without any pathological aspects, but when it comes to times like this, we suddenly turn strange—it’s precisely this that I can only see as pathological.” “I become distressed, and we feel ashamed…”

After pausing her words for a moment, Nobuko spoke rapidly, her face flushed with a faint blush that revealed her shame. “We aren’t sexual deviants, you see—we’re just affirming the various nuances of human intimacy, that’s all.”

The dark menace and venomous luster gradually faded from Motoko’s eyes. "I know that already." "Isn’t it strange? Then why do you become so... so flustered and defiant in that indescribable way? Do you even realize it yourself? How—" Nobuko, unable to bring herself to utter the word "ugly"— "Isn’t it abnormal…" she said. "I suppose that’s not normal—I’ve never once called myself normal."

“……” Gazing at Motoko’s Kyoto-style oval face with its wheat-colored complexion, at the two black jujube-shaped eyes watching her from that face, and at the way her relaxed nightgown generously accentuated a womanly bust far more mature than Nobuko’s own, Nobuko felt an overwhelming sense of wonder. There was nothing in Motoko’s physiology that was not female. Yet why did Motoko reject her own sex so completely? That Motoko—three years Nobuko’s senior—had been influenced since her upperclassman days at girls’ school by the women’s liberation movement led by figures like Raichō and Kōkichi of the Bluestocking Society was not, in itself, sufficient for Nobuko to fully comprehend. Even if disordered relationships among Motoko’s father, mother, and maternal aunt had turned her love for her biological mother and sense of justice into contempt and rebellion toward men, there still remained something that Nobuko could not fully grasp.

“You really are utterly mysterious.” In a tone from which all traces of irritation and contempt had now vanished, Nobuko stared intently at Motoko. “There’s never actually been a specific man in your life, has there?” “That’s not true.” “If we speak only in that sense, you could be called purer than me—but you aren’t purer than me.”

Motoko’s face flushed slightly, and she stood up to light a cigarette. “Like a middle school boy?” “Is that so?” “Because they haven’t been concretely experienced—when it comes to matters between men and women—I wonder if they end up being exaggerated in one’s mind in an oddly bare, formulaic way…” Motoko, puffing on her cigarette, paced back and forth across the nighttime room with its two large windows open toward the Neva River. With an expression that suggested something within her had been unveiled by Nobuko’s words. ―Walking about while thinking, Motoko eventually,

“That’s enough, Nobuko.”

She said, stopping by the chair. "If I'm analyzed like that, how am I supposed to handle it?"

Nobuko fell silent. Yet she felt she now understood Motoko with clearer contours than ever before. Within Motoko's suppressed sexuality lay a desire more potent than what Nobuko recognized in herself - a passion whose intensity matched the vehemence with which it repelled maleness. Would Motoko someday shatter this circle of contradictions herself? Nobuko wanted to witness that moment. In the undercurrent of her heart that yearned to see this rupture in Motoko, there stirred - at some imperceptible remove - a premonition that her own life too would unfurl differently then, though she remained unaware of this intuition.

——

Two

About an hour's ride by suburban train from Leningrad lay the former imperial villa village. The land was perfectly suited to the tastes of Catherine II, who—from her water-rich capital facing the Baltic Sea—longed for sweeping vistas of Russia’s cultivated fields and yearned for views of natural plains and forests. The land stretched flatly to the distant horizon, its natural expanses dotted with deep forests, then was further adorned with an artificial grand park upon which a Baroque-style palace had been constructed.

In October 1917, after Nicholas II abdicated, it was in that very villa that he lived until his departure for Siberia. The villa village once called Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar’s Village) was later renamed Detskoye Selo (Children’s Village). Though no particular facilities for children were established there, it had become an amusement park in the suburbs of Leningrad. Every Sunday, groups of young men and women in athletic shirts and canvas shoes, along with boys and girls, would descend from Detskoye Selo’s small white station and file into the grand park. Both Catherine II’s villa and Nicholas II’s villa had now been preserved as museums. The hundreds of young visitors walked silently through places like the splendid "Chinese Room" with its divan where Catherine II had favored that small chamber and spent long hours daily, Nicholas II's marble bathtub, and the dressing rooms of his wife and daughters, their expressions equally divided between curiosity and indifference as they looked about. After finishing their tour of the museum’s interior, they too exited through the French doors from which Nicholas II had departed on his journey to Siberia. When they stepped out onto the grand terrace overlooking the park’s forests and ponds, they became cheerful as if liberated for the first time, started making a racket, chatting and fooling around.

Beyond the forest visible to the left from that French-style grand terrace, at the park's outermost edge, stood an antiquated and somber stone structure of modest size. This was the former site of the aristocratic school where Pushkin had received his education during adolescence. Diagonally across the thoroughfare from that building stood a two-story stone house with an inconspicuous entrance. Walking along the weather-worn stone-paved sidewalk running beside the structure, one's gaze would catch fleeting glimpses of four first-floor windows hung with white lace curtains, their broad sills overflowing with clusters of vivid pink geraniums. This building had originally served as the residence for the aristocratic school's headmaster. It now functioned as a pension (boarding house).

Nobuko and Motoko acquired at least a cursory knowledge of Detskoye Selo because they spent a certain day in July walking through its grand park and villa village with a guide provided by VOKS. The boarding house that the guide had taken them to for lodging was a gaudy, restless establishment which, in addition to its long-term boarders, also accepted unexpected guests on Sundays and such occasions. In the hall facing a garden that overlooked part of the park, large round tables draped with tablecloths had been placed here and there, creating a NEP (New Economic Policy)-style social atmosphere.

When they went outside, they found such establishments to be exceptions—the daily life of Detskoye Selo village as a whole was modest, and moreover, strolls through its lush grand park and excursions to the surrounding primitive fields could be freely undertaken as one pleased. Nobuko thought she would like to live in such a place for a while. The scholar’s house where Nobuko and Motoko had been living since coming to Leningrad presented no inconvenience even if they stayed all summer. However, the rooms of the scholar’s house—once the residence of Grand Duke Vladimir—were designed with increasingly courtly tastes the finer they were, and never quite suited Nobuko and her companions. There were chairs with French legs painted gold, but not a single practical desk or lamp like those found at Moscow’s Hotel Passage. When their period of sightseeing in Leningrad ended, both Nobuko and Motoko came to want a boarding house with meals where they could study. Was there no boarding house in Detskoye Selo that wasn’t so NEP-like?

It came to light that Dr. Konrad, a professor at the Oriental Language School, happened to know one of the boarding houses in Detskoye Selo quite well. Upon inquiring, they learned that it was the former principal’s house in front of Pushkin’s school—the very house where Nobuko and the others had been struck by the tidy beauty of the pink geraniums. Through that professor’s introduction, Nobuko and the others moved from the scholar’s house to the second floor of Pension Somorov in Detskoye Selo.

In early July, Nobuko and Motoko spent the first few days in a single room, after which they were able to have separate rooms. Through no longer needing to go out for meals, having her own room for the first time in seven months, and the profound depth of nature that seemed submerged under the glow of fresh greenery, Nobuko felt the various stimuli she had received since coming to Leningrad take root within her day by day through life in Detskoye Selo. When she settled into a calm mood, even the noisy, cramped life she had led in that Astozhenka room in Moscow became an amusing memory to look back on, and Nobuko began writing a novel soon after gaining her own room.

When breakfast ended, Nobuko returned to her room and, remaining relaxed, secluded herself there until three o'clock abed. After abed, until eight o'clock evening tea, Nobuko and Motoko would stroll around the grand park or lie down in the grass for long periods. Led by the writer Alexandrov, whom they had unexpectedly encountered on the street, they also visited Alexei Tolstoy’s residence. Alexei Tolstoy was working on a historical novel about Peter the Great. In the drawing room with a mahogany-finished grand piano sat a youthfully dressed woman in a light pinkish-yellow dress and her thirteen- or fourteen-year-old son. In Tolstoy’s study hung the death masks of Pushkin and Napoleon. A typewriter had been placed there alongside a round Chinese ceramic stool. Putting aside Pushkin’s death mask, Nobuko couldn’t comprehend the appeal of Napoleon’s.

As for things Nobuko didn't understand—if one were to speak of them—the scholar Dr. Konny, whom the residents of Pension Somorov often enthusiastically discussed, was also something that Nobuko and the others couldn't comprehend. In the dining room of the boarding house, a framed short letter from Dr. Konny hung on the wall. Leningrad University history professor Rizhinsky. Professor of Law Verder.

Elena, an elderly spinster with a gaunt frame always clad in black and maintaining impeccable posture. In the evening tea parlor, it was primarily such people who often shared reminiscences of Dr. Konny. When the elderly Miss Elena praised the late Dr. Konny, her usually composed voice quivered with emotion. At least for her, speaking of Dr. Konny seemed to be the sole occasion when she would reveal her emotions. Eventually, Nobuko noticed that Pension Somorov's residents shared an unspoken etiquette among themselves. It consisted of those who met at the dining table never touching on each other's pasts, avoiding political discussions, and refraining from detailed conversations even when mentioning their current occupations.

However, one evening, this code was broken of its own accord through a trivial incident. Through some chance, the topic of the January 9th Incident of 1905 came up. It was a story about how foreign populations had perceived the massacre of the people carried out by the Tsar’s army under his orders in front of the Winter Palace in what was then Petrograd (now Leningrad).

Liza Fyodorovna, the wife of a senior engineer, spoke in a calm, deep voice that suited her age—a voice now showing strands of white hair. “I’ve heard such a story,” she began. “In England, when the January Ninth Incident occurred, a certain grand duke was hosting a dinner party. By chance, the ‘Russian affair’ became a topic among the ladies and gentlemen at table—naturally prompting various opinions.” Her voice deepened with theatrical timing. “Then finally, that evening’s host declared: ‘In essence, Russia’s Tsar understands nothing of politics. And the people are mere beasts.’” The clatter of shattering glass cut through her pause. “The head waiter—who’d been standing behind the guests with his tray of glasses—the instant his master uttered ‘beasts,’ hurled that tray straight down at his own feet.” Her fingers mimicked the arc of falling crystal. “Without a word or backward glance, he walked out.” She leaned forward, eyes glinting. “You know English etiquette—children and servants should be seen, not heard. That waiter simply... expressed himself appropriately.”

Professor Rizhinsky, the history professor with light-colored hair and a beard, wearing a gray suit, wore an introspective, somewhat ironic smile on his face—a face characterized by a slender nose that was slightly red at the tip. “That is an episode from 1905, and at the same time, it’s likely the only episode in that head waiter’s entire life, wouldn’t you say?—Therein lies the quiet tragedy of Dickens’s country...”

As if provoked by some vexing memory concealed within her heart, the elderly Miss Elena said while lightly tapping the tablecloth with the slender middle finger of her right hand resting on the table: "How much should we trust these anecdotes?" "Has there ever been an anecdote that wasn't exaggerated—to the point of being nearly a lie..."

“With all due respect to your words—excuse me.”

With his jowls quivering like two sagging pouches, Pavel Pavlovich answered Elena in a halting manner. "I can recount an entirely unexaggerated episode."

The fact that Pavel Pavlovich had initiated such a coherent conversation was itself a rare occurrence in Pension Somorov’s dining room. The de facto proprietors of Pension Somorov—the large elderly woman and her equally large, lackluster son—always lived solely in the back rooms, while it was Pavel Pavlovich, clad in an old military uniform and afflicted with paralysis, who joined the pension’s guests at the dining table. Though he occupied the host’s seat, he bore none of a host’s dignity; if anything, he gave the impression of being seated there as the housewife’s attendant. Pavel Pavlovich carefully wiped his large beard—resembling a bundle of dried corn tassels—with the napkin spread from the second button of his chest.

“As you know, I served in the military—I was an artillery lieutenant colonel. In 1917, I was stationed at a small town near the western border. At our post, we knew absolutely nothing about what was happening in Petrograd. Then one night around two o’clock—suddenly a squad of armed soldiers came to our crude outpost. In those days, armed soldiers were everywhere you went. Only their flags differed. They carried red banners. ‘The Tsar is gone,’ they said. ‘This is a revolution.’ But we knew nothing...”

Pavel Pavlovich's face took on an expression that resurrected the bewilderment of that time, his sagging cheeks trembling. “The orders we had received pertained to border security.” “We had received no orders regarding the revolutionary army.”

The corners of the entire group's mouths involuntarily relaxed.

“And then what happened? Pavel Pavlovich?” Liza Fyodorovna asked. “Excuse me, Madam—what could I have done? I could not comprehend,” Pavel Pavlovich replied. “The revolutionary army gathered all the officers in one place. For each one, they questioned the assembled soldiers—whether we had done anything as superiors to torment them. The officers were taken away one by one. You understand? When my turn came... I knelt down, believing I was about to die. Since I was an officer too—one neither better nor worse than the others.” “The revolutionary army began questioning the soldiers: ‘Did he ever beat you? Impose unreasonable punishments? Embezzle supplies?’ Their interrogation was meticulous and rigorous.”

“Sweat dripped from my forehead.” “Fortunately, I hadn’t committed any of the offenses they were interrogating me about.” “But then something unforeseen occurred.” “My subordinate soldiers began demanding of the revolutionary army: ‘Don’t punish him!’” “‘Spare our kind superior officer!’” “‘If you must execute him,’ they started shouting, ‘kill us first!’” “The revolutionary army conferred among themselves at length.” “And thus,” he concluded, “I remain among the living.”

Thin tears welled up in Pavel Pavlovich’s eyes—clouded and round like those of an aged sea lion.

“I lived. “—But it still seems I do not understand.””

Staring fixedly at Nobuko seated to his immediate left, Pavel Pavlovich spoke with an even more slurred tongue. “The reason I didn’t beat them was simply that I, as a human being, couldn’t bring myself to do it. If being beaten held such decisive meaning, then why didn’t they stop it long before that time?—I was a man who couldn’t bring himself to beat others.”

Pavel Pavlovich’s story, which had laid bare his own fear and weakness without embellishment, evoked a particular emotion in everyone. Miss Eléna did not claim there was any exaggeration in the account. Meanwhile, both Professor Rizhinsky and Professor Verder left the table without ever addressing why the soldiers had failed to stop the officers’ beatings sooner.

Nobuko was deeply impressed by Pavel Pavlovich’s anecdote. With equal intensity, she sensed the Pension’s art of conversation. Among these people existed an undeniably refined manner of discourse.

The next day before Avenue, Nobuko—having emerged from her room slightly early—was resting on the Pension’s old-fashioned veranda alongside Motoko. Between the neighboring houses stood a large maple tree with branches spread like a fan, and in a rocking chair placed where its leaf shadows dappled white pages, Miss Elena was reading a French book. From the veranda stretched the broad avenue of a summer afternoon before three o’clock, empty of pedestrians; the dense growth of the grand park; and beyond that, a low iron fence. The summer days of Detskoye Selo were endlessly still.

From the direction of the hall toward the veranda came the tap-tap sound of a cane striking the floor. Mrs. Pelageya Stepanova, wife of the former military doctor, appeared. Due to heart weakness, she required a cane even to walk indoors. The wife—her red-coppery hair swept forward over her forehead, large dull eyes and swollen complexion perpetually displaying threatening displeasure—was supported by her husband wearing a faded gray military uniform, finally settling her heavy, large body into one of the vacant rocking chairs.

“Hmph! My heart!”

She panted, pressed a hand to her chest, and shook her head. Miss Eléna, who had been sitting nearest, found herself compelled to speak.

“How are you feeling? Couldn’t you sleep again?” “—The air I need is lacking wherever I go.” “If you sleep with the window open, it might help considerably.”

Pelageya Stepanova widened her eyes—the bloodshot whites bulging—as if she had been insulted.

“It’s been ten years since my heart was utterly ruined.—If I could, I’d even tear down the walls to sleep.” After a while, an unexpected question was directed at Nobuko and the others at the far end of the veranda.

“In Japan too, do you have plenty of people with heart problems?” Nobuko and Motoko were slightly taken aback.

"In Japan, there are likely more people with lung ailments than heart disease." Motoko replied. Pelageya Stepanova appeared dissatisfied with this response.

“Since the Revolution, heart disease has increased—at least in Russia.” A shadow resembling a stifled laugh flickered across Nobuko’s lips.

“Until 1918, I was truly healthy and very active. Until that fire—Nikolai. My heart is entirely thanks to that fire, you know.”

With an expression as vague as his old military uniform, the former military doctor responded to his wife’s inquiry as though it were nothing out of the ordinary, "Hmm," he said.

"Of course it is! There could be no other cause whatsoever." She took the cane that had been leaning against the chair and tapped it against the wooden floor of the veranda with a clacking sound.

“In 1918, we were in Estonia. “My husband was the hospital director, and I served as head nurse. “The hospital was the manor house of the village’s landowner—and what do you think those peasants did? “They set fire to it. “Not only the mansion—they set fire to the surrounding forests and grasslands as well—”

Panting, Pelageya Stepanova continued speaking.

“Even that night, we properly hoisted a Red Cross flag on the roof.” “Hey, Nikolai.” “Our Red Cross flag measured over two meters across, you know.” “Hmm.” “We worked frantically to rescue the wounded and sick from the flames.” “Not one of us even singed our eyebrows.” “But in exchange, we were left with nothing but the clothes on our backs.”

Pelageya Stepanova leaned her upper body forward on the rocking chair. And with her two large eyes—their whites shot through with veins—she looked around at Nobuko, Motoko, and Miss Eléna,

“We’re truly penniless!”

Speaking in a low voice through bared teeth, she flicked the tip of her left index finger with her thumbnail.

"The Revolution has only ruined my heart, you know." Hatred that seemed to spatter against Nobuko's face—she who knew nothing of revolutionary times—overflowed from Pelageya Stepanova's manner of speaking.

Nobuko said to Motoko in the hallway while walking slowly toward the dining room. “That way of talking is really strange, isn’t it? If they’re truly penniless, how can they possibly afford to stay in a place like this?”

An engineer who was Liza Fyodorovna’s husband would come to her place. There were also times when Olga, a nineteen-year-old senior at the Science University working as an intern at a radio broadcasting station, would come to stay overnight. When an engineer with a flushed face wearing pince-nez—his head shaved in a blue crew cut, talking sociably with a charming smile playing about his somewhat slack, large mouth—appeared, the atmosphere in Pension Somov’s dining room underwent a subtle change. To the dining table that usually lacked even a positive spark of ambition, the engineer brought a kind of noisiness—an atmosphere reminiscent of Soviet-style liveliness. When the engineer, who appeared more frivolous and vulgar than his wife Liza Fyodorovna, joined the table, the attitudes of Dr. Verder and Professor Lizinsky—whose seats were fixed beside him—became more intimate in a way that was barely noticeable.

Regardless of such small scenes in the dining room, there was someone at Pension Somov who always worked tirelessly in the same manner. That was the maid Dasha. Regardless of the lives and emotions of Pension Somov’s residents, every Sunday—as long as the weather was fine—there was a great crowd that would merrily play garmoshkas, sing, and spend the day until sunset fluttering their white-and-blue horizontally striped athletic shirts and red kerchiefs among the trees of the large park. Following the crowd appeared sunflower seed vendors; ice cream vendors lined up outside the iron fence. The great crowds and vendors were the vibrant waves of Soviet life that surged into the lush park of Detskoye Selo every Sunday. Nobuko, feeling herself at the edge of those breaking waves, would fold up one of the two collapsible round tables against the wall and write her novel little by little each day in the narrow space where her back nearly touched the bed.

Three

It was a certain rainy day in early August. The previous day had also been rainy. On the damp rain-soaked park path where raindrops pattered down from the grove of trees, each time a rather strong wind blew across the rain-pelted surface of the wide pond, the fountain would billow as white misty spray swaying and scattering away.

In the deserted park on this rainy day, the wind that whipped the fountain’s spray into white billows shook the branches of the large maple tree beside Pension Somov’s veranda, blowing raindrops deep into its railings. On the old veranda where heavy rain fell like a prelude to the northern country’s approaching summer end, Miss Eléna and Nobuko darted from one end to the other as they danced the mazurka. Eléna’s slender yet powerful hand—clad in her usual all-black attire—grasped Nobuko’s plump young hand with digging-in tightness. With that hand which felt like a hook to Nobuko, Eléna led her while fluttering her black skirt, head held high, dancing as she listened to the mazurka melody that reached Nobuko’s ears nowhere but in the rain and wind. Nobuko’s body—clad in a slender red-striped dress that traced gentle, rounded curves of Eastern elegance—galloped entwined with Eléna’s large, black, bat-like movements. On Nobuko’s face, slightly flushed from the intense movement, there was fear. Eléna sprang up as if seized by a fit. “Let me show you—this is how one dances the mazurka,” she declared, grabbing Nobuko’s hand with inexorable force and beginning to dance. At that moment, Eléna had been telling Nobuko stories from her youth. In Odessa, Eléna’s father—who had been a prominent industrialist—would occasionally hold splendid banquets and balls for his only daughter. In the past—that is, before the Revolution—Odessa was Russia’s Little Paris, where Parisian fashions arrived even earlier than in Petersburg. Eléna wore French-made evening shoes and danced the mazurka until dawn amidst music and jubilation. As they spoke, a flame ignited in Eléna’s eyes. “Do you know the mazurka?” “No.” “Ah… Nowadays there’s no one left who can even dance the mazurka properly.” Elena muttered as if to herself while gazing toward the park woods, then suddenly rose from the wicker chair. “Let me teach you.” “The mazurka is—” she began, grabbing Nobuko’s hand and pulling her to her feet.

In Elena’s slender body—always calm and solemn in its black attire—such fierce passion lay hidden. Nobuko was startled by this revelation. That mazurka melody which had resonated at the end of Elena’s abruptly interrupted half-life before fading entirely must have now revived as an impulse—making her seize Nobuko’s hand and stand dancing on this deserted veranda where summer’s last rain fell. Elena felt remarkably light. She still possessed ample energy for dancing the mazurka. Nobuko perceived this truth as she galloped across the veranda floor under Elena’s lead. But when? And where? With whom might Elena dance the mazurka again? She did not even consider speaking now of that mazurka she had once danced with joy. Hatred too dwelled within her. Rather than Pelageya Stepanova’s heart, Elena wore her obstinate black attire. Without explanation—more eloquently than any words could—it symbolized all she had lost. Just then a sudden gust swept through, swaying the large maple’s branches as Nobuko danced past the railing and felt rain spray strike her cheek. Across the opposite hall appeared Motoko approaching. When Motoko—arriving with earnest hurried steps—spotted Nobuko on the veranda, she brandished the yellow paper clutched in her hand. Elena’s attention too shifted toward this movement. The mazurka’s rhythm faded naturally until Elena and Nobuko stood halted—still clasping hands—as Motoko arrived:

“Nobuko-chan, a telegram.”

She handed over the yellow paper folded into a long, narrow rectangle.

“Telegram?” “From where?” “It seems to be from home.”

Nobuko, without even noticing how she had disentangled her hand from Elena’s, stood at the boundary between the hall and veranda and opened the telegram. She deciphered the hard-to-read Romanized characters one by one. SHIKYUKICHO ARITASHI.

"Return urgently." As she silently repeated these words two or three times in her mind, Nobuko became aware of resistance welling up within her. Not only was the telegram itself abrupt and overly simple—impossible to grasp their meaning—but the very thought that her family believed such a sudden message could alter the course of Nobuko’s life, being conducted so far away, was painful.

Nobuko greeted Elena and slowly walked with Motoko across the parquet floor of the hall toward their room. "What does this mean?" Motoko, having read through the telegram text repeatedly, handed it back to Nobuko and told her to consider all possible scenarios.

“What could have happened?” “Well…” For the Tsukimizaka household to have sent such a telegram to Nobuko, there must have been some reason. Yet Nobuko found herself unable to immediately accept their motive as something grave enough to warrant altering the course of her life. The two came to Nobuko’s room at the corridor’s end, where she sat on the bed and examined the telegram again. Just as before, it contained only SHIKIUKICHO ARITASHI.

“My family never changes. Even their telegrams are just like phone calls—‘Nobuko-chan, come right away, I need to talk’—as if someone here could just drop everything and return immediately…” Motoko lit a cigarette and, puffing on it, gazed out the window while thinking intently. Ever since leaving the Tsukimizaka house to live separately, whenever there was a call from Takeyo, Nobuko had developed the habit of knowing what it was about before even answering.

“Oh hello? Nobuko-chan—come home.” “I have something I absolutely must discuss—so come right away.” Takeyo’s demands were always the same.

In the beginning, when summoned through relayed phone calls, Nobuko would wonder if there truly was some urgent matter, leaving her both perplexed and startled. After locking up the house and leaving a note for Tsukuda who would return to an empty home, she hurried on foot from the house in the back alley where she lived to the Tsukimizaka residence. As she was about to enter the dining room where Takeyo sat, Nobuko said in a breathless voice, "Did something happen?"

When Nobuko said this, Takeyo—wearing a thoroughly unhurried expression— “Oh, do sit down,” she replied.

And the topics she would eventually raise, when Nobuko had been living with Tsukuda, were Takeyo's complaints or speculations about Tsukuda and Nobuko. Since beginning to live with Motoko, it had been the same sort of emotion from Takeyo that would begin with remarks like, "Just who is this Yoshimi person..." One out of three times, the conversation would not be burdensome, and on such occasions it seemed Takeyo truly just wanted to talk with her daughter, using the pretense of having business as her stated reason for summoning her.

In any case, Takeyo’s "come right away" was one particular thing Nobuko had always struggled with. For Motoko as well.—When summoned like that, Nobuko would reluctantly go out, unable to return to the depths of Komazawa that night, and come back the next day with an expression from her exchange with Takeyo that she couldn’t bring herself to discuss directly with Motoko. SHIKIUKICHO ARITASHI. The moment she read the telegram, Nobuko reflexively felt a weight press down on her and became conscious of herself resisting movement from where she stood.

“But Nobuko-chan, we can’t just leave this unattended.”

Motoko said to Nobuko, who had settled into an oddly rigid posture. “Anyway, let’s try sending a telegram—with just this, we can’t grasp the situation.” “What should we write?”

After pondering for a while, Motoko, “Let’s just say ‘Inform us of the circumstances’ or something.” she said.

“That’s fine.” “Then I’ll go send it right away—before dinner.” “I’ll go with you.”

Nobuko and Motoko went out along the rain-soaked main street, now devoid of pedestrians, to the Detskoye Selo post office to send an inquiry telegram. Without raincoats, they returned soaked through, their light summer dresses darkened front and back by the rain. "Nobuko's mother doesn't even realize I'm the one worrying like this over here..." Motoko said in a tone of benign complaint.

“Nobuko-chan, if you try to ignore this,” “It’s me who’ll end up taking the blame for a crime I didn’t commit.”

It was said that it would take at least two or three days for a reply telegram to arrive from Tokyo. Nobuko, upset by SHIKIUKICHO ARITASHI yet still preoccupied with the reply, found herself unable to settle and lost her usual cheerfulness. At night, when they were talking in Motoko’s room, the conversation naturally turned in that direction.

“Well, we’ll deal with it after the reply comes,” Motoko said. “Depending on how things develop, you might have to return whether you like it or not...” “Alone?” “Are you saying I need to accompany you?” For Nobuko, more than disliking the prospect of returning alone, what felt truly unacceptable now was the very idea of leaving the Soviet. “You know, when I was suddenly summoned back from New York before, it was just like this too. Mother claimed that though she was due to give birth, the doctor had declared it extremely dangerous this time. I grew unbearably worried and forced myself to return alone, only to find the baby had been born long before and Mother was up and about perfectly fine.”

Nobuko vividly recalled that feeling of regret from that time—that heartrending sense of having been deceived. In New York, Nobuko’s parents—the Sassas—had been tormented by rumors that she had married an American laundryman or been impregnated and forced into a hasty marriage. Using Takeyo’s childbirth as a pretext, they had orchestrated matters so that Nobuko, however unwillingly, would have to return home alone, leaving Tsukuda behind with his unfinished university research. Now that eight or nine years had passed since that time, Nobuko could finally understand her parents' awkward position and their desperate measures. Even so, the thought that her father and mother had seized upon the genuine concern of Nobuko—then a naive daughter of around twenty-one—to manipulate her did not fade from her mind. Nobuko was indeed a daughter who tried to live as she wished and resisted her parents, but unlike women raised among strangers, she was unexpectedly fragile when it came to the familial dynamics that had become habitual since her childhood.

Since they had demanded her immediate return home through formal channels, something significant must have occurred. But Nobuko resolved she would never again let childish vulnerability throw her into disarray.

"Surely nothing's happened to your father, has it?" Motoko—who herself had an elderly father—blurted out the next day as they walked across a bridge in the park. After a silence, Nobuko declared with conviction: "It's not Father—that much is certain. Had it been him, they'd have phrased the telegram differently. And besides... I'm absolutely sure!"

Nobuko reasoned that had anything actually happened to her father, such a telegram could never have provoked this clear sense of opposition within her. Though she had recently begun forming different judgments about her father compared to before, she still trusted in their heartfelt exchanges as a father and daughter who got along well. That Takeyo remained unchanged was confirmed by how the telegram's very wording laid bare her mother's habitual manner of speaking to her daughter. Even after mentally reviewing each family member's circumstances, Nobuko could find no clue. In the postcard she had received when leaving Moscow, Tasuku had written that he planned to enjoy riding his bicycle around extensively that summer. She remembered that text vividly too.

It was the evening of the third day since Nobuko had sent the circumstances notice telegram from Detskoye Selo post office to her Tokyo home. The residents of Pension Somorov were sitting around the tea table.

That afternoon, Nobuko’s anxiety while waiting for the reply telegram from Tokyo had grown so unbearably tense that Motoko took her out for a four-mile walk, from which they had just returned. When she received her second cup of tea from the maid Dasha and was adding milk, the entrance bell rang. The door at the boundary between the dining room and hall stood thrown wide open on both sides behind Pavel Pavlovich, as was typical of a summer evening. When Dasha returned from answering the entrance, she came around Pavel Pavlovich’s left side and approached Nobuko. A telegram lay in her hand. Nobuko instinctively shifted her chair slightly back from the table.

“For you――a telegram.”

“Thank you.”

Unfolding the folded yellow paper and meticulously tracing the Roman letters printed on the adhesive tape, Nobuko left the dining room without even remembering to nod to her table companions. A moment later, Motoko also rose from her seat and followed. In the center of the hall, Nobuko thrust the telegram at Motoko. HACHIGATSU ICHINICHI TASUKU DOUCHIKA SHITSU NI TE SHISU ATO FUMI.

When she wordlessly set foot on the stairs leading up to the second floor, Nobuko’s entire body began trembling uncontrollably. While holding onto the handrail and climbing step by step, Nobuko began to cry violently. Crying as she kept climbing the stairs, climbing and crying, Nobuko clenched her left hand—the one not gripping the railing—into a fist and struck the air again and again, writhing as if in agony. What had he done? Tasuku, you fool. Tasuku, you fool. The irreparable sadness of it all. Suffocating frustration.—Staggering, Nobuko hurried down the hallway to her room at an unnatural pace. Just before reaching her room’s door, Nobuko suddenly felt the black-and-white checkerboard-patterned corridor floor float up with her entire body, then abruptly drop.

What Nobuko could clearly recall was up to that point. Afterward came fragmented memories—how someone had led her to bed; how Motoko, her face wet with tears, kept draping covers over her shoulders; how at some indistinguishable hour of night or day, Motoko had lifted the swaying, unsteady Nobuko upright on the mattress and cradled her face against her breast,

“This won’t do!” “Nobuko!” “What are we going to do with you?!” “Here, drink this…”

She could only grasp fragmentary recollections—being forcibly made to swallow a spoonful of soup. Then there was that other thing—hadn’t she kept repeating it? I won’t go back. Understand? She remembered how she’d obstinately reiterated, “I won’t go back. Understand?” and how each time Motoko had answered with tearful vehemence, “All right already! I know! I know!”

Between dream and reality, Nobuko lay for two full days. In a daze so profound she couldn’t muster the will to consider how much time had passed—as though awakening from a long nap—Nobuko truly awoke and looked around her surroundings around noon on the third day.

When Nobuko awoke, there was no one else in the narrow room but herself lying there. Bright quiet light streamed across the white walls of the small room. In the cup on the table stood wild chrysanthemums resembling asters and weeds like fox tails. The weeds in the cup were ones Nobuko had picked herself that day in a distant field. Everything came back clearly to Nobuko. August 1st. Tasuku died in the storehouse room.—Tasuku had died. A wave-like tremor rose from Nobuko's lower abdomen where she lay wrapped in sheets, spreading through her entire body. August 1st. There was a sadness like being pierced through the chest with a sharp blade. The storehouse's basement.—

Though the grief was so sharp she couldn't keep from pressing a hand to the aching spot on her chest, strangely no tears came from Nobuko's eyes. Instead, as if the very air around her had become grief itself, whenever she moved her body even slightly or turned her head, she felt a sorrow so acute it stole her breath.

The door at her feet was quietly opened. Motoko entered. When she saw Nobuko lying there with her eyes open, “Are you awake?” Motoko approached the bed in a tone that strained to maintain her usual tone. “You’ve slept quite a bit, so you’ll be fine now.—Feeling better, right?” “Thank you.” “Anyway, I’d sent the telegram…”

To avoid stimulating Nobuko’s emotions，Motoko confined her talk to administrative matters. “I communicated that you won’t be returning and sent condolences.”

“That’s fine. Thank you.” The next day, supported by Motoko, Nobuko went down to the cafeteria only at mealtimes. After the meal, each person who had been at the table shook Nobuko’s hand and offered condolences. Dr. Verdel—small for a Russian and balding—gazed fixedly at Nobuko’s pallid face with his earnest, kind black eyes as he said: “It is commendable that you have not lost your courage. “You are still young. “You will endure.”

Having said that with trust, he patted the back of Nobuko's hand—which he still held—in a kind, encouraging manner. "Thank you."

It was all Nobuko could do to thank him without bursting into tears. Dr. Verdel’s manner was too much like her father’s. If Taizo could have taken Nobuko’s hand, he surely would have done so to encourage both her and himself. Eventually, Nobuko began going to the cafeteria for every meal. However, Nobuko’s condition resembled that of someone only just beginning to recover from a serious illness. Just as a still-frail convalescent grew oversensitive to the slightest draft or temperature shift, there were moments when Nobuko—while mingling with others at the dining table—would abruptly think “August 1st” with crystalline clarity, triggered by something she herself couldn’t discern. Then, suddenly, the chill of sorrow caused Nobuko’s entire body to tremble. There were times when, while mindlessly trying to swallow something, abruptly and without any connection to what came before or after, she would think that Tasuku had died. Memories pressed in—Tasuku shaking the thick knees of his worn, glossy uniform; Tasuku shaking the knees of his indigo kasuri kimono; his young docile mouth shadowed by soft body hair; the shape of his heavy, full eyelids; dear Tasuku’s likeness crowding so close that Nobuko couldn’t swallow anything, couldn’t even draw breath. Nobuko’s grief filled her entire body. Even when the wind blew against her body, sorrow resounded.

Nobuko, who hadn't even thought to don mourning clothes, remained in her usual white linen blouse and jumper skirt, spending nearly the entire day outdoors clinging to Motoko's arm. In the end, not a single person—she couldn't enable Tasuku to live. This self-reproach would not let Nobuko stay still. People live each in their own way, living as they must. When she thought that Tasuku had felt utterly alone—even among those people: his brother Waichiro, his sister Nobuko, even their parents—Nobuko's lips trembled with dry, convulsive sobs.

Nobuko had been so fixated on the small note titled "Meditation" posted on the lintel above the entrance to Tasuku’s study. She had always been conscious of it. However, just because of that, she did not try to stop herself from coming to the Soviet. Her own survival had come first. Leaning on the railing of a wooden bridge spanning a secluded pond in Detskoye Selo’s vast park, Nobuko gazed at the white water lily flowers floating there and sank into thought.

Tasuku had likely died unable to reconcile himself with his failure to discover in real life those fixed ideals of absolute righteousness and absolute good that he had pursued so tenaciously. Nobuko couldn't bring herself to believe Tasuku had died over love. If even she felt this way, how much more must Tasuku's classmates have viewed Sassa Tasuku as a son firmly tethered to his family? Tasuku, who had been exasperatingly obedient to their mother's every word, died having recognized the limits of her affection. This realization too tore at Nobuko's heart. During the period when Ochi still visited their Ugusaka home frequently and Mother would sequester herself in the parlor for hours, Tasuku once asked Nobuko, "Why does Mother put on powder whenever Mr. Ochi comes?" Nobuko could never forget how startled she'd felt then. Takeyo had loved passionately lecturing Tasuku about sincerity and purity, but perhaps Tasuku had gradually begun sensing discrepancies between their mother's words and the reality of her relationship with Ochi. As he obediently listened to Mother's sermons, hadn't Tasuku felt shame on her behalf through those calm eyes set beneath his full eyelids?

Nobuko found it hard to believe that Tasuku—who lacked both the complex life experiences of someone like Aikawa Ryonosuke and Aikawa’s natural quickness of mind—had been burdened with a vague anxiety so profound it made living unbearable. At twenty-one, single-mindedly guided by his own convictions, Tasuku must have chosen death as the means to assert his way of life. In any case, Tasuku was no longer alive. Alive, yet not—what emptiness! That sensation of emptiness seeped through Nobuko’s body with each breath she drew. And compounding this void of Tasuku’s absence was the severance of a life that Nobuko, his sister nine years his senior, had—through Tasuku—vaguely hoped to connect with younger men more youthful than herself. Within the thoughts of this sister’s feminine heart—distinct from an older brother’s—filled with a premonition of thirty years as it turned toward her younger brother’s maturing body and mind, there had also been a fleeting tenderness that vanished without trace when one tried to grasp and name it.

As if wandering through her despondency, Nobuko walked through the forests of Detskoye Selo. Motoko was always at Nobuko's side. Through the depth of Nobuko's grief, Motoko—who typically let her emotions scatter—now solemnly focused them, remaining by her side with a faithfulness as if they were one body. Nobuko would occasionally startle into awareness. Even though Motoko was doing so much for her, she felt truly remorseful for having gone hours without speaking.

“I’m sorry—causing you worry.” Nobuko pressed Motoko’s arm against her side as she said this sincerely.

“It’s fine. It’s fine,” Motoko said. “Nobuko. Don’t trouble yourself over unnecessary things.” “But… it’ll mend eventually,” Nobuko replied. “I said it’s fine!” However, after walking awhile longer, Nobuko once again forgot Motoko was there; yet by clinging to Motoko’s arm, she could at last keep moving along the shadowed forest path.

On Sundays, from early morning onward, excursion groups of young men and women—disgorged at Detskoye Selo station as usual—would trail along the street before Pension Somov’s veranda as they passed through. All day long, the buoyant strains of the garmoshka could be heard, while laughter and shouts calling out to companions echoed through the vast park. On such days, Nobuko did not go out to the park, remaining instead on Pension Somov’s old veranda. And while it stood in complete opposition to the sadness that filled her, she listened to the cheerful commotion that somehow carried a strange sense of solace.

From the veranda of Pension Somov where Nobuko was, across the wide street, one of the side entrances to the large park could be seen. At the low iron fence where maple branches grew in thick clusters, an ice cream stall painted in pink and red stood. It was a stall that operated only on Sundays.

In front of it, two youths were arguing about something. A youth in a cobalt sports shirt—very much the Komsomol type—and another in a yellow-and-black horizontally striped sports shirt with shorts and sneakers were arguing. Because the street was wide, their voices did not reach the veranda where Nobuko sat. Only their movements—waving bare arms emphatically as they spoke—remained visible. Before long, the yellow-and-black striped youth seemed to be losing ground; each time he faltered for a response, he would nudge forward the small white sports cap perched atop his head. There was something comical about this gesture. Soon six or seven comrades came running from within the park. The two found themselves encircled. Three girls wearing black athletic blouses and red berets joined the crowd. The cobalt-shirted youth addressed them all in explanatory tones. The striped youth pushed his cap forward again and pleaded his case. A girl tilted her face upward toward the cobalt-shirted one as she spoke, waving a sun-browned hand in dissent. She repeated this gesture toward his opponent. Then one among the newly arrived youths surrounding them said something. The entire group erupted into laughter too uproarious to contain. The red-bereted girl pressed her knobby knees together and doubled over, hands braced against them as she laughed. The cobalt-shirted youth chuckled ruefully and thumped his striped companion’s back once. The struck youth nudged his cap backward reflexively before they all streamed into the park together. Passing them by came two Pioneer girls dashing from beneath trees, red neckties fluttering as they made for the ice cream stall.

From the veranda, the scenery there was in constant motion—unadorned and as simple as the very vitality gathered in Sunday’s woods. The atmosphere held an endearing charm. Drawn into that atmosphere, Nobuko—her heart surrendered—began to pale and pressed a hand to her chest as if enduring unbearable pain where she sat on the chair. Nobuko remembered. The way Tasuku had laughed when amused. In moments of joy, Tasuku would clap both hands against his knees and laugh uproariously. Tasuku—his pure white teeth, neatly aligned beneath an upper lip shaded with downy hair, glittering as he laughed from the depths of his being—that Tasuku was dead. He was gone.

The young people who appeared and disappeared from Nobuko’s view as she watched from the veranda were mostly young men and women aged seventeen or eighteen to about twenty. How securely these young people’s lives were being affirmed by themselves.

Nobuko remained seated on the veranda chair, unable to tear her eyes from the park's surrounding scenery. Within the youthful energy moving there, she could sense the very vitality of the society these young people inhabited swirling like an undercurrent—and on Sundays in Detskoye Selo, even in the wind carrying garmoshkas' merry strains from near and far, Tasuku's memory would surface. The Udagawa household had likely never even tried to consider how Nobuko and Tasuku had lived with hearts connected like a shield's front and back. Perhaps only Takedayo might have pondered it—that having a sister like Nobuko had compelled Tasuku to brood all the more intensely. Had someone confronted Nobuko with those same accusatory words, she wouldn't have offered a single defense. Undoubtedly, this too held partial truth—yet could such partiality encompass reality's entirety? More than Nobuko influencing Tasuku, there existed their era's fervent currents: Nobuko being Nobuko compelled Tasuku to respond as only Tasuku could. Take March 15th—when mass arrests of university students occurred. How could anyone claim that Tasuku—branded a born mediator yet never fully grasping that humiliation's meaning—hadn't wrestled with these matters in his own way? Even regarding this single incident, he must have uncovered contradictions through his unique lens, sensing his inability to grasp any absolute truth within them. Udagawa's residents drifted through life atop economic stability—even Taizo, upon reading about March 15th in his morning paper, would knee-jerkedly mark the article with red ink and have it sent to Nobuko—yet days passed unchanged nonetheless.

Reading the telegram that read "HACHIGATSU ICHINICHI TAMOTSUDOUCHIKASHITSU NITE SHISU," on the verge of losing consciousness, Nobuko repeated, "Do you understand?" I won't go back, I tell you. Do you understand? she pressed deliriously. That was an overflow of true feelings deeper than Nobuko herself realized. Even if it was because of having a sister like Nobuko that Tasuku had lived and died all the more like himself, she felt that she and he remained closely connected through that life and death. Nobuko felt that the sensation of life she bore with Tasuku's death—something no one in Udagawa could comprehend—would not permit her to deviate from where her existence now stood.

On that Sunday too, as the afternoon grew late, the tour groups that had been scattered throughout Detskoye Selo’s forest were once again gathered back into their respective lines. Everyone was more sunburned than when they had come in the morning, their clothes disheveled; the bellows of the garmoshkas that had been playing tirelessly all day were folded and slung over shoulders as they made their way down the street in front of Pension Somov toward the station. As one line was passing by, blocked by it, Dasha—the maid of Pension Somov—with a basket hooked over her arm, could be seen standing on the opposite sidewalk from the veranda. It was rare to see Dasha—who usually worked with a large, faded wine-colored apron wrapped fully around her skirt—in the outdoor light. Dasha, too, stood watching, seeming to find rather a moment of rest in the one or two minutes during which her path had been blocked by the procession. This Dasha—when Nobuko had received news of Tasuku’s death and was still taking meals in her room—brought in a tray bearing breakfast, set it down on the table, then wiped her hands once more on her apron and extended them toward Nobuko, who sat upright in bed. And then,

“My condolences.”

“My condolences,” she said.

“I heard your brother has passed away—he was probably a student, wasn’t he?”

Dasha, who seemed to have passed forty by several years, let out a heavy sigh.

“In the past, such things used to happen here often.” “God rest his soul.”

Dasha recited a prayer and crossed herself over her chest. Dasha's words—"In the past, such things happened quite often here too"—and her way of stating with absolute certainty, "He was a student, wasn't he?" became engraved upon Nobuko's mind. There had been frequent suicides in Russia during that era of its history—many among students. Dasha had lived through that life. And now she stood watching on Detskoye Selo's sidewalk as the young men and women of the tour group trudged along, raising dust at their feet. It was nothing more than an ordinary Sunday street scene. Yet within that very ordinariness unfolded a new daily existence that counterbalanced Nobuko's grief.

IV

In early September, about ten days before Nobuko and Motoko were to leave Pension Somov, Nobuko received her first letter from Tokyo since the telegram. The letter, placed in a sturdy horizontal envelope made of handmade Japanese paper and affixed with double postage, was thick, and the envelope bore her father’s handwriting.

Upon receiving the letter, Nobuko shut herself in the room with Motoko. She cut open the envelope with scissors. On crisp white paper: August 15, the third year of Showa. Tokyo. From Father. It was written in two lines: "To Nobuko." "It is with utmost pain that I, as your father, write this letter when so few days have passed since our household’s misfortune and your mother’s tears have yet to dry. However, imagining how you too must be grieving under foreign skies alone, I summoned my courage and resolved to inform you in detail of the circumstances surrounding Tasuku’s death." Taizo was writing in the fountain pen script Nobuko knew so well. The nib had become strangely twisted by some mishap, yet he insisted it wrote better than others and continued using the warped pen by turning it over. The handwriting that would not let her forget even the trivial habits of Udagawa family life seized Nobuko with tangible force.

This year too, in early July, Mother—fearing the worsening of her chronic diabetes-induced heat rash—went for her usual summer retreat to Sakurayama with Tsuyako, leaving only Tasuku, Waichiro, and myself at the Udagawa house. Tasuku had successfully completed the twenty-day German language course. The past two or three days had been particularly sweltering, and on the night of the 31st, Waichiro, Tasuku, and I dined on a hotel rooftop and watched a film to celebrate Tasuku’s completion of the course before returning home. That night too, Tasuku laughed heartily at the film’s comedy and appeared thoroughly cheerful.

The thirty-first passed thus, and according to Taizo's letter, on August 1st he had gone to his office as usual from morning while Waichiro went out to a friend's place. Both Father and Waichiro returned for dinner, but unusually, Tasuku was not at home. When they asked the maid, they learned that around noon Tasuku had left in his usual outfit of white kasuri with tube sleeves and a black merino heko obi tied about him, passing by the maid's room as he said he was going to a friend's place for a bit. When the maid asked what he wanted for dinner since Tasuku had said "I'll eat lunch over there," he replied while walking away, "Maybe I'll get treated to dinner there too." "Perhaps that's being too forward," he laughed as he went out through the gate.

Tasuku, who always meticulously stated his departure and return times in advance, did not return home that night. August 2nd arrived. Father went to his office. Waichiro stayed home, eagerly awaiting Tasuku’s return, but even when evening fell that day, Tasuku did not come back. When Father returned from the office, Waichiro had grown uneasy and had just telephoned two or three friends’ homes that Tasuku had frequented. Tasuku had not gone anywhere. There were no places he had visited the previous day either. Moreover, none of the friends responded that he had stayed at their houses. Our anxiety had reached its peak; on the night of the second day, we deliberated with Waichiro until late into the night and conducted an exhaustive search of the entire house.

As she handed each finished page to Motoko and read that far, Nobuko broke out in goosebumps. What must have filled Taizo's heart—accompanied by Waichiro—as they searched through every corner of the house and garden thickets, places normally forgotten in their busy lives, looking for Tasuku? Nobuko thought each character written on the white paper represented a drop of her father's torment.

On the early morning of the third day, Waichiro inspected the storehouse once more as a precaution. They discovered for the first time that the wire mesh of the storehouse had been cut. During Mother’s absence, the key to the storehouse had been in my custody. They found that while the padlock on the crawl-through entrance remained unfastened, the wire mesh at the section allowing simultaneous opening of both the entrance and the storehouse’s large door had been severed and meticulously concealed from external view. Father and Waichiro entered the storehouse. In the newly accessed wooden-floored area lay a warning note in Tasuku’s large handwriting reading “Highly Toxic Ants.” The hatch leading down to the cellar was sealed shut. There too was a paper warning “Danger: Highly Toxic Ants‼”

Tasuku had thus meticulously considered his family's safety even beyond his own death. When I imagine that thoughtful heart, I cannot restrain my tears. A young distant relative who frequented the Udagawa house was summoned. Father and Waichiro shattered the storehouse basement's glass from outside and began ventilating through that narrow gap with two electric fans. The storehouse basement had two windows—one eastward, one westward—both half-submerged in earth. Though we strove to ventilate swiftly, the driving rain soon broke down the fan in my hands, leaving our efforts crawling forward. ——Tears overflowed until Nobuko could no longer see the letters. Again and again she read that passage. The rainspray mingling with Father's tears seemed to dampen her face.

While that heartrending work continued at the Udagawa house, the summoned distant relative was dispatched to Takedayo, who was summering at the Sakurayama residence in Fukushima Prefecture. To avoid alarming Takedayo, he first inquired whether Mr. Tasuku had come there.

Continuing to read further ahead, Nobuko opened her tear-dried eyes wide, her face twitching. The hand holding the letter dropped onto her lap. Soon she brought it close to her eyes again and read intently. Taizo had written that Tasuku had once tried to die in late March, but fortunately been discovered beforehand. One evening in late March, with Tasuku—still on high school spring break—joining them, everyone stayed up late making merry; then his parents went up to their second-floor bedroom, leaving only Tasuku behind. Some time after falling asleep, Taizo suddenly remembered leaving his bedside case—which usually held his glasses, dentures, wallet and watch—in the dining room. As Taizo went downstairs toward the dining room, an intense gas smell permeated the pitch-dark hallway. Across from the dining room stood a Western-style parlor where a gas stove was kept. Remembering this, Taizo flipped the switch and turned on the parlor's electric light. There they found Tasuku lying on the sofa in the locked room with the gas valve left open. Tasuku had forgotten that the small hallway-facing window could be opened from outside. That night both Mother and Tasuku wept, and I too found myself crying despite myself. Given this incident, should the young man sent from Tokyo ask Takedayo "Has Tasuku come there?", that alone would sufficiently imply to Mother Takedayo that something had happened to him. This was what Taizo had written in his letter to Nobuko by way of explanation.

What had they done? Despite such a thing having happened, how could they leave Tasuku alone in the empty Udagawa house—populated only by men and maids—throughout the long summer vacation while they were away? Nobuko could not believe such carelessness. In March, when Tasuku—who had tried to die—was found, Mother and Tasuku both wept, and I too inadvertently found myself crying, Taizo wrote. After that, there was no description of how Taizo and Takedayo had comforted their son Tasuku—who had tried to die and failed—saved him from his shame, or encouraged him toward life. Had Takedayo not simply cried her fill together with Tasuku then, moved by the pure-heartedness of her son who had tried to die, thereby convincing herself she had done enough? Otherwise, how could they have brought themselves to leave Tasuku alone in the empty Udagawa house during summer and go off to the countryside by themselves? Nobuko, unable to bear the frustration, struck her own thigh with her fist—struck it again. The year Nobuko and the others came to Moscow—last summer when Aikawa Ryōnosuke committed suicide—it was also August. A few years before that, Takejima Yūkichi had also committed suicide in Karuizawa in August. In both cases, it was recorded that the heat around those times had been particularly severe. If Tasuku had truly been Takedayo’s child born of passion, then Takedayo’s lack of reluctance to leave his side out of some anxiety was something Nobuko could scarcely comprehend. Father Taizo too, at that time in March, had made Tasuku forget his suicide plan without attempting any forceful efforts to make him live. ——Things had dragged on until it came to this. Not once had they considered the fact that Tasuku had been diligently researching the efficacy of melon pesticide gas.—

Last summer, when Aikawa Ryōnosuke died and his will was published, Tasuku must have read it, of course. The concept written in that suicide note—the wretchedness of living merely to survive—though not identical in content, aligned with Tasuku’s usual way of thinking. At that time, Nobuko had felt anxious thinking about that. When she stopped by Udagawa on her way back from Aikawa Ryōnosuke’s funeral, Tasuku had made the storehouse’s basement his study room because it was cool. That, too, pressed upon her as an ominous premonition. Because the ominous feeling was so strong, Nobuko was too frightened to speak of it even to her mother or Motoko. Looking back now, the one who had been filled with premonitions was none other than myself. Nobuko acknowledged it as a fact thrust upon herself. But in the end, I had done nothing for Tasuku. I ended up coming to the Soviet Union—to live.

As if lashing her own sorrow and attempting to peel away the skin of sentimentality, Nobuko read onward harshly. Father's letter contained no description of Takedayo being overcome by grief. When asked by the youth dispatched to Sakurayama whether Tasuku had come there—Mother having intuitively sensed something—she received the subsequent telegrams marked Hokitoku and Hoshikyo with unnatural composure. Mother hastily returned to Tokyo from Sakurayama accompanied by Tsuyako. That night, claiming she needed mental preparation to face the immaculate Tasuku, she secluded herself in her bedroom; at dawn the next morning, she changed into a formal family-crested kimono and entered the room where Tasuku's coffin lay enshrined.

Nobuko felt something dreadful as she read that passage. How utterly different Takedayo's way of grieving was from Taizo's and Nobuko's raw shock and tears. Takedayo's composed demeanor as a mother—elevating the dead Tasuku to something sublime, as if his heart had been comprehensible only to herself—terrified Nobuko. That Takedayo had not been overcome by grief filled Nobuko with unspeakable suspicions. Had Takedayo secretly steeled herself for the day Tasuku would cease to live? And having made that resolution, had she deliberately left him alone on that sweltering, desolate August day? Through Father's letter, Takedayo's mediation—this performance of solemnity befitting a mother of the pure and unsullied Tasuku—made Nobuko nauseous with its stench of maternal self-satisfaction. Here was no mother to clasp poor Tasuku and weep with a heart that had lived through his death; instead, this mother's figure—inappropriately deifying him, using that very exaltation to smother others' natural cries of astonishment—filled Nobuko with despair. Nobuko kept her vacant eyes open, staring straight ahead until Motoko finished reading that section.

At the end of the letter, Taizo had written his thoughts regarding Nobuko’s telegram stating she would not return to Japan. "In our home, now made even more desolate by loss, your vibrant absence is unbearable—yet upon reflection, I believe there is reason in your decision. Even were you to return now, Nobuko, there would be no restoring Tasuku’s life, already departed. Doubtless he too would have wished his sister to continue her research with vigor. We old couple have come to share this hope alongside him. Above all, live carefully and mind your health." Taizo had for the first time referred to themselves as "we old couple." After passing the final white sheet to Motoko, Nobuko covered her face with both hands.

Five

Nobuko sat at Pension Somov’s dining table with her mind ensnared by thoughts. Elena Nikolaevna—her oddly long and conspicuous nose powdered white, an artificial flower pinned to the breast of her white voile blouse—chattered animatedly in a shrill voice about whether one could or couldn’t comprehend Tolstoy’s state of mind when he made his final departure from home, her small black eyes darting restlessly. The elderly Miss Elena who had seized Nobuko’s hand and danced the mazurka with bat-like wingbeats on that rainy veranda had concluded her vacation and returned to museum work. This newly arrived Elena Nikolaevna had sold programs at some Leningrad cinema. At thirty-three or thirty-four, she had volunteered this questionable occupation herself—adding with scornful emphasis that Soviet society permitted only such half-hearted professions to those of privileged birth.

The one discussing Tolstoy with Elena Nikolaevna—who wafted perfume—was Liza Fyodorovna’s husband, the engineer. Skipping over Professor Lizinsky, who sat smirking silently in the adjacent seat, the engineer—pince-nez perched on his nose, blue-tinged face with its shaven beard shadow thrust over the table—was saying to Elena Nikolaevna:

“I can understand Tolstoy’s feelings toward his family,” said the engineer, his blue-tinged face thrust forward over the table. “With your profound understanding, I cannot imagine you would fail to grasp his heart.” “Oh!” Elena Nikolaevna smiled unnaturally, concealing an excitement she couldn’t genuinely contain. “But that was him neglecting his duties as husband and father to his family. Don’t you agree, Liza Fyodorovna?” Suddenly reaching across the table, she addressed the engineer’s wife sitting beside Nobuko.

“I believe I can be understood in Tolstoy’s case.” Liza Fyodorovna answered without looking at Elena Nikolaevna, in her usual mellifluous voice, calmly moving her fork. There was a certain palpable atmosphere there.

Nobuko, while sensing that atmosphere, sank at the same time into her own thoughts. After reading the letter from Taizo that had minutely written the circumstances surrounding Tasuku’s death, everything—this matter and that—kept occurring to Nobuko’s mind.

When Nobuko closed down the Komazawa house and moved the luggage to Utsuki-zaka, she set aside a single trunk containing books and asked Tasuku to keep it. In that trunk, she had gathered only the books she thought she might want sent to Moscow someday. When Nobuko made that request, Tasuku did not immediately say "Okay" for some reason. He remained silent for a moment. When Nobuko, puzzled by this, pressed again with "Please—I'm asking you—all right?" Tasuku said, "I'll make sure it's taken care of somehow."

"I’ll make sure everything’s clear even if I’m not around, so you don’t need to worry, sis." Tasuku’s words, spoken in one breath, had lingered in Nobuko’s memory without particular significance. Now looking back, she realized that even then, a plan must have surfaced in Tasuku’s heart—one that couldn’t imagine living forever. Nobuko had moved her belongings into the Utsuki-zaka house in early October. She could no longer believe that Aikawa Ryōnosuke’s suicide note published two months prior hadn’t hinted at Tasuku’s long-planned preparations for death. Aikawa Ryōnosuke’s suicide note stated he’d spent three years contemplating death and researching methods. Tasuku had made his first attempt in late March and failed. Nearly half a year had passed since around October. Counting from March to August 1st meant another span of nearly half a year. During that interval, Tasuku had sent Nobuko letters deliberating university departments, then in June wrote with apparent vigor: “This summer break I intend to ride my bicycle everywhere and thoroughly enjoy myself.” Only now did Nobuko understand how naively she’d read that postcard and felt reassured. To read carefully his phrase “intend to enjoy myself thoroughly” was to see it cast a profoundly dark shadow. Behind those words lay an effort to envision vaulting over his present joyless state. Moreover, while intending enjoyment, Tasuku must have balanced persistent death-wishes against life’s allure—should his efforts fail. Nobuko had noticed none of this. From this failure to notice, she stood accused by her own emotional neglect toward Tasuku.

In January, Takayo became enraged by Nobuko’s letter to Tasuku concerning the greenhouse and sent a letter denouncing her. From then on, all direct correspondence between Takayo and Nobuko had ceased; but once Nobuko came to understand that the reason lay in Tasuku’s incident in March intervening between them, she naturally found herself perceiving things from another angle as well. According to Father’s letter, the matter of the gas that March night had been completely kept secret from all members of the family. It stated that only Tasuku, Father, and Mother knew. Takayo must have been determined to absolutely keep this secret from Nobuko. Takayo must have resolved never to let Nobuko—whom she deemed destructive and materialistic—lay a finger on Tasuku’s secret, which was utterly sacred to her. Because of that, it seemed she wrote even fewer letters.

Nobuko imagined even more strongly. She even imagined that Takayo might have thought her cold-hearted letter had caused what Tasuku did that March night. Tasuku hadn’t taken it that way. Nobuko could vividly recall the postcard from Tasuku that she had read under the linden tree in the snow-covered embassy’s outer garden. "Even though you’re living in a distant foreign country, sis, I was astonished you’d thought of me so much." There, Tasuku’s tender emotions overflowed. Regarding what Nobuko had remarked—that the money from one greenhouse built to celebrate Tasuku’s high school entrance might have covered a year’s tuition for a struggling student—Tasuku had honestly written back: "I never thought of it that way at all." "I find that deeply shameful." Beside that sentence, a special line had been drawn. When she read that postcard, how closely must Nobuko have held such thoughts of Tasuku’s heart to her own chest? Sweet Tasuku.—Nobuko’s throat tightened with fresh grief as she picked up her teacup.

At that moment, from across the table, Elena Nikolaevna—continuing the earlier conversation with a strangely flushed face—addressed Nobuko: “I hear you write novels. As a woman writer, what are your thoughts on this Tolstoy matter?” Nobuko could feel no liking toward either Elena Nikolaevna’s personality or her manner of speaking. Elena Nikolaevna was merely skirting the bounds of table manners to flirt with a dashing engineer—his flushed cheeks extending down to his thickly stubbled jaw, his mouth slack—using Tolstoy as their pretext. Nobuko, taking advantage of her poor command of Russian, barely managed to swallow the lump of grief welling up in her throat,

"I believe Liza Fyodorovna has given an accurate answer," she replied curtly. As Nobuko chewed through her sorrow day and night—gradually distilling from the sodden depths of lamentation a bitter, enduring dregs—the daily rhythm at Pension Somov had taken on an odd cadence since Elena Nikolaevna's arrival.

It was a certain afternoon not long after the story of Tolstoy’s departure had become a topic of conversation at the dining table, with words laced with some lingering implication.

Dr. Verder, Nobuko, and Motoko went to see the murals in an old church standing in a field about two miles away. It was a lonely abandoned temple in a small clearing surrounded by thickets, set apart from nearby villages, and was famous for its Byzantine-style mosaic murals. After leaving there and strolling around, they unexpectedly came upon Elena Nikolaevna and the engineer walking together through a thicket ahead. Both parties, finding themselves on an unavoidable single path where Dr. Verder and Nobuko’s group stood, seemed to have released each other’s arms they had been linking. Keeping that distance, the two walked a few steps forward, and Elena Nikolaevna—wearing a flashy aqua-blue dress with a low-cut, wide neckline—spoke in an exaggeratedly cheerful tone:

"Oh my, how unexpected!"

she approached, clearly considering only Dr. Verder worth her attention. "Oh, I must have disturbed you." Dr. Verder touched the brim of his black soft hat in a slight gesture, acknowledged the engineer with a nod of his eyes, and spoke in his customary calm tone tinged with a wry smile. "I'm afraid I can't quite determine who inconvenienced whom here." Nobuko and her two companions simply continued on their return path. Throughout this exchange, the engineer kept his face slightly flushed without uttering a word.

“It was the man who panicked. Elena’s the type who can’t stand the idea of a little side hustle during her business trip anyway.”

When the two were alone, Motoko exclaimed indignantly.

“Isn’t he looking down on people too much? Keeping such a proper, decent wife aside and then—right under her nose—that Amasuke engineer bastard!”

When the residents of Pension Somov had all gathered at the table for evening tea, Motoko asked Liza Fyodorovna beside her in a casually conversational tone: "Did you take a walk today?" "No," Liza Fyodorovna answered in her matronly voice through slightly raised eyebrows on her dark-complexioned Russian face. "I stayed in my room... reading."

With a slight raising of her eyebrows on her dark-complexioned Russian-style face, Liza Fyodorovna answered in the full voice of a woman no longer young. "I was in my room—reading a book." "That’s a shame." "We happened to see your husband and Elena Nikolaevna taking a stroll at that old temple in the field—" Listening from the side, Nobuko felt awkward. Motoko must have begun speaking that way out of goodwill toward Liza Fyodorovna, rebelling against both the engineer and Elena. Yet it was meddlesome and left no one with favorable impressions. Nobuko gently poked Motoko. Then Motoko, as if demonstrating her disregard for this signal, spoke across the table to Elena Nikolaevna.

“Elena Nikolaevna, how was your walk? I hadn’t realized you took such an interest in old murals.” From the moment Motoko addressed Liza Fyodorovna, Elena Nikolaevna became conspicuously engrossed with Professor Lizinsky, the history scholar, and began expounding on the origins of that temple famous throughout Detskoye Selo. When addressed, she cast a glance of utter contempt at Motoko and said to the engineer’s wife,

“I truly did have the pleasure of coincidentally joining you for a stroll today. Dear Liza Fyodorovna, let us by all means visit that temple again soon with everyone—while receiving explanations from Professor Lizinsky…” After that incident, Motoko grew increasingly preoccupied with Elena and the engineer’s conduct. There had also been an occurrence the previous night where she had witnessed the two kissing in the hallway. Nobuko assumed a pained expression,

“It’s fine.” “Just leave it alone.” “If someone’s going to get angry, let the wife be the one to do it.”

she said. “Elena’s enjoying herself.” “She thinks that Japanese woman’s just envious—” “Tch!” “Who would?!”

Motoko turned her face aside and puffed out cigarette smoke. "He's looking down on his wife too much—it's enough to make you sick!" She did not understand herself, grown neurotic from her own sense of justice. Having said that, Motoko glared at Nobuko.

To the trivial scandals—audible and visible, typical of a summer pension—Nobuko had barely paid any mind. As days passed after Tasuku’s death, the house in Dōzaka became increasingly distant to her. A fact imbued with her own upbringing within it. Tasuku’s death made Nobuko confront the reality of how much the house in Dōzaka had transformed and was now crumbling.

When she was alone and still, memories of the crumbling Dōzaka house persistently welled up in Nobuko's heart. With both arms crossed over Pension Somov's veranda railing and her chin resting on them, she gazed at the forest of Detskoye Selo's great park, now grown nearly dark. Above the black woods, the lingering evening sky shone with a melancholic beauty, its luster like blue enamel glaze. A strange conflict stirred within Nobuko's heart. Once again in her mind, the house in Dōzaka—steeped in Sassa Nobuko's half-lived life—receded further and further into the distance. The part of herself that drifted away with that house became the severed rear half of Sassa Nobuko's being. The remaining half-face with defined features stared forward, clinging desperately to this present place where she now existed, resolved never to relinquish it. The more distant the house in Dōzaka grew, the more intensely Nobudo felt anchored to this current moment through half her body—so intensely that she failed to notice Motoko approaching her side until she spoke. Motoko claimed she'd seen the engineer sneaking out of Elena's room. What did it matter? Not because of what she'd become, nor for what she might become, but against the receding house and half-lived existence shattered by Tasuku's death—against all this, Nobuko clung with every fiber to this present moment where her face now stared forward. Now, while cradling in her heart's depths the Tasuku who had become fully integrated into her living self.

Milestone: Part Two

Chapter One

I

Near the end of summer that year, Nobuko and Motoko traveled down the Volga River from Nizhny Novgorod to Stalingrad. After visiting the Donbass coal mines and touring places like the modest house in Taganrog—a town facing the Sea of Azov where Chekhov was born and raised—the two returned to Moscow in October.

Autumn rains had begun to fall in Moscow, and throughout the day, passing showers dampened the yellow leaves scattered across the boulevards. A lonely pearl-gray sky reflected in the rain puddles, fragments of thick soot-colored clouds racing across its surface. The autumn trees brightened by rain's golden hues and their soft mingling with gray imbued every corner of bustling Moscow with unexpected poetic resonance.