Pathway to Japanese Literature

Villon’s Wife

I

The hurried sound of the front door opening reached my ears and woke me, but knowing it must be my husband returning home drunk late at night, I stayed silent and kept lying there.

My husband turned on the light in the next room and, while gasping hoarsely with terrifyingly ragged breaths, opened the desk and bookshelf drawers to rummage through them, appearing to search for something. Soon came the sound of him plopping down heavily onto the tatami to sit, after which there was nothing but those ragged "haah-haah" breaths—what could he be doing?—while I remained lying there,

“Welcome home. Have you had dinner? There are rice balls in the cupboard if you’d like.”

When I said that,

“Well, thank you,” came his uncharacteristically gentle reply. “How’s our boy? Does he still have a fever?” he asks.

This too was an unusual occurrence.
The boy would turn four next year, but whether due to malnutrition, his father’s alcoholism, or some illness, he was smaller than most two-year-olds. He could barely walk steadily, and his speech was limited to things like “yum-yum” or “no-no”—I even wondered if there might be something wrong with his brain. Once when I took him to the public bath and held him naked in my arms, I grew so horrified at how tiny, ugly, and emaciated he looked that I ended up weeping before all those people.
And so this child would often get stomachaches or run fevers, while my husband almost never stayed home—who knows what he thought about our son’s condition—for even when I told him the boy had a fever, he would just say, “Oh? Then you should take him to the doctor,” before hurriedly throwing on his double-layered haori and rushing out somewhere.
Even if I wanted to take him to the doctor, there was no money or anything, so I had no choice but to lie beside the boy and silently stroke his head.

But that night, for some reason, he was strangely kind, even asking with unusual concern, "How’s the boy’s fever?"—and rather than feeling happy, a dreadful premonition sent a chill down my spine. Having no way to respond, I remained silent, and then for a while after that, there was nothing but the sound of my husband’s labored breathing.

“Excuse me.”

A woman’s thin voice came from the entrance.
I shuddered as if cold water had been poured over my entire body.

“Excuse me.”
“Mr. Ōtani.”

This time, her tone held an edge.
Simultaneously came the sound of the front door opening,

“Mr. Ōtani! You’re here, aren’t you?” I heard her say in a clearly angry voice. At that moment, my husband finally appeared to have gone out to the entrance. “What’s this?” he replied flusteredly and vacantly. “What do you mean, ‘What’s this?’” the woman said in a hushed voice. “How dare you commit theft when you have such a proper home here? Stop your cruel jokes and give that back. Otherwise, I’ll report you to the police right now.”

“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you dare speak such insolence!”
“This is no place for you people.”
“Get out!”
“If you don’t leave, I’ll sue you myself.”

At that moment, another man’s voice spoke.

“Mr. Ōtani, you’ve got some nerve.”
“‘This is no place for you people’—you actually said that?”
“I can’t even find the words.”
“This isn’t like your usual antics.”
“Stealing from another household—there’s a limit even to jokes.”
“All this time, do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused us?”
“And now you pull this heartless stunt tonight.”
“Mr. Ōtani, I was wrong about you.”

"It's blackmail!" my husband declared with authority, though his voice trembled.
"It's extortion! Get out! If you have complaints, bring them tomorrow."
"Get out!"
"If you have complaints, bring them tomorrow."

"You've got some nerve saying such things, Mr. Ōtani—you're a full-fledged villain now."
"In that case, we've got no choice but to call the police."

The resonance of those words carried such intense hatred that goosebumps broke out across my entire body.

"Do as you please!" my husband shouted, his voice already shrill and hollow.

I got up, threw my haori over my nightclothes, went out to the entrance, and addressed the two guests:

“Welcome.”

I greeted them.

"Oh, this must be Madam."

The round-faced man over fifty wearing a knee-length overcoat gave a slight nod in my direction without smiling at all.

The woman was around forty, thin and small, and neatly dressed.

“I’m sorry to come at such a late hour.”

And the woman, still without smiling, removed her shawl and bowed to me.

At that moment, my husband suddenly shoved his feet into his geta and tried to bolt outside.

“Hey now, that won’t do!”

The man grabbed my husband’s arm, and the two briefly grappled.

“Let go! I’ll stab you!”

A jackknife gleamed in my husband’s right hand.
That knife was his cherished possession, which had certainly been kept in his desk drawer. Earlier, when he returned home, he had seemed to be rummaging through it—no doubt anticipating this situation, he must have searched for the knife and slipped it into his pocket.

The man pulled back.
Taking advantage of that opening, my husband flapped the sleeves of his double-layered haori like a great crow and bolted outside.

“Thief!”

The man shouted loudly and tried to rush outside, but I, barefoot, stepped down into the earthen-floored entryway and threw my arms around him to restrain him.

“Please stop.”
“We can’t have either of you getting hurt.”
“I’ll handle what comes next.”

As I spoke, the forty-year-old woman beside us added:

“She’s right… old man.”
“That madman’s got a knife.”
“There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

The woman from Kyobashi spoke these words.

“Damn it all!” The man’s voice shook with rage. “I’m calling the police! I can’t let this slide anymore!”

Staring vacantly into the darkness outside, he muttered as if to himself—but all strength had already drained from the man’s body.

“I’m sorry. Please come inside and tell me what happened.”

With that, I stepped up onto the entryway platform and crouched down,

“Even I might be able to handle the aftermath.”
“Please come in. Please.”
“It’s a dirty place, but...”

The two guests exchanged glances, nodded faintly in agreement, and then the man composed himself,

“No matter what you say, our minds are already made up.”
“However, I must at least explain the circumstances to you properly, Madam.”

“Oh, please.”
“Please come in.”
“And then… take your time.”

“No—we really can’t take our time like that, but...”

With that, the man started to take off his overcoat.

“Please keep your coats on.
“It’s so cold—truly, please keep your coats on.
“There’s no heating at all in the house.”

“Then we’ll stay like this, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Please.
“And you too, please keep your coat on.”

The man entered first, followed by the woman, into my husband’s six-tatami room—rotting floor mats, tattered shoji screens, crumbling walls, sliding doors with paper peeled away to expose their skeletal frames, a desk and bookcase in one corner, the bookcase empty—a desolate scene that made them both catch their breath.

I offered the two of them a torn cushion with cotton stuffing spilling out,

“The tatami mats are dirty, so please make do with something like this.”

She said, and then offered a fresh greeting to the two of them.

"This is our first meeting."
“It seems my husband has caused you such tremendous trouble up until now, and as for whatever dreadful thing he has done tonight—committing such a terrifying act—I must offer my deepest apologies.”
“After all, he’s a person of such peculiar temperament…”

She started to say but choked on her words and burst into tears.

“Madam.
“This is truly rude of me, but how old are you?”

The man sat unapologetically cross-legged on the torn zabuton cushion, propping his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on clenched fists as he leaned forward to question me.

“Um...are you asking me?”

“Yes.
“Your husband was thirty, wasn’t he?”

“Oh...I’m four years younger.”

“Twenty-si—no, this is disgraceful.
“Still so young?”
“No—that must be right.”
“If your husband’s thirty, well...that adds up—but I’m shocked.”

“I’ve been thinking the same,” the woman said, peering out from behind the man’s back, “To have such a fine wife, yet Mr. Ōtani still...”

“He’s sick,” the man cut in. “It’s an illness.” He drew a long breath that seemed to carry twenty years of weariness in its wake before continuing in formal tones: “To be frank with you, Madam—my wife and I run a small restaurant near Nakano Station.” His thumb rubbed absently at a stain on his knee as he spoke.

“Born in Joshu myself—a respectable merchant once—but wanderlust got the better of me.” His voice took on the cadence of a well-rehearsed confession.

“Twenty years back we came to Tokyo—worked live-in at an Asakusa eatery.” His wife nodded faintly behind him.

“Showa 11—1936—rented six tatami near Nakano Station.” His fingers sketched dimensions in the cold air between them.

“Earthen floor shop serving farmers spending two yen a night.” A bitter chuckle escaped him.

“Stockpiled shochu and gin through the shortages.” His eyes glazed with the memory of full casks.

“War came—air raids—no kids to evacuate.” His wife’s hands tightened in her lap.

“Thought ‘we’ll stay till it burns.’” He spread his palms upward in mock wonder.

“Survived untouched—now sell black-market liquor openly.” The admission hung like smoke between them.

“Tell it quick like this,” he leaned forward, “sounds lucky maybe.” His voice dropped to a rasp.

“But life’s hell—an inch of good brings a foot of demons.” His wife’s eyes met mine briefly before darting away.

“Your Mr. Ōtani first came spring of ’44.” His fingers tapped an invisible calendar on his thigh.

“Kurume kasuri kimono—double-layered haori thrown over.” A painterly gesture described the folds.

“Not alone though.” His mouth twisted as if tasting bad gin.

“In your presence—” He hesitated, then plunged ahead: “Came through our back kitchen with some middle-aged—”

“Aki,” his wife supplied quietly.

“—hostess from Shinjuku bar days.” His nod acknowledged her correction.

“Snake trails following snake trails—you know how it goes.” His thumb drew serpentine patterns on his knee.

So even when your husband was brought in through the back kitchen door by that middle-aged woman—Aki-chan, as she was called—we didn’t suspect a thing, showing them into the six-tatami room following our usual protocol and serving shochu.
Mr. Ōtani drank without incident that night, had Aki-chan settle the bill, and left together through the back door once more—but I find it strange how I can’t forget his oddly quiet and refined manner from that evening.
“When a demon first visits a home, does it always arrive wearing such a hushed, unassuming guise?”
“From that night on, our shop had been targeted by Mr. Ōtani.”
About ten days later, he came alone through the back door this time, suddenly produced a ¥100 note—and mind you, ¥100 was still a fortune back then, equal to two or three thousand today—shoved it into my hand, and said “Please” with that timid-looking smile.
“He’d clearly been drinking elsewhere already, but you know better than anyone, Madam—there’s no one with a tolerance like his.”
“Just when you’d think him properly drunk, he’d start speaking with sudden seriousness and clarity—never once did we see him stagger, no matter how much he drank.”
“Men around thirty have vigor enough to handle their drink, but one like him? Rare.”
“That night too—clearly soused before arriving—he proceeded to down ten straight cups of shochu in my house. Barely spoke a word; when we tried conversing, he’d just smile bashfully and nod along with ‘Mm-hmm.’ Then out of nowhere asks the time, stands up. When I offered his change, he refused—I insisted it wasn’t right—so he smirks and says ‘Keep it till next time—I’ll return,’ then leaves. Madam—that single instance was the only time we ever took money from him. Three years he dodged us with one pretext after another, draining nearly all our liquor stocks without paying a single sen—isn’t that beyond belief?”

Involuntarily, I burst out laughing.
A sense of absurdity—inexplicable and abrupt—welled up within me.
I hurriedly covered my mouth and looked toward the proprietress—she too smiled oddly and looked down.
And then, the male proprietor also gave a wry smile with an air of resignation,

“Well, it’s no laughing matter, really—but I’m so appalled I could laugh.”
“In truth, if he applied that talent of his to some proper field, he could become a minister or a scholar—anything at all.”
“It’s not just us—there seem to be plenty of others targeted by that man, left crying under this cold sky after being reduced to utter destitution.”
“Take Aki-chan for instance—all because she happened to meet Mr. Ōtani, her good patron abandoned her, she lost all her money and fine clothes, and now they say she’s living like a beggar in some filthy tenement room. But let me tell you—when she first knew him, that Aki was so shamelessly smitten she’d boast about him to us at every turn.”
“For one thing, his status is extraordinary.”
“He’s the second son of Baron Ōtani from a branch family of some feudal lord in Shikoku—disowned now for his dissolute behavior—but when his father the Baron dies, he’s supposed to split the inheritance with the eldest son.”
“He’s clever—a genius, they say.”
“He wrote a book at twenty-one that was even better than those by the great genius Takuboku Ishikawa, then went on to write ten-odd more volumes, and though still young, he’s supposed to be Japan’s number one poet.”
“What’s more, he’s a great scholar—advanced through Gakushūin to First Higher School to Imperial University—mastered German and French, or rather, terrifyingly so. According to Aki-chan’s account, he’s practically a godlike figure. Yet even that isn’t entirely false—from what others say too, he remains Baron Ōtani’s second son and a famous poet. So now even my old woman here, at her age, competes with Aki-chan to gush over him, going on about how ‘a well-bred gentleman truly stands apart’ while eagerly awaiting Mr. Ōtani’s visits—it’s unbearable.”
“Nowadays, it seems the aristocracy and all that nonsense have disappeared, but before the war’s end, when it came to picking up women, the only way was this method of being a disowned son of nobility.”
“It’s like women get all worked up over it for some reason.”
“After all, this must be what they call a slave mentality in today’s parlance.”
“Now, I’m a man—and a jaded one at that—so even if we’re talking about some second son from a branch family of a Shikoku feudal lord’s lineage—pardon me for saying so in your presence, Madam—I see no difference in status between such ‘aristocrats’ and ourselves. And I’d certainly never debase myself by getting all worked up over that sort of thing.”
“But still—somehow that Mr. Ōtani remains difficult for me too. Even when I firmly resolve ‘This time I won’t serve him alcohol no matter how much he begs,’ he’ll appear unexpectedly at odd hours like a hunted man, and seeing how he finally relaxes upon reaching our house, my determination inevitably softens and I end up pouring him drinks.”
“Even when drunk, he doesn’t make a scene or anything. If only he’d settle his bills properly, he’d be a decent customer.”
“He doesn’t go around boasting about his status himself, nor has he ever made any preposterous claims about being a genius or anything like that. But when someone like Aki-chan starts advertising his greatness to us while sitting beside him, he’ll abruptly say something completely unrelated like ‘I need money—I want to settle my tab here,’ killing the mood.”

“Mr. Ōtani has never once paid for his drinks here himself, but Aki occasionally settles his tab instead. And besides Aki, there’s another woman—seemingly some sort of married lady—who comes secretly with him now and then, leaving behind generous sums on his behalf too. But we’re merchants—on days when even that doesn’t happen, we can’t keep serving drinks for free forever, no matter if it’s Mr. Ōtani or His Imperial Highness himself.”

“But even those occasional payments weren’t nearly enough—we were taking massive losses. We’d heard Mr. Ōtani had a proper home in Koganei with a respectable wife, so once I tried casually asking him, ‘Whereabouts is your house? I’d like to discuss settling the tab.’ But he caught on immediately and snapped, ‘There’s nothing there! Why fuss so? Breaking ties over money’s a fool’s game,’ and other such unpleasantness.”

“Still, we tried everything to at least locate Mr. Ōtani’s home—even followed him two or three times—but each time he cleverly shook us off.”

Then Tokyo entered that period of consecutive massive air raids—amidst all that chaos, Mr. Ōtani would burst in wearing a combat cap of all things, help himself to brandy bottles from our closet, gulp them down in quick swigs while standing there like some phantom wind before vanishing again—no settling tabs or anything of the sort. When the war finally ended, we began openly procuring black-market liquor and fish, hung out a new shop curtain with renewed vigor despite our poverty-stricken state, even hired a young girl to charm customers—only for that demonic Mr. Ōtani to reappear once more. This time he came not with women in tow but invariably accompanied by two or three newspaper and magazine reporters who kept babbling about how “now that military men have fallen from grace, impoverished poets like him will finally be celebrated by society.” Mr. Ōtani would lecture these reporters on God-knows-what—foreign names? English? Philosophy?—spouting complete nonsense before abruptly standing up to leave through the front door, never to return that night.

The reporters began preparing to leave with disappointed expressions—“Where’d that bastard go?” “Should we head out too?”—when I said, “Wait! Mr. Ōtani always slips away like that. You’ll be covering the bill.”

“Some customers quietly pool their money to pay and leave, while others get angry and say, ‘Make Ōtani pay! We’re living on 500 yen a month here!’”

“Even if you scold me—no—do you know how much Mr. Ōtani’s debt has accumulated until now?”

“If you manage to collect any amount from Mr. Ōtani’s debt, I’ll give you half of it,” I say—at which the reporters made disgusted faces. “What the hell—never thought Ōtani was that rotten! We’re done drinking with that bastard from now on! We don’t even have ¥100 on us tonight—we’ll bring it tomorrow, so keep this as collateral till then!” they declared with false bravado, already shrugging off their coats.

“Though people say reporters have disreputable dispositions, compared to Mr. Ōtani—far from it! They’re honest and straightforward. If Mr. Ōtani is the honorable second son of a baron, those reporters hold the worth of the honorable eldest son of a duke.”

After the war’s end, Mr. Ōtani’s drinking grew heavier still; his features turned menacing, and he began spouting vulgar jokes of a kind we’d never heard from him before. He’d suddenly punch reporters he’d brought along himself, sparking brawls. Worse yet, he somehow deceived and seduced a girl not yet twenty who worked at our shop—we were utterly astonished and at our wits’ end, but with the deed already done, we had no choice but to resign ourselves. We quietly persuaded the girl to give him up and sent her back to her parents.

“Even when I implored, ‘Mr. Ōtani—I’ll say no more—I beg you, don’t come here again,’ he retorted with vulgar threats like ‘Don’t act all respectable while profiting off the black market—I know everything about you!’ Then he’d show up again the very next evening as if nothing happened.”
“Perhaps our punishment for dealing in the black market since the war was having to endure this monster of a man—but after what he did tonight, all that nonsense about him being a poet or ‘Mr. Ōtani’ was done with. He’s just a thief—stole five thousand yen of ours and ran off.”
“Nowadays our procurement costs had become so steep that we only kept about five hundred or a thousand yen in cash at home—to tell the truth, whatever money we made from sales had to be immediately funneled right back into purchasing stock.”
The reason we’d had such a large sum as five thousand yen in our house tonight was that—with New Year’s approaching again—I’d gone around collecting payments from our regular customers and finally managed to gather that amount. This was crucial money we needed to hand over for procurement tonight itself; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to continue our business from New Year onward. My wife had counted it in the six-tatami room at the back and stored it in the cupboard drawer. He—watching this while drinking alone at the earthen-floored counter—suddenly stood up, stomped into the six-tatami room, wordlessly shoved my wife aside, yanked open the drawer, snatched up the bundle of five thousand yen bills, and stuffed it into his double-layered haori pocket. Before we could recover from our shock, he briskly descended to the earthen floor and left the shop. I shouted to stop him and chased after him with my wife—at this point, I thought, “Thief!”
“I shouted ‘Thief!’ and even considered gathering passersby to have him tied up, but after all, Mr. Ōtani was someone we knew—it seemed too cruel. So tonight, no matter what, we resolved not to lose sight of him. We’d follow him to wherever he settled down, confirm his hideout, then calmly negotiate to get that money back. Well, ours was a vulnerable business—so we pooled our strength and finally tracked him to this house tonight. Swallowing our unbearable anger, we politely asked him to return the money—and then! What does he do? Pulls out a jackknife! ‘I’ll stab you!’ he says—can you imagine?”

Once again, an inexplicable sense of absurdity welled up within me, and I burst into laughter.
The proprietress also blushed faintly and smiled.
I couldn't stop laughing—feeling guilty toward the male proprietor—yet found it all so absurdly funny that I laughed until tears streamed down my face. It suddenly occurred to me whether this was what my husband meant in his poem by "the great laughter at civilization's end."

II

Nevertheless, this was no incident to be settled with mere laughter. After considering my options, I addressed the couple that night: "Then I shall take responsibility for resolving this matter myself. Please wait one more day before involving the police. Tomorrow I will come to your Nakano shop." Having obtained detailed directions through persistent entreaties, I saw them off for the evening. Then I sat alone in the center of the cold six-tatami room, pondering solutions—yet no good ideas came. Rising, I removed my haori and slipped into the futon where our son slept. Stroking his head, I wished with all my heart that dawn would never come.

My father once ran an oden stall by Hyoutan Pond in Asakusa Park. My mother died young, leaving just Father and me living in a tenement while running the stall together. The man I’m with now started visiting occasionally, until I began deceiving Father to meet him elsewhere. When I became pregnant with our son, after endless complications I somehow ended up in this semblance of being his wife—though of course there’s no official registration—and our boy remains legally fatherless. He’d disappear for three or four nights—no, sometimes a full month—who knows where doing what—returning only to stagger home dead drunk, his face corpse-pale as he gasped for breath. He’d stare silently at me with tears streaming down his cheeks—or suddenly burrow into my futon and clutch me so tightly,

“Oh no. I’m scared.”
“I’m scared, I am.”
“Scared!”
“Save me!”

There were times he would tremble violently while saying such things; even after falling asleep, he might mutter nonsense or groan. Come morning, he’d wander about like a person whose soul had been drained before abruptly disappearing again—three or four nights passing without his return. Two or three of my husband’s old acquaintances in publishing worried over our son and me, occasionally bringing us money. Thanks to their kindness, we somehow avoided starving to death and survived until today.

Drowsily drifting off to sleep, I suddenly opened my eyes to morning light streaming through the shutter gaps. I rose, dressed, hoisted our son onto my back, and stepped outside. Staying silent indoors had become unbearable.

With no destination in mind, I walked toward the station, bought candy from a stall for our son to suck on, then impulsively purchased a ticket to Kichijoji. Hanging from a train strap, I absently glanced upward—there hung a poster bearing my husband’s name. It advertised a magazine where he’d apparently published a lengthy essay titled “François Villon.” As I stared at those words and his name, inexplicably bitter tears surged until the poster blurred into obscurity.

I got off at Kichijoji and walked to Inokashira Park for what must have been the first time in years.
The cedar trees along the pond had been completely cut down, leaving the area strangely exposed and bleak like a construction site about to be developed—utterly transformed from how it used to be.

I lowered our son from my back, sat us down side by side on a broken bench by the pond, and fed him the sweet potato I had brought from home.

“Boy.”
“Isn’t it a pretty pond?”
“Long ago, there used to be so many koi fishies and goldfishies in this pond, but now there’s nothing left at all.”
“How dreary it all is.”

The boy—for reasons known only to himself—stuffed his mouth full of sweet potato and giggled oddly with a strange “keh keh” sound.
Even as my own child, he gave off an almost simpleton-like impression.

No matter how long I stayed on that bench by the pond, it would solve nothing. I strapped the boy to my back again, wandered back toward Kichijoji Station, meandered through the bustling street market, then bought a ticket to Nakano at the station. Without any thought or plan—as if being smoothly drawn toward some terrifying demonic abyss—I boarded the train, got off at Nakano, walked along the route I’d been told yesterday, and finally reached the front of those people’s little restaurant.

Since the front door was closed, I went around to the back and entered through the kitchen entrance.
The male proprietor was absent, and the proprietress was alone cleaning the shop.
The moment I met the proprietress’s gaze, I smoothly uttered a lie that even I hadn’t anticipated.

“Auntie, it seems I can properly repay the money.”
“Either tonight or, if not, tomorrow—in any case, since it’s now certain, please don’t worry any longer.”

“Oh, well—that’s something,” she said, her face briefly brightening with relief. Yet somewhere in her features lingered an uneasy shadow—the kind that clings when things don’t quite add up.

“Auntie, it’s true,” I pressed on. “There’s definitely someone who’ll bring the money here. Until then, I’ll stay as collateral—right here. Doesn’t that put your mind at ease? I’ll help out at the shop until every yen’s accounted for.”

I lowered our son from my back, left him to play alone in the six-tatami room at the back, and busied myself working to show my diligence. Since the boy was already accustomed to playing alone, he wasn't the least bit of a hindrance. Perhaps because he was simple-minded or simply not shy around strangers, he would even smile at the proprietress. During my absences when I went to collect rationed goods for her household in her stead, she would give him empty American cans to play with instead of toys, and he would quietly tap and roll them around in the corner of the six-tatami room.

Around noon, the male proprietor returned from procuring fish and vegetables.
The moment I saw the male proprietor’s face, I rapidly stated the same lie I had told the proprietress.

The male proprietor looked bewildered,

“Huh? However, Madam, money can’t be relied upon until you’ve actually held it in your own hand.”

he said unexpectedly in a quiet, admonishing tone.

“No, but you see, it’s really certain. So please trust me and wait just one more day before taking it public. Since I’ll be helping out at this shop until then.”

“If the money comes back, then there’s nothing more to it,” the male proprietor muttered as if to himself, “after all, this year’s got only five or six days left.”

“Yes, that’s why—that’s exactly why I—oh? Customers are here.” “Welcome,” I smiled at the three workman-like customers entering the shop before whispering, “Auntie, could I borrow an apron?”

“Well look at this—they went and hired themselves a beauty.” “This one’s something else!”

“Well look who they went and hired—a real beauty! This one’s something else!” said one of the customers.

“Don’t tempt me,” said the male proprietor in a tone that wasn’t entirely joking, “there’s money riding on this.”

“A million-dollar thoroughbred?” another customer made a vulgar joke.

“Even thoroughbred mares go for half price,” I retorted while warming sake, matching their crudeness.

“Don’t sell yourself short!” barked the youngest customer. “From now on Japan’s got gender equality—even for horses and dogs! Miss—I’m hooked. Love at first sight.” He leaned closer. “But hey—you’ve got a kid, don’t you?”

“No,” the proprietress emerged from the back holding the boy and said, “this is a child we’ve recently taken in from relatives. Now we’ve finally got ourselves an heir too.”

“Now you’ve got money too,”

‘Color and debt,’ he muttered, then abruptly changed his tone. ‘What’ll it be? Should we make a hotpot?’

When one of the customers teased him, the male proprietor said earnestly,

“Got some color now too, piled up debts too,” he muttered, then abruptly changed his tone. “What’ll it be? How about a hot pot?”

he asked the customers.

At that moment, I came to understand one thing.
So that’s how it is, I nodded to myself, then with feigned nonchalance carried the sake decanter to the customers.

That day seemed to coincide with Christmas Eve or some such occasion, and perhaps because of it, customers came streaming in without pause. Though I had hardly eaten a thing since morning—whether because my heart was filled with pent-up thoughts—even when the proprietress urged me to have something, I declined with a “No thank you,” then simply kept working as nimbly as if dancing in a single feathered robe. It might have been self-delusion, but the shop seemed unusually lively that day—there were far more than just two or three customers asking my name or requesting handshakes.

But what would come of all this?
I had not a single clue about anything.
I simply kept smiling, matching the customers' lewd jokes with even cruder retorts, gliding from patron to patron as I poured their drinks, all while thinking how nice it would be if this body of mine could just melt away like ice cream.

Miracles do indeed occasionally appear even in this world, it seems.

It was probably a little past nine when a pair of customers arrived—a man wearing a paper party hat for the Christmas festivities and a black mask covering the upper half of his face like Lupin’s, accompanied by a slender, beautiful madam of about thirty-four or thirty-five. The man sat facing away from us on a chair in the corner of the earthen-floored area, but I recognized who he was the moment he entered the shop.
That thief husband of mine.

Since he showed no sign of noticing me, I too pretended not to know and joked around with the other customers, and then that madam sat down facing my husband,

“Hey there, miss.”

When she called out,

“Huh?”

I replied and proceeded to their table,

“Welcome. Would you care for sake?”
“Would you care for sake?”

When I said this, my husband briefly glimpsed up at me from beneath his mask with evident surprise, but I lightly patted his shoulder—

“Should I say ‘Merry Christmas’?”
“What’s the phrase?”
“You look like you could handle another bottle or so.”

I said.

The madam paid no heed and adopted a formal expression,

"Excuse me, miss—there's a confidential matter I need to discuss with your proprietor. Would you bring him here?"

she said.

I went to where the male proprietor was frying food in the back,

“Ōtani has returned. Please do meet with him. But don’t mention me to the woman he’s with. It would embarrass Ōtani.”

“So he’s finally come.”

The male proprietor, while half-suspicious of that lie of mine, still seemed to trust me considerably; he appeared to have simply concluded that my husband’s return had also come about through some intervention on my part.

“Keep quiet about me, all right?”

I repeated,

“If that’s what you prefer, I’ll do so.”

He readily agreed and went out to the earthen-floored area.

The male proprietor cast a quick glance around the customers in the earthen-floored area, then walked straight over to the table where my husband sat, exchanged a few words with that beautiful madam, and then all three of them left the shop together.

It’s over now.
Convinced that everything had been resolved—though I didn’t know why—I was so genuinely happy that I suddenly grabbed the wrist of a young customer, not yet twenty and wearing a navy kasuri kimono,

“Let’s drink, come on, let’s drink. It’s Christmas, you know.”

Three

In barely thirty minutes—no, even sooner, so quickly that I thought "Oh my"—the proprietor returned alone and approached my side,

“Madam, thank you very much.
I’ve received the money back.”

“Oh.
That’s good.”
“All of it?”

The male proprietor laughed oddly,

"Yes, just yesterday's amount."

"So what's the total for everything up to now?"
"Roughly... well—we've been wiped out."

"Twenty thousand yen."

“Is that all?”

“We’ve been cleaned out.”

“I’ll repay it.
Uncle, could you let me work here starting tomorrow?
Come on, let me!
I’ll work to pay it back.”

“Huh?
Madam, you’re quite the character, aren’t you?”

We laughed in unison.

That night, past ten o'clock, I left the Nakano shop, carried our son on my back, and returned to our home in Koganei.
As expected, my husband had not returned home, but I remained unperturbed.
If I went to that shop again tomorrow, I might see my husband.
Why hadn’t I noticed such a good thing until now?
All my hardships until yesterday were ultimately because I’d been a fool who hadn’t thought of such a brilliant idea.
After all, I hadn’t been bad at handling customers back when I worked at my father’s stall in Asakusa—I was sure I could manage well at that Nakano shop from now on.
In fact, even tonight I’d received nearly five hundred yen in tips.

According to the male proprietor’s account, after last night’s incident my husband had apparently gone to stay at some acquaintance’s house, then early this morning raided that beautiful madam’s Kyobashi bar—drinking whiskey from dawn onward—and proceeded to recklessly hand out money to five girls working there under the pretense of Christmas presents. Around noon he had them summon a taxi to go somewhere, and after some time returned with an assortment of Christmas items: pointed hats, masks, a decorated cake, even a turkey. He made them call all his acquaintances to gather for a grand banquet. The bar madam grew suspicious—how could someone who never carried money do all this?—and quietly confronted him. My husband calmly confessed everything about last night’s events. Since this madam hadn’t been a stranger to Ōtani even before, she insisted it’d be pointless to let things escalate into a police matter and that the money must be returned. She covered the amount herself, then had him guide her to the Nakano shop. It was then that the male proprietor turned to me and—

“I more or less expected things would turn out that way, but Madam, you’ve certainly caught on to that angle.”
“Did you ask one of Mr. Ōtani’s friends for help?”

Since his tone suggested he still seemed to think I had anticipated his return like this from the start and come to the shop beforehand to wait, I laughed and—
“Oh, absolutely.”
was all I replied.

From the very next day onward, my life became completely different from before, transforming into something buoyant and joyful. I promptly went to the beauty parlor and had my hair done, gathered cosmetics, re-sewed my kimono, and even received two pairs of new white tabi socks from the proprietress—it felt like the oppressive feelings that had weighed on my heart until now had been completely swept away.

I woke up in the morning and ate breakfast with our son, then made a lunchbox and carried him on my back to commute to Nakano for work. With New Year’s Eve and New Year’s being the shop’s busiest season, my name at Tsubakiya became “Satchan”—and this Satchan was so busy every day it made her head spin. About every other day, my husband would come by to drink, have me pay his tab, then vanish again—though sometimes late at night he’d peek into my shop and,

“Shall we go home?”

He would whisper this, I would nod and begin preparing to leave, and there were often times when we cheerfully made our way home together.

“Why didn’t we do this from the start? I’m perfectly happy.”

“Women have neither happiness nor unhappiness.”

“Is that so? When you say that, I do start to feel that way too—but then what about men?”

“Men have nothing but misfortune. They’re always fighting—nothing but battling fear.”

“I don’t understand. But I want to keep living like this forever. The uncle and auntie at Tsubakiya are such good people, you know.”

“They’re fools, those people.”
“They’re bumpkins.”
“And yet they’re quite greedy, you know.”
“They let me drink with the intention of finally profiting off me.”

“That’s business—it’s only natural.”
“But isn’t there more to it than that?”
“You swiped money from that proprietress, didn’t you?”

“You know, long ago.”
“What about the old man?”
“Do you realize?”

“It seems he knows full well. ‘They can handle both their schemes and debts,’ he once said with a sigh.”

“I know this sounds affected, but I can’t help wanting to die.”
“I’ve thought of nothing but death since birth.”
“It’d be better for everyone if I died.”
“That much is certain.”
“Yet I can’t seem to die.”
“Some strange, terrifying god-like thing keeps stopping me.”

“You still have your work.”

“Work means nothing.
There’s no distinction between masterpieces and trash.
Things become good if people call them good, bad if they call them bad.
It’s like breathing out and breathing in.
What’s truly terrifying is that there’s a god somewhere in this world.
He exists, doesn’t He?”

“Huh?”

“He exists, doesn’t he?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see.”

As I kept commuting to the shop day after day, I realized every customer coming to Tsubakiya for drinks was nothing but a criminal. I even came to think my husband might still be among the gentler ones. What's more, it began to seem that not just the shop's patrons but everyone walking the streets was hiding some shadowy guilt behind them. A dignified-looking woman in her fifties came to Tsubakiya's back entrance selling sake at three hundred yen per sho—cheap by current market prices—so the proprietress promptly took it in, only to find it watered down. In a world where even such refined ladies had to scheme like this, I saw it was impossible to live without some darkness clinging to your soul. Could this world's morality never allow what happens in card games—where gathering all the minuses somehow turns them into a plus?

If there is a God, please come forth!

At the end of New Year's, I was injured by a customer at the shop.

That night, it was raining.
My husband did not appear, but Mr. Yajima—a publishing associate of my husband’s who occasionally delivered living expenses to me—came with another man from the same industry, also around forty like Yajima himself, and as they drank, the two argued loudly about whether it was improper or acceptable for Ōtani’s wife to be working in such a place, their debate half-jocular in tone. I laughed along,

“Where is this ‘wife’ of his?”

When he asked,
“I don’t know where she is, but at least she’s more refined and beautiful than Satchan from Tsubakiya.”
As he said this,

“How spiteful.”
“If it were someone like Mr. Ōtani, I’d want to spend even one night with him.”
“I like that sort of sly man.”

“This is precisely why,”

Mr. Yajima turned his face toward his companion and twisted his mouth into a grimace.

By that time, the fact that I was Ōtani the poet’s wife had become known even to the journalists who came with my husband, and there were even curious types who—having heard about it from them—went out of their way to come tease me. The shop grew livelier by the day, and the proprietor’s mood was not entirely displeased.

That night, after Mr. Yajima and his group concluded their negotiations over black-market paper transactions and left past ten o'clock, I too—since it was raining and my husband seemed unlikely to appear—began preparing to return home even though one customer still remained. Going to the six-tatami room in the back, I picked up our son sleeping in the corner and hoisted him onto my back,

"I'll borrow the umbrella again."

When I made this request to the proprietress in a low voice,

“I’ve got an umbrella too.”
“Let me walk you home.”

The young customer—a slender, small-framed man of about twenty-five or twenty-six who had remained alone in the shop—stood up with a serious expression.
That was my first customer of the night.

“Please don’t trouble yourself.
I’m used to walking alone.”

“No—your place is far.
“I know.”
“I’m also from that neighborhood in Koganei.”
“Let me walk you home.”
“Auntie, settle my bill.”

At the shop he had only drunk three bottles and didn’t seem all that intoxicated.

We rode the train together, got off at Koganei, and then walked side by side down the pitch-dark rainy road, sharing an umbrella.
The young man, who had been almost completely silent until then, began to speak haltingly,

“I do know,” he said. “You see—I’m a fan of Mr. Ōtani’s poetry. I... I write poems too, you know? I’d been thinking of asking Mr. Ōtani to look at them someday. But... well... I’m scared of him.”

We arrived home.

“Thank you very much.
“I’ll see you at the shop again.”

“Yeah, goodbye.”

The young man walked away through the rain.

In the dead of night, I awoke to the clattering sound of the front door opening, but assuming it was my husband returning home drunk as usual, I remained silent and kept lying there when—

“Excuse me.
“Mr. Ōtani, excuse me.”

a man’s voice came.

When I got up, turned on the light, and went to the entrance to look, the young man from earlier was swaying so unsteadily he could barely stand upright,

“Madam, I’m sorry. On my way back, I had another drink at a stall. The thing is, my place is in Tachikawa—went to the station and there were no trains left. Madam, I beg you. Let me stay. I don’t need a futon or anything. This entrance step here would do. Please let me lie here until the first train leaves tomorrow morning. If it weren’t raining, I’d sleep under some eaves around here, but with this downpour, I can’t. I beg you.”

“My husband isn’t here, so if this entrance step suits you, please use it.”

I said and brought two torn zabuton cushions to the entrance step for him.

"I'm sorry."
"Ah, I'm drunk."

He said in a pained whisper, then immediately lay down on the entrance step as he was. By the time I returned to bed, loud snores were already audible.

And then, at dawn the next day, I was easily taken by that man.

That day too, outwardly just as before, I went off to work at the shop with our son on my back.

In the earthen-floored area of the Nakano shop, my husband had placed a cup filled with sake on the table and was reading the newspaper alone.
The morning sunlight struck the cup, and I thought it looked beautiful.

"Is no one here?"

My husband turned to look at me,

“Yeah. The old man still hasn’t come back from buying supplies, and the old woman—she was in the kitchen until just a bit ago, but she’s not here now?”

“Weren’t you here last night?”

“I came. Lately I can’t sleep unless I see Satchan at Tsubakiya, so when I peeked in there after ten, they said you’d just left.”

“And then?”

“I ended up staying here. The rain was coming down in sheets.”

“Maybe I should start having them let me stay at this shop for good too.”

“That’s fine too.”

“I will do that. There’s no point keeping that house rented forever.”

My husband silently turned his gaze back to the newspaper,

“Oh, they’re writing bad things about me again.
“They’re calling me a fake Epicurean noble, apparently.”
“This doesn’t hit the mark.”
“They might as well have called me an Epicurean who fears God.”
“Satchan, look here—they’re calling me a monster in this article.”
“That’s not true, you know.”
“I’m only telling you this now because—last year at year’s end, when I took that five thousand yen from here, it was because I wanted to let you and our son have a proper New Year’s for once with that money.”
“It’s precisely because I’m not a monster that I ended up doing such a thing.”

I wasn’t particularly happy.

“Even a monster is fine. We just need to survive—it’s enough.”

I said.