Pathway to Japanese Literature

After parting with my caretaker and spending several days alone in a bed, I was transferred again to another room following a half-month stay in a multi-bed ward. This time it was a single-story ward on the opposite side—visible from my former south window—lined with rooms designed for two patients each. The nurse wheeled a bed carriage to the stairway's base, where a familiar caretaker also came to assist, loading my belongings onto the vehicle. Finally layering a haori over my hitoe and clutching a vase of carnations in one hand, I left the multi-bed temporary quarters—the season had already neared July.

When I passed through the long corridor lined with numerous communal sickrooms and descended downstairs, my body was enveloped in air as cool and bracing as a refreshing drink.
For me, who had lived nearly a year confined to the second floor, the wind coming through the flower beds and plantings near the ground felt so remarkably clear and pure.
Breathing in the fragrant air, I passed through the X-ray room and the medical office’s covered corridor, turned left, and stepped into the Second Ward’s corridor filled with a serene atmosphere.

This room, designed for special paying patients, was about eight tatami mats in size, with a partition separating the two beds placed side by side.
I was assigned the bed facing the courtyard, where beside the bedside table stood a Western-style cupboard and other items, with all the hospital equipment being new—everything felt splendid.

After putting away my personal belongings in the bed with the nurse’s assistance, first and foremost, I passed by the neighboring empty bed and peered outside from there.
Stepped down one level from the threshold, the area before the sickroom had become a wide terrace, where several wisteria lounge chairs were placed here and there beneath the deep eaves that covered the ward's terrace, stretching from one end to the other.

I descended to the terrace, sat down on one of the chairs right in front, and looked around. Up to the iron fence marking the hospital boundary lay a lawn blooming with oleanders and other flowers, while along the terrace stretched a row of broad-leaved trees whose dense foliage spread thickly, as if dyeing the surroundings blue.

I inhaled the astonishingly rich scent of earth and grass. Compared to the scenery I had viewed from that south window on the second floor, here on the ground level many more elements entered my field of vision.

When I crossed the iron fence, a wild path stretched before my eyes, and beyond it—connected seamlessly—spread vast cultivated fields and a plain of grass thicket stretching as far as I could see. I was almost too astonished and delighted to tear my eyes away from this vast vista.

Not only that, but I noticed a path running along that grass thicket plain, continuing to the distant visible edge of town. People passed sporadically. A small figure would appear from the town’s outskirts, gradually grow larger as it approached, then pass by. Near where they passed should have been the hospital’s back gate I had observed from the south window.

It felt strange being this close again to worldly sounds. Brought here by bed carriage, I now found myself near streets I’d thought I might never see again. That a child deemed less ill than me had died first made me sense time’s unfathomable menace drawing near.

I returned to my new bed and settled myself, filled with gratitude. My recovering mind and body grasped how profoundly happiness could dwell within misfortune. The many sufferings that had passed and even my present worries seemed at such moments like faint clusters of clouds blown to a corner of the clear sky.

When the first night arrived, the footsteps in the corridor along my window ceased, the noises from the neighboring rooms before and after quieted, and the area around the empty bed next to me grew all the more silent. I settled into the bed’s mosquito net reminiscent of a cricket cage and, despite my indisputably ill body still feeling out of place, let myself slip into sleep.

After several days had passed and evening was drawing near, a plump yet charming girl entered the room next to me.
Alongside my nameplate, Sakagami Toyoko’s nameplate was affixed above the entrance door.

The girl entered with a healthy person’s stride, accompanied by a man in his forties who followed behind a driver-like man hauling bedding, wicker trunks, cloth-wrapped bundles, and assorted items.

“Oh Brother, this is the very same bed as before,” she exclaimed in surprise.

“I see, you’re right. This time, the bed seems to be telling you to convalesce properly until you’re completely healed.”

The eldest brother, who was old enough to be a young father, was storing various belongings in their designated places on one side of the bed being arranged by the nurse.

At the opened compartment of the wooden box-shaped bed, he first combined heavy winter coats, shawls, and work jackets—all wrapped in cloth bundles—into the large trunk already packed with clothing and stored them in the compartment. Then he attempted to cram three or four new pairs of geta and sandals, stacked boxes, and what looked like a Western-style umbrella into the cramped space—

“That’s quite a lot of luggage,” the nurse remarked.

“Since the seasons turn quickly, I thought it better than sending things one by one.”

In a voice that seemed gentle and filled with affection, the eldest brother explained.

“It’s all I have.”

The young patient also managed a smile.

“It’s nothing like that. If there are good obi or formal kimonos, we’ll keep them stored until your discharge day.”

The explanation about keeping things stored didn’t seem to fully satisfy her, and the nurse left behind only a smile.

After Toyoko had settled into bed, her brother—having hurriedly finished greeting me—suddenly appeared busy and departed toward the courtyard entrance, his retreating figure almost breaking into a run.

Seeing that a seemingly less ill person had moved in next to me, I felt relieved.
Patients, as a rule—if seriously ill would feel constrained around those less ill; if less ill would feel constrained around those more gravely afflicted—were driven by such complex psychological mechanisms.
Considering this, those of lighter conditions together might well be considered a paradise within the patient world.

Since the nurse had partially shifted aside the partition dividing us, we soon began talking face-to-face.

“A relapse?”

“Yes, because I went back to my hometown and hiked through the mountains.”

The girl answered with an innocent smile.

From the next day onward, the girl began going to the lavatory and mostly handled her personal needs herself. Though her intestines were said to be injured, she got by on ordinary meals.

My husband who came visiting would dote on the ailing girl and share food with her. Once when they were talking nearby, he noticed necrotic patches between her fingers.

"It looks like athlete's foot."

"No, this comes from all the sewing I did. Where I pricked myself with a needle turned out like this and won't heal."

“Hmm, don’t leave that unattended—have it treated properly right away.”

The girl lifted her cool, wide eyes and stared up at my husband as if startled.

The sickbed’s daily routine proved rather hectic—morning, afternoon, and evening temperature checks; the director’s rounds that came between them; bed bath days; various tasks.

Yet in those intermittent gaps over less than ten days, Sakagami Toyoko had recounted her personal history to me with enough detail for its contours to take vague shape.

Three years prior—when she was sixteen in early autumn—her elderly mother, anxious about this youngest daughter who had lost her father’s protection, resolved to move to Tokyo. After entrusting their family home in Gunma to others, mother and daughter temporarily lodged at the eldest son’s Tokyo residence.

The elderly mother there interacted closely with her eldest son’s wife and three grandchildren of both genders during mornings and evenings.
The biological family grew more complex.
The sweet-faced grandchildren sometimes ignored their young aunt, ordering her about like a maid, while the daughter-in-law even dictated how to wring out cleaning rags.

The elderly mother was taken on outings and treated to fine meals, but this daughter-in-law's kindness only gouged out more of her sorrow.
The pain sharply directed at the youngest daughter remained unhealed by any ministrations from her sisters-in-law.
At one point, the mother and daughter sought refuge at the second son's house as well.
Though there were no children there, their presence as dependents between husband and wife led to increasingly frequent quarrels.

"Ms. Toyoko truly ought to stay at Mr. Eldest Brother's place—that's the proper order of things.
And Mother really must find some way to return to your hometown soon—it wouldn't do otherwise," urged the second brother's wife.

The elderly mother spoke to her youngest daughter out of sight.

“Listen, Toyoko, even you wouldn’t understand the path of filial piety.”
“Filial piety means deeply understanding those heartrending feelings of parents who beg you to do this and that.”

As Toyoko spoke of her mother from that time, tears streamed down from her innocent eyes.
Then, she said, her mother continued speaking.

“I, you see—Ninomiya Kinjiro understood his mother’s feelings.”
“I truly admire that.”
“That depth of his understanding—how he perceived the heart of a mother weeping for the infant she had sent out for foster care and took the child back—leaves me so grateful I can hardly put it into words.”

After returning once more to the eldest brother’s home, the mother and daughter—this time due to the elderly mother’s resolute insistence—adopted the policy of providing the youngest daughter with some vocational skill, eventually finding a path forward by having her live in at a department store’s sewing department.

When Toyoko began living among others, mingling with her young colleagues, her elderly mother was finally able to return to her hometown with peace of mind.

Toyoko found sewing work enjoyable and her improved skills even began to be recognized by the strict supervisor, but within less than a year, at eighteen in spring, she fell ill.

When Toyoko returned to her eldest brother’s house and they learned her illness was contagious, her sister-in-law’s fear was extraordinary.
Without letting her children approach even a step closer, she urged her husband, and within two or three days they had already delivered Toyoko to one of our beds here.

“I didn’t tell my mother back home about my hospitalization.”
“Rather than that, I thought I should get better quickly without my mother knowing and devoted myself to recuperation.”

With a smile, Toyoko recounted her joy at having fully recovered after half a year had passed.

"But even when I was finally discharged, I couldn't return to my brother's house."
"They rented a room in an apartment for me and told me to live there until I was completely no longer contagious."

During her solitary apartment life, the two sisters-in-law would sometimes take turns visiting to inform her how the expenses they were splitting between two households had surprisingly piled up.

“So I, longing for Mother in mid-spring this year, tried returning to my hometown, you know. Mother was very pleased because I’d become plumper and looked healthier than before, and I thought my efforts to hide my illness had been worthwhile, you know. But Mother herself had grown terribly weak, lying down and getting up while saying her long-lasting cold still hadn’t healed. During her illness, she told me she’d had dreams of me dying and chanted sutras alone in that large house late at night, you know. In my heart, I found it almost unnerving—no matter how much I hid my illness, could hearts truly connect? At that time, I worked at nursing Mother and, in the joy of having returned to my hometown, went walking in the mountains with friends, forgetting my still-recovering body, you know.”

When the story had thus reached recent events of this year, Toyoko broke into violent sobs again.
This time the tears were fiercest, and for a while she couldn’t continue speaking.

Over a span of more than ten days, I had been gathering her story piecemeal, but seeing her tears that day, I thought that even if I tried to restrain myself from making her speak, I must prevent this agitation.
I regretted having made her talk and said repeatedly, "Let’s stop this story now."

But Toyoko, as if the sadness carved into her innocent heart could not be contained, said through her tears:

“Mother died suddenly on the day I returned from hiking in the mountains.”
“From cerebral hemorrhage.”

Sakagami Toyoko was now nineteen years old, and not even two months had passed since losing her mother.
After her brothers’ families and relatives gathered to complete the forty-ninth-day memorial service, their hometown house ultimately stood empty—and at that very moment, Toyoko’s illness had relapsed.

“Until I resettled at my eldest brother’s house in Tokyo, they still hadn’t confirmed it as a relapse.
Since they kept saying our situation had made expenses pile up this way and that, I thought I should at least take sewing jobs to repay their kindness—so I worked the needle without sparing even the fading daylight.
Then my sisters-in-law brought sewing work from everywhere until pieces piled like mountains by my knees.
There were days I finished three lined kimonos before nightfall—my eyes would blur under the lamp.”

With this, the main threads of her story came to an end, but I found myself seeing Toyoko in a new light.
That this girl with her pure, fresh face harbored such sorrow and hardship within was strange almost to the point of wonder.

It seems she was scolded by the sisters-in-law for being quiet and slow to respond, but there must have been weariness from unreasonable work demands and listlessness from signs of relapse.

A hot day arrived in the sickroom.
Once I began walking again, I could not help but go out under the wisteria on the Terrace where the wind blew through.
Since the beginning of August, the growth of the grass thicket became rampant.
Broom grass sprinkled with white flowers, thistles brandishing saw-like leaves, various nettles, pretty wild chrysanthemums and morning glories, water peppers, and an absurdly plain weed—its tall stem adorned only with slender leaves like a bottle-washing brush—all formed countless thickets. Around these, creeping vines constricted their growth, piling up mounds of grass here and there where sunlight could not reach.

I, who cherished the lovely flowers of weeds, found myself newly astonished at how many of them mimicked real plants. One evening after finishing her shift, a nurse on the Terrace picked wild grasses through the iron fence and handed me an armful.

“Quite rustic, don’t you think?” said the Nurse. I replied kindly, “I’ll put them in a vase straight away.”

As I sorted through the wild grasses—those that almost resembled bush clover but didn’t, those mimicking wheat yet falling short, others straining to look like orchids or peas or water peppers—their desperate efforts at resemblance held a different sort of pathos.

On trying it, I took up the thin botanical guidebook at hand and found entries for cat bush clover, dog barley, snake’s beard, crow’s pea, devil’s place, and others catching my eye—the weeds I now observed seemed to resemble these.

In my bedridden idleness, I thought of this too as the fleeting efforts of weeds living within nature’s will, and somehow found myself deeply moved.
The sorrow of imperfect beings existed even in this world—their true nature inevitably fell short.

But even among the wild grasses, there existed pure ones. Dayflowers, wild chrysanthemums, tearthumb grasses, and windgrasses—though modest in my eyes—were just as pleasing as genuine blooming flowers. And I sorted those out and arranged them in a vase.

As the heat grew more intense, Toyoko had begun showing listlessness even in handling her daily tasks, but when I inquired, she said she was troubled because her intestinal condition had worsened.

For about ten days now, no one had come to Toyoko, so I conveyed her suffering to the head nurse who had come to take her temperature instead. The Head Nurse

“It’s problematic if you remain silent about such changes even for a day or two.”
“This concerns medication administration too,” the Head Nurse cautioned Toyoko.

Afterward, she wore a vaguely lonely expression and lay still.

“They can’t really be seen coming from your home anymore, can they?”

“Yes—every single day I stare at the country path visible from my window too. My eldest brother’s white linen suit can be recognized from any distance.”

“They might come while we’re speaking like this.”

"But usually, it's your husband who comes walking here."

"I can recognize him now."

"Yes, even from far away like a speck."
"Your husband is so kind, worrying about the wound on my palm like that."

After Sakagami Toyoko had grown listless, I too felt strangely lonely.
Even when I went out to the Terrace, I couldn't call out "Toyo-chan, do come too," so I made small talk with those nearby.
Generally speaking, since this hospital ward housed gravely ill patients, there were few changes in faces apart from one critically severe case who couldn't stay lying down due to throat complications.

Among them, a few young men and one young woman who were heading toward happiness and recovery became regulars of the terrace.

“How large do you think the total area of this grassy field and farmland is?” said the Setta Young Man—nicknamed Tall Boy and fortunate to have his mother attending to him—as he spoke up.

“First, 5,000 tsubo,” said Tako-san—the only son of a traditional restaurant owner, nicknamed for his pursed lips—as he promptly estimated.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “Then what about you, Ms. Yamano?”

When the question was directed at me, I became completely flustered—my eyes couldn’t even begin to express numbers, having no estimate whatsoever.

“I truly can’t make any guess at all.”

“Then what about you, Ms. Futaba?”

Ms. Futaba—nicknamed Ms. Moonlit Night for her pale, luminous complexion—

“Over twenty thousand tsubo, without question,” she declared.

The lanky Setta Young Man arched his back,
“Hmm, I’d say ten thousand tsubo.
Really now,” he added, thrusting Tako-san’s shoulder and yanking him back as he staggered.

“Your eyes are utterly useless!”

“Is that so?”

“Get a grip. Though really, Ms. Futaba’s being dramatic—a bit hysterical, don’t you think?”

Not answering, I withdrew to my room in disarray.
In general, idle talk of this sort was harmless; even though no one could determine an accurate estimate, terms like "blind spots" and "hysterical" sufficed.

Toyoko, lying in bed and listening to the voices outside, said amusingly that Tako-san truly lived up to his name.

“When I looked from my window, whenever he pursed his lips, three horizontal lines formed on his forehead, and whenever he passed through this terrace, he would peer at me—what an odd person.”

To my surprise, when I saw Tako-san passing through the hallway the next morning, he had a large bandage on his forehead. Even when hearing the explanation about wrinkle-smoothing, I wasn’t particularly surprised. A hospital was a place where even minutiae—who had developed a fever, who had coughed up bloody phlegm—spread from ear to ear swift as a sudden storm, like voiceless voices. As long as Toyoko’s voice had been involved with others at all, it was no wonder it had caused an echo.

The atmosphere of patients comforting one another through hospital interactions had gradually become clear to Toyoko, and her occasional feelings of anxiously awaiting her eldest brother’s visits became obscured within the surrounding air.

She would sing some popular song in a clear, rounded voice, and when her stomach pain eased, she would show signs of remembering something.

“Ms. Yamano, I… I’ve never once had a relationship with a man.”
“In my hometown around Obon time, it was customary for young people to gather in the mountains to play flutes and dance—but I never went once.”

I had no way to respond. Was Toyoko sensing her own short life somewhere? That this young girl had revealed even this depth of loneliness in her heart to me struck me too profoundly—and yet I found myself repulsive for harboring such ominous premonitions.

"If you regain your health now, Ms. Toyoko, you'll be able to make countless friends."

“Is that so?”

With an innocent gaze, she seemed to be dreaming of the days to come.

After counting about fifteen days on her fingers, instead of the eldest brother she had been anxiously awaiting, her sister-in-law suddenly slid open the sickroom door and entered.

Even Toyoko, who should have been vigilantly watching the path, momentarily turned her startled eyes toward the approaching figure of her sister-in-law.

The complexion was slightly dark, her facial features so tightly set that her eyes and nose were indistinguishable. Her face resembled that of someone who had long accumulated a single unpleasant feeling and suddenly turned toward where that feeling manifested. It was also an expression one might encounter anywhere in society.

Toyoko's sister-in-law approached her like a statue, moving only on tiptoe without shifting her shoulders or moving her drooping arms.

A low, rusty voice immediately began to speak.

“Toyo-chan, this morning we received a letter from the hospital saying you require a caretaker—what exactly is happening here, eh?”

The voice that spilled over to my bed was as close as if I could reach out and touch it.
In her sister-in-law’s voice, rather than concern for her husband’s sister’s worsening condition, the interrogative tone questioning Toyoko’s current state—the one that had prompted the hospital’s request—lay bare.

Toyoko stammered and couldn’t answer anything.

“What?
“What’s wrong with you?”
“You’re in the hospital being looked after by doctors and nurses—what more could you possibly need?”
“Are you saying you’ve worsened enough to need a caretaker?”

“No, I don’t know.
“It appears the hospital decided that and sent the notification.”

“Hmph.”
The sister-in-law fell silent for a moment.

The sound of Toyoko’s stifled sobs began to reach my ears.
I held my breath, but during that brief silence, I could not help but sense how intensely the emotions of the two had clashed.

The sister-in-law began again in a low voice.

“You know our family’s circumstances well enough—your Elder Brother is busy at the bank without a moment’s rest, and with this conflict having started, there’s no telling when he might be drafted.”
“You can’t endure most things as they are.”

Instead of answering, Toyoko’s sobbing intensified.

“Why are you silent?”
“Still as stubborn as ever.”
“In that case, I’m leaving.”

“I’m sorry, Sister-in-law.”
“After all, I’m in pain right now.”

“Oh? You’re in pain now?”
“So you can’t even move anymore?”

“It hurts when I move.”
“Please discuss it with the hospital before you go.”

Once again, a long silence continued. Where were the sister-in-law’s eyes directed? Toyoko’s stifled sobs ceased, only to intensify into violent heaves before she began crying aloud once more.

“Stop that crying!” came the sister-in-law’s low, irritated voice after a moment. “I’m leaving now. I have the children waiting on the farm path, and besides, today I came specifically to check on your condition. Let me consult with your Second Brother again, and then we’ll try talking with the hospital. Alright?”

“......”

“Eventually we’ll have either Second Brother or Ms. Otaki come here, so wait until then, okay?”
“You’ll wait, won’t you?”

Having said that, she passed by my bedside with the same statue-like gait as when she had come—leaving Toyoko’s sobs behind—and disappeared through the door.

I later came to feel anew that Toyoko’s sickbed, too, had been placed within this context.
The hardships leading up to my own hospitalization, my deceased child’s brief life filled with endurance, and when I traced back through them, the succession of heartrending thoughts in my mind knew no bounds.

A sickbed with little heartache was far happier, even as a sickbed.
When it came to things that exacerbated physical ailments, there was nothing surpassing mental anguish.
Toyoko’s stifled sobs were undoubtedly the crushing abuse inflicted upon her heart at this very moment, and I became filled with the desire to first rescue her from this precariousness.

“Toyo-chan, you should stop crying now.”
“Stay strong, and for anything you need, ask the nurse.”
“As for things you want to eat, if you tell my husband, he’ll buy them for you.”

When I hurriedly soothed her, Toyoko unexpectedly composed herself and stopped her tears.

Unlike our room，around Tall Boy’s bed in the neighboring room there was always cheerful laughter.
The elderly mother，who spoke of being a single parent with an only child，would leave her locked home to commute to her son’s caretaking，patrolling the grounds to catch things and even performing skin friction for him.

The son was deeply dissatisfied with being called ‘boy’ and snapped，“I’m a Takushoku University student，you know! If I hadn’t fallen ill，I’d be making my mark in the Philippines by now!”
Yet despite this，when he would sling the health belt—a device meant to firmly cinch the abdomen—over his shoulder like a canteen strap，his mother would discover him and sternly order him to use the apparatus properly.

When passersby laughed and walked away, Setta Young Man scratched his head and said, "After all, it cost twelve yen."
The mother too laughed with brimming tears, her aged body permeated through every fiber with the satisfaction she found in this world through caring for a son who required such tending.

“We mother and child are truly pitiable.”
“If anything were to happen to him, I couldn’t go on living,” the elderly mother told me as well.
When her son said he wanted to recover quickly and join the military—"You must want to be like everyone else too"—the mother never let even a shadow of the loneliness she would feel being left alone cross her face at such times.

On one occasion, that mother even made a point of stopping by my bed to inform me that the landlord’s feeble-minded elderly daughter had fallen from the veranda, suffered a concussion, and died suddenly.
I had been careless at first and didn’t understand why I was being made to listen to a stranger’s misfortune, but through the mother’s following words, it finally dawned on me that she wanted to talk about the anxieties of living alone.

“Having witnessed such a sudden death, I’ve realized how absolutely vital it is to be prepared.”
“I’d long resolved never to burden my son no matter what happened—had everything properly settled—but seeing this today hit me right here.” She pressed a hand to her stomach.

“It must feel terribly lonely being alone at home.”
I genuinely understood this mother’s feelings in my heart.

Yet on another day, she arrived accompanied by a beautiful girl wearing an ingeniously styled kimono.
At once, rumors spread through the hospital that Setta-bōya’s future bride had appeared.

“Truly, if only my son recovers, I intend to have that girl come to our house.”
“Then I’ll have no lingering regrets—I’ll become free of burdens.”
“I could rest easy, following whatever my son says—‘do this,’ ‘do that’—and pass away peacefully whenever the time comes.”

Next to Setta Young Man lay a newly nicknamed youth called Hakoneyama, who made those around him laugh by shouting “Es-sama! Es-sama! Ekkolasa!” in a strained voice—yet in truth, he made someone like me sense the sorrow of one who, after long battling illness, could no longer help but turn their desperate hopes for recovery into farce.
During this peak of summer heat, he would lie there wearing his nightgown only around his torso with a headband tied across his forehead, calves exposed—leading a nurse to remark he looked rather like a palanquin bearer—and thus this was swiftly transformed into his Hakoneyama nickname.

Nicknames for patients were a form of affectionate address, and there were not a few instances where their fitting discovery commanded admiration.
I myself had likely been called by some symbolic nickname as well, yet strangely, it still hadn’t reached me in my ailing state.
But Sakagami Toyoko next door had already been given the nickname "Miss Beauty."
I thought it might have been Tako-san’s doing, but I couldn’t muster the slightest approval for this.
Unlike her initial vigor, with Toyoko’s condition now deteriorating, everyone had to speak in hushed tones when using this frivolous nickname.

Before long, Toyoko stopped going to the toilet altogether, and the pain in her palms had intensified.
During rounds, the director tilted his head upon seeing the darkened discoloration that had spread from her palms to her wrists, then ordered the nurse to soak them in medicated water and bandage the areas afterward.

“Does this patient not have an attendant?” the director muttered absently, then led his retinue away to continue rounds in another room.

An attendant had become absolutely imperative.
The hospital dispatched another notification to her home.

The visitor who came after a day’s interval appeared to be my second brother—my first time seeing him.
Unlike the eldest brother’s gentle reticence, he entered wearing a mouse-gray tailored suit, slightly shorter in build, with the harried stride of someone perpetually pressed for time.

Although dusk was approaching and the lights had yet to be turned on, it was a melancholy twilight hour.
Toyoko threw her bandaged wrists onto the quilt and closed her weary eyelids drowsily.
The second brother, who had approached carrying what appeared to be a fruit parcel, upon seeing his sister’s unusual sleeping countenance, held the parcel out before him as if dangling it, walked unsteadily down the middle of the passageway avoiding contact with anything, and broke into a run toward the exit.

When the second brother returned again, his hands were empty.

“Toyoko,” he called out in a high voice, rousing his sister from sleep.

When Toyoko opened her eyes and saw her second brother, she showed a happy smile.
But that smile too soon vanished into her suffering, leaving only her silent eyes to greet the second brother.

“Well, you…” the second brother began in a loud voice, scrutinizing his sister. “If things have gotten this bad, you probably can’t even eat much anymore.” “I kept warning you over and over to be careful, but you went hiking anyway.” “Even with that sewing work—your second brother kept telling you ‘Stop it! Stop it!’—he made sure you quit.” “You keep doing nothing but reckless things and end up like this again—isn’t that just pathetic?”

As he delivered this all in one breath, Toyoko remained silent, seemingly listening.
I was somewhat startled.
That he had presumably come to request an attendant yet began lecturing his ailing sister struck me as perplexing.

In a voice too loud for the listener directly before him, Second Brother kept speaking endlessly.

“Do you remember how worried your Second Brother was when you first fell ill?”
“I made you take Somatose costing six yen fifty sen and eat sea bream sashimi at five sen per piece—you couldn’t have forgotten that.”
“When you wanted a round cushion, I bought it—when it came to that good futon, I, your Second Brother, took charge and had it made for you.”
“Didn’t I do everything for you, no matter the cost?”
“And yet you went and neglected yourself like this!”
“To have gotten this bad—isn’t it just pitiful?”

“……”

“When I thought you’d grown strong and become a proper young woman, Second Brother was truly happy then.”
“So there’s no telling how worthwhile those apartment expenses were.”
“That’s exactly why there would’ve been joy—if only you’d gotten better.”

The electric light flashed on.

Not even what seemed like a sob arose from Toyoko’s direction.
Even to this second brother who kept lecturing her with such meticulous accounting—had any genuine human warmth ever reached him?
No—unless I thought that way, I couldn’t fathom why Toyoko didn’t burst into tears, just as she had when encountering her sister-in-law.

Suddenly, Second Brother turned on his heel and approached my bed.

“Well, I must thank you for all your help.
“Ever since that girl fell ill, our mother back home died, and we’ve had nothing but misfortune…”

“I can only imagine.”
I also bowed.

“After all, my elder brother left our hometown before that girl was even born and didn’t know about her birth for some time, and I myself had been separated from her since early childhood—so when that girl came up to Tokyo with our mother, even my wife was shocked to learn she had such a sister…”

“After your sister had gone to such lengths to grow up so splendidly, only to have fallen ill—I truly can only imagine your feelings.”

“There would have been joys yet to come, you know…”

The second brother looked upward and sighed.

For some reason, I couldn't bring myself to say anything of my own accord. Of course, I couldn't muster the will to mention things like Toyoko needing an attendant or that this was a critical juncture. More than that, lying in a bed so close to Toyoko's, I had already had various circumstances reach my ears without seeking them out, and particularly now that I had witnessed how the two beds stood side by side in this room, I couldn't help but notice he was growing increasingly conscious of being overheard. If I considered it that way, even his earlier act of loudly listing all he'd done for his sister began to seem almost reasonable.

“He’s a good person, but…” I thought as I looked at Second Brother’s unsettled eyes. As I gradually understood how he wanted me to recognize his difficult circumstances and consider his position reasonable—while he strove toward that very end—I couldn’t help sensing that his disquiet was heightening in proportion to those efforts.

When I kept silent, Second Brother shifted his gaze restlessly again.

“I earnestly request your continued understanding,” he said. “Given my current involvement in vital technical work and supervisory responsibilities over personnel, regrettably I cannot visit frequently, but…”

“When there’s a patient in the family, it truly becomes difficult.”
“As we’ve had similar experiences ourselves, I can fully appreciate your position.”

“When you put it so kindly, I feel ashamed at being unable to act as I wish—but as someone still young in years, please guide me through various matters.”

Having said this, Second Brother left a slight bow and returned to his sister’s bed.

Though this exchange amounted to nothing more than a half-hearted approach in greeting, I nevertheless found myself expecting that Second Brother would soon head toward either the hospital administration office or the head nurse’s quarters.
Given that he must have already received multiple notifications, I couldn’t reconcile why he wasn’t acting on them immediately.

From the direction of Toyoko’s bed came Second Brother’s low, gentle voice—completely unlike his earlier self—speaking.

“Hey, isn’t there anything you want? Second Brother will go out right now and buy it for you.”

“……”

“Just say it—go on and say it.”
“Huh?”
“Just say it—don’t hold back at all.”

“I have diarrhea and my stomach hurts,” came Toyoko’s labored voice, barely audible.

Then Second Brother’s voice suddenly swelled again like before:

“Then why aren’t you using that expensive antidiarrheal medicine I went to the trouble of buying for you?”

“If it’s the same charcoal powder as that, the hospital already makes me take it.”

Second Brother’s voice cut off.
Instantly, his figure came rushing past the foot of my bed and disappeared through the door.

The sight of him leaving was something even I couldn't bring myself to believe.
As Toyoko’s bed lay utterly still, I too sank into deep silence, as if anticipating something more.

True to expectation, within twenty minutes he came hurrying back.
Without going to his sister first, he approached my bed and held up a small box in his hand.

“I was surprised, I must say—even medicine has become so expensive.
This Somatose originally cost six yen and fifty sen, but now it’s nearly ten yen.
Truly exorbitant now.”

I remained silent without so much as glancing at the small box, unable to look away from him.
I had finally come to hate this man who spoke of money before his sister's suffering.
I wanted to drive him away with a silence that rebuffed him.

In the end, on this day too, the matter of hiring a caretaker ended up being left unresolved in this manner.

However, around noon the next day, a large, obese woman dressed in fine summer garments passed brusquely through and entered toward Toyoko.
Even without needing to ask about the surrounding circumstances, I understood that she was the second brother’s wife.

The woman heavily settled her hips into the round chair and was silent from the very start.
Toyoko was silent too.
That silence, as they sat facing each other while time passed, felt even more dismal than the case with the eldest brother’s wife.

Toyoko’s spirit was now being torn to pieces, I thought. While hardships exist everywhere and valid circumstances may be found in every corner of life, surely there exists no attitude in this world more heartless or unjustifiable than treatment that renders people superfluous beings and makes survival unbearable.

The obese woman finally spoke up in a low, thick voice—so hoarse one wouldn’t think vocal cords that had been steeped in dark silence could produce such muddied tones—

“Do you intend to hire a caretaker?”

She did not answer that.

“You don’t intend to hire one, right? Huh?”

“……”

“Are you hiring one or not? Why won’t you answer?”

“………”

At last, Toyoko’s sobbing began again.
Perhaps compounded by her weakened state from illness, it was several times more intense than before and provoked my anxiety several times over.

I had reached my limit and, resolute, even felt inclined to call the head nurse.
When I looked at things like the obese woman’s obi with its ersatz autumn grass patterns, even I—who knew the anguish of family suffering all too well—could not help but feel righteous indignation.

As I was getting off the bed to show my resolve, to my surprise, the Head Nurse entered the room.
The Head Nurse's attitude was quite matter-of-fact.
Approaching the obese woman,

“You are a member of Ms. Sakagami’s family, correct?”
“Despite having issued a second notice, as we received no consultation whatsoever, the hospital was in a difficult position.”
“Our nurses are also taking care of other patients, so we cannot have someone attend exclusively to just one person.”

The obese woman meekly bowed; she must have sensed the authority inherent in the Head Nurse’s official duties.

“Given these circumstances, now that you understand, take note—we will immediately assign a caretaker starting this evening.”

The Head Nurse, judging there was naturally no room for a response at this stage, thus decided and swiftly exited the room.

Finally, it was settled—Sakagami Toyoko would have a caretaker assigned to her.
A seemingly kind woman in her fifties came that evening and had already begun working diligently.

Thus before we knew it, early autumn arrived.
On the terrace, beautiful tortoiseshell-colored leaves from the plane tree occasionally fell with a rustling sound.
In the grass thicket, cool insect songs began to well up, and even the distant starlight visible from Toyoko’s window grew more beautiful each night.

“Auntie, when I die, I’ll give you all my belongings.”

One night, I heard Toyoko utter these words.
It was a mid-September night when her remaining days in this world were said to be down to two or three.
The caretaker, though it had been barely a month, took the hand of this girl who had come to adore her as if she were her real mother and broke down in tears.