Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

In the back six-tatami room, I was sitting across from M-ko with a hibachi between us.
There was still some time before dinner, but if we finished eating, it would be too late for the evening movie—it was exactly that sort of timing.
Since the weather had taken on a spring-like warmth, I had somehow developed a habit of going out.
If I didn’t go out into town once a day dressed in Western clothes and shoes, I felt melancholy.
Even when I went out into town, there was nothing particularly different.
Every town was awash with people, entaku taxis, neon signs—and then foodstuffs, sundries, publications, and vulgar music.
That day too, I felt as though the work I needed to do was piled mountain-high before me, yet somehow I couldn’t bring myself to accomplish a single thing.
At that moment, T— appeared in the doorway with his usual air of absolute trust in me tinged with a touch of embarrassment.
And then he strode briskly over to my side.

“I’m sorry to trouble you, but I was wondering if I could stay in your apartment for a while… until I find a house—because mine got nailed shut.” He laughed awkwardly as he spoke.

“Why?”

“It was truly outrageous. A gang of ten thugs barged in, and even the police backed them up—they forced us out without any regard…”

I could do nothing but laugh, though I was perplexed.

“The apartment’s full.”
“There’s a six-tatami mat space in the corner of the third floor, but living there’s illegal.”

“That place is fine.”
“Lawyer Kojima also said he’ll go sort things out later—so for now I’ve got no choice but your apartment.”

“Mr. Kojima seems like he’d sort things out.”

“He says once it’s come to this, it’s too late.”
“We had defensive measures in place, but their methods were truly ruthless.”

“Well... Can’t be helped then.”

T— took out money equivalent to the room rent from his pocket.
I repeatedly refused, but T— pushed back.
Recently I had been offering some advice on the work he was engaged in while also covering expenses for it as much as I could.
A couple of days earlier too—when postage for sending samples to regional areas had apparently exceeded expectations—I had covered the cost and felt some relief.
T— had good material for his work, but even if he poured money into it now, there was no guarantee it would amount to anything.
He had also made plans under my guidance to launch a haikai literature magazine.
Well—it seemed he might latch onto something and keep going.
Behind my own place lay a small vacant lot left utterly wild these days; there I’d been scheming through every means possible to build a shabby apartment.
I’d been shown with brutal clarity my own reflection—the lonely figure of an artist in his twilight years abandoned by society.
These four or five years I’d begun feeling things came into sharper focus.
Retreating or dying wouldn’t have been bad—but clinging on wasn’t bad either.
T— too was getting on in years without much success.
Within our shared artistic circles his brother—my friend—held a singular position T— couldn’t approach.
I knew little about his first wife who’d suffered tuberculosis eight years through—but his previous wife who came complaining about child issues when he took up with another woman three years back? A thorough moral bankrupt—no wonder his marriages fared poorly.
For five years now he’d kept happy house with his lover turned twenty-five.
If that work-in-progress succeeded he might yet salvage something from his twilight years.
Not entirely hopeless.
No one should write off another’s talent or fate.

I entrusted T—’s money to M-ko.
And after T— left, I changed into a suit and went out with M-ko and eldest son Yoshio.

As the three of us walked along the crowded street, at the iron fence beneath an old decaying chinquapin tree in front of a certain bank, I saw T— having his red shoes polished.
T— saw our faces and smiled beneath his nearsighted glasses.

“Are you going out?”

“Nah, just a bit.”

Just like that, we passed by.
And crossing the crossroads at the third block, we came before a certain music store.
An electric light bearing the inscription “Tokyo Social Dance Institute” hung at the entrance of that building by the roadside next to it.
M-ko, intending to become my dance partner herself, had recently taught there for four or five days—a connection that led me to occasionally drop by and study steps as well.
The cultured young madam there would often lift my lightweight body from under the arms in such a manner and good-naturedly teach me the steps.
Eventually I came to talk with her father as well.

“What happened to Dr. Watanabe?”
The father—who had been the doctor caring for his daughter in her childhood—asked me about Dr. Watanabe, my dance companion.

Dr. Watanabe was a prominent figure in the ward yet remained passionate about dance research.

“Dr. Watanabe’s become quite troublesome.”
“Went and got liver cancer.”
I remembered the doctor I’d neglected to visit these past weeks.

He’d recently danced with the madam on that very floor and knew this decent family well.
More than as a physician, he possessed a sort of heroic quality as a human being.
Until recently so robust—sometimes dancing fifty times straight through the night, or getting so carried away with political critiques and love stories by my stove that dawn would break—yet come March, his face and limbs had abruptly turned saffron-yellow like turmeric-dyed cloth.
We hadn’t seen that small stout figure lately—the one who’d often demonstrated new tango steps with such abundance by the wooden-floored stove or near my writing table.

He—who had his daughter and son-in-law running the training school half as a hobby—twitched the muscles around his mouth slightly and stared at my face through his glasses.

Since the madam who always danced with us had caught a cold and was absent, and since the master’s face was nowhere to be seen either, we danced once or twice with a female assistant, then left the place, strolled leisurely down to Hirokoji, drank tea, and returned home.

“I wonder what happened to Mr. T.”
I asked the housekeeper who handled the household chores.

“Since the children were playing in the apartment hallway, he must have already moved in, I suppose.”

I hadn’t gone to see it even once during construction—to such an extent that I found going to the apartment itself disagreeable—so that evening I didn’t visit him either.

II

On the evening after a day’s interval, I heard from the housekeeper that Mr. T was bedridden with illness.

“What’s wrong?”
I asked.

“She says it’s probably just a cold.”
“He suddenly developed a fever of about nine degrees.”
“I asked his wife earlier.”

I had heard rumors about that young wife of the past five years even from the children, and since I had been commissioning tailoring work from M-ko, I also heard about her from the housekeeper I had met two or three times.
The second son’s friend had been teaching her dance and such, and it was thought there might have been some romantic involvement, but she became Mr. T’s not long after that.
In any case, I thought that even just her doing tailoring work and helping Mr. T was a favorable tendency for a cultured woman these days.

“Nine degrees?”
I tilted my head.

“Nine degrees or forty degrees… It was just a quick exchange.”

“I wonder if they’ve taken him to a doctor.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know about that part.”

“If it’s just a cold, that’s fine, but…”

I couldn’t help but imagine other possibilities.
Typhoid, pneumonia...
With over ten people in the apartment, I couldn't help being concerned about the worst-case scenario.

“Could you tell his wife to have a doctor see him right away?”

“I’ll tell her that.”

“If only Dr. Watanabe were healthy at a time like this.”

“That’s true.”

“But Dr. Urasaki is also a good physician. Please tell her to call him immediately. Then I’ll observe how the examination proceeds.”

“I’ll relay that.”

I thought quite seriously about going around to the back and up to the third floor, but I felt restrained out of consideration for his wife, whom I’d never met, and moreover, I had no desire to involve myself in T’s affairs for the time being.

Because I had pressing work, that night passed without further action.
Moreover, since the housekeeper wasn’t the negligent type, I was certain she must have had a doctor examine him.

Even when the next day came, I spent it without any opportunity to address the matter, all while harboring a shadow of anxiety deep in my mind.
Since it was probably just a cold, I assumed there was no news, but when I returned home that night, I suddenly grew concerned again.
I asked the housekeeper.

“I wonder if Mr. T was examined.”

“Yes, I did inform them of that at the time, but they don’t want to be examined by someone they don’t know.”
“So we went to call the doctor in Ushigome we’re acquainted with, but he’s also down with a cold and resting, so I suppose he’ll examine him around tomorrow.”

“You’re being awfully nonchalant about this.”
“Why aren’t they calling Dr. Urasaki?”

However, that night was already too late.
Since there seemed to be no change in his condition, I tried to dismiss it as a cold and attempted to reassure myself with a temporary reprieve.
I felt hesitant to intrude upon the sensibilities of Mr. T and his wife—they who maintained their own particular brand of fastidiousness.

III

Two days later, after attending a meeting and having tea with two or three gentlemen in Ginza, I returned home to hear from the housekeeper that T—’s condition had significantly worsened.
When I asked whether they’d had him examined by anyone, it turned out Dr. Urasaki had come during the day to see him.

I felt I had gradually become aware of my own negligence once again, while also wanting to ask his wife about Urasaki’s diagnosis. I hurried through the garden and entered through the apartment’s back door. Just as I reached the top of the two-part staircase leading to the third floor, I encountered a compact gentleman in his forties—a stranger to me—and a slender young woman standing in the dimness of the wide plank-floored attic space, whispering together. After hesitating briefly, I addressed the doctor who had just finished examining him and was preparing to leave.

“Excuse me, but I’d like you to come to my room for a moment.”

“Very well.”

He followed me with a childlike suppleness, his feet moving as though floating.

We exchanged greetings in my cluttered study with the hibachi between us.

“I’m actually a gynecologist—a bit out of my depth—and since I’m at the hospital during the day…”
He produced a business card.

“Then was it you who recently treated Mr. T’s felon?”

“Yes, that’s correct. Ah, yes.”

The doctor had charm like that of a modern boys’ magazine comic.

“What’s the nature of the illness?”

“Ah, well… Actually, I came to examine him yesterday as well, but at that time, it wasn’t clear. However, based on what I’ve seen now, it’s neither pneumonia nor typhoid.”
“The cause isn’t clear, but it’s definitely meningitis, ah, hah.”

“Meningitis?”

“By tonight, he’ll already have lost consciousness, ah.”
“In any case, this is critical.”
“Last year while traveling, he fell into a well and injured his ribs, so we suspected it might be pneumonia, but we couldn’t find any symptoms resembling that.”

“It’s not typhoid either?”

“While I cannot say there was no suspicion of it, I must affirm it is decidedly not the case.”

The doctor explained the symptoms in detail using medical terminology, but after arranging for him to come again the next morning, I showed him out to the entrance.

“Well then… ah, hah… my apologies, my apologies.”
Dr. Urasaki left with marionette-like gestures.

I sensed the gravity of the situation.
But even toward T himself—no, responsibility toward his brother Mr. K had to be considered.
Even if they were friends perpetually on bad terms, I couldn’t avoid informing Mr. K—, T—’s sole blood relative.
T— had long since entirely given up on asking his brother for any assistance.
Of course, these brothers were not truly hating each other.
To put it plainly, it was like a chasm dug between an eccentric artist of genius disposition and ordinary people who had been made to trudge life’s path, toiling in life’s underbelly.
If a miracle had occurred for K—, allowing sentimental, conventional human emotions to play some role, or if T— could have followed K—’s lead to some degree, whether artistically or in daily life, their dealings would undoubtedly have been entirely different from what they had been until then.

Now between K— and myself—in an entirely different sense from that earlier estrangement—our interactions had remained nearly nonexistent for years.
This stemmed partly from our differing artistic stances but equally from being rival disciples who had both breathed Professor O’s influence.
As fellow juniors under him, disparities in our personal closeness to Professor O and degrees of his favor had gradually driven us apart after his death through some centrifugal force.
For K—， Professor O needed to remain an absolute authority both artistically and existentially， whereas I myself had always sought greater independence.
This impulse sometimes led me to trespass unceremoniously into K—’s artistic domain.
And K—’s aversion toward his own later-period work reflexively rebounded onto Professor O’s art.
One couldn’t swear this process remained free from emotional impurities.
Of course， even when offering aid or encouragement to T—， whom K— kept at arm’s length， my motives were merely T—’s own clingy affability—utterly divorced from any larger context.
It held no hostility toward K—， nor any veiled goodwill requiring acknowledgment.
Whenever nostalgic tales surfaced， I would occasionally question T—.

“What’s your brother been up to lately?”

“My brother?”
“He’s holed up at home, just reading books.”
“His hair’s turned quite white now.”

“It must be troubling for your brother now that his hair’s turned white.”

“But there’s no helping it.”

It was only recently that I finally noticed T—, who was saying this and laughing, had dyed his hair like I once had.
T— had also reached that age in due course.

In any case, I had to inform K—.
I flipped through the writers’ directory to check the number, then went to use the nearby public telephone.
A woman’s voice I recognized answered.
Of course, that was the wife.

“This is sudden, but Mr. T has fallen ill at my place.”
“It seems to be quite serious.”

“Mr. T is at your place…?”
“Oh my…”

“I can’t explain the details over the phone, but I’d like someone who understands the situation to come here…”

“I see.”
“Unfortunately, my husband has caught a cold and is bedridden, so I’m afraid he cannot come tonight, but we’ll manage something.”
“We’ve caused such terrible trouble for your household….”

“No, that’s quite all right… Well then, please do.”

I left the public telephone.
And I came to my desk and sat down, but couldn’t settle.
I pressed the bell and called my brother-in-law Sawara.
Sawara was the husband of Orika obasan, who managed my household for me.

“Is Mr. K not here?”
Sawara came and sat down in front of the hibachi.

“Well… Even if Mr. K came, it would be troublesome…”
I said in a slightly irritated tone,

“Since he seems quite bad, I think we have to put him in the hospital, but what about Dr. Urasaki’s diagnosis?”
“I had told him to stop by here after the examination was done, but…”

“Well, I didn’t hear about that…”

“Sorry, but could you go ask Dr. Urasaki?”

Sawara left, but soon returned.
When he appeared in the doorway, he was thoroughly agitated.

“That doctor is awful.”
“No matter how much I rang the bell, he wouldn’t wake up.”
“He finally got up and opened the door, only to immediately threaten me with a terrifying glare.”
“Doctors are human too—we need to sleep at night! For someone like you to come ringing bells in the middle of the night—there’s a limit to how inconsiderate one can be!”

“So what did you end up doing?”

“Leaving such a patient with a gynecologist for so long and now making a fuss—‘I can’t take responsibility,’ he says.”
“I seriously considered beating him up, but since I thought I might have to ask for his help again now and then…”
“That doctor’s an honest man.”
I gave a wry smile.

IV

The next morning, Dr. Urasaki, having finished his examination, and I were talking in the room near the entrance. We were discussing which doctor to select, having decided that after having another examination done by an Imperial University doctor, we would either treat him at home or move him to a hospital room.

The entrance door opened.
Ms. Orika appeared.

“I’m Mori,” he said. “I’ve come as Mr. K’s proxy.”

The voice that had said “Mori” somehow gave me a favorable impression.

Mr. Mori entered.

Mr. Mori and I had met after a long interval even in Dr. Watanabe’s hospital room during his recent admission, but now that Dr. Watanabe was recuperating at home, we met again in that second-floor sickroom.
Mr. Mori, one of Mr. K’s longtime disciples and devotees, had also maintained years of friendship with Dr. Watanabe.
He had come from Dalian on company business and personal affairs alike, shuttling between Osaka and Tokyo while staying for some time.

Mr. Mori entered.

“If you would come.”

“Well—Mr. K was supposed to come, but I happened to be visiting him just then.”

“Even if we have Mr. K come, there’s no way I can return the favor.”

“This must be such an unexpected trouble for you… Where is Mr. T?”

I briefly explained about him being on the third floor of the apartment.

“There’s such a thing here? I thought it was your house again….”

T’s wife came quietly from the garden.

“Something feels off.”
“The pulse seems to have stopped….”
She wore a face on the verge of tears.

“Let me take a look.”
Dr. Urasaki stood up with his folding briefcase.

“I’ll go take a look too.”
Mr. Mori also headed toward the apartment, clattering in his garden geta.
I followed as well.

I saw T―’s sickbed for the first time.
In the six-tatami room on the third floor, he lay on his back with an ice pillow.
Steam rose from a large hibachi.
The beaming face T― had worn just three evenings prior—when polishing his russet clogs in the twilight streets—had completely vanished.
His cheeks hollowed, nose jutting sharply upward; beneath his broad forehead, the large exposed pupils of his eyes lay eerily stagnant like glass marbles.
Yet having witnessed human death countless times before, I felt no particular shock.
If anything, truth be told, this sight brought me more ease than observing Dr. Watanabe—he who’d been diagnosed with liver cancer.
For T―’s brain had been thoroughly ravaged.
Until recently, news of Dr. Watanabe’s illness had stunned me—that man who’d danced so boldly, drunk so freely, kept so young a mistress—yet now it seemed T― might exit life’s stage first.

When we all came to look, his pulse had returned to normal, but his stiffened neck and hands moved like a broken machine, and his gasping breath seemed on the verge of stopping any moment. The young wife, flustered, clung to his body. She wiped the greasy sweat soaking into his forehead and stroked his head with the tenderness of a mother soothing an infant. No one spoke, but their eyes grew hot. In the dim glow of a lamp shrouded in black cloth, T―’s ghastly face—resembling the death mask of some foreign great artist—swayed slowly from side to side.

After a while, we left there and returned to the old room.

“It was a bit too late, wasn’t it,” I said.

“That’s right,”
“Last year on a trip—they say he hurt himself and broke his ribs.”

The young wife came along the garden path again.

“He looks so terribly pained—I can’t bear to watch.”
“Can’t anything be done?”

We could do nothing but watch the doctor’s expression.

“Well, I’m not sure…”
Dr. Urasaki also looked perplexed.

“I just gave him an injection a moment ago.”
“Please stay with him until others arrive.”
“He’ll be alright.”

Dr. Urasaki eventually returned.

“Well then, I’ll go to Dr. Watanabe’s place and consult with you too.”
Mr. Mori said this and, while rising, thrust his hand into his pocket to grab several banknotes.

“There’s 100 yen here—I’ll leave this much with you for now.”
“Since money comes first, please use it as needed.”

“Well then, I’ll hand this over to her.”
I looked toward the young wife standing there.

“No—you should keep it.”

“It makes no difference who holds it, but keeping it here would be fine. However, if you need some immediately...”

“Well, I’ll take a portion for now.”

He passed about twenty yen into the young wife’s hand.

“Then I’ll come back later.”

Mr. Mori left after saying so.

Long, long ago, around the time he had just graduated from Imperial University, I had spoken with him in places like streetcars, but it was only recently that I came to truly grasp Mr. Mori’s character through his close ties with Dr. Watanabe.
K— now had around him several people actually engaged in work outside literature, but in this situation, his coming—seeming to understand even me—had completely lightened my burden.

In the meantime, I had my brother-in-law rush to summon one of the doctors Dr. Urasaki had specified—Dr. F of Shimaizono Internal Medicine—but unfortunately, the doctor was absent.

“...Then I went to his home, but he wasn’t there either.”

“Hmm, that’s a problem.”

“But when he returns, I asked him to come right away, so…”
Sawa said.

After about an hour, Mr. Mori also returned.
However, the doctor we were waiting for did not come.

“Well then, I’ll go check.”
“Perhaps I should try asking other doctors.”

Mr. Mori went out again, but there was an unfortunate obstruction with another doctor for whom we had prepared a precautionary letter of introduction.
He returned empty-handed.

We had to let pass—utterly helpless to provide any treatment—those several hours that must have felt nearly critical for T―, now wandering the boundary between life and death.

“This wife of his seems decent.”

“Well, that… I saw her for the first time too, but I’m quite impressed.”

“He was always a man cursed with wretched wives, but with her… I suppose…”
“You’re fortunate.”
“Now then, what do you think?”
“What about his illness?”

“Who knows.”

The time had passed four o'clock.
And it was quite some time later that Dr. F finally arrived.
He came to my room after finishing the examination on the third floor with Dr. Urasaki.

“It’s critical.”
Dr. F said abruptly.

“What is the illness?”

“From what I’ve observed, it seems to be septicemia.”

“It’s not typhoid fever, is it?”
The matter weighed on my mind.

“No, it isn’t.”

“Then what should we do? Naturally it would be best to carry him to the hospital, but if he truly can’t be saved, I’d prefer to give what treatment we can here.”

“Well…”
“To be frank, even transporting him by stretcher gives me pause—the journey itself seems precarious…”
“But given the proximity, it might be advisable to administer treatment here.”

“Let’s leave this to his wife’s wishes.”
Mr. Mori said this, so we looked at her.

“I would like to have him receive as much treatment as possible at the hospital, but…”

Soon after, Mr. Mori went to rent a stretcher.

V

Around ten o'clock that night, I was in the study with M-ko.
M-ko was engrossed in her half-read copy of *The Scarlet Letter*, and I was smoking tobacco in the calm that follows deep emotion.

It was just after T’s stretcher had been carried down from the third floor about three hours before, and some time had passed, that I received a visit from K in my poor room.

“This time, it seems that T— has caused you unexpected trouble…”
“No… It’s nothing…”
“Just… circumstances.”

“Wait, you have an apartment here? I thought this was your house again.”

“That’s right. Because Mr. T lost his home.”

K— restlessly and in apparent haste,

“That guy’s always got his head in the clouds—can’t even keep his feet on the ground. If only he’d just work steadily at something—anything—even running a used book stall at a night market, but no, he’s always scheming after grand ambitions without ever finishing a single thing.”

I had no objection to that either.

“That’s right.”
“It’s always those types who are so self-centered…”
“You’re too kind-hearted.”

I found myself amused.
K—’s art, detached from reality!
Yet this was precisely the reality his keen eyes perceived.
Though lacking objectivity or skepticism from multiple angles, every human weakness and life’s absurdity had been laid utterly bare.
One might compare it to how a sharp-witted boy finds humor in some fearsome old codger.

I felt memories of our cherished past friendship unfurling before me.
The totality of his being up through *Takasago no Hijiri*—that consistent worldview and philosophy of love drifting through fantasy—came into focus like botanical specimens viewed through a lens.

After talking for a while, he began to rise.
“I thought about sending the missus over, but she’s already at the hospital.”
“I’m heading there myself now.”
“I’ll be going again… but you should come too.”
“Ah, I’ll come.”
Mr. K left with squirrel-like swiftness, bearing no resemblance to T— whatsoever.

For nearly two hours after that, I remained immersed in thought.
My chronic bronchial condition had been acting up, so I considered going to bed, yet also thought about having someone prepare my suit.
Since T— had been carried in, I found myself preoccupied with concern for him.

F—ko’s voice reached me from over there.
Then came Yoshio’s voice addressing that same F—ko.

“Mr. K was here just now.”

Yoshio himself disliked any conventional, sentimental, commonplace art.

Then suddenly, the older woman came over.

“There’s been a call from Dr. Watanabe—he’s asking you to come to the hospital immediately via his messenger.”

I trembled with ominous foreboding as I hurriedly dressed in a warm suit. And just to be safe, I took M-ko with me and sped off in a one-yen taxi.

However, when we abandoned the car in the pitch-dark square of the hospital grounds, passed through the eerie corridor of the infectious disease ward—located far in the back, which M-ko had finally managed to find—and arrived at that hospital room, T— had already become a corpse.

However, we simply could not bring ourselves to believe that T— had truly drawn his last breath. For until that moment—and indeed long afterward, until the corpse was moved to the mortuary—she had cradled his face and head in both hands, uttering all manner of endearments to him as though he were alive, in ceaseless bursts like hysterical fits. She stroked that broad forehead and kissed his tightly drawn lips. At times, she manipulated his face so vigorously with both hands that one feared it might break.

“T— was truly a good person, wasn’t he?”
She spoke to me.

“He died because he was tormented by bad people, didn’t he?”
“It’s everyone’s fault.”
“Even though there were plenty of good materials, I had so wanted them to let him write something good.”

She said loudly, then rubbed her face against his again.

I quietly slipped out of the hospital room and went down to the kitchen to smoke a cigarette.
Mr. K had also come.
Mr. Mori and Painter Koyama also came down.

“Mr. T is fortunate too.”
Mr. Mori said.

“That guy was loved by an older woman back in his youth—seems he had a knack for that sort of thing.”
Mr. K was also laughing while taking a puff from his pipe.

Once again, I found myself recalling how ten years prior, when my eldest daughter was hospitalized in that same room with meningitis, I had also smoked in this kitchen to avoid hearing her screams as they drew fluid from her spine. Even as the hospital buildings were renovated year after year, this place alone remained entirely unchanged from the past.

“By the way, I happened to overhear earlier that Sensei left behind a memento.”

I thought that what must exist does so as it should.

“I see.”

“It’s a common enough occurrence.”
Mr. Mori offered a wry smile,

“So what should we do? This requires proper discussion and resolution—there’s the matter of his wife’s arrangements, but above all else, it concerns Sakura-san.”
“His wife seems determined to handle it herself, though…”

Sakura was the child of his previous wife.

The conversation moved on to future matters.

VI

On the third day, the farewell ceremony was held at the temple.
The temple stood in Yokoteramachi, which held the deepest memories for Mr. K and me.

Mr. K and I were recovering the feelings we'd had when walking these streets together long ago, whether morning or evening.
Our tepid friendship—once bound by some karmic thread—had year by year diverged along separate paths until now, through some reactive force, we found ourselves abruptly aligned at a single point. Yet upon reflection, this convergence seemed less true accord than a compromise forced by inescapable external motives—an alignment whose duration neither of us could easily predict, whether it might unravel through some unforeseen opportunity or gradually fade of its own accord. Though this uncertainty lingered, the reasons for our former antagonism had already been uprooted from my heart, allowing a gentler camaraderie than before to return.
They were two distinct entities that should never have clashed.

Three days ago, when we went to the crematorium, it was the same scene as when I had sent off Mr. K's grandmother over twenty years before.

While waiting for the cremation, we entered a nearby café and drank black tea.
Mr. K drank liquor instead of tea.

On our way back from the crematorium, I stopped by Mr. K's house together with the painter living nearby—for the first time in years.
It could be said that Mr. K had spent the major part of his life almost entirely in this rented house.
Through the glass-paned door, in the living room overlooking the street, I sat around a small table, ate my favorite sweets, drank tea, and talked.
Things like the time of the earthquake, changes in the environment, and how unbearably hot this house was.

“Wouldn’t the mountains be better in summer?”

“But that’s exactly the problem—it’s because of that layabout lord, you see.”

“You should build a house.”

“That too has its issues.”

In this manner, Mr. and Mrs. K—facing each other across the long hibachi—were no different from their newlywed days in Kagurazaka. However, in its own way, it was merely that the marks of time had settled upon their faces.

Due to Mr. K’s customary approach of severely restricting notifications, the farewell ceremony was lonely but not wretched. After seeing off the departing attendees one by one, we left the temple.

“Let’s go take a look.”
Mr. K said.

That was of course Professor O’s former residence.
The house stood a short distance from the temple, set back from the road.
The surroundings remained exactly as they had been thirty years before.
The willow at the familiar gate beside the well had begun to bud.
The gate was shut tight, leaving it precisely like an empty house.

“This water is truly foul stuff.”

Mr. K spoke of the well as though settling an ancient grudge.
No sooner had he arrived at this entrance than severe beriberi seized him, driving him back to his northern homeland.
Professor O—still so young—had fallen to stomach cancer.

“This could have been preserved as a Ushigome specialty.”

“At that time, there was talk of that too—they said maintaining it would be difficult and tried to get me to move in—but how could I possibly stay in a place like Professor O’s study? It was too frightening…”

We left the road, laughing.
Then we circled around the corner cemetery and tried to visit the site of our old school in the back alley—a place that had been arranged so one could descend directly from Professor O’s garden.
The gloomy houses and gardens from that time had been completely demolished, and several new houses now stood side by side.
Not a trace of the past remained anywhere.

Now I too could look back on that melancholy life of those days as if it were a phantasmal phenomenon.
Moreover, all the comrades who had shared meals from the same pot there had died.
I alone was left behind.
At that time, Mr. K had established a household in the Otsuka area by summoning his grandmother, T—, and another younger sister.

We had a light meal at Tahara-ya on Kagurazaka-dori and then parted ways.

Several days later, after the young widow received a considerable allowance from Mr. K and returned to the countryside with Sakura, we held a dinner one evening at their regular haunt in the backstreets of Ginza.

And then after several more days had passed, Mr. K came to visit me again one day bringing a musty token.

And given that Mr. K had been loved by our teacher more than anyone else—and that I myself had no grounds for complaint despite being treated as an honored guest with greater favor than any other—he then gave an account of his morbid fear of dogs with his uniquely eloquent storytelling before promptly taking his leave.

I felt as though I had tasted some faint aftertaste.

(June 1933, *Shincho*)