Pathway to Japanese Literature

From the day after I arrived on the island, a strong wind arose and raged ceaselessly for three more days.
Rain occasionally mingled with it, but above all else, I was astonished by the wind's ferocity.
When I asked the islanders about it, they said winds like this were commonplace.
I found myself wondering what truly severe conditions might resemble.

On the day I arrived, though swells rolled across the sea, it was a calm overcast day. From the ship, Miyakejima appeared as a volcanic cone whose lower half—from midway down its height—was cloaked in pale green. Upon landing, I immediately found myself on a modest black sand beach. Climbing a steep slope that clung to a cliff some thirty meters high, I emerged onto a fairly wide path running along gentle inclines. All around the embankments, shrubs already bore vibrant broad leaves. The trees lining both sides of the path too—and beyond them, through gaps in the foliage, one glimpsed gradual foothills that swelled upward into Mount Oyama's soft contours at the island's heart—this entire expanse of sparse hazel groves and surrounding fields bursting with fresh buds made me feel as though I'd leapt straight into mid-spring.

That reverted to winter through three days of strong northwest winds.
The next steamship after mine was unable to approach the island and apparently took refuge at Habu Port on Oshima.
Confined by the wind from the moment of arrival, I spent the whole day in a daze—watching the large camphor tree beyond the garden sway violently, its branches and leaves nearly torn away; gazing at low clouds laden with rain racing incessantly just overhead; listening to the wind's roar that arose without respite in the distance, suddenly assaulted with force, then growled away again afar.

On the afternoon when the wind had finally subsided, I went out for a walk. Every house in the village was surrounded by stone walls. On the island, they called it "the customary wind." This was the one that blew from the northwest, bringing storms whenever it came. The village had likely clustered in terrain sunken between slopes—perhaps to evade this wind—resulting in houses of uneven heights. Paths wound between ancient stone walls, resembling small valleys in places, continuously rising and falling across the landscape.

As I carelessly descended lower, the path at the village outskirts became densely lined with camellia trees on both sides like an overgrown avenue. Beyond this lay a wide, parched slope entirely given over to hayfields. Blue leaf stems peeked faintly from stumps. The slope continued seaward until appearing to end abruptly—undoubtedly becoming a high cliff there. Miscanthus-like weeds grew here and there as if partitioning the fields.

They remained winter-withered yet unrestrained, twisted and battered by winds into a desolate tangle. The wind still blew fiercely here. At times it swept coldly from behind as if driving me onward, hurling coarse volcanic sand around my legs. Something deep within my body stirred awake.

The path had vanished entirely, but resolved to reach the cliff edge regardless, I stepped into a deep thicket where hidden hollows caught my feet. I fell repeatedly, scraping my limbs raw. In the end, between the bitter wind and impenetrable growth, I abandoned my attempt to reach the precipice.

When I began turning back, I was startled by how fiercely the wind struck me full in the face. I walked haphazardly through the hayfields toward the village. While occasionally lifting my face to look around, across the sea where white wave crests flickered, an island with its upper half thinly blanketed in snow came into view. That was Oshima. It felt terribly distant somehow. And within the dark gray overcast sky, that mere speck of vivid snow color unexpectedly sent a drill-like pain through my heart. From this vantage point, Oshima too lay beyond that expanse, hidden within the same grayness—but Tokyo's general direction lay to the north. What might be happening there now? There remained the life I had abandoned behind me. All manner of things came surging into my chest at once. But I had come here. The me existing here did not live in unison with events unfolding over there; this place felt distinctly separate.

Just as I reached the village entrance—where the path became a moderately steep slope—I saw a gaunt man descending from above. His kimono was hiked up at the front as if dragged askew, swaying unsteadily while taking wide, lurching steps that occupied the entire path.
In that instant, suspecting madness, I tried to sidestep and slip past him, but somehow he shifted course toward my trajectory.
We halted two or three shaku apart.
Then I saw his face.
Gaunt and angular, his eyes—persistently looking down at me from a slight elevation—held that severity common among eccentrics, yet threaded with an absurd streak.
As I stood uncertain of his intent, he remained blocking the path, still swaying faintly side to side while scrutinizing me from head to toe with an almost interrogative air.

“Who are you?” he asked.

I smiled an awkward smile.
But as a whim arose,

“Who are you?” I parroted back.
The man swayed unsteadily again, then repeated,

“Who are you?” he repeated.

“If you don’t tell, I won’t either.”

As I said that, I found myself uncertain whether I was joking or being serious.

"No—my mistake," he said with a slight dip of his head—then immediately,

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Doesn’t matter who."

"What did you come here for?"

"I came to visit."

"To visit?
"I can’t have you coming to the island just for fun."

I found myself staring fixedly at his face.
That might indeed be the case.
I had answered "I came to visit" offhandedly, but perhaps my true feelings were nothing more than mere amusement, as if scolded by that man.

“No—you’re the fisheries technician who just arrived, right?” the man suddenly shouted. “That’s right. You’re the fisheries technician who just arrived, right?” He abruptly grabbed my hand. “You—I’m counting on you. For the island’s sake—I’m counting on you.” Having settled completely on this notion, he wore an amiable smile. He was clearly drunk. “Mm, mm.”

“Understood. I’m counting on you.”
“Do come visit tonight.”
“It’s the house right there.”

The man suddenly separated himself, bobbed a quick bow, and swaying unsteadily, immediately entered the shabby farmhouse garden below.

The first islander to leave a strong impression on me was that drunkard.
I also met others such as a man called Ryu-san and one named Taimei.
I had come relying on Hinoki—an islander who was two or three years my senior in school, someone I’d met perhaps ten or twelve times with only a vague memory of his face—and upon arriving had immediately taken up lodging at his house. Hinoki’s family operated one of the foremost marine products wholesalers in the Izu Seven Islands, with his father managing that business.
Hinoki himself was an official at the Monopoly Bureau branch office.
Immediately behind the house stood the branch office building, where Hinoki would gather the island’s young men to chat and drink tea.
Hinoki was naturally at the center of it all.
All sorts of people came.
Technicians from the nearby butter factory, men in patterned workman’s jackets, men in corduroy trousers—they would pop in unexpectedly while passing by and settle down to chat for thirty minutes to an hour.

“Mr. Ryu” was one of those companions, though he could hardly be called a young man. Of his two sons, the elder had quit his job as a wireless telegraph technician and returned home, while the younger had worked as a busboy at Ginza’s Fujiya for seven years; both sons were regulars at the branch office, and their father “Mr. Ryu” too belonged to that circle. He bore almost no resemblance to his sons. According to Hinoki, “Mr. Ryu was actually a Black Dragon Society stalwart back then.” Yet he looked nothing like one—petite, sunburned, and gaunt, he resembled a down-at-heel antique dealer from some Tokyo back-alley shop. He had a compulsive nodding habit. He’d start the moment he entered. Muttering “Mm, mm, mm” almost soundlessly, he’d flash a peculiar smile—his long-lidded eyes crinkling into slits—and nod at everyone present. When speaking himself, he nodded even more vigorously. If particularly animated, his violent nodding would make his chair creak and shift across the floor. When the chair threatened to slide away entirely, he’d hastily readjust his posture and sink deeper into it, only to resume nodding immediately. Perhaps due to a throat ailment, he emitted a strange cough—an unexpectedly shrill sound resembling a hen’s egg-laying clamor. It was said you could identify him as “Mr. Ryu” by that cough anywhere on the island, no matter how distant. Once, mid-conversation about this very trait, a cough echoed from the side road beyond the branch office. At someone’s cry of “There!”, sure enough Mr. Ryu appeared—we all burst into laughter. His manner of speaking shared the same abruptness as his coughs and nods. That he’d been a Black Dragon Society member likely owed something to these traits, though his speech patterns themselves probably contributed too. Since everyone called him “Ryu-san,” I’d assumed his name used the character for “dragon,” but his real name was written as “Takashi.”

The man called Taimei was a young cabinetmaker who had also spent several years in Tokyo but had returned due to illness, it was said. The name Taimei somehow reminded me of a turtle's name—and given the Ryu-san precedent—I found it peculiar, but when I asked about the characters and learned it was written as 泰明, such an impressive name, I was all the more taken aback.

Mr. Taimei entered carrying a medicine bottle, saying he was returning from the doctor’s appointment. He wore a long meisen silk kimono that glistened, his obi tied low on his hips, Lloyd glasses with nose pads arched like bridges perched on his face—a pallor ill-suited to an islander’s complexion. Moreover, his entire demeanor carried something fidgety; whether settling into chairs or moving about, he would lower his hips slightly in an oddly supple manner that suggested carefree idleness.

"What's this illness of yours?" Hinoki asked teasingly.

"W-well, neurasthenia, I suppose," he replied with a wary grin at the teasing tone, glancing upward furtively.

“I asked the doctor what was wrong when Taimei said he was sick,” Hinoki declared with deliberate mock seriousness, then smirked.

“It’s not something like neurasthenia.”

“Heh heh—Nii-san, you’re just impossible.
“It’s nothing like that at all!”

Then everyone burst into laughter at once.
"The term 'Nii-san' was what everyone called Hinoki."
Mr. Taimei, anxious about what teasing might follow, quietly approached the window to avoid notice and kept out of sight—but when Hinoki brought up carpentry, he suddenly perked up.
He talked animatedly.
He would examine the wooden grain of the display stand placed before him, measure dimensions with his fingertips, tap rhythmically on its legs as he explained—his gestures possessed an inimitable deftness, and somehow the stand seemed more alive in his hands than when held by others.

Hinoki said he would assign me a guide to tour the island,

“That’s right—Taimei would be perfect.
He’s an interesting fellow and just the fit.”

Hinoki had been saying this when Mr. Taimei immediately consented upon hearing the proposal.

Two mornings later, I set out to tour the island with Mr. Taimei—now abruptly transformed in a suit and discolored trousers (within which Nakajima Taimei, a man wholly distinct from his former self, had surfaced).

When we left Kamitsuki village, the path emerged onto a cliff overlooking the sea to our right. This was the same cliff we had seen when first arriving on the island, but viewed from above, its height struck me as astonishing. The roofs of the coastal village appeared almost directly beneath us. Passing through a narrow cutting, we entered terrain characteristic of most islands - a gently sloping decline from Mount Oyama's flanks that dropped abruptly into the sea, dotted everywhere with hazel groves. The path wound along the slope's wrinkled contours. When breezes touched the groves of freshly budded trees, their collective sway became visible - soft tremors rippling through young leaves. Patches of reddish soil showed where erosion had bitten into the earth. Below lay miniature farm plots - neat squares with domed centers, appearing almost toy-like in their precision. The air carried a faint mineral scent, so buoyant it seemed one might float upward with a strong enough kick against the ground.

Mr. Taimei kept talking to me in a peculiarly disarming yet overfamiliar tone that refused to let others slip away.

“Since this must be some twist of fate,” he prefaced, then began recounting his life story.
“I have a woman,” he said.
“She used to work as a waitress at an island restaurant—but after getting involved with her during that time—(Mr.Taimei had a habit of inserting ‘during that time’ into his stories)—circumstances arose making it impossible for me to stay on the island.”
(He would use “during that time” even where unnecessary and when reaching difficult-to-explain parts would smoothly continue with “Well various circumstances during that time…” skillfully spinning out his stories indefinitely) before going to Tokyo with her.
But now they had parted ways.
“She’s currently at XX District X Block XX Residence in Izu Ito Town and still sends me letters sometimes,” he said unprompted before shifting topics: “As a cabinetmaker I want quality work—fortunately this island’s prime for mulberry wood—even limited output makes sustaining good craftsmanship feasible here—though my illness also factored into returning.”
He spun out lengthy tales about how Tokyo shop owners wouldn’t send tools trying to lure him back—never letting tedium set in.
Then conversation turned back to his illness.

“I hate meeting people every day, so I just stay in bed.”

he said.
"If I wander around, the islanders say I'm just lazing about; even if I try to work, I have no tools; I'm staying at my aunt's house, but when she's awake she's always nagging me to do something, so I end up burrowing under the covers from morning till night."
——
"Honestly, right in front of you, but I think I'll just die to escape all this trouble."

he said suddenly in a dismissive, almost genuinely angry tone.
His stories flowed too swiftly to discern what to take seriously, but in that moment I sensed not "Mr. Taimei" nor "Nakajima Taimei," but some other man tormented by loneliness within him.
Come to think of it, the day before departure I had gone to his house to coordinate our time—it was around two in the afternoon—and found him sleeping in a pitch-dark room with the shutters tightly closed, in an old, tilting house located up a small side path from the village, a high place that felt like the mountain’s shadow.
When the person called aunt woke him up, he sluggishly came out to the hearth and, while sipping tea with me, remained silent for a long time.
Beside him sat the aunt.
In him at that moment there was none of the somewhat frivolous, easygoing smile I had seen the previous day—rather, he carried the air of a man living with something fearful coiled within himself.

Yet such bitter expressions would surface only briefly before he reverted once more to the affable, familiar "Mr. Taimei." Even now, after finishing his life story, he walked in silence for a while before suddenly leaping several steps away from my side to demonstrate,

“How sneaky of you!”
“You make everyone else do all the talking.”
“You don’t want to, do you?”
“You should at least talk a bit about yourself too.”

he said.

Without realizing it, I had come to feel a deep sense of closeness to Mr. Taimei.
And I thought that if possible, I would have liked to recount my own life story to him in that same manner.
But for someone like me, it proved impossible to narrate my affairs with any semblance of cheerful tone.
Thus while nursing an apologetic awareness within, I could only resign myself to playing listener to his tales.
Though of course, had I begun speaking, Mr. Taimei would surely have commandeered the conversation midway to redirect it toward himself.

——

The first day of our island tour was planned as a walk of about three ri before staying overnight at a village called Ako.
Mr. Taimei told me stories about the girls of Ako Village along the way.
Just as we passed through Izu Village along the way, we encountered a young woman carrying a large luggage box wrapped in a wrapping cloth on her back.
Mr. Taimei said “Hey” in his characteristically casual yet somehow clinging, overfamiliar tone, then started talking.
The young woman in the indigo-patterned kimono courteously returned his greeting and stopped by a roadside snack shop.
She was the daughter of a confectionery factory in Ako Village, and apparently went around making deliveries like that.
Also, along the way we caught up with three young girls carrying loads on their backs; these girls had come from Ako Village to Kamitsuki—where the Monopoly Bureau’s branch office was located—to purchase tobacco and were now returning.

I remembered having seen these girls at the branch office where Hinoki was stationed that morning when setting out.
When Mr. Taimei caught sight of their retreating figures, he suddenly quickened his pace.
He started teasing them about something.
The girls, still only around fourteen or fifteen years old, could only exchange glances, turn red, and laugh.
When I saw them growing somewhat flustered, I decided to separate Mr. Taimei from them and discreetly quickened my pace. Before long the girls fell behind, though Mr. Taimei kept glancing backward at intervals until suddenly he looked up at me with a grin and said, "In Ako Village, the local girls come visit the inns, you know."

Before long, the terrain became a tangle of the hills' wrinkled folds—the path now littered with stones, flanked by weeds and mixed thickets—as we descended a slope cut deep through the earth. When we rounded a cliff edge so sheer it seemed we might emerge directly above the sea, there before us—right beneath our eyes—Ako Village materialized.
This was the first semblance of flatland I'd encountered since arriving on the island—though its eastern flank remained a sheer cliff—where low tile roofs packed densely across westward-opening land, stretching from the cliff base to the water's edge. Between stone walls erected against fierce westerlies, the houses appeared to huddle together like creatures shrinking into their own shoulders.

The weather was clear, yet even now a west wind blew—not particularly strong—and I could see the spray from waves crashing against the sea drifting like thin smoke over the jet-black rocks at the village’s edge.
Unlike the village of Kamitsuki, here the houses lacked sturdiness, and an exposed, untamed harshness hung over the village.
A path paved with large stones glistened sleekly under the sun, ascending into the town with a slippery sort of slope.
After a while, we descended in that direction.

That night, hearing there was a wedding in the village, I was taken by Mr. Taimei to go see it.
When we stepped outside the inn, there lay that familiar stone-paved path.
As we ascended on tiptoe up that path, three or four figures came down from above.
From their voices, we could tell they were elderly landladies.
As they brushed past us, they tilted their heads back and stared intently.
In that instant, they fell completely silent.
After passing us by, they suddenly huddled together—though in the darkness it was hard to make out clearly—leaning forward as if hiding their throats with their sleeves, then descended while chattering noisily.
Again, someone approached from ahead.
Until they came very close, it remained unclear whether they were male or female.
Every shadowy figure seemed to peer through us as they passed by.
Here and there at corners and under eaves, groups of two or three people clustered darkly.
Such shadowy figures grew more numerous as we proceeded.
Around the front of the house where the wedding was taking place, there was no spot in the surrounding darkness where one or two shadowy figures could not be seen.
Everyone was whispering.
The occasional loud voices were only children shrieking excitedly.
The house where the wedding was taking place appeared to be a general store, with shelves holding those goods visible.
A single lamp burned in the shop, beneath which sat a ruddy-faced, portly man wearing hakama trousers. From time to time he would gaze out at the shadowy figures beyond the entrance with eyes that held a knowing smile.

In front of the house was a small vacant lot, and a ladder with a semi-bell hung from it stood there.
Leaning against the stone wall there, Mr. Taimei and I waited for a while.
Compared to daytime, the wind had picked up considerably, making it almost cold.
It was then that I finally noticed—there wasn’t a single light on the village paths.
And directly above hung a large, haloed moon.
Although people’s faces couldn’t be seen clearly, that was precisely why we had managed to walk through the village.

We waited quite a while.
They said it was a groom’s procession, but the procession showed no sign of arriving.
Before we knew it, thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girls had gathered around us.
They never came forward.
Occasionally, as if one or two capricious fish had broken sideways from their school, one or two would deliberately dart swiftly past us before circling back.
And when they returned to their group, they would stifle giggles.
Among them were some who, bathed in moonlight, would suddenly thrust their faces forward before fleeing.
The group would drift toward distant shadows, then quietly edge closer behind us again.

Mr. Taimei suggested we take a short walk around the area since things hadn't started yet, so we set out toward the edge of the village.
I had no idea where or how I was walking.
I followed Mr. Taimei through the village—dim throughout and riddled with shadows—with a sort of excited feeling.

Along the paths I encountered shadowy figures that would abruptly emerge from dark places and slip past.
But having grown somewhat accustomed, even I came to distinguish whether they were men or women.
Men would materialize as if scrutinizing who they faced, while women generally walked swiftly with bodies leaning forward, moving soundlessly.
Mr. Taimei never approached when passing men, but with women he would sidle up close like other men did.
Most appeared acquainted and exchanged some words.
Mr. Taimei became so busy it seemed he'd forgotten my presence entirely.
And he always appended, "I'm staying at ○○ Inn now, so do come visit."

We finally emerged at what seemed to be the village outskirts.
Perhaps because the path there rose higher, the moonlight suddenly appeared vivid.
Peach blossoms bloomed vividly.
When we arrived before a house with tightly shut doors where only the garden’s ground stood bright, Mr.Taimei said “Wait,” then hurried over to knock on its door and rouse those already asleep.
Just as I was wondering what business he had there, I heard him say “Hello? Hello? It’s Taimei.
Is Tamako-san already asleep?”
I was slightly taken aback.
I wondered if he’d get yelled at by the household for saying such things and trying to invite the girl out at night.
As this went on, the door opened, and what appeared to be a mother showed her face.
He wasn’t scolded at all.
They were talking about something.

“Oh, I see. I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest,” said Mr. Taimei with uncharacteristic politeness as he turned back. Just when I thought we were heading back, he led me in another direction. Then again, he roused those sleeping from outside:

“Hello? Hello? Please prepare about thirty sen worth of candy balls by tomorrow.”

he said.
From inside came a reply that they no longer made them themselves.

“Ah, I see,” Mr. Taimei said briskly as he turned back again. And then, “The house just now—you met a girl carrying a confectionery box when we came this morning, right? That’s the house.” He said this, and I realized he’d been probing the situation with those earlier remarks. I trudged after Mr. Taimei as we walked all through the village, but it struck me that his antics might land me in embarrassing circumstances. Wandering about hunting for girls like this—I couldn’t help feeling like some kind of dog. When Mr. Taimei tried to drag me off somewhere else again, I refused and made straight back to the inn.

When I awoke the next morning, there was a terrible driving rain.
Confined indoors all day, by evening a young woman came to visit Mr. Taimei.
It was the farm girl who had been roused from sleep the previous night; according to the conversation, she too had gone up to Tokyo during Mr. Taimei’s time there and worked as a maid, and it seemed she had been involved in various aspects of assisting him.
Moreover, during her brief absence when she stood up, I learned this young woman was currently troubled by a romantic affair—her partner being a married man over forty from Kamitsuki, the head of the island’s oldest family—leaving them unable to either formalize their relationship or end it cleanly, left hanging unresolved.
That man was someone I had also met and come to know at Hinoki’s place.
Mr. Taimei had claimed he was abstaining from alcohol due to his illness, but since he seemed eager for it, when encouraged he drank copiously.
That evening followed suit—he drank vigorously while talking animatedly.
The young woman poured the drinks.

“Hey you—think real careful about this now. Just leave it all to me.”
“I’ve got a plan here—let me handle this one.”

“What’s there to entrust?”
“There’s nothing needing entrusting,” said the farm girl.

“Oh come on, with all that,” he chuckled.
“You can’t possibly keep tailing cows and spending all your time digging potatoes in the mountains like this forever.”

“I like the mountains – the village is too noisy. When I’m in the mountains, that’s when I feel best. Even tailing cows’ behinds all day – I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that kind of living at all.”

“You’re still saying such things? If you keep talking like that，you’ll end up with cat poison again.”

The farm girl burst into laughter.
When she was working as a maid in Tokyo, she had drunk cat poison, it was said.

“It’s nothing—I didn’t have any particular intention. I just got this strange urge, but when I drank it, it was so horribly bitter I ended up vomiting it all out.”

“That’s why,” he said as he turned toward me and added, “You’re quite the odd one yourself, you know.”

The farm girl remained silent for a while. Then suddenly,

“Ahh… I just don’t understand myself at all,”

she said. At that moment, there was a certain glint in her eyes—one could sense her figure from that time she’d faced the cat poison.

The next morning before departure, the farm girl went out of her way to bring freshly milked cow's milk.

Mr. Taimei and I spent one night that day in Tsubota Village along the way, circled the entire island, and returned to Kamitsuki Village.

Not long after that, I moved to a farm within Akogamura Village but about one ri further southwest from the main settlement—an area with scarcely any houses around. I had found that location during my island circuit. Hinoki seemed intent on keeping me in Kamitsuki Village and made various inquiries about room arrangements, but I ultimately had my way and went to Akogamura. Partly because I had come to like this new place, but also because in Kamitsuki I had made several acquaintances starting with Hinoki—I feared having my solitude disturbed. I left this unspoken to Hinoki. I was in a mental state I couldn't explain even to myself and didn't want to share with anyone. When people asked—Hinoki included—I dismissed it as an insomnia disorder. That much was true; there was nothing else to tell others. But within me, this explanation fell short. The illness had persisted nearly two years, sometimes improving then worsening again. The critical phase seemed passed—I had wished for that—but its resolution remained unclear. What a detestable thing. It sometimes wore a human face, other times an indescribably vast countenance merging a thousand souls. What tormented me most was how everything once familiar—objects and certainties—lost definition; how trusted boundaries blurred with untrustworthy ones; how dream and wakefulness merged into sameness; until finally I lost even my sense of physical being. Worst of all, these confusions attained excruciating clarity—utterly alien to healthy perception—a clarity so violent it forced screams from my throat.

I was completely exhausted and had even lost the strength to think about what would become of me from here on. I was just waiting. Something would come, I thought. Whatever it might be, I had no choice but to entrust myself to it, just as I had until now.

After moving to the new place, the weather gradually settled.
Warm days continued every day.
Young leaves now filled every view.
The place where I stayed was called Genchi Farm, where they kept seven or eight cows and made butter.
The front of the house faced a wide cultivated field.
Encircling the entire field, a gentle slope rose from behind the house to the left and stretched far forward—the young hazel leaves covering it all were such beautiful things.
They shone in sunlight, swayed, and ceaselessly made small rustling sounds.
It was something that seemed to suck my heart right in.
Then there were the black-and-white spotted cows—why did they stay so motionless like that forever?
Their vivid backs—no matter how distant they stood or how briefly glimpsed through trees—never escaped notice.
They remained still endlessly, grazing on grass.

The vicinity offers plenty of spots for strolling.
What a difference there is between Kamitsuki and here, even within the same island.
It is bright.
And there is nothing.
If you ascend the slope to the left of the house and continue leftward, there lies a broad flatland resembling a plateau—mostly cultivated fields where scattered figures work hoes—yet they seem swallowed by the ambient atmosphere, moving slowly with less a sense of laboring than simply being present.
The cultivated fields are no different—they have an amateurish appearance as if newly tilled just yesterday.
The woods mirror this quality.
Their trees stand spindly thin or absurdly straight like rigid spears thrust skyward—yet despite this contrived posture, they pulse with vitality.

Passing through the woods to the right of the house immediately brought one to the seaside; following the cliffside path revealed a broad cape blanketed in still-yellowed grassland.
During the day, I went there many times to lie down.
The grass lay thick and sun-warmed, until my entire body grew numb.
The sea wind blew ceaselessly across my face.
An insect's wings hummed by my ear.
There was nothing on the sea.
Only endless vastness where nothing ever happened.
I felt I had left myself somewhere.
Something had happened—something had occurred.
I tried to remember.
But it refused to come.
Within me lay something like a distant, unpleasant memory, severed from my present self by a rift.
Suddenly a sharp irony welled up.
That was that, and this was this.
Nothing held certainty.
Nowhere existed anything certain.
Were there certainty, I would meet it.
I felt ready to surrender to anything.
And became wrapped in something dull and enervating.
But then again came an unforeseen pain—sharp, causeless—thrusting upward through my chest.

From where? Why?
And in the next moment, it became clear.
Wife, child, friends, work, life—those things.
The self.
Those things—I didn't believe in any of them.
Something had stripped away from me the power to believe in those things.
Ask it—I murmured these kinds of things one after another in my heart.

But I couldn't stay earnest for long.
I saw through every lie.
The only thing I now believed in was this enervating air.

The house where I stayed housed six people.
The master served as Akomura's village chief and lived in the village proper since this location was distant from the government office.
His wife—a dark-complexioned woman in her forties with large eyes bearing that peculiar islander weariness tinged with wildness—managed the household's butter-making operations alongside Masayo, an orphaned girl without family ties.
There was also an adopted daughter who had graduated from a Tokyo girls' school.
Being the wife's niece with her family home in the village proper, she frequently went there.
A fair-skinned doctor from Tsubotamura Village would occasionally visit—a man who mumbled demurely when sober but transformed completely when drinking.
Rumors painted him as an incorrigible libertine.
The relationship between doctor and adopted daughter had become public secret.
The doctor loved firearms; sometimes distant gunshots would sound pa-pow pa-pow, growing gradually nearer until hunting dogs came racing down from the hazel grove ahead, followed by the doctor pedaling his bicycle.
By then, the adopted daughter would usually emerge to meet him near the fields.
At times she'd appear from the woods with him moments after having been elsewhere nearby.
The gunfire might have been coded signals.
To my eyes, beyond his unsavory reputation, the doctor displayed a blend of excessive social timidity, spoiled-rich-boy mannerisms, and unassuming kindness—all undercut by listless melancholy suggesting what becomes of Tokyo-educated sophisticates marooned on this island.
He often brought hunted game as gifts, so I received invitations to these occasions.

But aside from the doctor’s visits and the women from nearby houses who gathered each morning in the butter-making earthen floor carrying milk cans, everything in this house moved sluggishly, half-asleep. The wife seemed to take long afternoon naps from time to time.

“The island women truly do sleep so much.”
“It’s because they have no work.”
“They just sleep all the time.”

he said with a laugh.

Fieldwork and water-drawing tasks were mainly handled by a young girl named Masayo.
She worked hard.

On my first night there—my room being a wide earthen-floored space at the farthest end of the house, separated from the main building—she suddenly entered that earthen area and wordlessly thrust out a teakettle filled with tea. She had wrapped her head in cloth resembling a traditional wrapping fabric tied at the nape of her neck, her eyes narrowed to slits that made their exact position unclear. I couldn't discern whether she was smiling or if that was simply how her face looked naturally. Having heard this house sheltered a mentally disabled relative—either niece or nephew—of an anarchist who died in the earthquake disaster, I initially thought this must be them.

But the girl called Masayo wasn't that person.

The house kept one aging stud bull said to be rather ancient—a beast only this sixteen-year-old girl could manage freely. Let anyone else approach and danger ensued.

It grazed with bloodshot rolling eyes that nevertheless detected approaching figures from afar, gradually lowering its head groundward until horns might suddenly jerk upward for a charge if one grew careless. From shoulders through neck it loomed massive—closer to wild beast than domestic cattle—yet Masayo fearlessly seized its muzzle.

When neighbors occasionally came leading their cows for mating services, this too fell to Masayo's duties.

The girl gradually grew accustomed to me—when we met during walks she'd offer what passed for a smile: merely those slit-eyes narrowing further still.

Sometimes she'd initiate conversation from across fields with speech patterns like scattering loose words.

“Here, this is fodder.”
“Cows like this.”

“Where are you going? Unkai?”

After saying such things, she flashed that characteristic smile.
It seemed to be a custom among the island’s women—Masayo too always wrapped her head completely in a wrapping cloth or similar fabric.
It looked exactly like the platok headscarves worn by Russian peasant women.

In that attire, she remained unfazed even through torrential downpours.
At times drenched from head to shoulders, she worked just as steadily as if under blazing sunlight.
When I asked the wife, she said they didn’t even use futons in winter, let alone during rain—they always slept sprawled out on the engawa veranda.
She herself wasn’t mentally disabled, but her mother had been, and she was that woman’s illegitimate child.
They said Masayo detested her mother after learning of her origins.
The mentally disabled mother had once lived in this house and still visited occasionally.
During my stay she came once—looking too young to be Masayo’s mother—with another illegitimate baby strapped to her back.
Her home stood in Ako Village’s settlement, but she never returned there; people said she slept anywhere—on bare ground or in stone wall crevices.
When that mother appeared, Masayo promptly vanished somewhere.

Beside the field in front of the house stood a small hut of about four tsubo (13.2 square meters). It had a corrugated iron roof, and rather than proper wooden walls, merely planks forming an enclosure. There were no proper windows—only what appeared to be old storm shutters attached like top-hung panels near the ceiling. The interior was half earthen floor, with two built-in stoves arranged side by side, and in one corner stood a bath kettle that had been firmly mounted atop another stove. Of course, there being no chimney, smoke constantly filled the space, and everything was pitch-black with soot. The rear half had tatami flooring and planks covered with mats to barely resemble a proper room—though this was where Tami-san the herdsman and Sho-san the mentally disabled man resided.

I had thought only Sho-san was slow-witted, but Tami-san proved no different.
Tami-san was said to be in his forties—small-framed with an equally diminutive face that nonetheless maintained balanced proportions.
Each morning he would lead the cows to the mountains, returning at dusk with firewood strapped to his back.
Sho-san was supposedly over thirty, yet appeared no older than twenty-three or twenty-four.
And lanky beyond measure.
His eyes suffered severe strabismus, but with perpetually drooping lids that obscured their focus, he perpetually wore an air of contemptuous dismissal.
What struck me most upon first seeing him was that profoundly melancholic expression.
Should anyone approach, he'd scurry away; left undisturbed, he'd fixate on some indeterminate point—forehead furrowing deeply—though where exactly those obscured eyes looked remained unknowable.
He stood frozen as if grappling with insoluble thoughts.
During these spells, attempts to engage him proved futile.
He wouldn't answer; when pressed, could only muster a reluctant "Yes, that's right."
"That's right" became his refrain.
Even this he delivered with palpable irritation.

However, this 'That's right' was his catchphrase; even after singing his go-to song—'Longing, Longing for the Ginza Willow'—he would append a 'That's right.' He would add a "Yes, that's right," but why did he maintain such a gloomy expression? Did he possess the capacity to feel things as ordinary people did? If not, why would he wear such an expression? Eyes that saw only gray. The sole movement in his heavy, sunken face came when he spotted food. At the mere glimpse of anything edible, he would spring up as if startled. Something linear would surface in his vacuous expression. He would pace restlessly back and forth. Toward the wife who gave him food, he showed absolute obedience. Like a child, he craved it repeatedly. Sometimes he would take used bowls and chopsticks to the wash area only to lumber back with them to the kitchen moments later.

“Oh my, you just ate. What a state you’re in!” the wife scolded while bursting into laughter.
He retreated once more with his characteristic jerky gait—though it was more of a stagger, nearly pitching forward—still clutching the dishes.

He had another thorn in his side.
That was Tami-san.
In the evenings, Tami-san would give Sho-san baths and scold him for never trying to work, taking him out to pasture—but Sho-san would slip away unnoticed and return.
Tami-san, unlike Sho-san, would amiably approach me whenever he saw me, his small eyes showing a melting smile as he slurped back his drool to talk about various things.
When evening came, he would hesitantly come over to talk to me from the direction of the main house.
Synthesizing what I heard from Tami-san’s own accounts and the wife’s stories, he was born to a large wholesale merchant family in Nihonbashi and had attended Gyosei Middle School through his third year.
Around that time, he began experiencing cognitive decline and was sent to Takinogawa Gakuen.
I hadn’t heard of Takinogawa Gakuen, but it seemed to be an institution educating sons from good families who had cognitive impairments.
Tami-san mentioned a few children of notable figures who had been his peers at the time.
His family home had fallen into ruin, and now only his sister’s marital household running a fruit shop in Ikebukuro remained, or so he said.

“I did return there once, but was brought back here again.
“At my sister’s house, they make me call her ‘the mistress.’
“Because I’m slow-witted, you see—they said it was inconvenient.
“I was always getting scolded.”

Tami-san said with his usual melting laugh. He again asked me to write a letter to his sister’s house. He whispered it stealthily so that those in the main house wouldn’t hear.

“She never sends letters—tell her to send some sometimes.”
“I sent butter last year—did that arrive?”
“It’s gotten quite warm now—have her send three thin shirts.”
“And chocolate and some sweets too.”

Having said that, he

“Chocolate bars are delicious, you know.”

With that, this round-headed, balding Tami-san sucked in his lips at me.

However, Tami-san performed his daily work well.
Of course, once he drove the cows up into the mountains—since they would graze on whatever grass grew there—he typically spent his days sleeping in the hills.
But he liked alcohol, and whenever he drank, he would inevitably go off track.
He wouldn’t return for two or three days.
During my stay, when a large banana squid had been caught, Tami-san took it and set out after nightfall to deliver it to relatives of this household in the village, but returned empty-handed the following afternoon.
On the way, he’d encountered a fellow herdsman named Taro, gotten caught up with him, ended up tearing into the souvenir squid without even washing it to eat as drinking fare, then went around banging on farmhouse doors begging for alcohol before sleeping in the mountains and returning.
The next day, he lay in bed all day complaining of a stomachache.

“‘Cause you ate that raw squid in the dark and ended up with your whole mouth blackened by its ink, right, Tami-san? That stomachache’s divine retribution, isn’t it?”

Teased by the wife, Tami-san grew sullen.

One day, Tami-san was in a terrible rage.
I don’t know why.
He had been talking with the wife near the cowshed when suddenly,

“I’m going back, you idiot! Who’d work in this shithole?” he shouted, then began emitting growling noises as he flung down his backpack frame and cow ropes. Though I stood right there in the garden, he stormed into the shed without so much as glancing my way, his small shoulders trembling with fury. The wife forced a laugh.

I’d always thought Tami-san and Sho-san were close friends, but as days passed, I realized this wasn’t true. Sometimes at night, when everything had quieted down, arguments would erupt from the shed beyond the garden. Tami-san seemed to torment Sho-san through brute force—the sound of scuffling carried through the air. Sho-san would let out those drawn-out wails of “Aah... aah...”. Whenever something happened—like being made to hold a cow’s rope—he’d emit this cry, clearly terrified of the animals. It appeared to be his only form of protest, yet also served as defense.

Once I followed these two up the mountain when they went out to pasture. It was a place of considerable elevation. There too I witnessed their struggle. Sho-san tried to slip away when he spotted an opening; Tami-san moved to block him. They grappled fiercely—though small-framed, Tami-san must have possessed hidden strength, for he swiftly hooked his leg around Sho-san's ankles to trip him, then straddled the fallen man. Without ceremony he yanked the clothes from Sho-san's shoulders and began meting out a bizarre punishment, alternately pinching and clawing at his chest. Sho-san's torso rapidly became mottled with wheals. This went beyond mere restraint—it was a far more tenacious clash of wills.

Later, I heard that whenever the mentally disabled woman who was Masayo’s mother came around, Sho-san would sleep with her in a nearby shrine building containing votive tablets—even during daylight hours.
It was said that Tami-san would then berate them like a madman.
I was overcome by an indescribably strange sensation.
Did even that mentally disabled woman have the capacity to choose—and had Sho-san been selected over Tami-san?
I came to think that Sho-san being troublesome for Tami-san stemmed from all those various circumstances.
Sho-san sensitively distinguished between those who would harm him and those who would not.
To those who did not harm him, he showed complete indifference.
At first, he had watched me from a distance, but now he paid no attention even when nearby, and right before my eyes, he nonchalantly stuck his hands into things like the feed bucket.
And yet, he remained highly vigilant of his surroundings as he deftly went about it.

Over the course of nearly forty days there, I gradually forgot myself.
A letter came from home—from my wife—saying she’d be in trouble if I didn’t return soon.
None of the letters said much about how I was doing—they only wrote about being in trouble—and I found myself thinking, belatedly, how typical that was of her.
But I found myself thinking once more that she too was a pitiable creature.
I too must undoubtedly be a pitiable creature—
A letter also came from Hinoki in Kamitsuki.

"Compared to you, my life feels like nothing but acting in a play," it read.
I supposed that was likely referring to his daily gatherings where he lectured the village youths.
But mine too was an act.
How much of it had been real? I couldn't tell at all.
What the hell was I even doing?
There was nothing here at all.
This was what it was—no amount of fussing would change a thing.
Only by walking with my eyes closed could I grasp reality—that too I thought.

Around that time, since Hinoki’s maternal grandfather had passed away, I went to Kamitsuki Village to offer my condolences and visit. At that moment—what thoughts crossed Hinoki’s mind?—he began recounting his life story with poignant earnestness,

“I sometimes find myself overwhelmed like this, you see. Being an islander through and through—I intend to die here on the island—but even when I try imagining every bit of happiness attainable in this place, it still amounts to nothing.”

he said.

Since my funds had grown scarce and I began feeling it was time to return, I decided to climb Mount Oyama, which I’d long wanted to visit.
I was told I wouldn’t find the way without a guide, but I set out alone regardless.
I thought it would be manageable since it was only a seven-hundred-meter mountain.
From the area where I had once gone grazing with Tami-san and the others, the path turned steep again, and after some time I emerged into a broad, flat expanse.
Forests and grasslands alternately appeared.
I had roughly learned the path, but given how vast the meadow-like expanse was, I lost track of it.

When I suddenly noticed thin smoke rising from a forest midway up the slope and looked closer, it seemed they were cutting through that area of woods—treetops shaking one by one, leaving empty patches in their wake. Heading toward it, I found four or five men cutting timber for charcoal. When I asked, they immediately knew the path.

This time, the path was much steeper.
Even such steep places seemed to be climbed by oxen—here and there, sunken hoofprints formed terraced steps along the path.
Though there was no water, it was a path resembling a dry stream bed strewn with stones.
Again, I emerged into an open area.
The entire area was a field of shrubs with patches of soft turf grass growing here and there.
Going around that area in a wide loop brought me to the foot of a small inner crater.
Before I knew it, I entered the outer crater.
I thought I would go straight across the plain of finely crushed lava to the opposite side of where I had climbed and see the village on the other side of the mountain.
When I went to check the indented edge of the outer crater, there was a dizzying cliff.
I couldn’t begin to estimate how far down it went.
I could see a small path crawling down between the rocks from above.
From the rocky area directly below the cliff, the land gradually spread out into grassland below, which transitioned through groves into forest until the entire stretch of foothills—though diminutive—lay visible as if within arm’s reach all the way to the sea’s edge.
Nearer to the sea, scattered houses were visible.

The sea was deep blue, its shore foaming white. As I gazed out, I felt myself being gradually pulled forward. If I were to leap from here right now—where exactly would I land? Trying to visualize it, all I saw below were jumbled rocks everywhere. An image flashed through my mind—a broken-limbed doll tumbling through air, contorting into some grotesque shape the moment it was flung away before smashing against the rocks. I stood up, edged back from the cliffside, then stepped forward again to peer over the brink. Finally turning away without looking back, I set off toward the inner crater. For some time afterward, a tingling numbness lingered in my fingertips.