Pathway to Japanese Literature

Since the call had said he would come around five in the evening, Kin—with the feeling of having remarked "Well, it’s been a year, hasn’t it? Hmm, I suppose that’s how it goes"—left the phone and checked the clock, but there were still about two hours until five.
First, in that interval—more urgently than anything—she needed to bathe; after instructing the maid to prepare dinner early, Kin hurried to the bath.
She must appear more youthful than when they had parted.
To reveal her aging would be defeat—Kin slowly entered the bath, and upon returning home immediately took ice from the refrigerator, crushed it finely, wrapped it in double-layered gauze, and at the mirror for a full ten minutes thoroughly massaged her face with the ice.
Her face grew numb and flushed until she lost all sensation in her skin.
Though fifty-six—a woman's age—bared its fangs in her breast, Kin wiped her chilled face with reserved Hakurai cream in that severity which declared she could deceive any woman's years through decades of discipline.
In the mirror stared the livid, aged face of a woman—corpse-like—her eyes wide open.
In the midst of applying makeup, Kin suddenly felt disgust at her own face, but then the image of her former self—once so vibrant and beautiful she’d graced picture postcards—rose behind her eyelids. She hitched up her kimono and gazed at the skin of her thighs.
Not the plumply rounded fullness of before, but with thin venous capillaries now standing out.
Still, the fact that they hadn’t grown so thin brought some relief.
Her thighs met snugly.
In the bath, Kin would habitually pour water into the hollows of her neatly seated thighs.
The water lay motionless in the thigh hollows.
A tender relief comforted Kin’s aging.
Men were still an option.
That alone felt like life’s mainstay.
Kin opened her legs and gently touched the skin of her inner thighs as if it belonged to someone else.
It had a supple softness like oil-treated deerskin.
In Saikaku’s “Seeing All Provinces Through the Tales of Ise,” there was a passage about two beautiful women named Osugi and Tama who played the shamisen during an Ise pilgrimage—before plucking the strings, they would stretch a crimson net around themselves, and through its meshes people would toss coins aiming at their faces. Remembering this, Kin couldn’t help feeling that ukiyo-e-like beauty of that scarlet net had now become something irretrievably distant from her present self.

In her youth, money hunger had seeped into her very bones and blinded her—but with age, especially after weathering war's terrible waves, Kin found life without men hollow and unmoored.
Her beauty changed gradually with years, each passing year bringing different elegance to its bearing.
Kin never succumbed to adorning herself with gaudy things as she aged.
She detested women past fifty employing tawdry tricks—draping necklaces over flat chests, wearing red plaid skirts fit for bathhouse attendants, donning billowy white satin blouses, hiding forehead wrinkles under wide-brimmed hats.
Yet she equally despised courtesans' vulgar taste that let crimson peek from kimono collars.

Kin had never once worn Western clothes up to this era. A crisp pure-white crepe collar over indigo Ōshima kasuri underrobe, the obi a pale cream Hakata with white stripes. The light blue obi sash must never be revealed at the chest. She would fashion a full bustline, keep her waist slender, cinch her midsection taut with a stiff sash, and position a hip cushion discreetly padded with silk wadding at her hips—having devised her own method of elegant Western-style dressing. Her hair had been brown since youth, and against her fair complexion, those locks could never be taken for a woman past fifty. Being large-framed—perhaps from wearing kimonos with shortened hems—the hemline fell neat and crisp. Before meeting men, she would always prepare in this geisha-like understated style and, before the mirror, gulp down five small cups of chilled sake. Afterwards came meticulous tooth-brushing with powder to eliminate any alcohol breath. A small amount of liquor affected her body more than any cosmetic. When faint intoxication surfaced, her eye corners reddened and large eyes grew dewy. Applying cool-toned makeup, the subdued luster of her face—treated with Listerine-diluted cream—refreshed as if breathed anew. For lipstick alone she applied thick layers of premium dark red. The only red was her lips. Kin had never dyed her nails in her life. In old age, such adornments made hands appear all the more pitifully meager and absurd. She merely patted lotion thoroughly across her hands' backs—nails clipped neurotically short and polished with woolen scraps. The colors glimpsed at her underrobe sleeves all favored pale hues; gradations of aqua and peach sashes adorned her form. She rubbed cloying perfume onto shoulders and plump upper arms. Never would she mistakenly apply it to earlobes or such places. Kin refused to forget she was a woman.

If it meant sinking into the grimy squalor of ordinary old women, she'd rather be dead.
"Though I think it a rose—this tenderness beyond mortal flesh—my heart stirs thus."
Kin had always liked this song said to be sung by a famous woman.
The mere thought of life separated from men made her shudder.
As she gazed at the pale pink petals of the roses Itaya had brought, their luxuriousness made Kin dream of bygone days.
The gradual changes in ancient customs and her own evolving tastes and pleasures had also become a source of quiet joy for Kin.

When sleeping alone, Kin would wake at midnight and secretly count on her fingers the number of men from her maiden days.
That man and that man, and then that man—ah, there's also that man... But was that man met before that man... Or was it after... Kin felt her heart grow smoky and suffocated by the memories of men, as if reciting a counting song.
There were those whose tears would flow depending on how the remembered men had parted.
When it came to each of the men, Kin preferred to dwell solely on their first meeting.
Perhaps because she had filled her heart with memories phrased in the style of *The Tales of Ise* she’d once read—*In ancient times there lived a man…*—Kin found pleasure in drifting through recollections of past lovers while half-awake in her solitary bed. Tabe’s phone call had been unexpected; it left her feeling as if she’d chanced upon a fine vintage wine.
Tabe was only coming because he was drawn by memories.
With the sentimental notion that some vestige of the past might remain, he came to inspect the scorched remains of their romance—or so it seemed.
Standing amidst the overgrown rubble, she must not allow even a sigh of "Ah…" to escape.
There must be no trace of poverty in either age or environment.
A modest expression was paramount, and the atmosphere needed to be a gentle drift where the two could become earnestly absorbed.
She must not allow him to forget the lingering aftertaste that her woman remained as beautiful as ever.
When Kin had flawlessly completed her preparations, she stood before the mirror to verify her stage-ready appearance.
Had she overlooked anything…?

When she went to the family dining room, the evening meal tray was already laid out.
After eating a light miso soup with salted kelp and barley rice across from the maid, she would crack an egg and swallow the yolk whole.
Even when men came to visit, Kin had rarely served meals herself since her younger days.
Though she would meticulously arrange the tea service and present homemade dishes with "This is my own cooking," she entertained not the slightest thought of wanting men to perceive her as some charming little homemaker.
The very notion of being a domestic woman held no interest for Kin whatsoever.
To a man who wouldn't even consider marriage, there was no reason to play the part of a homemaking woman.

The men who came to Kin in this way brought various gifts for her.
For Kin, this was only natural.
Kin never entertained men without money.
There was nothing as devoid of charm as a man without money.
A man in love who wore unbrushed suits or undergarments with missing buttons—she would abruptly grow disgusted with such men.
To fall in love—the act itself—felt to Kin like crafting individual works of art.
In her youth, Kin was said to resemble Akasaka’s Manryū.
She had once caught sight of Manryū after she’d become a married woman—a woman so beautiful it was mesmerizing.
Kin was left breathless by that magnificent beauty.
She realized that maintaining a woman’s beauty indefinitely was something that could not be managed without money.

Kin became a geisha at nineteen.
She hadn’t acquired any remarkable artistic skills but had managed to become a geisha through beauty alone.
Summoned then to the rooms of a French gentleman—advanced in years and touring the Orient—she came to be cherished by him as Japan’s Marguerite Gautier, sometimes affecting the airs of La Dame aux Camélias herself.
Though physically unexceptional, he remained indelibly etched in her memory.
Monsieur Michel—he must by now have died somewhere in northern France.
From Michel after his return to France came a bracelet set with opals and tiny diamonds; this alone she had never relinquished, even at the war’s peak.

The men Kin had been involved with had all risen to prominence in their own ways, but after the war's end, most of those men had vanished without a trace.
There were rumors that Kin Aizawa had amassed considerable wealth, but Kin herself had never once considered opening a teahouse or restaurant.
What she possessed was merely her unburned house and a single villa in Atami—she didn't have the kind of money people spoke of.
The villa had been under her foster sister's name; after the war's end, she seized the opportunity to dispose of it.
Though it was a life of utter idleness, the maid Kinu—who had been under her foster sister's care—was a mute woman.
Kin's lifestyle proved unexpectedly modest.
She had no desire to see movies or plays, and Kin disliked going out to wander aimlessly without any purpose.
Having her own aging exposed to others' eyes when under the harsh sun was detestable.
Under the bright sun, the misery of an elderly woman was mercilessly exposed.
No matter how costly the garments, they proved utterly useless under the harsh sun.
She was content living like a flower in sheltered shade, and Kin had enjoyed reading novels as a pastime.
Even when others suggested adopting a daughter to contemplate the joys of old age, Kin found the very notion of old age distasteful—and her solitary existence until now had its own reasons.

Kin had no parents.
The only memory she retained was being born in Kosagawa near Honjō in Akita Prefecture; around age five she had been brought to Tokyo, taken the Aizawa name, and raised as a daughter of that family.
Her foster father Aizawa Kyūjirō had gone to Dairen for civil engineering work and never returned—since her elementary school days there had been no word from him.
Her foster mother Ritsu proved an able financier who traded stocks and built rental houses; residing in Waraidana of Ushigome at that time, to speak of Waraidana’s Aizawas meant speaking of those considered quite wealthy even within Ushigome.
In those days there existed an old tabi shop called Tatsui in Kagurazaka where worked a beautiful girl named Machiko.
This tabi shop boasted history matching Ningyōchō’s Miyōga-ya—Tatsui’s tabi socks commanded trust even among Yamanote’s mansion districts.
Before its wide shopfront hung with indigo noren sat a sewing machine where Machiko worked the pedal—her black satin collar fastened over peach-split styled hair—earning such renown among Waseda students that rumors told of them leaving tips when ordering tabi socks. Yet Kin too—five or six years Machiko’s junior—was celebrated throughout the neighborhood as a beauty.
In Kagurazaka people spoke of them as twin Komachi maidens.—When Kin turned nineteen—after a man called Toriwase Gohaku began frequenting the Aizawa household—the family began inexplicably declining; foster mother Ritsu developed drunken rages ushering prolonged shadowed days until through careless jest Kin found herself violated by Toriwase.
In that desperate hour Kin fled home recklessly and emerged as geisha from Akasaka’s Suzumoto house.
Tatsui Machiko—around that same time—became newspaper sensation when granted flight in one of Japan’s first airplanes wearing furisode robes only to crash in Suzugahara Field—stirring great commotion.

Kin debuted as a geisha under the name Kinya, but soon her photographs began appearing in storytelling magazines and such, until eventually she even became featured on the popular picture postcards of the time.

Looking back now, all these things had receded into the distant past, yet Kin could not reconcile herself to being a woman now past fifty.
There were times when she felt she had lived interminably long, and times when her youth seemed agonizingly brief.
After her foster mother’s death, the meager household belongings had been cleanly inherited by Sumiko—the foster sister born after Kin’s adoption—leaving Kin a woman unburdened by any obligations toward her foster family.

Kin had first met Tabe when Sumiko and her husband were running a professional boarding house for students in Totsuka; having parted ways with a patron she’d been with for about three years, Kin was renting a room in Sumiko’s boarding house and living comfortably.
It was around the time the Pacific War began.
Kin had met Tabe, a student who frequented Sumiko’s tearoom, and despite their parent-child age difference, they had eventually formed a clandestine relationship.
At fifty years old, Kin retained a youthful vitality that made strangers mistake her for thirty-seven or thirty-eight, her thick eyebrows seeming to exude a striking presence.
After graduating from university, Tabe had immediately enlisted as an army second lieutenant and been deployed—though his unit remained stationed in Hiroshima for some time.
Kin had visited Tabe in Hiroshima about twice.

Upon arriving in Hiroshima, Tabe came to visit her at the inn wearing his military uniform.
Though repulsed by Tabe's leather-like body odor, Kin spent two nights with him at a Hiroshima inn.
Having traveled all the way to that distant land utterly exhausted, Kin found herself tossed about by Tabe's vigorous strength; she later confessed to others that she had felt like dying at the time.
She visited Tabe in Hiroshima twice, but despite receiving numerous telegrams from him afterward, Kin never went back.
In 1942 Tabe went to Burma and was demobilized in May of the year following the war's end.
He immediately came up to Tokyo and visited Kin's house in Numabukuro, but when she saw how drastically he had aged—his front teeth missing—her old dreams evaporated into disappointment.
Though born in Hiroshima, Tabe had reportedly seen his eldest brother become a Diet member; with this brother's support he founded an automobile company and within less than a year transformed into such an unrecognizably refined gentleman that when he appeared before Kin, he mentioned he would soon be taking a wife.

Then, for a little over a year, Kin did not meet Tabe either.
During the height of the air raids, Kin had purchased her current Numabukuro home with a telephone at a price akin to a bargain-basement rate and evacuated from Totsuka to Numabukuro.
While Totsuka was just a stone's throw away, Kin’s house in Numabukuro remained standing, while Sumiko’s house in Totsuka burned down.
Sumiko and the others had fled to Kin’s place, but Kin drove them out immediately upon the war’s end.
Though Sumiko had been driven out, she quickly built a house on Totsuka's burned site and now even seemed grateful to Kin.
Looking back now, since it was immediately after the war’s end, one could build a house inexpensively.

Kin also sold her villa in Atami.
When nearly 300,000 yen in net income came in, she would use that money to buy rundown houses, fix them up, and sell them for three or four times the price.
Kin never panicked about money.
She had learned through years of discipline that money—if one didn’t panic over it—was a beneficial thing that would grow steadily like a snowball.
She took solid collateral at lower interest rates than high-risk loans and lent to people as well.
Since the war, Kin had lost faith in banks and kept her money circulating externally as much as possible.
She didn’t make the foolish mistake of hoarding it at home like farmers.
For that purpose, she used Sumiko’s husband Kougi.
Kin also knew that if one paid a certain percentage as compensation, people would work briskly.

Living with just the maid, the four-room house might have appeared desolate from the outside, but Kin felt not the slightest loneliness; being someone who disliked going out, she found no inconvenience in their shared life. She believed that for burglary prevention, securing locks was more reliable than keeping a dog—indeed, her house had superior locks to any other. Because the maid was mute, there was no worry of others overhearing no matter what man came visiting. Yet Kin would occasionally fantasize about meeting a gruesome end—her own fate seemingly poised for brutal murder. She couldn’t help but feel uneasy about the house—so hushed and still it made one hold their breath. Kin never forgot to keep the radio on from morning till night.

At that time, Kin had become acquainted with a man creating flower beds in Matsudo, Chiba. He was said to be the younger brother of the man who had purchased her villa in Atami—during the war, he had established a trading company in Hanoi—but after repatriating postwar, he began cultivating flowers in Matsudo with his brother’s capital. Though just around forty years old, his completely bald head made him look older than his years. His name was Itaya Kiyotsugu. He had come regarding house matters two or three times before beginning weekly visits to Kin’s home. Since Itaya started visiting, Kin’s house became lively with beautiful floral gifts.

Today too, yellow Castanian roses were thrust deeply into the alcove vase. Ginkgo leaves scattered faintly—nostalgic—the frost-laden rose garden in morning’s grip. The yellow roses evoked the beauty of a woman in her prime. It was in someone’s song. The scent of frost-laden morning roses pierced Kin’s chest, summoning memories. When Tabe called, she realized she felt more drawn to the younger Tabe than to Itaya. In Hiroshima it had been painful—but Tabe had been a soldier then—and now she found herself flooded with bittersweet nostalgia for that unbridled youth of his—something that couldn’t have been helped in retrospect.

The more intense the memory grew nostalgic with time.—Tabe arrived well past five o’clock carrying a large package.

From the package he produced whiskey, ham, cheese and such before settling heavily before the long hibachi. Not a vestige remained of his former youthful air. His gray checkered suit paired with dull green trousers gave him precisely the bearing of a machine shop proprietor from this era.

"You haven't changed a bit."
"Why thank you, but I'm quite past my prime now."
"Nonsense—you've more charm than my wife."
"Is your lady young?"
"Young enough, but provincial through and through."

Kin extracted a cigarette from Tabe's silver case and had him light it. The maid arrived bearing whiskey glasses and a plate arranged with the earlier ham and cheese.

"Fine girl that..."
Tabe remarked with a smirk.
"Yes, though mute."

Wearing an intrigued expression, Tabe fixed his gaze on the maid's form. With demure eyes she bowed courteously to him. Kin found herself suddenly irritated by the maid's youthfulness—a quality she'd never before registered.

"Is your union harmonious?"
Tabe expelled smoke with a puff before answering, face telegraphing 'Ah my circumstances': "The brat arrives next month."
"Oh?" Kin lifted the whiskey bottle toward his glass.
Tabe drained his drink with evident relish before reciprocating into hers.

“What a good life.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“Outside, the storm’s howling wildly, but you—you never change, no matter how much time passes… You’re a mystery.”
“After all, it’s you—you must have a good patron. Must be nice being a woman.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“But really, Mr. Tabe, have I troubled you enough to warrant being spoken to in such a manner?”
“Did that anger you?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“That’s not it.”
“I’m saying you’re a happy person.”
“A man’s work is tough, so I just ended up saying that stuff.”
“In today’s world, you can’t afford to live carelessly.”
“It’s eat or be eaten.”
“Me? I’m practically living each day by gambling, you see.”
“But isn’t business good?” “Not at all… It’s a dangerous tightrope walk—spending money so tough it makes your ears ring.”
Kin sipped the whiskey in silence.
The katydids singing by the wall felt unpleasantly, cloyingly damp.

After drinking his second glass of whiskey, Tabe roughly grabbed Kin’s hand across the hibachi.
The ringless hand felt as soft and insubstantial as a silk handkerchief.
Kin let all strength drain from her fingertips while holding her breath.
The limp hand turned unnervingly cold yet remained doughy-soft.
Through alcohol-hazed eyes, Tabe saw memories swirl up like eddies pressing against his heart.
There she sat—unchanged in beauty from years past.
An uncanny sensation gripped him.
Time’s ceaseless flow layered experience upon experience.
That current held soaring ascents and plummeting falls alike.
Yet this woman from yesteryear sat unaltered in bold defiance.
Tabe fixed his stare on Kin’s eyes.
The faint crow’s feet framing them stayed precisely as remembered.
Her facial contours retained their sharp definition.
He burned to comprehend her life’s true condition.
Perhaps no societal ripples ever stirred response within her.
She who adorned chests with care, arranged long hibachi artfully, clustered roses opulently—now sat smiling before him.
Though surely past fifty, she radiated undiluted femininity.
Tabe remained ignorant of Kin’s actual age.
The apartment-dwelling man envisioned his disheveled wife—barely twenty-five yet already worn—flashing across his mind’s eye.
Kin withdrew a slender silver pipe from the hibachi drawer, packed shriveled tobacco shreds, and lit it.

Kin was unsettled by Tabe's intermittent knee trembling. Perhaps he's in dire straits, she thought, studying his face intently. The single-minded passion she'd felt during their Hiroshima days had already drained from her heart. Their long separation now struck her as jarringly discordant in this actual meeting. These mismatched emotions left her vexingly isolated. Her heart simply wouldn't ignite as it once had. Knowing this man's body so intimately made her wonder if she'd lost all attraction to his very being. Even with the charged atmosphere, Kin grew impatient at her stubbornly cold core.

"Is there anyone who'd lend four hundred thousand through your connections?"

"Oh? This is about money?"

"Four hundred thousand? That's astronomical."

"Yeah, I absolutely need that much right now."

"No leads?"

"None. First of all, approaching me—a woman with no income—about this is absurd..."

"What if I offer heavy interest? How's that?"

"No! This is pointless."

A sudden chill gripped Kin. Yearning bloomed for her tranquil rapport with Itaya. With leaden hands, she took the cheerfully bubbling iron kettle used for arare crackers and poured tea.

“Can’t you manage even two hundred thousand? I’ll owe you big time…”
“How absurd! You know perfectly well I don’t have money to spare…”
“It’s something I want myself.”
“You didn’t come to see me—you came here to talk about money?”
“No—I did want to see you, that’s part of it—but mainly because I thought I could discuss anything with you.”
“Why not consult your brother?”
“It’s money I can’t discuss with my brother.”

Kin didn’t respond and abruptly thought her youth too had only a year or two left. The searing love they once shared—now that they looked back—they were realizing had left no mark on either of them. That had not been love; perhaps merely the primal pull between man and woman that had fiercely drawn them together. Bound only by that fragile connection between sexes—like autumn leaves drifting in wind—Kin and Tabe sitting there had become nothing more than acquaintances linked by ordinary ties. A cold sensation flowed through Kin’s chest.

Tabe grinned as if struck by inspiration and asked in a hushed voice while she sipped tea: “Would you mind if I stayed the night?”

Kin widened startled eyes. “No,” she laughed while deliberately narrowing her eye-corner wrinkles. “Please don’t tease me like this.” Beautiful white dentures glinted.

“You’re heartless.”
“I won’t mention money again.”
“Just tried acting spoiled with Kin-san of old.”
“But—this is another world now.”
“You’ve got strong ill fortune.”
“Not dying no matter what—that’s something.”
“Young women today—they’re miserable.”
“You don’t dance?”

Kin snorted laughter through her nose.
What did young women’s circumstances matter...
It wasn’t her concern.
“Dance? I know nothing about that.”

“You do it?”
“I do a little.”
“So—there’s a good way to put it, isn’t there?”
“So that’s why you need money, isn’t it?”
“You’re a fool. I’m not making such meager earnings that I’d need to rely on women.”
“Oh, but that grooming is hardly that of a gentleman, you know.”
“That’s a trick one can’t manage without quite the proper line of work.”
“This is a bluff.”
“My pockets are squeaking empty.”
“Even getting up after falling seven times feels too hectic these days…”

Kin chuckled softly, her eyes lingering on Tabe's thick black hair.
Still, his thick locks hung down fully over his forehead.
The youthful freshness of his student-cap days had faded, yet his cheeks now exuded a hint of middle age—lacking refined grace but retaining a vigorous quality.
In a manner of observation akin to a wild beast sniffing from afar, Kin poured tea for Tabe as well.

“Hey, is it true there’s going to be a currency devaluation soon?”
Kin asked jokingly.
“You’ve got enough to be worried about it?”
“Oh!
“Jumping straight to that—that’s how you’ve changed.”
“That’s because people are circulating such rumors.”
“Well, such drastic measures couldn’t happen in Japan now.”
“Those without money needn’t fret over such things.”
“Truly...”
Kin briskly tipped the whiskey bottle into Tabe’s glass.
“Ah, I’d like to escape somewhere quiet like Hakone.”
“Sleep soundly for two or three days in a place like that.”
“Are you exhausted?”
“Yeah—money troubles.”
“But isn’t worrying over money just like you?
At least it’s not some woman’s sentimental woes...”

Tabe resented Kin’s affected composure. There was something comical about it too, like appraising a fine antique—even if they spent a night together now, it would amount to bestowing charity upon her—as he stared at the area around her jawline. That firm jaw expressed a strong will. The dewy youth of the mute maid he had glimpsed earlier now floated strangely before his eyes. Though not beautiful, her mere youth felt fresh to Tabe, whose eye for women had grown discerning over time. If this had been their first meeting, he thought, perhaps there wouldn’t be such frustration—but now he saw age in Kin’s face, more fatigued than before.

Kin, perhaps sensing this, stood abruptly and entered the adjoining room. At her dressing table, she took a hormone syringe and plunged it into her arm. Rubbing her skin fiercely with cotton wool while peering into the mirror, she pressed a puff against her nose. The thought of passionless lovers enduring such a hollow reunion filled her with bitter frustration—tears welled up unexpectedly, like those brought by a sudden assault.

If it were Itaya here instead… I could bury my face in his lap and weep… I could act spoiled…

But Tabe sat before the long brazier—she couldn’t tell whether she loved or loathed him now. She wanted him gone yet yearned to leave some lingering mark on his heart—his eyes had surely seen countless women since their parting.

Returning from the toilet, she peeked into the maid’s room—there sat Kinu, diligently cutting newspaper patterns for dressmaking studies. Her broad hips pressed flat against the tatami as she hunched over scissors. The nape of her tightly coiled hair gleamed white above flesh so voluptuous it mesmerized.

Kin returned to find Tabe sprawled by the brazier.

Kin turned on the radio atop the tea cabinet.
The Ninth Symphony burst forth with unexpected volume.
Tabe sat up abruptly.
And again brought the whiskey glass to his lips.
“There was a time when you and I went to Kawajin in Shibamata.”
“There was that time we got caught in a downpour and ate eel with no rice to go with it.”
“Yes, that did happen. That was already a time when food was so scarce.”
“Before you became a soldier—when those red spotted lilies bloomed in the alcove—do you remember how we overturned the vase together?”
“That did happen…”
Kin’s face abruptly swelled, and her expression turned youthful.
“Shall we go again sometime?”
“Yes… That’s right… But I’ve—already had my fill… And I suppose that place serves all sorts of things now?”
Kin, careful not to dispel the sentimentality from when she had cried earlier, was making an effort to gently dredge up old memories.
And yet, the face of a man different from Tabe’s surfaced in her mind.
After going to Shibamata with Tabe, right after the war ended, she had gone to Shibamata once with a man named Yamazaki.
Yamazaki had recently died from stomach surgery.
The scenery of Kawajin’s dimly lit room by the Edo River on a sweltering late summer day floated into her mind.
Clunk, clunk—the sound of the automatic pump drawing up water lingered in her ears.
The kanakana cicadas shrilled, and procurement bicycles raced along the high Edo River embankment by the window, their silver wheels gleaming as if in competition.
It had been their second encounter with Yamazaki, but to Kin, the sacred sincerity of his youth—so unversed in women—struck her with profound reverence.

Food had been plentiful, and the dispirited postwar social climate was strangely quiet as if in a vacuum.
The return trip was at night; I remember taking the bus back along the wide military road to Shinkoiwa.
“Since then, have you met anyone interesting?”
“Me?”
“Hmm…”
“There’s no one interesting but you.”
“Liar!”
“Oh, why? Isn’t that the case? Who would pay any attention to someone like me?...”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Yes... But I intend to bloom from now on—to make my life worthwhile.”
“You’ll live quite a while longer yet.”
“Yes… I’ll live long until I’m worn out and aged completely…”
“Won’t you stop cheating?”
“Oh, you’ve lost every bit of the purity you once had.”
“Why have you become someone who says such nasty things?”
“The old you was beautiful.”
Tabe took Kin’s silver pipe and tried smoking it.
An acridly bitter taste spread across his tongue.
Tabe took out a handkerchief and spat out the resin.
“It’s clogged because you never clean it.”

Kin laughed as she took up the pipe and shook it forcefully in short bursts over the scrap paper.
Tabe contemplated Kin’s lifestyle with curiosity.
It meant none of society’s harshness had left its mark.
A lifestyle that could somehow manage two or three hundred thousand yen.
Though Tabe felt no lingering attachment to Kin’s body, he found himself clinging to the richness of her life hidden beneath this existence.
After returning from the war, he’d tried starting a business through sheer audacity alone, but the capital from his brother had been completely exhausted within half a year—he’d also gotten involved with a woman besides his wife, one who would soon bear his child.
He had come to Kin’s place remembering her former self and clinging to some faint hope, but she no longer possessed that single-minded devotion of old—she had grown strangely prudent.
Even in this long-awaited reunion with Tabe, she remained utterly unresponsive.
Her unyielding posture and composed expression made her seem utterly unapproachable to him.
Once more, Tabe took Kin’s hand and gripped it tightly.
Kin simply allowed it to happen.
She didn’t lean toward the brazier, picking at the pipe’s resin with one hand.

The long years they’d been weathered by had folded complex emotions into each other’s hearts. To such an extent had they both aged in parallel that the nostalgia of those days would never return. They remained silent, comparing their present selves. They had sunk into a ring of disillusionment. Their meeting was fraught with complex weariness. Not a shred of novelistic coincidence existed in this reality—novels might be far sweeter. Such were life’s nuanced truths. They were meeting here for no other reason than to reject each other. Tabe even fantasized about killing Kin. Yet when he considered that even killing such a woman would make him a criminal, a strange sensation came over him. Even if he killed one or two women no one would notice—thinking it meaningless—the moment he imagined becoming a criminal, the notion turned utterly absurd. Though he saw her as an old woman no better than a bug, she lived here unperturbed by anything. Those two chests must be packed tight with kimonos made over fifty years. She’d once shown him a bracelet from some Frenchman named Michel—she undoubtedly still possessed such jewels. This house too must surely be hers. Even as he indulged fantasies that killing one such woman—a keeper of mute maids—would hardly matter, Tabe found himself fixated on her, the memory of their wartime trysts during his student days now radiating a suffocating freshness through him. Whether from lingering drunkenness or not, Kin’s visage before him began seeping into his skin with uncanny numbness. Though he had no intention of touching her, the past they shared took on substance and cast its shadow upon his heart.

Kin stood up and retrieved a photograph of Tabe from his student days from the closet.
“Well now, what an odd thing to have kept.”
“Yes, it was at Sumiko’s place.”
“I brought it back—this one’s from before we met.”
“You back then were quite the nobleman.”
“Why not take this indigo kasuri one? You should keep it. It would do nicely to show your wife.”
“Lovely, isn’t it?”
“Hardly seems like something a vulgar man would possess.”
“There really was such a time, eh?”
“Yes, there was.”
“Had you kept growing straight like this all along, Mr. Tabe might’ve amounted to something grand.”
“So you’re saying I grew crooked?”
“Yes.” “Well that’s your doing—and there was that long war too.”
“Oh now, that’s stretching for excuses.”
“Such things can’t serve as reasons.”
“You’ve become so terribly common...”
“Huh... Common.”
“That’s human nature for you.”
“But doesn’t my pure heart—carrying this photo all these years—count for something?”
“Must hold some nostalgic value.”

“You never gave one to me, did you?”
“My photo?”
“Yeah.” “Photos frighten me.”
“But didn’t I send you photos from my geisha days during the war?”
“You must’ve gone and misplaced them somewhere…”
“There, you see?”
“I’m the far purer one.”

The arrangement around the long brazier showed no sign of collapsing.
Tabe had become completely drunk.
The glass before Kin remained more than half full, its initial pour untouched.
Tabe gulped down cold tea and carelessly placed his photograph on the wooden board.
“Will you manage the train?”
“I can’t go back.
You’d really throw out a drunk in this state?”
“Yes—fling you right out.
This is a woman’s house, and neighbors talk.”
“Neighbors?
Never figured you for caring.”
“I do care.”
“Expecting your patron?”
“Oh!
How vile you are, Mr. Tabe! You make me shiver!”
“I detest you saying such things!”
“Come now.
Without money, I can’t return for days.
Might you let me stay here...”
Kin propped her cheeks in both hands and stared wide-eyed at Tabe’s pallid lips.

Even a hundred years of passion must finally cool to nothing. Silently, she scrutinized the man before her. The vibrant hues that once colored their hearts had long since faded from both of them. There remained not a trace of the shyness that had marked the man in his youth. She felt like handing him a cash gift just to make him leave. But Kin found it distasteful to give even a single coin to the man sloppily drunk before her eyes. It would be better to give it to some naive man instead. There was nothing more unpleasant than a man without self-respect.

The naive sincerity of men who had been infatuated with her—Kin had experienced this countless times. Kin had been drawn to that naive sincerity in such men and had even considered it noble. She had no interest except in choosing an ideal partner. Kin thought to herself that Tabe had sunk to being a worthless man. The sheer luck of having returned without dying in the war made Kin feel it was fate. The hardship of chasing Tabe all the way to Hiroshima alone should have been reason enough to close the curtain on this man long ago, she thought.
“What are you gawking at my face for?”
“Oh my, but you’ve been gawking at me this whole time—were you thinking something pleasant?”
“No—I’ve just been captivated by how beautiful Kin-san looks every time we meet...”
“Yes, I... I feel the same way.”
“I thought Mr. Tabe had become so impressive...”
“That’s paradoxical.”
Tabe suppressed with force the words that had nearly escaped his lips—that he’d been fantasizing about murder—and retreated into calling it a paradox.
“You’re just entering your prime as a man—how enjoyable that must be.”
“You’re not exactly past your prime either.”
“Me?”
“I’m already done for.”
“I’ll just keep withering away like this.”
“In two or three years, I want to move to the countryside.”
“So that was a lie about living until you’re falling apart and cheating?”

“Oh, I never said such a thing.”
“I’m the kind of woman who lives on memories.”
“Just that.”
“Let’s be good friends, shall we?”
“You’re running away, aren’t you?”
“Don’t go saying schoolgirl things like that.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Memories and such don’t matter at all.”
“Do you think so…? But you were the one who suggested going to Shibamata.”
Tabe once again shook his knees restlessly and impatiently.
I want money.
Money.
By any means—even just 50,000 yen—he wanted to borrow from Kin.
“Can’t you really manage it?”
“Even if I put up my shop as collateral—no good?”
“Oh, must we discuss money again?”
“It’s no use saying such things to me.”
“I don’t have a single penny.”
“I don’t know any such wealthy people—isn’t money just something that seems to exist but doesn’t?”
“I’m the one who should be borrowing from you...”

“If things go well, I’ll bring you plenty, you know—”
“You’re an unforgettable woman, after all...”
“That’s enough of such flattery… Didn’t I say we wouldn’t discuss money?”

With a sudden whoosh of watery autumn night wind sweeping through the surroundings, Tabe gripped the fire tongs from the long brazier. For an instant, a fierce anger crawled across his brow. Toward a shadow that seemed mysteriously alluring, Tabe tightened his grip on the fire tongs. A thunderous rumble like lightning pounded through his chest. He was roused by the pounding. Kin stared at Tabe’s hands with uneasy eyes. At some point, she felt as though seeing a double exposure—that such a scene had once surrounded her. “You’re drunk, you know—you should stay over…” When told “You should stay over,” Tabe abruptly released his grip on the fire tongs. Extremely drunk—or perhaps pretending to be—Tabe staggered off toward the toilet. Kin received a premonition from Tabe’s retreating figure and snorted derisively in her heart. This war had completely transformed the inner landscape of every human being. Kin took a Hiropon pill from the tea shelf and swallowed it swiftly. The whiskey still had about a third left. I’ll make him drink all of this, have him sleep like a log, and send him packing tomorrow. She alone couldn’t sleep. Onto the blue flames of the well-kindled brazier, she fed a photograph of Tabe from his youth. Thick, billowing smoke rose. The smell of burning things filled the air. The maid Kinu peeked through the slightly open sliding door.

Kin laughed and gestured instructions to lay out a futon in the guest room. To eliminate the smell of burning paper, Kin placed a thinly sliced piece of cheese into the fire. “Whoa, what are you burning?” Tabe returned from the toilet, placed his hand on the maid’s ample shoulder, and peered through the sliding door. “I wondered how cheese would taste if grilled, so I picked it up with fire tongs, but it fell right into the flames.” Within the white smoke, a straight column of black smoke rose smoothly. The electric lamp’s round glass shade looked like a moon floating among clouds. The smell of burning fat clung to the nose. Kin, choking on the smoke, violently threw open the surrounding shoji screens and sliding doors.

("Bessatsu Bungei Shunju"
(Bessatsu Bungei Shunju, November 1948 issue)