Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

When Haruyo came to the entrance of Gekuhaku—a café operated by a Kansai sake brewer—she felt a flicker of apprehension at now standing on this unfamiliar professional front.
At that time, several large-scale cafés from Kansai—unabashedly gaudy in their style—had staked their claim in Ginza.
Among the waitresses, star-caliber ones who could rival film actresses had emerged, filling the entertainment sections of magazines and newspapers.
The lingering effects of the post-Great War economic boom and post-earthquake recovery sentiment had temporarily fostered an era-appropriate world of indulgence, but by the time Haruyo resolved to work in Ginza, cafés were better described as being past their prime.
Her marriage of nearly four years teetered on complete collapse when even Haruyo’s resolve—clinging desperately to that final threshold—had already been permeated by the trials of maintaining a household.

When she stood at the narrow alley’s back entrance, there was a slender two-step staircase, a kitchen door beside it reeking of choking coal and oil fumes, and on this side—a sloppily disheveled tatami-matted waitresses’ lounge where early-shift waitresses were visible. One of them approached, scrutinizing Haruyo’s appearance before guiding her to the second-floor office.

Haruyo hadn’t specifically chosen Gekuhaku as her new workplace when seeking employment.
After her business had been completely burned down in the earthquake disaster—leaving her to abandon the trade and live modestly with her mother while relying on occasional stipends from a man in Kabutochō she’d long been connected to—Haruyo’s old business associate Kaoru had taken up work at a café in Asakusa. Since Kaoru already knew something of that world’s ways, Haruyo reasoned that if she were to enter such work anyway, a first-rate establishment with higher-class clientele would likely yield better tip income. That was why she’d steeled herself to come job-hunting today.
However, even grand cafés that seemed intimidatingly flashy at first glance made her feel uncertain, but spotting the “Waitress Recruitment” signboard gave her the push she needed to suddenly plunge into Gekuhaku.

Kiyama had ostensibly accepted her café visits in form, but in truth, there had been no question of acceptance or refusal—it simply was. To think she had leaned on that carefree man all those years—a long-cherished wish fulfilled through unexpected circumstances that now, in hindsight, felt like the airy whims of youth. Just as she had finally cleared her debt of roughly two thousand yen over two and a half years—becoming unburdened enough to rent a storefront signboard and debut her business after moving from the hillside residences to the downtown flats—Kiyama began visiting within three days of her grand opening. Unlike the uptown men she’d grown accustomed to—Diet members and judicial officers, headmasters of various schools, nearby landowners or contractors, all middle-aged men of relatively stiff bearing—this son of a teahouse proprietor turned lumber merchant, two years her senior yet refreshingly unpretentious, brought an effortless camaraderie. He invented excuses to take her to plays and movies, collected household items piecemeal at department stores—a sandalwood brazier here, a black-lacquered dining table there—while she, in those early days of domesticity, kept meticulous household accounts unlike her former geisha ledgers, prepared side dishes learned from women’s magazines and radio programs, polished her first-ever home and furnishings. For about a year and a half, this fragile joy persisted—a dream fit for novels or films—even as Kiyama half-heartedly frequented his family’s business.

Moreover, even during that time, Haruyo—who had endured life’s hardships through different struggles—was by no means idling about with Kiyama.

Even Kiyama’s lifestyle—marked by his tendency to wander aimlessly without a care once money filled his pockets—gradually became clear to her. His business methods began weighing on her mind; matters like the origins of his funds occasionally troubled her.

For instance, even funds that absolutely needed repayment to suppliers or main stores—no matter how crucial—once slipped into Kiyama’s pocket would inevitably be spent on indulgences: seeing plays he couldn’t rest without catching thrice monthly, barging into local-class teahouses around Asakusa to flirt with geisha. Having dabbled in nearly every pastime befitting a young man’s diversions, it wasn’t long before even that money could not remain untouched.

II

Ever since her days transitioning from a half-jewel apprentice to a full-fledged geisha in Yonchō, Haruyo had seized every spare moment to haunt the Suitenkūkan Theater where foreign films—chiefly Italian and American—played. Mary Pickford and William S. Hart captivated her, though Francis X. Bushman remained her favorite—all relics of a distant past now. Even after growing close to Kiyama, she maintained her ritual of visiting cinemas with each program rotation. Kiyama too developed a habit of drifting solo between theaters until three playbills might spill from his pockets; he’d later share choice selections with her. Yet having been raised in Kabuki’s world, she found deeper vitality in settling into those hallowed seats—the nostalgic clack of backstage woodblocks resonating more profoundly than any flickering marvel.

Their household was still newly established, but Haruyo too was occasionally invited.
In her late teens, when Haruyo had only just become a woman, she had been made to take a young stockbroker as her patron in the geisha quarters. Though the man already had a wife, his care for her—part of that society’s façade—meant she lacked for nothing in clothes, belongings, or spending money. Yet devoid of anything resembling romantic affection, she had felt a loneliness tinged with humiliation, as though being toyed with. Eventually falling into the hands of a theater-savvy playboy midway through this arrangement—a relationship that persisted even after the earthquake disaster—she came to know Kabuki’s atmosphere and actors’ lives through this. She never exactly disliked the theater, but it failed to restore her spirits as completely as losing herself in silver screens or devouring translated novels.

Back when their household was still newly established and they took joy in walking openly as a couple, there was that time they attended a performance at the Meiji-za Theater. After watching the middle act—*The Hairpin*—and dining on Western cuisine in the restaurant without incident, Haruyo began frequently losing sight of Kiyama once they left the dining hall. When the bell rang to announce the start of the second act—a Kido Okamoto play—she entered the auditorium alone, clutching a souvenir package she’d bought herself, assuming Kiyama would already be waiting in their seats. But he had not yet arrived.
Haruyo wasn’t one to dwell on such matters, so she initially dismissed it as his usual tendency to wander off—but as time dragged on, she began to worry.
Kiyama never appeared during that entire act. Once it became clear he wouldn’t, Haruyo found herself too weary to go searching; she pretended not to care, flipping through her program in her seat until the next curtain rose, letting the plot summaries blur her loneliness.

“Where were you?”

“Well, just a bit…”

After that exchange, neither spoke another word. Yet Kiyama kept regularly procuring theater tickets—always two at a time—and whenever they attended together, Haruyo found it peculiar how these outings invariably coincided with Kagurazaka pleasure quarter gatherings.
Each time, she would notice Kiyama detaching himself to chat in hallways with teahouse maids—among them a middle-aged geisha who appeared familiar with him.
Haruyo had developed a habit of assessing men’s social standing and character in tatami rooms, her professional instincts making her naturally wary of males. Yet she detested probing beyond surface interactions, so unless Kiyama volunteered information herself, she couldn’t bring herself to initiate questioning.
The act felt self-debasing somehow, though she understood any answers would prove futile.
Except when driven to extremes, she maintained silence.
Besides, Kiyama had his own social obligations with young companions—to scrutinize each instance would mean endless vexation.

There was a time when Maki Masao—the son of a certain large wholesaler and particularly close among his four or five friends—was constantly coming to visit the shop and getting engrossed in conversations at the accounts counter.
Maki would sometimes receive financial accommodations and appeared to occasionally borrow lumber.
The two men discussed business matters but also talked about leisure activities, women, and rumors concerning their acquaintances.
That young man already kept a wife but had also redeemed a woman’s contract in Asakusa.
For them, even after marrying or keeping a woman or two, avoiding social gatherings with friends was considered shameful among young men.

“Midori-chan, I have a message for you.”

Maki spoke up just as Haruyo, who had been in the tearoom, rose slightly from her seat.

“There’s something I bought thinking I’d give it to you, Midori-chan.”
“Why don’t you come by soon?”

Haruyo was about to begin preparing dinner in the kitchen but, sensing this might be an invitation to go out, kept her ears sharply attuned.
Though no one had directly spoken of it, the fact that he’d grown familiar with someone in those parts had become something of an open secret—but Haruyo only vaguely imagined it, feeling an unpleasant sensation in her heart without mustering the will to confront him.
After eating the clumsy home-cooked meal Haruyo had prepared, Kiyama—though the season now called for a lined haori over his layered kimono—seemed to have matters he couldn’t discuss in her presence. Likely heading to one of the nearby nightspots popular with young people, be it mahjong parlors or billiard halls, he called out briefly to Haruyo as she tidied up in the kitchen before leaving with his companion.

One night when Kiyama returned home late, he silently placed something thin and angular before Haruyo, who sat by the long brazier. Judging by the wrapping paper, she thought it might be a broker’s half-collar or something of the sort.

“What’s this?”

“Why don’t you open it and see?”
“They said it’s a gift for the missus.”

“Oh? From who?”

“They’ve known you for a while.”

When she opened it, there were two exquisitely embroidered shioze silk half-collars folded inside, but Haruyo, not wanting to be outdone, sent back something slightly finer to Kiyama’s woman acquaintance.

III

The modest shop Kiyama had started with capital from her mother and colleagues’ support collapsed without difficulty.
Against Tokyo’s grueling reconstruction efforts, his loss amounted to mere trifles—yet the wound Kiyama sustained ran deep.
A carpenter acquaintance—who’d rushed in touting lucrative work—brought a proposal: he’d won a contract to build a wholesalers’ complex along Sotokanda’s tram line for woolens, children’s clothes, and buttons, offering Kiyama favorable terms to supply materials.
Before Haruyo’s eyes—she who’d brought tea to the shop—Kiyama clicked his abacus beads while negotiating with the contractor, but everything fell through.
Kiyama’s shed held only scant supplies—American cedar beams, planks, domestic sundries—yet he scoured Tokyo to gather just enough materials, hauling them in three trucks determined to profit this time. But construction stalled midway, and when Kiyama began panicking, the contractor had already vanished.
After consulting headquarters, he shuttered his shop and retreated to his closed-up house.
Though skilled in business—enough that Maki Masao once suggested he join his shop—Kiyama retained young men’s pride.
He couldn’t stomach taking orders now.
Ultimately, he could only assist headquarters while seeking side income.
But Kiyama—now lazy-habituated—struggled to commit to diligent rebuilding.
Curbing night revelries proved hard; even contemplating revival depressed him.
Whether earnings or mother’s indulgence money, any coin reaching his pocket sent him drifting through Asakusa.
Deeming his household beyond salvaging, he kept nothing—yet his playfulness remained intact.
His free spending charmed all.
Mahjong girls and game-hall regulars doted on him; teahouse madams—who booked geisha rooms for Haruyo like family—geisha houses perpetually flower-bedecked, gathered actors, eatery owners, and Oshin of the teahouses all treated him as favored son.

Around that time, Kiyama had been spending time around the area where a woman from Ushigome—whose popularity had temporarily waned—had just secured herself a decent patron, either as a respectable connection or simply an acquaintance in the best sense.
Haruyo had convinced herself he was supposed to attend a contract bid with his colleagues that day—yet come morning, he would knock at the back door or claim he needed to inspect mountains in the countryside with so-and-so, only to disappear into some hideaway for two or three days.
Moreover, it was strange how he would invariably return from city bids with purchases from Marubishi.
Sweets and canned goods, cream and pomade, stockings and shirts—the wrapping paper always bore Marubishi’s name.
He had a notorious sweet tooth; even after retiring to bed at night, he would pull some confection close to his pillow and nibble intermittently—but the glut of Marubishi sweets he hauled back from the Maru Building never looked remotely appealing to Haruyo, who detested sugary things.

One time, when Haruyo went out to buy ingredients for dinner and absentmindedly came up to the kitchen, Maki had come to visit again that day, and the word "Marubishi" repeatedly coming up in their conversation caught her ear.
Haruyo had found it strange for some time, so she listened intently to figure out what Marubishi was about, until she finally realized it was the name of the woman from Ushigome.

How trivial.

Haruyo found it amusing on her own, but she wanted to see that woman’s face.

Before she knew it, the third year’s end had come, and when the new year dawned, Haruyo was already twenty-six.
For her—who could not rest unless she briskly dealt with immediate matters, casting aside distant futures and profound depths without regard for appearances—Kiyama’s psychology remained inscrutable: a man devoid of any notion of “today,” dreaming of some unknown tomorrow. But above all else, it was his affection that had grown suspect.
She had come to understand that his claimed two-year seniority was merely a one-year difference—a young man’s peculiar affectation she could accept—but when walking side by side, he would suddenly turn to her and say, “Feels like I’m walking with my sister,” then awkwardly distance himself in feigned embarrassment. More disquieting still was her unshakable doubt: even if he found charm in her former self who had once taken such care with her appearance, did he now recoil from this present version—toiling dutifully in the kitchen, laundering clothes, meticulously keeping household accounts?

Does that man actually intend to take me along with him like that?

One day Haruyo confided in Kaoru and her parent.
And at that time she heard from Kaoru an outline about café waitresses’ lives.
She had been made to consider her age too—and though resolved not to peddle even her heart’s chastity—her past remained immutable; if she loathed living forever in dim obscurity as some rich man’s mistress or geisha-house drudge, then she had no choice but to count a man like Kiyama as fortunate.
Haruyo had never harbored grand illusions about this marriage.
Back when newly established in her profession without any fixed patron-type man yet—the only son of a Tohoku landowner from Mita began diligently visiting her then—Haruyo had been called Haruko at that time—free from mercenary concerns and buoyed by some elated feeling—she had pinned her youthful dreams on this promised marriage.
But unbeknownst to her—his rural family having already advanced separate marriage arrangements—after he brought in one trunk crammed tight with stock certificates and cash—holing up in their usual house’s second-floor parlor—his widowed mother and clerk came chasing after—tearing them apart—shattering those half-year-long dreams into fragments.
At that time Haruyo had felt like a spirit cast from its shell—so much so that were it not for her parents and many younger sisters whom she was responsible for—she surely would have died then.
If Haruyo retained any memory of love worth recalling—that one might have been among the least tainted—yet even after long years in the trade had trampled her sentiments underfoot—some vestige still seemed to linger faintly in her breast.

Haruyo could not avoid hearing the rumors spread by Kiyama’s cousin’s wife—a former waitress herself—who claimed Kiyama had gone astray because he married her; at times she even reconsidered whether my way of handling things was poor—but more than that, being favored by her mother who gave her seasonal kimonos and sandals and half-collars while secretly slipping her spending money behind Kiyama’s back made Haruyo determined not to expose their tattered circumstances to others.

Then, on New Year’s Eve, Kiyama went out to collect payments from that morning—no matter what happened, he was supposed to bring back two thousand yen.
Kiyama never spoke of business matters at all, and Haruyo did not try to listen. But now that such topics occasionally arose between them these days, she had come to grasp some semblance of their logic.
Whether it was two thousand or three thousand yen, it would all be taken for payments to creditors and the main store—the amount that actually reached them was predictably meager.
She had thought that even gathering a thousand yen would count as decent enough.

Haruyo was making preparations to welcome spring amidst anxiety and haste, uncertain whether they would even make it through the year. Her father and sisters came to help. They cleaned the Shinto altar and Buddhist altar bought for the first time this year at the end-of-year market, replaced the burdock-fiber festoons, and placed fresh flowers.

“I’m turning twenty-six already?”

While serving New Year’s Eve soba to her father and sister, Haruyo mocked herself in Kansai dialect.

Her father had received a slightly larger bonus from the lumber mill, so he’d splurged on year-end gifts—but having been horse-crazy since his youth, he got along famously with Kiyama, who loved horse racing. Her father had unexpectedly run into Kiyama at the Nakayama races that autumn, told him their meeting here must remain absolutely secret from Haruyo, and given him fifty yen. While talking about such things, her father had been in high spirits, but when a demand arrived from the neighboring landlord for two months’ worth of accumulated rent, he abruptly lost interest and, urging her sister along, went home.

In the frog-mouth purse tucked into Haruyo’s obi, no money remained.
She had somehow managed the small payments for the radio, newspaper, electricity, gas, and fuel, but with guests coming for New Year’s visits tomorrow, those preparations were also necessary.
She had occasionally resorted to her former geisha attire and obi but had done her utmost to prevent that.
Kiyama, who had been counting on those resources, complained resentfully, so Haruyo reproached him for his lack of backbone—until it recently erupted into a full-blown marital fight.

Kiyama, provoked by Haruyo’s increasingly heated retorts, suddenly raised his hand.

Haruyo felt it was ultimately hopeless—and that too became a major rift between them.

As the night deepened, Haruyo grew increasingly worried.
Every time a bicycle bell rang, she pricked up her ears, but even when the New Year’s Eve bells began tolling, Kiyama did not return.
Haruyo could no longer stay still.
Amidst all this, Kiyama had once gone out wearing his Asahi shoes, offering some flimsy excuse about colleagues needing to visit the mountains—only to apparently forget them at the teahouse. He kept promising to send a postcard about the shoes left at the inn, but nothing ever came of it. Yet when she thought about it, there remained something oddly endearing about him.
Haruyo hadn’t meant to rely on her father’s bonus, but considering her long sacrifices, she thought borrowing a little for this night wouldn’t hurt. After locking up and leaving home, she found herself smiling alone as she recalled Kiyama’s guilelessness along the way.

"If only we had money, we wouldn't be so unhappy."

While dangling from the train's crowded straps, Haruyo thought deeply.
It wasn't even such a grand desire.
If she could manage the monthly payments properly and have enough margin to watch movies or take trips two or three times a month in unburdened spirits, that would have been sufficient.

When she arrived at the house in Kinshicho, the door was closed and everyone was asleep, but her mother got up for her.
Her mother stirred up the fire in the long brazier,

“What’s wrong with you, coming here so late….”

Father lay facing away, asleep beside her.

During her time working—with many ailing sisters needing care—Haruyo had contributed between one hundred and one hundred fifty yen each month. Yet even asking for ten yen now felt impossibly difficult.

She didn’t want to speak of trifling matters.

“Mother, I’m sorry to ask—could I borrow about twenty yen?”

Mother made a displeased face.
And while making some tedious excuses, she finally handed over only half.

Something cold ran down her spine. Haruyo felt a flare of irritation but couldn’t bring herself to push it away.

Since Kiyama asked what had happened, Haruyo didn’t want to hear it, but she told him everything without hiding.

“You’re quite the carefree one yourself, aren’t you? Do you even realize what time it is now?”

Haruyo was beside herself with worry and hurried back to check, but he still hadn’t returned.
Haruyo felt her mind was about to snap.
And after adding the remaining twenty yen from her frog-mouth purse to the rent deposit, she went three stops ahead, entered an automatic telephone booth, and tried calling Kiyama’s mother’s Hikite Teahouse.

“He hasn’t come back since then.”

The mother answered，but Haruyo couldn't determine when exactly “since then” referred to．

“He's such a problem，isn't he？Even though it's already New Year's morning，where on earth could he be wandering？”

Haruyo tried calling an acquaintance's teahouse too, but while talking with Oshin, she suddenly realized which establishment it must be.
This was a geisha house Haruyo herself had once visited for entertainment, but the gambling games that started there were, so to speak, affairs meant for semi-professional circles where amateurs couldn't participate.
It had been customary for Oshin and the master to join in too, but when the tide turned against them, they'd excuse themselves from their seats claiming fatigue and move to collect the house cut—that was their usual pattern.

Haruyo could bear it no longer and hastily hailed an en-taku taxi. As everyone egged him on, she could vividly see Kiyama’s face—flashing wads of cash—before her eyes.

After alighting from the car and stepping into a quiet neighborhood where rows of delicate electric lights protruded from eaves, memories from around her wedding time came rushing back inescapably. It felt like wanting to cry but being unable to shed tears.

Having observed the marked house’s movements for some time, when she slid open the lattice door, there sat Oshin by the elongated brazier—a woman in her forties with a pallid forehead, thick brows, and large eyes—wearing a faintly perplexed expression.

“Hasn’t my husband come?”

Haruyo was breathing heavily.

"He’s upstairs, but they told me to pretend Haru-chan hasn’t come even if she does."

"This should do."

Haruyo touched her finger to the tip of her nose and already went upstairs.

"Since I’ll get blamed later, I’ll act like I wasn’t here—you go on up."

When she climbed to the second floor, sharp snapping sounds and muffled voices hung in the back four-and-a-half-tatami room.
When she slid open the fusuma door, four men sat circled on the floor.
Bowls of rice, sushi clusters, and mandarin peels lay scattered about while smoke hung thick.
Haruyo wedged herself in beside Kiyama, who gave her a strained smile.

Because she thought that making sarcastic remarks here wouldn’t lead to a fight, Haruyo resorted to her characteristic all-or-nothing tactic.

“I want in.”

As Haruyo spoke, the former houkan-turned-master raised his head.

“You’re joining in too?”

“I can’t match you all, but I know the game well enough.”

Kiyama had been resting just then, but
“Quit it. Two players means double losses.”

“How’s your luck?”

“Tonight’s cursed.”
“Can’t catch a decent hand.”

Even Kiyama looked thoroughly beaten.

“Midori-chan’s luck’s run cold tonight, eh?”
“Bound to turn soon.”
“Besides, when a woman joins the table once, the whole flow shifts.”
“Haru-chan—back him up and win it back.”

Haruyo wasn't even angry.
If Kiyama would keep grinding through losses, then she'd harden her defiance and start drawing cards with reckless abandon—that was the resolve she'd mustered.

Opposite Kiyama, Haruyo immediately took her seat.
At first she thought he might have lost two or three hundred yen, but Kiyama's dejected manner suggested it went far beyond that.

Haruyo kept fighting without pause, never looking at her hands.
Of course every time she played a hand, she lost.
Kiyama too lost whenever he played, until his discouragement became complete.

“I’m done.”
“Hey, let’s go home.”

Kiyama urged Haruyo.

“Fine. Since we’re on a losing streak anyway, why not lose big?”

Kiyama contorted his face into a grimace of anguish, but Haruyo remained oddly cheerful.
As everyone stared at Haruyo in stunned silence, an eerie hush fell over the room.
Some tried to intervene as she grew more reckless.
Haruyo meekly tossed down her chips.

When they settled accounts, Kiyama’s once-plump wallet lay nearly empty.

In the end, it was after three o'clock had struck that the two of them finally left together.
Haruyo thought asking how much had been gathered or how much had been lost would be pointless, so she didn't even broach the subject.
Kiyama, upon returning home, immediately covered himself with the futon without saying a word and went to sleep.

IV

The way to write bills, how to handle customers, the names of various Western liquors and dishes—for a day or two, the experienced waitresses taught her these things and even let her slot into shifts.

When she actually started working, the absence of old customs left her feeling unmoored, yet the lack of hierarchical figures like employers, branch managers such as Oshin, or housemaids—common in that former world—undeniably marked this new profession’s freedom. Still, for someone who had always worked within fixed routines, this very freedom proved taxing.
Of course, even now, there remained aspects of that former world’s atmosphere she couldn’t fully grow accustomed to, and to conform to the mold of this business, she had to suppress herself considerably.
Above all, having to soil her body was painful.
Even when she tried to close her eyes and think of it as business, there were things she couldn’t fully shut out.
No matter how frantically she scrubbed, it felt as if an indelible stain of defilement had seeped into her very being.
She thought that just being freed from that thought would be a relief, but seeing things like tip distributions felt somehow vulgar, and the blatant directness with which chastity was bargained over didn’t sit well with her either.

Since she was older than anyone else and her perspective on the world—broadened through customer interactions—was relatively wide; though lacking what one might call formal education, her harsh experiences had given her a discerning eye for men, and combined with her unclouded disposition, she quickly came to be respected by her colleagues.
She learned hairstyling techniques along with how to apply rouge and eyeshadow, managing to adopt the typical waitress look, yet there remained something about this place’s atmosphere she couldn’t quite reconcile herself to.

A teacher-trained intellectual who had fled to Tokyo after her marriage collapsed, now tormented by the expenses of her alimony lawsuit; an eighteen-year-old girl who had come to the city spurning marriage to seek some idealized world within its modern currents, only to guzzle herself into oblivion each night from advanced tuberculosis; a woman from Hokkaido who always stepped forward with an “Okay” to handle any erotic negotiations—and so on.

Haruyo made a habit of returning home by car with Kitayama Shizue—a beautiful woman who would ask her to join customers invited to back-alley oden shops in Ginza or treated to sushi. But when acting as backup for young colleagues being eyed by patrons, she once drove to Hakone in groups of two or three. She grew concerned about leaving home unattended, and before dawn had broken, they all returned after abandoning two thoroughly drunken customers—yet the carefree Kiyama lay fast asleep without even locking the doors.
Haruyo felt a shadow of unease lingering in her chest as she cleared the scattered items from the dining table and set to cooking as usual, but Kiyama—roused by the clatter—merely listened to her account of the previous night with noncommittal “Hmm, hmms,” offering none of the engagement she’d hoped for.

They had even ventured into Yoshiwara as a group.
After eating rice gruel at Suzuran, they had pushed their way into the brothel, but while listening to the courtesan’s personal stories in her room, night had deepened before they knew it. Around three in the morning, Haruyo slipped out quietly, roused Oshin from the teahouse, and stayed there for the night—which was how her mother discovered she was working at the café.

“That was rather careless of you.”

Kiyama, the show-off, had come to feel inwardly ashamed of Haruyo’s café visits—that much had become clear—but more than that, ever since Haruyo had begun working in Ginza, his inertial playboy habits had only grown more pronounced—there was no avoiding it.
It could be seen as stemming from his timidity in being unable to fill his empty hours—yet one couldn’t deny it might also be interpreted as the ease of liberation from marital gloom and weariness.

Haruyo visited the room of one of her colleagues, Yose Fumiko—who, though nothing serious, had a stockbroker’s clerk as a patron and lived in an apartment in Kobikicho.
The room was decorated with dolls, toys, a small three-panel mirror, an ornate cushion, and a dainty tea cabinet arranged neatly, and Haruyo thought its charming little love nest somewhat appealing—but more than that, she found unamusing the sight of how, when the hour came, the man would usually arrive, order just a salad and beer, and always leave together with her.

“Come over sometime.”

Even if she had said it, the easily flustered Kiyama would never have come to that neighborhood anyway—and she no longer harbored such naive expectations.

One evening, because Haruyo had a stomachache, she asked a colleague and returned home about an hour early.
The stomach pain had begun to subside midway, but she thought that wasn’t so bad once in a while.
Haruyo was especially well-liked by the cook and bartender—when she drank the whiskey the bartender gave her for stomachaches caused by chills, it would subside immediately—but that day, perhaps because of the fried shrimp or fish she’d eaten at lunch, the whiskey’s effect remained faint.
Matsuyama the cook had a face that at first glance seemed refined in the Franchette Tone style, but his touch carried a roughness, and he was prone to giving terrifying glares. However, after Haruyo listened to his heartbreak troubles, a familiarity grew between them, and he would often specially prepare a plate of food for her.
When lunchtime came, the waiter would come to Haruyo’s side.

“Haruyo-san, come last once everyone’s finished eating, will you?”

Being older, Haruyo took particular care to stay on good terms with the bartenders and cooks.

Matsuyama was a man in his mid-thirties with a wife and children, but after such matters became known to the woman, he began making himself scarce.
When Haruyo first started, that woman had still been working at Gekuhaku; they would sometimes chat in secluded corners or commute together, but before long, she had vanished without a trace.

“I thought I’d confront that bastard about his change of heart,” he said, “so I hid a knife and went to his apartment.”
“But that night, he was meeting a man somewhere.”
“I stayed up drinking at his friend’s place and held out until morning, but in the end, he never came back.”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who the man he’s involved with is.”
“He’s a dentist who’s come here two or three times as well.”

“It would be better to stop, don’t you think? Chasing after someone like that won’t do any good. And you have a wife and children, don’t you?”

“Haruyo-san, would even you run away?”

“First of all, I can’t be fooled.”

Though Haruyo had casually resolved the matter, when she thought back, there had once been a man who—unaware she knew he had a wife—had wanted to run off with her all the way to Hokkaido. The man still clung to embezzled funds, but Haruyo too had felt drawn in. Yet something hadn’t sat right with her. When she called from a place he frequented, his wife answered. As Haruyo came to her senses, the man grew increasingly listless. That experience had motivated her recent move—until one day, when she went to inspect a place recommended urgently by an acquaintance, she found that man smirking among five or six local entertainment bosses and contractor types. And that had become another reason she’d rushed into marriage with Kiyama.

That night too, Haruyo quietly wrapped about ten lemons she had received from the bartender in paper and brought them home as a souvenir.
Kiyama was unusually at home, eating boiled adzuki beans beside the brazier.
Kiyama, who loved adzuki beans, often boiled them himself over the gas stove and ate them.

Haruyo brought out the lemons to show him while,

“What did you do all day today?”

“I haven’t been back since spring, so I thought I’d drop by the house for once.”

“Did they say something?
About my working at the café.”

“Haru-chan, they said that since it’s you, there’d be no harm tossing you out anywhere—but it’s not exactly something to praise either.”

Haruyo recalled that March 2nd coincided with the thirteenth memorial of Kiyama's father.
His father had been a cotton wholesaler in Nihonbashi who sent remittances and occasionally visited while alive.
When Kiyama spoke of his father, he seemed nostalgic for those days when he had been taken to sumo matches.
Even when they stayed overnight in Atami with Haruyo in a honeymoon-like mood, that subject came up again.

Because she always relied on her mother’s help, Haruyo had set aside a yen or two at a time from her earnings, intending them as an offering for the twenty-sixth’s memorial service. She had put that into a small Hakone-zaiku box and placed it on the household altar so Kiyama wouldn’t notice, but thinking it was about time,

“I thought I’d tell you once it reached thirty yen.”
“It should have reached that amount by now.”
“Shall we open it and see?”

However, Kiyama remained expressionless.
Haruyo, thinking this odd, stood up to take down the box and look inside—only to find it empty.

“What’s wrong with that?”
“I’ll put it back with interest later.”

Haruyo felt disappointment wash over her, yet Kiyama too sat slumped in defeat.

Five

One day, Haruyo was asked by Shizue to accompany two guests who appeared to be shop managers from Shinagawa-suji to see a revue at the Enbujo Theater, but on the way back, heavy snow began falling.
At some point Shizue had started being followed; though she wanted to see the revue, she worried about going alone.
Before the final curtain fell on the climactic act, Shizue deftly entrusted matters to Haruyo and slipped away, leaving Haruyo struggling mightily to handle the two men.
When she finally fled as far as the tram line and caught a taxi that came skidding to her feet, her umbrella had been crushed into a tangled mess and her navy camel-hair coat soaked through.
Haruyo contracted pneumonia that very night.

However, it wasn’t as grave as that life-threatening illness she had encountered at nineteen—though this pneumonia, easily triggered by colds, lingered—after lying in bed for about a week, she had completely recovered.
On a glorious day that made even that capricious snowstorm seem forgettable, Haruyo had already risen from her sickbed—she unpinned her flattened hair and even went to the baths.
Then in the afternoon, resolved to return the money Kiyama had left with her that morning to Wakadake, she carried the Fujiya sweets Shizue had specially brought as a get-well gift and stepped outside for the first time in ages.
At Wakadake lived a child who had grown deeply attached to Haruyo and her husband.

The amount was less than fifty yen—money from a temporary loan Haruyo had taken out with Oshin at Wakadake to cover a friend’s expenses temporarily, which had now been repaid.

“It doesn’t have to be today.”

Kiyama had said this, but she wanted to return what needed returning before it got misused.

After getting off the streetcar at Kaminarimon and selecting a return gift for Shizue—who favored downtown tastes—at Ginkado in Nakamise, two familiar apprentice geishas approached and called out to her.

“Your husband came last night.”

One of them said.

“Who’s this ‘your husband’ you’re talking about?”
“Oh come now—your husband.”
“Where?”
“Wakadake.”

Oshin’s child even chattered out the names of the four or five older sisters who had been summoned.

Haruyo was disheartened, but she couldn’t help but marvel at how he still managed to scrape together money for his indulgences.

After settling the bill at Wakadake, she entered the Brazil Coffee café, sat in a corner booth, and while drinking lemonade, sank into thought for some time.
From the autumn she turned twenty-five until today—the nearly four years she had poured out her pure devotion—there was no way to take any of it back.

Haruyo had been in that world until now, having both seen and heard the fates of various people.
There were those who returned from places like Harbin reduced to mere bones, and those whose color and scent had faded completely, crawling through people’s kitchens.
There were not a few women who vanished without a trace, buried away who knows where or how.

On her way back，Haruyo stopped by her parents’ home and tried confiding in her mother．

“That man… I can’t help but feel there’s no future with him．”
“I even think it might be better to just separate… but…”

“If Haru-chan feels that way, then instead of a complete separation, trying a temporary split might actually be for Midori-san’s sake.”

Haruyo felt a faint antipathy toward her mother’s words, but she could not dismiss it.
In essence, it had been settled by that.

“I’ll just go back and see.”

Having said that, Haruyo returned home intending to hear what Kiyama had to say, but even when night fell, he did not come back.

Suddenly, the sound of a truck resounded, and soon it came to a stop in front.
The impatient voice of Father also sounded.
Haruyo was startled but did not give chase.

“Haruyo, is your luggage ready?”

Father, wearing work clothes and a hunting cap, stomped up to the living room.

“That man still hasn’t come back.”

“Fine.”
“There’s no need to inform Kiyama when taking your things out.”

Father and the mover abruptly began packing.
Just as Haruyo was organizing miscellaneous items—a half-collar box, three drawers, a shamisen, and what resembled a practice stand—a shadow fell across the back entrance, and what seemed to be Kiyama’s jacketed figure appeared. But after a single glance inside, he turned back and left.

“Mr. Midori!”

Father called out as if giving chase, but he was already nowhere to be seen on the road.

During those fifth to seventh days, Haruyo waited all the same for Kiyama—who she thought would likely come for her.
Yet Kiyama never appeared.

"I went through with separating—he must have been relieved too."
That was Haruyo’s thought as well.

A considerable time later, persuaded by Kaoru, Haruyo secretly visited her old nest without telling her father or mother.
She entered through the back door into the kitchen.
The dining table lay strewn with bamboo sheaths and scattered dishes.
The floor felt gritty with dust.
When she stepped into the tea room, a padded robe hanging on the wall caught her eye.
It was the one Haruyo had sewn and made him wear that winter.

As she was leaving through the roadside entrance, she encountered the wife of the policeman with whom they had been acquainted.

“Mrs., I heard your mother in Honjo has fallen ill.”
“Is she quite ill?”

The policeman’s wife asked.

“Well, it’s not that serious…”

Haruyo hedged her words and left the roadside with tears in her heart.
Kiyama’s posturing had been absurd enough, but realizing this was where her four years of dreams had been discarded made her think it would have been better not to come at all.

(March 1937)