Pathway to Japanese Literature

Prologue I have various things. Those various things worked diligently to torment me. My eyes saw society and nature, making me sorrowful. My arms and legs did nothing but engage in futile actions, leaving me disheartened. The act of thinking dragged me to terror's abyss, and emotions that blazed fiercely or fell silent only exhausted me.

However, among them all, I realized that only one thing—forgetfulness—had not been tormenting me. Forgetfulness had been keeping me alive. And I had come along that winding path—sometimes dashing recklessly forward, other times trudging along with my head down. And yet, suddenly today, I turned to look back. Why was that? From within the hazy smoke that filled everything, I was seized by an impulse I couldn’t resist—to find the path I had deliberately traced here. In other words, I am trying to summon back memories. I am trying to discard forgetfulness itself. Even though I can't go on living if I lose forgetfulness.

I did not miss the moment when the character for death flashed through my mind. I have often heard people say that when you board a plane and are about to self-destruct, all your past memories come rushing back in a torrent in that single moment. I am not currently facing death. Yet my sudden, spasmodic turn—though it intuited death, something vague like fate—clenched my chest tightly.

I gradually began recalling things more vividly. A mischievous girl emerged abruptly within the gray. That was me. My backdrop was gray. While dreaming of a rose-colored life, I ended up reaching twenty with everything inevitably turning gray. Before that oppressive backdrop, I began watching as the girl struck one pretentious pose after another. The curtain had already risen.

Chapter One

The boy, the girl, and then the baby who was born next were named Sumiko. The plump, large-featured baby—perhaps thinking her given name didn’t suit her—began calling herself Bobi in broken speech, and accordingly, the adults too came to call her Bobi-chan. The three-year-old me who always kept my right thumb in my mouth was that Bobi. In the Meiji era, the blood of a Satsuma merchant who rapidly rose to prominence and the blood of an impoverished noble who governed a small domain constructed my body.

At that time, my father served as an executive at the industrial company founded by my great-grandfather, and my mother was a refined and fastidious woman from Edo, so my swaddling clothes were always kept clean and smooth, it seems. Moreover, since my mother loved going out—and with a wet nurse devoted solely to me who cared for me all day—my bibs with their beautiful embroidered patterns must have been constantly changed. The wet nurse was plump with pure white skin. Both breasts hung heavily, and as I sucked on the fingers of my right hand, I would fiddle with the soft warmth of her left breast with my free hand. Even at night when I slept, my parents never stayed by my side—I would press my face between the wet nurse's breasts and sleep there.

Around that time, they rented a villa on the coast of Kii Province for my brother, who had been weak since birth. My brother, sister, me, the younger brother born soon after, the wet nurse, and the maid came to live at the seaside villa. At the edge of a pure white, wide beach stood a tall single-story house on a rocky cliff, and there I would listen to the sound of the waves day and night. During the day, that sound of the waves served as a diversion from boredom and sometimes evoked various dreams, but when I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night, it seemed like the terrifying voice of a demon. At such times, I would start sobbing quietly and press my ear against my wet nurse’s breast.

The fine white sand filled me with inexplicable joy. I walked barefoot along the water's edge with splashing steps. And immediately, those footprints would be erased by the waves. No matter how slowly I pressed my footprints into the sand, they would vanish without trace under the waves' caress. Determined that today's imprints would endure, repeating this futile wish until boredom overcame me, I turned to collecting fish and shells instead, gathering oddly shaped pebbles from between tidal rocks. These treasures were meticulously arranged along hallways or tucked into empty sweet boxes.

Every morning at five o'clock, the conch shell sounded. We would dangle from the maid's hands and go to where the conch shell was sounding. The fishermen returned from the sea, and there would be an auction for their catch. I liked that fishy air. There was a large platform where gruff-voiced men wrote something with chalk on bamboo spatulas, flipping them over or opening them. In the midst of that roughness, I watched the quivering fish without any particular sympathy. Bright red blood dripped down. Scales like their own fingernails flew off. The fish I particularly liked was the octopus. I would always bring my hand to those round suction cups and become fascinated by how my tiny fingers were pulled so strongly. I would make each finger stick one by one to the many holes. While I was doing this, I would get scolded for being in the way. However, toward the fishermen with their thick bellies wrapped in bulky knitted belly bands and wearing black long boots, I felt a closeness greater than family.

Every day, I would pick out new fish—choosing ones I deemed good or liked—and take them back home. That was one of my morning tasks. When I returned home, bean porridge would be simmering. I later learned that this was done in accordance with local customs—mixing shade-dried small beans and their leaves into the porridge as it simmered—and that pickles and miso soup were always served alongside it. There was a small bowl with a balloon design, and I dearly loved it.

During the day, I would also catch dragonflies and frogs in the fields. I would pinch dragonfly wings between my fingers, and when both hands were full, release them high into the sky. And then I would repeat it all over again. Of course, since I couldn’t catch dragonflies by myself, I had the country boys and local women catch them for me, and clomping along in straw sandals, I walked the rice paddy paths among my brothers.

I never felt the slightest bit lonely being separated from my parents. Amidst those country people's simple emotions, I grew up freely and unrestrained.

However, due to their parents’ opinion that country living contributed nothing to education, the siblings—alongside their older brother, who had grown considerably healthier—were taken back to the city. The seaside villa was now rented only for the summer months.

Returning to my parents, from that day on, I was subjected to strict discipline by Mother. I suddenly grew timid and developed a cowardly disposition. While my siblings adapted relatively quickly to city life and became well-mannered, I remained hopelessly nostalgic for country living, finding the crowds and noise utterly unbearable. Mother felt ashamed of my provincial ways. I was forced to attend kindergarten. The teacher there proved stricter than Mother. Disliking prayers, I would be locked in small rooms or cast out into the garden. Though I often cried at first, I eventually came to wear this punishment like a badge of honor—calmly playing marbles or cat's cradle in dim locked rooms, or scaling garden walls to escape back home. Then Mother would shove me into the storehouse. I'd sit on the cold floor for hours refusing to apologize.

Because the kindergarten administered excessively harsh punishments, my wet nurse said I was pitiful, argued with Mother, and finally managed to have me withdrawn from kindergarten. Mother abandoned me to my own devices.

I didn’t particularly feel any desire to cling to Mother; rather, I was glad to have been left to my own devices. Even haphazardly looking through books became something I could do starting from my third self. Running down the hallway was something I managed to accomplish. I would even lie down in places I was told not to enter—Father’s study and the guest rooms. Having regained my energy, I took pleasure in causing incidents at every turn. Was it from around that time that an ordinary, monotonous life became unbearable pain?

I would climb up onto chairs, touch the stone statues on the mantelpiece, and try to go up and down the stairs without holding the handrail. However, since I lacked tenacious persistence, as soon as I couldn't do something, I immediately moved on to something else. But such a life did not last long. This was because I resented adults from the bottom of my heart, and a wariness arose that I would never let myself be fooled again. From that day on, I became a sullen and gloomy child.

One day—I believe it was certainly sunny—. Led by the hand by Mother and the maid, I was made to accompany them shopping for the first time at K Department Store. I curiously looked at all sorts of shapes and colors. I didn't know what Mother had bought，but before long I found myself accompanying her to the fabric department. And then，right before my eyes，a large mannequin was spinning around and around. I was completely captivated by it and stood stock-still before it. The maid was by my side，and Mother had gone off to do some shopping there again and returned，but I absolutely refused to leave the mannequin. Even when urged，“Come on，let’s go home，”I stubbornly refused，insisting，“No! I’m taking that home!” In the end，I burst into tears and kept shouting that I wanted that. Mother was at her wit’s end，and the manager，rubbing his hands together，tried to appease me by offering other toys. “But I absolutely want that mannequin，”I insisted. “If we take her to the mannequin room，she’ll surely get scared and change her mind，”Mother requested the manager，and I entered that dim room. There were ones with necks torn off and limbs scattered apart，lined up in various sizes—ladies，children，and all sorts. I did not go according to the adults’ plan. I grew increasingly attached to its eerie body，and this time clung to the naked woman in that warehouse，refusing to let go. The mannequin had a stiff expression and slender limbs，and though its feet felt cold against my cheeks，I found myself inexplicably and intensely drawn to it. Mother must have been ashamed of my abnormal behavior. Crying out，I was forcibly dragged out of the department store by Mother and the maid，my hands pulled in both directions. Even after boarding the train，to me who wouldn’t stop crying，

“We’ll have Papa buy you a souvenir from Tokyo.” Mother said in a gentle voice.

I finally secured a firm promise and counted down the days on my fingers until Father’s return from his business trip to Tokyo exactly one week later. Father went on business trips to Tokyo about once a month. And without fail, he would buy each of us siblings a book as a gift. Because the laissez-faire approach continued for my sake, my younger brother was able to freely read and look at anything, becoming familiar with books from the age of four. Even though it was because of me that he was treated as a genius and called a prodigy, I often felt deeply inferior because of it.

To meet Father—as his business trips at that time always arrived via the Tsubame express with its white line on Sunday mornings—Mother and the children went by car to pick him up. I waited on the platform with my heart pounding, imagining I would sleep with that large mannequin every night. However, Father carried nothing but his leather briefcase.

“Papa, where’s the doll?” I asked without even first saying “Welcome home.”

“It’s in here. We’ll open it once we get home.”

I was certain its limbs could be taken apart and neatly packed inside the leather suitcase; suppressing my racing heart, I returned home. When Father opened the briefcase, my siblings all peered inside at once. My brother, who hated reading, accepted his package with a look that said, “Another book?” My older sister received a beautiful English comic book. But to me was handed a square box. It was about the size that could only fit just the head of that doll. Even so, clinging to faint hope, I unwrapped the package. Inside lay an ordinary doll. In my small chest, I had never felt such fury before. I suddenly grabbed the Western doll’s hair and smashed it against a pillar. As I cried “Mama!”, the doll’s head shattered.

“Papa lied! Mama lied! Bobi knows! Bobi knows!” From that day on, I stopped believing in adults. And I shut my heart tight, never letting anyone see inside. Then—the crushing disappointment of my shattered dream to sleep with that large naked mannequin, mixed with (for by then, I could no longer fondle my wet nurse’s breasts in my younger brother’s presence) my bitter resentment at being tricked by adults—warped me in strange ways, until horrifyingly, this feeling swelled up inside: that lying might be acceptable after all. And this particular brand of lie birthed the joy of spinning fantasies and imagining worlds. Without hesitation, I cast myself as the heroine of fabricated tales and spun them for my younger brother and the maid.

“Hey, listen up! Bobi was... She was born in a far, faraway land—there was no Mama or Papa. There were so many trees, and rabbits and deer raised Bobi, you know.”

I created a different story every day. And I came to realize just how joyful it was to present such nonsensical tales. Filling my small head with stars and imagined flower fields, beautiful people—who could only be that mannequin's nude form—danced and sang.

I did not take pleasure in the kindness adults showed me.

My family was a large one—since my father’s brothers had not established separate households and my grandmother was still alive—so on occasions like New Year’s or my grandfather’s memorial day, large numbers of people would always gather. At such times, I too was made to dress properly and had to greet everyone. However, I never took the adults’ compliments at face value, and even when they tried to give me things, I refused to accept them because I suspected some ulterior motive, so naturally, the adults too came to regard me as a twisted child and paid me no mind. Moreover, my younger brother was a conspicuous figure. My younger brother resembled my mother’s features and had an adorable charm and grace. Great-aunts and uncles all doted on my younger brother.

“Do you know ‘Andaumare no Mikoto’?”

This was the riddle created by my younger brother, not yet five years old.

“Who could it be? What kind of god?”

The adults asked. “Well, it’s about Yasuda Seimei.” The adults were genuinely surprised. He had apparently started listening to adult conversations and was gradually beginning to read the phonetic guides in newspapers. I had no idea what the trick behind it was all about. I did not take kindly to my younger brother being popular. But even if I quarreled, I would lose. Even if I resorted to my fists, I’d be overpowered. I had become all the more withdrawn.

New Year’s. At the grand house where Grandmother lived alone, I disliked even meeting my cousins. I sat alone in a corner of the vast garden, drawing nothing but pictures of mannequins. I was unbearably sad about myself. And I thought what a poor, pitiful creature I was. Or rather, I might have been forcibly fabricating a tragedy. I must certainly be a stepchild. I gradually came to harbor such warped feelings. While having the maid read my older sister’s girls’ novels to me, there were times when I even felt like the protagonist myself, welling up with tears. I sustained myself in tragedy and grieved for my own sake, yet I never sympathized with anything beyond myself.

Tori-chan, Wan-chan, Usagi-chan Such animals were kept for the children’s sake, but I never so much as glanced at the caged Japanese tits or canaries. Around that time—after my older sister had been left with a limp from polio—someone suggested she take up Japanese dance. Though it wasn’t to Mother’s taste, my sister began attending lessons at the dance teacher’s house about twice a week, dressed in a kimono with deep sleeve pockets. Through frequently accompanying my wet nurse on these visits, I too came to want lessons and became her disciple. This was the year before I entered elementary school. Then came another pursuit—at Mother’s insistence—as I began piano lessons slightly after my sister. For me, dance proved more compelling, and I improved rapidly. I performed love stories I barely understood—swaying my neck fluidly while instinctively casting coquettish glances. (Was this unconscious? My eyes in photographs from that time do appear remarkably flirtatious.) The dance teacher drilled me sternly.

“Slide-step-shun, tsu-te-shun-rin-shun! Fix your posture—again! Now, your hands!”

If she bent her waist skillfully, her five fingers became riddled with gaps; if she mastered her gaze, her mouth fell open. “The young lady has natural aptitude.” “I’ll certainly have her certified as a master—you’re nurturing her splendidly, madam.” The dance teacher scolded me while showing affection. The wet nurse who loved nagauta was overjoyed by this, but Mother did not appear particularly pleased. Kamuro, Fujimusume—I soon began performing in recitals on elevated stages.

On the other hand, my older sister preferred the piano. This time, it was a tenderly gentle teacher who praised me as I breezed through pieces without much practice—

“Bobi-chan has such natural talent, don’t you agree, Madam Mama? Her playing is simply exquisite.” “I’ll truly nurture her talent to its fullest—it gives me such purpose too.” And she praised me again. Around this time, even as a spiteful child, I began to gain confidence and resolved to astonish the adults through my lessons. Was it around this time that the fabrication of tragedies temporarily ceased? While trembling with fear, that very fear instead became an unyielding spirit, stubbornness, and even arrogance.

Wearing a white cape with gold buttons, I passed through the gates of elementary school. My father had also graduated from this school, and I entered following my siblings, welcomed as one would expect. However, there was one sad thing. The elderly nurse, “Was your daughter breastfed or bottle-fed?”

The nurse had apparently asked Mother. In any case, "I remember Mother saying, 'It was almost entirely formula.'" As if this confirmed once again that I was a stepchild, I distinctly remember feeling terribly sad at that time. And it seems that around then, I was also scolded for being unsightly while twirling my gold buttons.

Because I felt no attachment to my family, going to elementary school wasn’t particularly burdensome. While I couldn’t grow close to adults, I quickly befriended children my own age and became something of a ringleader among them. I could read primers cover to cover without stumbling, and since I’d naturally picked up simple arithmetic from being around my older brother and sister, I managed to earn top marks without ever studying.

What others couldn’t grasp, I could. This was the joy of superiority implanted in a young heart. But there was one unpleasant thing that oppressed me. That was what they called order.

Chapter 2 Line up in two rows—now, bow! Right face! They repeated this over and over. Because I was short, I stood near the front. From the morning assemblies in the schoolyard until we shouldered our randoseru and left through the gates, this new regimented life felt utterly stifling compared to before. Whenever we raised our hands for "Forward, dress," the line always buckled at my spot. I simply refused to stand straight. It should have been easy enough, but I never aligned properly until the teacher forced me into position. In class, I'd gaze around distractedly. The organized games—all rigid spins and prescribed steps—bored me to tears. They scolded me for poor manners. This relentless routine wore me down completely. That's when I remembered—I could just lie.

“Teacher, my hand hurts.”

I said that when I should have raised my hand. The teacher immediately accepted my excuse. After all, I was a child from an esteemed family and likely represented the school's pride. When returning home, I wouldn't study but instead looked at picture books and continued making up stories to tell. My lessons progressed steadily. Yet I still grew to dislike creating formulaic forms. I would put on records and improvise dances, or compose random melodies instead of practicing piano études. But this willful behavior unexpectedly proved beneficial. The adults declared me prodigious. I became increasingly emboldened. And so when I moved up to second grade, I began committing something dreadful. It was theft. Though fully supplied with pencils and notebooks and wanting for nothing, I discovered extraordinary delight in stealing. I confided in my desk neighbor about this and swiftly recruited her as an accomplice. The girl and I would daily visit stationery shops to play, taking pretty straw boxes and small ornamental flowers. I didn't know stealing was wrong. I proudly flaunted my spoils and postured like a hero. Within my small wooden desk amassed quantities of pilfered goods. I reveled in distributing them to classmates. The thrill of theft eventually extended even to exam cheating.

The girl sitting next to my partner in crime would do her homework properly and show it to me every morning, and during exams maintained a tolerant spirit even when I peeked. Around that time I developed an intense fear of numbers. Multiplication and division had begun to be taught. Numbers would line up on the blackboard with squeaking chalk sounds. I simply couldn't grasp them. Why did this happen? This wonder soon turned into dread when arithmetic period arrived. At those times my chest would constrict painfully. I detested incomprehensible things. Thus I grew to hate numbers altogether. Yet through bold cheating—conducted unaware it was wrongdoing—I avoided poor marks regardless. My favorite subjects remained composition and drawing. During writing time my work would always be presented before the class, filling me with pride. Moreover, my reading style—cultivated since early childhood through storytelling practice—never fell into monotony but carried unique cadences that teachers highly praised. This earned me starring roles at school festivals and Hinamatsuri celebrations on the auditorium stage. The biannual piano recitals and dance performances naturally built my stage courage, gradually dissolving wariness toward adults while my heroic pretensions fostered such confidence I became a fearless child. Many friends came to play at my house. Disdaining confinement to the children's room, I'd lead everyone into the forbidden parlor to hurl cushions and vault over sofas. Then my favorite playground became the closet interior.

The smell of mothballs and dusty cotton delighted me. I would shut the door tight and, in the utter darkness, sometimes make a girl undress. After all, it was simply an extension of that dream where I wanted to sleep embracing a mannequin. Following the hero's orders, the docile girl would remove her short skirt. Touching her milky-white skin with its faint lactescent scent, I even grew sentimental. My mother was scarcely ever home when I returned from school. She belonged to groups like the Mother's Association and Friends' Association, constantly occupied with outside affairs. That she hadn't been home even when my brother hovered between life and death from pneumonia—this was something I often heard about later from my wet nurse. Likely due to her cheerful disposition—and perhaps because she disliked sewing or kitchen work—I never once saw Mother engaged in such tasks.

“When you return home, you must say, ‘Mother, I’m home now.’” When the teacher said that, I put on a deeply sorrowful expression,

“Mama isn’t at home.” I once pleaded. However, that melancholic expression was clearly a gesture—there wasn’t a trace of longing for Mother. In fact, her absence was better; it allowed me to play freely.

Another reason for growing to love Mother even less arose around that time. In the second-floor storage room stood a creaky chest of drawers that squeaked when opened, containing a navy blue crepe garment with a rabbit pattern. Mother occasionally wore it—likely during winter, I thought, since I would feel sad whenever she covered one of the rabbits by draping a black haori over it—and whether it was lined or not, I cherished it dearly. Then I declared, “When Bobi grows up, I’ll get to have that garment.”

I frequently declared this to my sister and wet nurse. Mother had also promised me. But before I knew it, that garment had vanished. Mother did not wear it. I quietly tried opening the creaking chest of drawers, but it wasn't inside. One day, I tried asking Mother.

“Oh, that crepe garment? I gave that to Miss Cazarin when she returned to America.” Mother said this casually.

Miss Cazarin was the kindergarten principal. I detested my blue eyes and my pale, downy skin covered in fine hair at that time. And so I resented Mother for giving away my beloved garment to that detested teacher, and there I came to hate from the bottom of my heart those adults who broke their promises. Yet this mother appreciated my compositions and piano playing. And there were moments when I found myself thinking I liked Mother. Because Mother loved flowers, whenever she needed to entertain guests she would take me to a distant florist with greenhouses. I became intoxicated by the stiflingly strong floral scents and conjured up various fantasies. At such times, Mother would always,

“Bobi, which flowers do you like?” she would ask and always buy the flowers I chose. At those times, I thought Mother was a good person. After returning home with the bouquet of flowers, I would watch from beside as she arranged them in cut-glass bottles and twisted ceramic vases. The sound of her snapping the scissors made my heart dance. Mother trimmed the leftover flowers into small pieces and gave them to me. I decorated them in the study room I shared with my sister—we called this west-facing room with its dolls, books, and pasted pictures by that name.

Around that time, I often fell ill when winter came. In the detached room connected by the hallway, one of my siblings was always bedridden, but mine seemed to have been the longest. On Christmas Eve, it had become our custom to be invited to the hotel’s family gathering each year, but I would inevitably come down with a cold or pneumonia around a week before, as if destined to be bedridden. For Christmas, they had everything from my coat to shoes newly made for me, but I would neatly place them by my pillow,

“It’s almost Christmas, you’ll get better soon.” I was made to drink the bitter medicine offered by the old doctor. I clearly remember the pink frilly dress hanging in the gloomy, antiseptic-smelling six-tatami room. That pink year, I had been bedridden until spring. By my bedside dangled numerous paper balls made from origami, and occasionally, the long dangling paper string would brush against my cheek. I also memorized the popular songs the nurse sang while I was bedridden. Mother had strictly forbidden singing in front of children, but when cleaning the inhaler or tidying the bedside, a song would naturally escape from the lips of the nurse wearing that white uniform.

“Underneath the willow trees of Ginza…”

The song would burst forth. I immediately memorized it and tried to summon some sort of poignant emotion. When I wasn't sick, my usual heroic life continued. It was around the time of events like the China Incident and the Kansai flood disaster. Since I remained generally indifferent to anything beyond myself, while other children had begun admiring soldiers and military nurses around then, I felt absolutely no interest. I even drew Hinomaru flags and took them to train stations and piers—not that I particularly disliked the war, nor could I have understood concepts of right and wrong.—As ever, I was savoring a certain thrill.

Before long, whether because the dance lessons had become somewhat troublesome for Mother—who disliked extravagance—or because my sister’s legs had become completely unnoticeable to others, I too ended up being made to quit along with her. As for the piano, I had come to be able to play simple sonatas at least. I played capriciously without any particular effort.

However, here once again the time came when my heart was shattered completely.

One afternoon after school, I came to the front of a large mansion leading five girls. In the garden was a tennis court, and beyond it bloomed a profusion of poppies. I wanted them so badly I could hardly stand it. The other girls wanted them too. They were gazing at them through the wire mesh. I finally made up my mind and, flinging my backpack and lunchbox onto the road in one swift motion, began nimbly climbing over the wire mesh. Ten pairs of serious eyes appeared lined up between hands firmly gripping the wire mesh. I nimbly jumped in. The white line pierced my eyes with particular clarity. I felt as though I had been entrusted with some tremendously important duty, and crouching low, I began to run. I quickly reached the cluster of poppies. I broke off six purple, red, and white flowers. I turned around and grinned, then gripped the bouquet tightly and ran back. At that moment, the girls suddenly ran away.

“Teacher! Teacheeer!” The pencil case clattered inside the bag. The subordinates had abandoned their leader and left. I had no energy left to climb back over the wire mesh and stood there listlessly. The teacher arrived. It was the long-faced male homeroom teacher.

“What are you doing?” I looked at the flowers I was holding. Then I saw that only two or three petals remained attached—six bald-headed stems with nothing but their cores left lay limply in my hand. I turned around. Parallel to the white line, those red and purple petals lay scattered in spots. I suddenly burst into tears. The teacher used a stick to easily unlock the wire mesh door from the inside and pulled me out.

All of my past misdeeds had been exposed. I did not readily apologize.

“I took them because I wanted them.”

I repeated. “I’ll tell your mother.” At these words, I was completely overwhelmed and profusely apologized. The teacher went to return all the items left in my desk to the stationery store for me. From that day onward, I had become like a warrior stripped of his magnificent gold and silver armor. During recess, I had no desire to play and moped around alone. No one respected me anymore or gathered around me. The friends who would show me their exams were also gone.

However, I couldn't stop breaking rules or telling lies. Because of that, I was frequently beaten in the classroom. There were times when I had a heavy stencil rasp placed on my head and stood by the blackboard for an entire hour. However, I didn't feel particularly ashamed, and while being beaten, I would think about other things. Around that time, one of my habits was exaggerating things when telling people about them. I would take trivial matters from school, stretch them out elaborately, and recount them to my family. Father and Mother would listen with amusement or sadness. Even when describing my own experiences, I would greatly emphasize them. I went on a field trip and had an adventure. I scrambled up a rocky cliff. I jumped down from some stairs but missed my footing and hurt my leg. A neighborhood child wrapped a snake around my neck. I ran around the playground ten times over. These stories would be brought out at dinner time to liven things up.

The top-performing boy in our class was reading an Iwanami book one day. While everyone else at that age stuck to large-format books with big print and illustrations, he alone read Iwanami Bunko volumes from his father's study that appeared to contain genuinely complex content, which made me deeply admire him. Yet that book turned out to be Andersen's Fairy Tales - the very same one I'd been reading all along. When I returned home, I told Father it was Soseki's Botchan. Though I couldn't fathom why I fabricated such lies, I reveled in watching the adults' startled reactions.

My family consisted of four children, three maids, a wet nurse, and my parents, with a considerable number of rooms, but as the house was old and inconvenient in various ways, it was decided that we would undergo large-scale renovations the year after the flood damage. The smell of new wooden pillars and the thin sawdust reminded me of my days by the sea. There was a certain similar charm shared between the carpenters and the boatmen. Every day after returning from school, I would go to the construction site and watch the work, trying not to get in the way. On the second floor, a new Japanese-style room and Western-style room were created as rooms for my sister and me; the gloomy sickroom in the detached building was converted into a two-room suite for my brother, while the parlor had its wallpaper completely changed and a veranda added. Mother arranged two chests of drawers with pretty decorative cabinets in my sister’s and my room. In the Western-style room, she had new chairs, a desk, and bookshelves made for us. And she let us children choose the wallpaper patterns and curtain fabrics according to our preferences. I hoped to have pink curtains against pale gray wallpaper with a base pattern. My older sister insisted on having green curtains against cream-colored walls. In the end, the walls became cream, the curtains became pink, and for the lampshades, Mother gave my sister one in green and me one in pale gray with flying flower patterns. Suddenly feeling like a full-fledged adult, for a while I seemed to apply myself diligently to my studies. However, my poor performance in arithmetic persisted, and when it came to be called mathematics, it became even worse.

To celebrate the renovation, it was decided that friends would be invited. At that time, there was a girl named Aikoko in our class who had transferred from Tokyo; I came to like her very much—perhaps because I felt secure in her not knowing about my misdeeds—and invited her alone to my house. She was a clear-voiced Edo native dressed in showy American-style outfits with clever detailing, and since her facial features resembled those of a Western doll, Mother took a great liking to this girl.

Moreover, she could play the piano, and when asked, she would promptly play. She was an innocent socialite.

“Auntie, this dress—my mama sewed it real nice for me with a sewing machine!” She would call herself Allie, Allie. Somehow, around her chest area, the smock seemed to have lots of ruffles. I asked mother many times to make me one just like that, and when I finally got it made and put it on, it completely shattered my imagination that I could become like Allie—after wearing it once in front of the mirror, I never touched it again. Allie was fair-skinned, thick with peach fuzz, and had blue eyes. My eyebrows, eyes, and complexion were all dark. And compared to Allie with her slender long legs, I was stout and chubby.

“Good day!” This greeting of Allie’s once again delighted Mother. Mother often told me to invite her over frequently. I liked Allie’s skin. I realized that while it shared the same lineage as Miss Cazarin’s, there was a more significant difference between the elderly and children than even among Japanese people. With her somehow tender softness, whenever we held hands or walked arm-in-arm, my heart would race. I thought about wanting to see Allie naked once. However, I no longer had the courage to command.

When December arrived, as was the annual custom, I attended the piano recital. The kind teacher had about forty disciples. My sister and I were the most senior members and performed a duet of a piece called “Daiyaberii”—which might be the composer’s name—as the final act. Then I also became the conductor of Toishinhonii. We performed Jingle Bells in an ensemble with tambourines, castanets, taiko drums, and triangles. Over a white taffeta dress, I wore a black velvet vest at the time and waved the baton. I felt tremendous honor and confidence and barked commands at the performers from a raised platform. Among the many bouquets that were sent, there was one from Allie. That was a bouquet of hothouse-grown sweet peas entirely in wisteria hue. Unlike expensive flowers like orchids and roses, it was just that single color we liked, and Mother too shared in delighting over it. That day, Allie had a large white ribbon in her long, flowing chestnut hair. People our age all had their hair cut in bobs, but from that day on, I too stopped cutting mine and began growing it out. But I ended up disappointed by this as well. The reason was that my hair was coarse and wiry—even when grown long enough to cover my ears—it didn’t become softly wavy like hers. And so, swallowing my tears, I chopped it all off again.

She doted on me. Perhaps influenced by her speech, she seemed older than me. She was a Catholic believer who wore a cross around her neck. For some reason, that alone I didn’t want to imitate.

My family was Buddhist yet had no Buddhist altar—because our ancestral tablets were enshrined at the main family house where monthly memorial services were held—but instead maintained what we called God’s room on the second floor’s north side with its Konkokyo altar since Mother followed that faith. From childhood we were taught we lived by divine grace, clapping our hands morning and evening in prayer. Not understanding Catholicism beyond associating it with kindergarten’s tedious prayers, I’d detested it from the start. She kept urging me to attend church. Promising pretty cards or sweets from Mother Superior. Yet this alone among all my dear friend’s suggestions I refused. Whether through Allie’s influence or that exposed mischief’s aftermath—though I can’t dispute calling it mischief when everyone agreed it was—I grew quiet. At recess we’d whisper together in schoolyard corners. She listened raptly to my fanciful tales. Daily I studied her incisors and that prominent cheek mole.

Breaking rules was something Allie disliked. And so, I gradually became an obedient child. In the classroom too, I became quiet and began doing my homework properly. When I returned home, I would do nothing but read books. I preferred kōdan-style tales over Western fairy tales. I found it fascinating how samurai, villains, princesses, and townsmen’s daughters would bleed or get killed. And then, what I came to love reading for many years were Sōma Gyofū’s works—those of Issa, Ryōkan, and Saigyō—and Priest Saigyō was someone I passionately loved alongside Shimizu no Jirōchō.

Father composed haiku and dabbled in painting. My siblings and I attended haiku gatherings where we composed haiku, and on commemorative occasions, we contributed writings on paper the size of hanging scrolls or framed pictures. Father especially loved me. In the evening, when the entrance bell rang, everyone would rush out to greet him.

“Bobi?” When I was even slightly late in going out, Father would ask that. I found it tiresome to go greet him every day, so once I drew faces with ink on eggshells, lined up five, and placed them at the entrance.

“You don’t have to go greet him today.”

Having said that, she prohibited everyone from going out to greet him. Father returned home and became angry over it, while Mother praised my skill at drawing likenesses. However, starting the next day, they resumed bowing with their hands on the tatami mats to give formal greetings, and I jumped up to hang Father’s hat on the rack.

I had become the favorite of the entire household. I had come to enjoy playing the clown. By that time, the sadness of having been betrayed by adults and the wariness born from that sadness had almost faded away. And I had stopped even thinking about being Mamako. I had become an ordinary girl and an average student.

Chapter Three

The year Kigen 2600 arrived in a flurry of excitement. Lantern processions, flower-decked streetcars, and countless celebrations continued almost nonstop throughout the year. Why this festival-like frenzy? My child's mind couldn't comprehend it. To me, there was scarcely any difference between 2599 years and 600. It simply meant adding one more year—for someone who detested numbers like me, even keeping count of years or days felt tiresome.

When we became fourth graders, classes were divided by gender. This somehow made me feel I stood on adulthood's threshold, my heart fluttering with excitement. To be placed in Allie's class, I prayed daily to God—and my wish was granted. In the second term, I became class monitor. This once again filled me with heroic pride. Marching drills called bunretsu kōshin were held weekly, where I led the class column shouting "Eyes right!" Only one aspect of this duty pained me. Before eating lunchboxes, I had to stand at the lectern and recite Imperial Rescripts and moral edicts before my classmates. I couldn't memorize them at all. At that time I still stumbled through multiplication tables and counted subtraction problems on my fingers—how could I possibly memorize lengthy rescripts? I stuck to short excerpts from the Classic of Filial Piety and Emperor Meiji's poems. Then one day the teacher ordered me to include the Imperial Rescript for Youth and Education Rescript too. I merely moved my lips, falteringly following the others' loud chanting. This tormented me unbearably—at home I desperately drilled the texts, yet they simply wouldn't stick.

Among the games of that time, what made me ecstatic was play-acting. Temari and otedama—being clumsy, I was poor at them and was always left out. The play-acting was my own creation, where instead of preparing stories beforehand, we would improvise dialogue haphazardly while crafting endings as we went along. Allie and four or five other friends supported this game; using cardboard crowns and drawing masks, they would stand on the platform after school, delighting in how repeating the same actions gradually transformed them into different stories.

Before long, something happened that once again suppressed my buoyant mood. It was the funeral at the church across from our house, the pilgrimage, and Allie becoming an adult. One day, there was a memorial service at the church for a teacher from the girls' school. The weather was bad—I thought it had started spitting rain—but regardless, rows of female students in navy sailor uniforms lined both sides of the asphalt road, crying out loud as if singing in chorus. Wearing my randoseru backpack, I stood at the gate watching this spectacle with equal parts fascination and shock. Since no one among my relatives or acquaintances had died in my memory up to then, I hadn't known death could be so agonizing. As I watched, I suddenly became sad for no clear reason and found myself crying along with them. I rushed into the house and—

“What happens when you die? What happens when you die?”

I demanded of the housemaids. They taught me that you become a ghost, bending their arms and waving them.

Later, when I asked Mother,

“Good children go to God’s place. Bad children must cross over a mountain of needles and a sea of fire.”

I was told this. When I told her that the housemaids had said we become ghosts, Mother was scolding them. I imagined myself walking on a mountain of needles. I imagined myself swimming in a sea of fire. However, I still couldn’t grasp at all where the line lay between what constituted a bad child and who exactly was a good child. Only the incident of that teacher’s death made me feel tragic again, if only slightly.

The pilgrims passed through immediately after that incident. I watched from the back door at dusk as Nichiren Buddhist monks formed a long procession, beating drums and ringing gongs while passing by. When they put a handful of sacred rice into the alms bowl, they began chanting sutras while staring intently at my face. I too felt like Saigyō as I looked at the monks’ faces. But soon the monks departed, and I felt an indescribable loneliness within that procession.

Allie became an adult around January of the following year. After a long break—whether it was a vacation or sick leave remained unclear—when I suddenly showed up at school, the first thing that caught my eye was Allie. Allie had abruptly grown taller, and the area around her waist in the jumper skirt had filled out. Then, the short skirt that had once revealed her thighs had been lengthened considerably, swaying with an oddly still motion around her knees. I was shocked by that appearance.

“Allie, you’ve changed so much…”

I lamented. Allie smirked meaningfully and explained trivial things I didn't know in meticulous detail. I absolutely couldn't believe it. During the physical examination at term's start, Allie showed me her plump breasts. I grabbed them with full force. Allie cried out that it hurt. From that moment on, I could no longer interact intimately with Allie as before. And gradually I began avoiding her. Allie too started making faces suggesting talking with someone like me wasn't interesting anymore, until she nearly stopped speaking altogether. I spent my days wallowing in girlish sentimentality.

Several months later, when early summer arrived, I noticed both of my breasts were beginning to swell. It was only a slight swelling, but when I climbed into bed and touched them, the pain was so intense it made me jump. I desperately wished I could stay a child forever.

Having reached just below the top grade, we were given some school duties to share, and four or five students from our class were selected to wear red armbands—I barely managed to be among them. I was so happy about wearing the armband that I didn’t take it off even when I returned home. Our homeroom teacher was a quiet young man. And so we behaved with absolutely no seriousness in the classroom. We would rip out pages from the backs of our notebooks, write letters on them, pass them around during class, and every time the teacher faced the blackboard, we’d stuff our lunches into our mouths. Then, little by little, we started reading romance novels. In the corner of the third-floor classroom with three-sided windows that caught the sunlight well, we exchanged paperback books and magazines.

That autumn, I began to develop feelings for a male student one year above me. He was a young master living in a large Chinese-style mansion with a pale face. He performed solos at school arts festivals and appeared in plays. His voice rang clear and resonant, and I became completely engrossed when secretly listening from the auditorium corner during rehearsals. He wore a pristine white shirt beneath a camel-colored sweater with a wristwatch. Elementary school students who wore wristwatches were exceedingly rare. When we passed in the hallway, I felt how that glinting watch made him appear so distinguished. Before long, I began feeling the urge to steal his belongings. Watch. It was too valuable—stealing it would be noticed immediately. So I thought about stealing the stubby pencil from his pencil case. It was because I wanted always to carry something of his with me. One afternoon after school, I went alone to scout his classroom. The sixth graders always stayed behind studying for entrance exams. I cracked open a narrow gap in the frosted glass window to peer inside. Over a dozen boys were solving arithmetic problems on the blackboard. Among them, I immediately spotted him. But opening the door to enter would mean getting caught. I paced back and forth in the corridor, thinking. After nearly an hour had passed, people came noisily out of the room.

I realized they had gone out to the schoolyard to play catch. After seeing them off as they descended the stairs, I confirmed there was no one in the hallway and slipped through the door. When I came to where he had been sitting, he had tidied up properly, and a black backpack with his name was hanging beside the desk. I hurriedly opened it. Sure enough, there was a black leather pencil case containing a fountain pen. I pulled out one green yacht pencil and quickly slipped it into my pocket. It was fifteen or sixteen centimeters long and smoothly sharpened. I wanted to see his handwriting too. So I took out a notebook. The readings were checked in square characters. I tore out a page where the writing was most dense, folded it into a square, and tucked it into my pocket. At that moment, I heard footsteps approaching. I crouched low between desks while feeling my chest throb. It was his homeroom teacher—the most feared in the entire school. He sat at the teacher’s large desk and began reviewing materials. Cornered, I had no choice but to stay perfectly still. But he seemed to have an enormous amount of work. He must be staying here until the students return from the schoolyard. My anxiety kept growing. With desperate resolve, I slowly began moving forward.

I crouched low to avoid touching the desks and chairs and crawled toward the doorway. The teacher was writing something with a red pencil, his face stern. I finally reached the rear door farthest from where the teacher sat. The door was closed. I was at a loss again. But I suddenly stood up, opened the door at the same moment, slipped out into the hallway, and rushed headlong to the stairwell corner. “Who’s there?” I heard the angry shout. By that time, I had already rushed down to a spot near the lower floor. I walked slowly down the first-floor hallway with an innocent look. I stepped out into the schoolyard. I saw him throw the ball high, high into the air. I thrust my hand into my pocket and firmly grasped the pencil and scrap of paper.

Fortunately, that incident ended without being discovered by anyone. When I slept, I would place the scrap of paper and pencil inside the pillowcase, and come morning, tuck them away in a corner of my backpack. Occasionally I would encounter him at school, and each time I would suddenly look down. However, that emotion did not last long. When we sang "Hotaru no Hikari" as they graduated, making it impossible to find him anymore, that scrap of paper was thrown into the trash bin, and the pencil had either been used up or lost. He no longer resided within my heart.

Having advanced with relatively good grades to become a top-grade student, I began developing feelings for the girl who maintained the top position in the class we now shared for the first time. Since our homeward paths aligned, we naturally grew close through conversation, and I came to admire everything she said and did. Then I began to study alongside her at the same desk. I studied hard solely out of a desire to draw nearer to her. Homework assignments and preparatory work became routine for me too. While she generally excelled at everything, there was nothing she possessed that stood out as particularly exceptional. She would neatly cram tiny characters into her notebooks and draw maps and science illustrations with exquisite beauty. She was also adept at sewing and handiwork. I absolutely detested sewing and had scarcely any completed pieces to show for it. It even struck me as mysterious how people could line up perfectly straight stitches in uniform rows. When I sewed, my stitches would stagger crookedly across the fabric, forming puckers and folds between them. Even with pasting tasks, I couldn’t properly align lids with their containers. Yet despite this, to avoid being ridiculed by her, I would have my wet nurse secretly craft these projects for me to bring to school.

Because I had feelings for her, I became such an excellent student that I was occasionally praised, but I received only one troublesome thing from her. It was nearsightedness. During class, she quietly took out her glasses and copied the characters from the blackboard. I was unbearably envious of that. It was an ordinary amber-colored pair of temple-framed glasses, but I became intensely attached to how she looked when putting them on—her slightly narrowed eyes gazing intently into the distance. When she wrote characters in her notebook, she did so with a posture so low it seemed she might be lying face down. I forced myself to imitate that posture and even prayed to that god who supposedly grants any wish that I might be able to wear glasses. Strikingly effective—by the end of the first term that had lasted two months, I became genuinely nearsighted. The area above my eyelids puffed out, and when looking into the distance, I had to crease the space between my eyes. I had someone get me the long-awaited glasses. With amber-colored ordinary-framed glasses during class—whenever our teacher wrote characters on the blackboard—I would quietly slip my hand under my desk alongside her next to me, take out my glasses, then scowl while placing them on my low nose.

Her house stood imposingly with a tennis court in its garden. I would play leapfrog and ball games there with her siblings. The interior contained numerous rooms too, her own wallpapered with firefly motifs. She who loved collecting small kokeshi dolls, chiyogami paper, envelopes and stationery would gradually share them with me. Even at school, she and I remained inseparable. Yet whenever studies were concerned, she transformed into such a relentless bookworm that she'd bitterly complain about losing to me by a single point. Truth be told, that solitary instance where I'd beaten her by one mark proved exceptional—ordinarily I found myself compelled to yield victory.

It was precisely around the time when the war had truly become a full-fledged war. We made air raid hoods and mompe trousers. Japan was winning battle after battle, and we were ordered to paint the Philippines bright red and draw Hinomaru flags on maps all the way to the small South Seas islands. There was a commemorative day called Imperial Rescript Observance Day every month when we would bow our heads and listen to lengthy imperial proclamations. We were told we had to memorize this for entrance exams, but I ultimately only remembered about two lines. The purpose of war. What must we do for the sake of war? We studied these things over and over. The cry of "Certain victory!" sank effortlessly into our young bellies, and whenever we had to name great men, Tojo Hideki became our obligatory answer. When asked during my actual entrance exam, "Who do you revere?" my reply of "Shimizu Jirocho and Saigyo Hoshi" might have been truly inexcusable as a woman - as a modern woman of wartime.

Father adhered strictly to pessimism about the war. He never regarded it as anything trivial. I had become influenced by the doctrine of certain victory taught at school and found Father’s stance utterly exasperating. It was around this time that “Mama” and “Papa” became unacceptable, replaced by “Father” and “Mother.” After being reprimanded by our teacher, we collectively resolved as a household to adopt these formal terms.

At school every morning, cold water rubdowns were conducted while shouting “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!” All students lined up across the schoolyard in neat rows, stripped to the waist, and scrubbed their skin red with hand towels. While one might excuse small children being bare-chested, the exposed state of nearly mature senior students—even during wartime—made for an unpleasant sight that was nevertheless nearly compulsory by order. This led to strange games like breast-grabbing bouts becoming popular.

However, the war’s impact hadn’t been all that significant or meaningful to me. I still lacked the capacity for critical judgment to interpret it.

But there was something else that was given to me. The workings of my mind changed completely and were nearly determined. That was the world of Buddhism—a world I had been utterly indifferent to until then.

The homeroom teacher was an ardent believer of Shin Buddhism. I was suddenly drawn to Namu Amida Butsu. By chanting Namu Amida Butsu, I would be saved. I convinced myself I could escape all kinds of hardships through this. Yet I felt not the slightest inclination to repent or apologize for my past thefts and violent outbursts. All I did was fervently chant the invocation while secretly carrying prayer beads. Since the doctrinal relationship between my family’s Zen Buddhism and this new Shin faith remained unknown to me, I chanted “Namu Amida Butsu” even at Zen memorial services. I had no means to understand the teachings; even when reading books, comprehension eluded me naturally. At best, I read simplified biographies of eminent monks—likely drawn more to their miraculous tales than spiritual insights. I began yearning for a nun’s life. Having never before considered adulthood plans, my first aspiration became taking monastic vows. That I—already fond of Saigyo—now deepened my devotion to him went without saying. I began reading annotated copies of his Sanka-shū poetry collection. Though unclear about “mono no aware,” I sensed it wasn’t mere sadness or dejection, but something more profound whose contours I hazily grasped. Saigyo Hoshi’s essence took root deep within me. And I had earnestly resolved to become a nun.

I had become completely disconnected from people. Even the girl next to me had drifted away. Once when visiting her house, I found the handkerchief I'd given her crumpled up in the wastebasket. In that moment I felt intensely sad, yet never resented her—it seemed inevitable, so I naturally withdrew. I spent more time contemplating Buddhism than applying myself to studies, remaining unbothered by solitude.

No matter how much scorn I endured or ridicule I faced, I discovered that as long as I believed in one thing, my heart remained perpetually calm, without even a hint of agitation. People criticized me, labeling me a weirdo, saying I was putting on airs, calling me arrogant—attaching all sorts of interpretations. Mother told me that wrapping prayer beads around my arm was unsightly. Yet perhaps it was precisely this opposition from others that strengthened my faith. In any case, for six months, I never wavered.

Chapter 4

The graduation ceremony arrived. At the melodies of sentimental farewell songs and the recited words, the girls around me began to sob quietly. I had even forgotten tears. People parting or dying had come to seem like a natural occurrence.

Immediately after exiting the elementary school gate, the entrance exam was held. It was that lingering season when sunny patches still felt cherished. I took the entrance exam for a nearby private school—a lower-tier institution separate from my sister’s, newly built with little history midway up the mountainside.

A female student wearing a long navy blue skirt with many pleats guided us one by one to the interview room. For some reason, they looked unclean. Their posture of leaning forward as they walked slowly, their voices that sounded as if emerging from behind a thin membrane, and their long hair riddled with excessive hairpins—though these should have been elegant, to me they seemed nothing but unclean. There were four rooms, all for oral exams, and the first room was the principal’s interview.

“Why did you choose this school?”

“Because it’s close,” I answered immediately. He gave a wry smile. It was only after I had successfully enrolled that I learned this—I was the only one who had said I came because it was close, and apparently that had been quite rude. As expected, I got the math problem wrong. Finally rephrasing my answer while tracing numbers on my lap with a finger, I was told it was acceptable. The rest seemed mostly done.

I didn’t even go to see the results announcement. Because I had no anxiety whatsoever about failing.

When April came, I began commuting daily to a girls' school ten minutes from home, carrying a handbag. Each morning I would arrive two hours before anyone else. The act of walking in straggling groups filled me with unbearable anguish. After leaving my bag in the silent classroom, I would climb to the elevated playground, stretch out on the assembly platform, and gaze down at the disordered town below. This was truly healthy behavior. My firm convictions and lofty pride grew stronger still. Sprawling alone across that wide space to embrace the chaotic town became my newly discovered heroic joy. Yet soon enough this masculine pretense of toughness and my clutching of prayer beads to Amida Buddha began crushing me from opposing poles. Just then came a theft incident that banned early arrivals, eliminating my ritual and forcing me gradually toward one extreme.

I was unable to make friends. Since this private school’s motto was “gracefully and refreshingly,” I felt surrounded by nothing but truly quiet young women and couldn’t bring myself to grow close to them. Not that I particularly wanted friends anyway—if anything, I considered loneliness to be my foremost defining trait. I became a class officer almost immediately after enrollment. Having received certification, I was entrusted with giving commands for a full year. At morning assemblies, I had to stand at the front. My low-pitched, resonant voice made my orders stand out more than those of other class leaders, sounding like proper military commands. The only troublesome aspect of this esteemed duty was counting heads each morning—when the whistle blew, we would line up and I had to report both present and absent students in our class. The vice-class leader and I would count all the way to the back rows. Try as I might, I couldn’t manage the simple calculation of doubling numbers—we stood in two straight lines—through normal counting like “one, two, three…” Instead, I resorted to a rhythmic chant—“Chu-chu-ta-ko-kai-na”—folding down one finger on my left hand with each repetition to track my place. Worse still, subtracting absentees from total enrollment never came easily—I’d spend seconds muttering calculations under my breath before reporting—and whenever train delays caused mass tardiness, I inevitably needed the vice-class leader’s help with the math. My mathematical aptitude remained stuck at third-grade level.

As the war intensified, the girls' school became thoroughly militarized, with barked commands and rigid standing at attention—even these supposedly demure students had grown somewhat coarse around the edges. I found it excruciating to stand motionless even for a minute and was frequently reprimanded for fidgeting. Moreover, since keeping proper marching rhythm proved equally burdensome, during military drills (compulsory sessions where soldiers taught rifle handling) and calisthenics, I would be pulled from formation or made to stay behind, ordered to repeat exercises endlessly. Though utterly unfit for a class officer's role, my sense of responsibility burned twice as fiercely as others', and I bore blame alone with almost perverse readiness. This paradoxical trait might have been what endeared me to classmates and teachers alike.

At that time, between digging air-raid shelters, transporting soil, and preparing potatoes in the fields, the labor far exceeded regular classroom lessons in weekly hours—though unavoidable due to the war, it was extremely strenuous. I worked hard. Because it was an honorable duty, I had to do it, and perhaps the spirit of faith compelled me to find joy in work. Wrapping prayer beads around my right arm, I was treated as an eccentric by teachers and students. Moreover, hair had started growing around my mouth. My mother had instructed the barber since childhood not to shave our faces (we had a monthly routine where the barber would come to our sunlit veranda and press the disinfectant-smelling clippers against our necks), so vellus hair grew densely all over our faces—but mine was particularly thick, and it had become noticeable around the time I entered girls’ school. My eyebrows were thick and large on both sides, majestically connected at the center, while the hair around my upper lip rippled like waves. I was laughed at by my classmates. I was asked why I didn’t shave. I was thought to be an eccentric for that reason as well. I secretly used my father’s safety razor to shave off my eyebrows and the hair around my mouth. My eyebrows became uneven, and I was laughed at even more. The razor had the opposite effect—the hair grew back even thicker, sprouting up vigorously—and I finally began to feel like giving up, unable to keep pace no matter how much I shaved. And I even stopped tending to my hair. Braiding it, making ponytails, or letting it sway around my shoulders—all of it felt bothersome, so even when I woke up, I rarely used a comb. I fastened it with one large pin that clattered into place, and from behind, it apparently looked as though a storm were raging.

I wore monpe pants and carried an air raid bag stuffed with an air raid hood, gaiters, triangular bandages, and dried rice every day.

Attacks on the homeland were still rare then, and during summer, one could go swimming at the nearby coast or climb mountains. My face and limbs turned jet-black, and though my body was healthy, from around autumn my sustained faith in *Namu Amida Butsu* became too effortless—conversely breeding unease. I began thinking I needed greater suffering, more discipline to earn salvation. As I chanted the invocation, my chanting self crystallized into sharp existence, barring entry to selfless transcendence. This self-awareness widened the gulf between Buddha and me. I tried reading Zen texts. I consulted our family temple’s priest. Mahayana or Hinayana? Self-power or other-power? At this crossroads I started earnest reevaluation. My mental peace dissolved. Yet with my youthful mind’s capacity, grasping firm convictions proved impossible. I pivoted my focus from spiritual quandaries elsewhere. To painting. I began studying nanga with Father—scribbling Buddhist icons and landscapes wildly yet discovering religious serenity through them. Still I couldn’t bring myself to remove those prayer beads alone. Drawn deeper into Eastern aesthetics, I abandoned piano. Playing others’ compositions without knowing their creative emotions now struck me as absurd. Mother pleaded tearfully; teachers implored—but citing neighbors’ gossip during this musical prohibition era—I instead took up tea ceremony and flower arranging alongside painting. Tea’s rigid repetitions chafed my nature while flower lessons thrived under a progressive teacher who let me arrange freely—so those arts endured alongside painting. Creating fascinated me. Morimono—composing vegetable-and-fruit displays—became particular joy.

I would gather tree roots and stones from the mountains, arrange them, and change the atmosphere of the tokonoma almost daily.

The war grew increasingly fierce. My frail sister took a leave of absence from school and went to recuperate on a small island three prefectures away to the south; then my brother was evacuated too—but I stayed behind and kept attending girls' school. Mother made frequent trips to that island and back, returning with fish and rice as provisions. The wet nurse who went with my sisters never came back. With my brother working at the factory—the maid now alone—and Father shaving his head for his national uniform—our life became austere. Amidst all this upheaval I advanced a grade and was ordered to remain class officer. What's more—since our house stood near school—even after returning home I'd have to go back whenever alarms sounded—shouldering endless duties until both study time and moments for thought dwindled away. War—war—it never left my mind—my nerves frayed raw. Father's asthma—first flaring up two-three years back during equinox weeks—grew worse under wartime strains.—He held deep pessimism about this war.

It was a time when one could hardly express their emotions freely; the schoolgirls had become withdrawn. Through reading novels with my few friends, I nurtured small dreams. Reading novels at school was prohibited, but we would wrap them in newspaper and read secretly during breaks or after school. And I began to develop an intense interest in romance.

It was early April, still chilly. In a deserted bookstore, as I flipped through a magazine, I saw a photograph in the upper right corner of a page and felt myself being drawn in. It showed a navy officer who had died in battle as part of a kamikaze unit. Until then, reports of warriors meeting heroic deaths had stirred little emotion in me, yet when I chanced upon his photo here, I found myself drawn in—divorced even from any awareness that this was war. Feeling as though I had met him somewhere before, I bought the magazine and tore out that page. Without reading a single line of the article, I stared intently at the photo. I came to believe I had certainly met him before. This matched exactly the image of the man I had pictured in my heart. I even began imagining—and believing—the sensation of gripping his sturdy hand clad in white gloves. It was a peculiar emotion. I convinced myself I harbored romantic feelings for him. The strange imagination I’d nurtured since childhood, along with my tendency to fabricate tragedies, had suddenly resurfaced. Lying on the sofa in the pitch-dark parlor, I kept calling his name. Moreover, when I asked Kokkuri-san—the spirit board then in vogue—"Who is the person I love?", it pointed to his name. I continued deepening this peculiar affection for him.

Labor at school kept intensifying. Even on Sundays there was work; we loaded horse manure onto carts, did farm work, and drew water for air raid supplies. Study time dwindled until English classes disappeared entirely. My math remained abysmal, and I was rebuked every lesson with comments like, "Is our class officer merely decorative?" The same held true for sewing—no matter how carefully I tried to stitch, I had to unpick my work repeatedly.

However, I was well-regarded among the teachers as a serious student. It was merely that I had to feign seriousness out of a sense of duty from my position, and I even felt pitiable in my own bound and immobilized state. After all, discipline and order felt oppressive. I constantly harbored the desire to leap about freely without hesitation, just as I once had. However, by that time, I had already left childhood's realm, so there was also half-hearted resignation that I couldn't move about unrestrained.

In the seat next to mine sat an ardent Catholic believer. More dogmatic in her faith than Allie, she persistently tried to pull me into Catholicism. As if those who attended church were obligated to recruit one new believer each time they went, she vigorously proselytized to classmates. I went to church two or three times and spoke with Mother. The catechism struck me as absurd, and the priest’s sermons seemed contradictory. Perhaps wartime churches had to mention unwanted topics like government oppression while staying silent about what they truly wished to express—that might have been their precarious position. I’m uncertain whether it was around that time or later when an election campaign occurred at the church. The priest interrupted his own sermon midway to begin endorsement speeches. This left me utterly dumbfounded. I stopped attending church before ever grasping Catholic doctrine. Yet my Buddhist faith remained half-hearted too—I read texts like *Hekiganroku*, *Tannishō*, and theological discourses but naturally failed to comprehend them. I also attended lectures on spiritual discipline. I even learned to induce deathlike trances in ants and winged insects through focused breathing, demonstrating this on the school grounds.

The number of evacuees increased, and our unit’s personnel noticeably dwindled. As summer turned to autumn, the war worsened steadily, and we had to listen to anxiety-inducing sirens all too often. Classes nearly ceased, and it became impossible to complete the assigned tasks within their set times.

One day, during an air raid alert. Because I was a member of the information department, I was taking notes by the radio. On that day alone, for no apparent reason, I found images of my own gruesome death drifting restlessly in a corner of my mind. Three or four years earlier, when I first became aware of death, I hadn’t possessed enough knowledge to contemplate it seriously—nor had I believed myself to face death then—but this time, I felt something suffocating. The radio reports wouldn’t register in my ears. It wasn’t fear of death at all. It was an impulse toward death—more concrete than three or four years prior—that repeated, “I will die, I will die.” I couldn’t stay still. My instinctive urge to escape death suddenly manifested in action: I threw down my paper and pencil and rushed outside. I don’t want to die. I want to stay alive. It’s not that death frightens me. But I do love my own life. The students had entered the shelter. I ran through the deserted schoolyard and charged toward the mountains. It wasn’t that I thought bullets wouldn’t come from that direction. It was merely out of restless emotion that I began running. I reached the base of a high cliff. Continuing to run became physically impossible. I plunged into a bamboo grass thicket.

With my eyes closed and face pressed to the ground, I felt the clash between my mind desperate to run and my body incapable of running. I felt nothing particular about humans dying unnatural deaths because of war. Only when it came to my own death did I become fixated.

How many hours had I been doing that? I drifted off to sleep while thinking. I dreamed of having my limbs bound with thick ropes. As I slept, I pulled at the prayer beads. The thin twisted thread around my wrist snapped with a pop without slipping off. The small beads rolled into the bamboo grass. I remained unaware until the chilly evening, unable to tell whether it had been a dream or reality.

Apparently, a big fuss had arisen at school. The person who needed to conduct the roll call was missing, so they must have immediately begun the search. I heard voices calling my name. I remained motionless even then. At the base of the cliff, the figure of the female gym teacher came into view. She found me. My air raid hood was particularly conspicuous because it was jet-black with a crimson cord. "My, what in the world happened?"

I followed her without saying a word.

I was transferred from that female teacher to the homeroom teacher. The homeroom teacher was a stern, buck-toothed male history teacher who styled himself a Spartan-style educator. He pressed me about my responsibilities and obligations. I stayed silent and gazed out at the darkening window beyond his shoulder. He grew irritated and began hurling rapid-fire questions at me. I remained even more wordless, in a state where I didn't even realize I was being reprimanded. I clenched my right and left hands together in front of me. The prayer beads were gone. I gasped.

“What’s that posture?” He grabbed both my hands and forced me to straighten them at my sides. I kept standing rigidly upright without opening my mouth. A sudden sharp sting struck my cheek. I staggered and instinctively dropped to my knees.

“Stand up!”

I didn’t hit back. I put on a pained expression and let tears spill. While admonishing students was permitted, there was a school rule against laying hands on them. He had broken this rule by striking me. He seemed to realize this—after about five minutes, he mumbled something like “No, well…” then slammed the door shut and left. I immediately bolted from the room and returned home.

There was someone who had recommended a change of climate for Father’s asthma, and since about a week prior, Father had left with Mother for recuperation at my sisters’ island, leaving a single maid to watch over the large house. My brother and I ate in silence under the dim electric light. From the next day onward, I couldn't bring myself to attend school, lazing around at home unexcused for two or three days. But when word came through other students that the school would investigate, I decided to submit a week's absence notice and depart for the small island where my parents were staying. The maid said she was worried. I brushed her off and boarded the train early in the morning without informing my brother, carrying a lunchbox and an air raid bag. I had to transfer two or three times on rural trains. Moreover, with no coordinated schedules, there were times I waited nearly an hour. The train was packed with shoppers pressed chest-first against every door—for three hours I endured breathing in the musty odor of farm women’s sweat-dampened hair and the fishy stench of their work clothes. With eyes closed, I kept my hand on the vertical handrail beside the door. As I dozed off, I suddenly felt a chill on my hand—a sensation that gradually warmed until it turned firm and unyielding. I slightly opened my eyes. It was a hand. A man’s hand. A gnarled black hand lay firmly over mine. I shifted my gaze from that hand up to his chest, then his torso, finally reaching his face. He was a young laborer-type man wearing a military cap. I tried to pull my hand free. Then came stronger resistance—his grip tightened. I was terrified. Yet I had to stay perfectly still.

From that sensation, I gradually began to feel something pleasant. I closed my eyes again. In a posture where I twisted my upper body away from the man while keeping only my hand extended toward him, I arrived at the next transfer station. The man also got off and briskly descended the stairs to a different platform without any sentiment. I transferred again to a small rattling train car, and this time was rocked for nearly two hours on a chugging steamship. Between islands, capes, and inlets, the ship advanced through oily water. The rural students and men stared intently at the lone city-style girl.

I lay sprawled on the upper deck—about one and a half meters wide—and immersed myself in the scent of sky, clouds, and wind. It was a tranquil autumn dusk, and as I occasionally watched splashes shoot up with wet plops, my heart swelled with the loneliness of one who has truly known solitude, letting tears trickle down my cheeks. I clenched both hands. The man's hand from earlier crawled spider-like through my mind. Suddenly feeling as if I'd touched something filthy, I spat fiercely onto the water's surface with all my might. White foam streamed away behind the ship.

When the surroundings became completely dark, the damaged steam whistle sounded. A small light became visible at the wharf of the island before me. As the figures of village children waving their hands grew larger, I could clearly discern even their expressions of looking at me curiously. I slung my bag over my shoulder and jumped down to the squelching wet wharf. Because it was a village of only eighty houses, when I asked the children about my sisters’ place, they immediately recognized me as the youngest daughter. In hushed voices, they called me "Sumi-chan," took my luggage, and went ahead to guide me. They were all my sister’s friends. One girl over ten years old was wearing my worn-out clothes that had been altered. "Toshi-chan tailored them for me." They were affectionately using my sister’s name.

Father regarded my sudden visit with suspicion and fired off a barrage of questions. Mother, arbitrarily interpreting that I had surely come longing for familial affection, was pleased. The wet nurse was surprised at me traveling alone. My sister and brother simply welcomed me with a "Welcome." I tried to reflect on my actions. I considered my responsible position at school. However, I reached a temporary conclusion that it was only natural to follow my emotions. After eating white rice and fish sashimi, I fell soundly asleep from the fatigue of the journey.

When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t even think about what to do next and went for a walk with my older sister, younger brother, and the village children. Within me, there was no longer any Buddhist reassurance, nor remained any trace of the feelings I had cherished for that fallen soldier. I didn’t even reprimand myself for feeling like I was floating in midair. Things like war or the conviction of victory—none of those existed within me. We boarded the Tenma boat and went out to play along the opposite shore. My older sister skillfully rowed at the stern and sang a countryside song. I feared that my unsettled state of mind would show through to my older sister, younger brother, and parents, so I desperately hid it and kept smiling. However, even on this island, I couldn’t calm my mind. False smiles toward family were an ordeal. I had been using the reason that school was closed for five days, but on the third day I declared I would return and came back to Kobe with Mother. Mother headed to the island two days later. I returned to school after a long absence and was once again beaten for two hours and given a lecture by the homeroom teacher. I pleaded to be relieved of my duties as class officer. However, that was not accepted. From that day onward, I had to busy myself with giving commands, relaying messages, and completing tasks. Due to poor diet and fatigue, my body had become emaciated, and on top of that, having completely lost that sense of service—for the war and for the nation—it took an extra toll on my body. During work, I would frequently suffer strokes and have to lie down in the rest room.

A force outside myself that seemed to demand I discard my strong attachment to life. The war and the education system shaped by it. Things heard by the ear—words; things seen by the eyes—characters. All of them stood opposed to me, tormenting me. After the terrible state of collapse born from this—after losing all love, compassion, and deeply meaningful emotions toward my solitary existence—I reconsidered that perhaps this very loss was what kept my life going.

Chapter Five

With the arrival of the new year, the upperclassmen were mobilized one after another and left. In the third term, we welcomed a new Japanese language teacher. She was a passionate unmarried woman. I felt an unusual attraction to her sun-darkened, resilient skin. She gathered her hair into a single bundle tied at the nape, perpetually furrowing her brow, and recited a poem by Takamura Kōtarō in a regional accent—we quickly discerned she was from Kyushu by her speech. That poem was a valiant one dedicated to the Nine War Gods.

Wanting to touch her hand, I had intentionally brought the attendance register before class began and respectfully presented it to her standing at the lectern. “Ah, I was looking for this—wondering if it wasn’t in the staff room…”

“Excuse me. “I had something I wanted to check, so…” I placed the thin oblong attendance register on her hand. I quickly extended my right hand and touched her fingertips. Casually. But in that instant, the icy cold sensation of her fingertips shot from my hand to my chest. I bowed politely and took my seat. She was lacking nutrition. Since she’d left her hometown alone and was cooking for herself. While indulging such fantasies, I let her intense words and the large chalk characters she’d slammed onto the blackboard soak into my heart. However, I wasn’t particularly interested in their content.

While wanting to become close with her, I waited for the opportunity. One morning on my way to school, I found myself walking alongside her by chance. She was shorter than I had imagined, with an unexpectedly long torso. A square patch had been sewn at the knee of her navy-blue monpe. The stitches were small and precise. My own monpe too bore a patch at the knee. The brown fabric of my monpe sported a navy-blue patch secured with thick, crude black stitches, sections of it puckered and loose.

“You’re amusing, this patch.”

She chuckled, clearly enunciating each word ending. I murmured a vague "Oh..."

“Ah, it’s cold. It really is cold.” At the point where the road curved sharply, while facing the north wind, she said cheerfully. I said “Oh...” again. I had nothing to say.

The next opportunity came on the road. Suddenly the air raid alarm sounded, and under orders from civil defense corps members, she and I hurried into a roadside shelter while being pressed among other passersby. I was holding her hand. Her breath sounded close by as I caught a whiff of something like dry grass.

“My hometown is nice, you know. There’s a pine grove and a white sandy beach. There’s countryside with forests and tutelary shrines too. You’re such a city girl, aren’t you?”

I told her that I too had been raised in the countryside and that there too had been white sand. “Ah, right,” she said. “A trip… I’d like to take one.” While nearly bumping into the ceiling, we pressed our heads together and whispered in low voices. She told me to come visit her. Then, on a small notebook paper, she wrote down a map and address and made me hold it in my hand. “I’ll come by tomorrow since Sunday is a day without work,” I said. When the all-clear was given, she and I parted ways atop the shelter.

The next morning, I visited her boarding house carrying rice balls and candy drops. She was arranging plum blossoms in a bamboo tube on the veranda. Her arrangement was rough, and three plum branches dangled limply. I forced a smile. She showed me her travel memento notebook. There were haiku, waka, and light ink paintings. Until noon, she and I drew pictures. She roughly drew a Hannya mask and gave it to me. I arranged Kannon’s profile and a plum tree on a half-folded sheet, drew them using just ink as well, and presented it to her.

“I’m happy.” “I…” “When the school year starts anew, I return to my hometown. Sometimes I’ll gaze at it and think of you.” I couldn’t bring myself to beg her to stay in Kobe. It was only natural that she would return to her family, and there was no point in me trying to stop her. Moreover, teachers weren’t meant to teach but only to work alongside us in factories.

“I don’t believe in gods or Buddhas.” “I believe in myself.”

When we went for a walk to a nearby mountain, she suddenly said.

“I just like temples and Buddhist statues.” “Are you a Buddhist believer?” “I heard rumors in the staff room...” “Everything’s become incomprehensible... Yet not understanding somehow made me stronger.” “I threw away my prayer beads...” “You must have confidence.” “Yes, you must have confidence.” She gripped my hand. It was a rough hand like a man’s.

At the end of the term, she gave her resignation notice and returned to Kyushu.

When the new term began, I became especially busy. Just like that, I was appointed as a leader and finally deployed to the factory. I read aloud the pledge—a stirring document—in the auditorium. Though my busyness became an outlet for my selfish worries and even began making me forget them naturally, as Kobe was frequently air-raided—with burned ruins reaching right up to our neighborhood and casualties mounting—death once again became vividly etched into a corner of my mind. I fastened pure white prayer beads around my right wrist. It wasn’t that death terrified me. I had grown constantly aware of death and wanted to give some meaning to being alive. Around this time, I began thinking I had committed some sin. It might have been a trivial sin, but to a young heart, even that alone weighed heavily. I thought I needed to punish myself. Then I began clearly sensing the world after death. To me, the existence of hell and paradise seemed a terrible misfortune for humankind. I considered that even if one did wrong while living, one should at least want to avoid suffering after death. That was too convenient a notion. Every night, I dreamed of myself standing in flames or walking across mountains of needles. This was anguish, and I thought it might be punishment for my sins. I wanted to be saved through faith in Buddha.

As the air raids intensified, my parents, older sister, and younger brothers all moved back entirely to Kobe. Because if even one family member were to die, they must have thought it better to be together. "Even if just for a moment, it's more reassuring to see each other's faces," my older sister said. Every morning I woke up early, doused myself with water, and chanted Namu Amida Butsu. The Mahayana path had been too difficult for me from the start, so in the end I hoped to be saved through an honorific title. I did not want to suffer. This was only natural.

I took the train to the factory—a place that manufactured aircraft parts. We did manual work there. We ate lunchboxes filled with soybean meal and sorghum, and bread with stringy fibers. When the air raid alarm sounded, we would run for ten minutes to reach the mountain shelter. On a clear day in May, the factory district was bombed. Even in the mountain shelter, we suffered quite a severe shock. I listened to the radio in a small shrine office ten meters from the shelter and relayed announcements through a megaphone. But since we were being bombed overhead, there was no need for announcements. Then the radio went dead. The head teacher clung to a large tree, trembling. How absurd he looked—that man who always acted so fearsome and stubborn—I exchanged a bitter smile with the other announcer. But that girl too said she was scared and ran back to the shelter. Left with no choice, I went out to the grassy garden—the flying glass made it dangerous inside—and lay down to read. To me, air raids and bombings weren't frightening; what truly scared me was the punishment for my own sins. I'd definitely been reading a novel by Ozaki Koyo. Two Wives, I think it was. While reading the novel, I became completely absorbed in the work. Had it been a long time? I'd been reading alone. The air raid had subsided, but occasional explosions still twisted stomachs with their blasts, and students' cries lingered in the air. I suddenly noticed mud-caked military boots beside me.

They were the head teacher’s. My upward gaze clashed with his through black-framed glasses. Suddenly he kicked my book with his foot. I snapped upright and glared at the teacher.

“What is this? Neglecting your duties to read a novel...” I tried to pick up the book.

“Are you listening?” His shouting continued. When I glanced through the trees, the students were lined up neatly, looking this way. I had no choice but to apologize. Apologizing came easily. The teacher picked up the book himself, saw its title, and shook with even greater rage.

“Do you think it’s acceptable to read this kind of book…” The book remained tightly gripped in his hand; he didn’t return it. I went back to my position, counted the students, and gave my report.

The factory also suffered damage. The railways had all three lines stopped. I walked back along the railway tracks for four ri.

From the next day onward, there was no work at the factory. The electricity wouldn't come on, and materials for production were no longer arriving from other factories. Moreover, with daily evacuations to the mountains during air raids, it grew increasingly unclear why we even bothered commuting to the factory. Each day saw fewer students making the trip. Around that same time, most of our school buildings had burned down. We took turns going to clear the scorched ruins. We sorted through reddened walls, charred boards studded with nails, and melted glass before converting the space into farmland. By then, even backbreaking physical labor didn't feel particularly burdensome—yet working seemed utterly pointless. Because I believed we were all approaching the day when we would die.

In the middle of the night in June, a major air raid occurred, and our longtime family home completely burned down. I felt no attachment to my own home. The memories there were nothing but layers of sin and events reeking of unpleasant odors.

I went out to the drying platform and watched the city burn down with Father. It was truly spectacular. With a whooshing sound, I practically flew down to the lower floor. The surroundings were already engulfed in flames. The eerie colors and sounds of incendiary bombs exploding at our feet. Younger Brother, the Maid, Older Sister, and I walked back and forth down the hallway. Mother had the golden brocade bag from inside the altar—something that was not to be looked at. Father was standing dejectedly.

“I’m scared, so scared!” The wailing younger brother pressed his body tightly against me and trembled. With great effort, we managed to rush out to the main road. Extinguishing the fire was completely impossible. Older brother was on night watch at the factory and hadn’t returned. The wet nurse had remained in the countryside. We strangely could not bring ourselves to believe we would die even as we faced death. And we didn’t even have the luxury to indulge in sentimentality. On the road, a great number of evacuees were trudging along in a steady stream. We too began walking without any particular destination. When several hours had passed and the air raid subsided, Father left for the company. We finally arrived around midday at our grandmother's place in the countryside—located in the same prefecture but forty to fifty minutes away by train—after walking since that morning. Mother and I got on a truck and returned to Kobe in the evening. The scorched ground was still smoldering. Father was there discussing cleanup arrangements with the steward and uncles. A safe lay toppled on its side. The piano’s iron bars were limply twisted, the thin wires snapped into bits, and the phonograph had been reduced to such an unrecognizable wreck that it barely resembled one anymore. The pages of the book crumbled away piece by piece each time the wind blew. I watched the incomplete combustion of those objects without any sentiment. From that day on, we came to live at the main family’s residence.

It was an imposing stone-walled house in the suburbs, and the main family’s uncle had moved to Grandmother’s evacuation site in exchange. There, we began living a crowded life with Father’s sister’s widow, her daughter and son, and a distant relative’s family of seven who had been burned out. When I went out in the morning with my lunchbox, I spent busy hours checking on classmates affected by the disaster, communicating with the school, and distributing salaries from the time when the completely burned-down factory had naturally ceased operations. When not on errands, I did nothing but talk with friends. Even with close friends, I couldn’t speak from the heart and constantly posed myself, never telling the truth. Placing a can of roasted beans nearby, there were times when we forgot both the war and the times while lying down talking about sex. This was a tragic reality. Because ours was a distorted youth where any approach to men was absolutely blocked, there was no outlet for what burned inside our chests. While looking down at the scorched fields, we dreamed in the grassy heat of the mountain cliff. They were utterly detached from reality. When dusk fell, I returned to the temporary shelter. Placing bowls on the measuring machine and scooping rice that was mostly beans, the large family hurriedly ate. On Sundays we cleared away our house’s burned remains. The pearls inside the safe had completely discolored. Since diamonds and platinum had all been handed over to the government, only pearls remained as jewelry—but even those could no longer be used or sold. A few of Father’s cherished ceramics had survived intact, but these too were vases and teacups that would give out if filled with water. A few of my painted marks emerged from the dirt still soiled. That was a joyful discovery. I began painting. Then our large family started holding haiku gatherings.

It was every night during the rainy season. However, two months later, that mansion too was burned down in the August 6th air raid.

It was exactly the evening when my older brother had enlisted. To my brother standing at the station entrance—the Hinomaru flag slung diagonally across his uniform as he saluted with grave formality—I felt bonds of familial affection. Among my siblings, I got along best with him and admired him more than our parents. That night I had gone straight to bed without doing anything but didn't rise until the air raid siren sounded. Almost simultaneously with its wail came aircraft engines and incendiary bombs. I rolled out of bed, legs tangling in the circular mosquito net before pulling work pants over my nightclothes and rushing downstairs where everyone gathered. Those moments blurred into unmeasurable frenzy. Then we fled outside immediately. Though our mansion combined Japanese and Western wings in an impressive key-shaped layout, we felt no attachment—already running before bombs fell. Our group of sixteen dodged falling ordnance along riverbanks. Mansions around us ignited one after another; our abandoned home too began burning magnificently. Bullets rained even toward mountains while flames surged from south. Wandering aimlessly we took refuge in a fire-scarred house among surviving trees. Resolving I'd die there within an hour I sat on a garden rock. The Nembutsu prayer leaked unbidden from my lips. Mother chanted sutras. This time I'll burn alive I thought. I envisioned hideous corpses. Charred ones blistered ones naked ones clothes fused to flesh—I'd already witnessed many such bodies. I kept telling myself I must believe souls exist.

I imagined something leaving from within my own corpse. It closely resembled a pitch-black charcoal briquette. It was not a soul that sparkled like crystal. As I desperately chanted the Buddhist prayers, the blackness of the charcoal briquette began to fade, and I felt it gradually turning transparent. I unflinchingly chanted “Nammandabu.” When I suddenly came to my senses, the surroundings had grown quiet. The planes departed, and the explosions too grew more infrequent, as sporadic sharp reports rang out here and there, their slight tremors reverberating through the body.

I realized I had escaped death. I stopped chanting the Buddhist prayers.

That day, our family scattered and stayed two or three people each at others' houses. I forgot the pain in my joints and continued to sleep soundly. The next day, we finally moved into one vacant house left after evacuations together with my parents, sisters, and aunt’s family. The seven distant relatives split up and went toward the countryside.

An empty life began. For a week, we did nothing but look at each other's faces as if even speaking had become repugnant. Older sister, younger brother, and cousin all fell ill. They were in such a state from fatigue and extreme terror that they couldn't even eat.

The Soviet Union joined the opposing side, atomic bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and then came the day of defeat. On the evening of the fourteenth, Father assembled the family to relay this news. We spoke nothing more. There was no profound emotion. I didn't even feel particularly glad that the war had ended. Though my life might have been granted a reprieve, I could easily attribute certain spiritual pains to the war for forgetfulness or escape—having nonchalantly neglected the self-reflection my actions required—but now that sudden temporal and mental space emerged, this compelled me to scrutinize myself rather harshly. For me, this was by no means joyful. Rather, it proved intensely agonizing. Until then I had muddled through with half-formed thoughts and sufferings, never assigning them clear meaning. The war had only permitted me half-baked conclusions. Neither regarding Buddhism nor death could I pursue matters to their ultimate ends. This turned out unexpectedly effortless. I now had to consider what I ought to do here.

My father said he might be executed by firing squad. And they were constantly irritable, as if suffering from nervous exhaustion. It was certainly a gloomy household. They spent each day grinding soybeans with a crunching sound or boiling roadside weeds, but aside from such tasks, they passed the time with expressionless faces devoid of laughter, each seemingly lost in thought.

After a month, my brother returned, and that alone brought everyone joy. I disliked idle time. School began. The principal and head teachers' speeches did not register with me. It was utterly comical—a panicky, groundless sort of talk. English was revived, and they partitioned the fire-damaged auditorium into four sections to conduct classes. However, tasks like clearing bombed sites, demolishing air raid shelters (which they had desperately constructed a year earlier), and dismantling various air defense installations occupied most of our daytime hours.

Having been made a committee member again through election, I had no choice but to work diligently. I held prayer beads and chanted Buddhist prayers. This too was an effort to fill the emptiness that existed before engaging in thought. I began reading books too. Yet none of it entered my mind. The trains commuting to and from school were horribly crowded, with people repeatedly boarding and alighting through windows. A raw intensity seethed through the streets. Yet within it lingered a distinctly nihilistic air. Pressed tightly against others, I listened to people's conversations with melancholy in my heart.

Gradually, calm and quiet began to settle over the household. Father had only been purged from public office and no longer faced threats of execution by firing squad. He held weekly poetry gatherings, which became one of our few pleasures. There was also a piano in that rented house. I would create melodies unique to each moment without sheet music and lose myself in them. But after about two months, when the house's owner was due to return, we moved to rent a room in a mansion serving as a company dormitory. Our household had always maintained an upbringing that suppressed emotions between parents and children, so even when living with relatives, we managed without feeling constrained. The long autumn nights slipped away as we prepared for winter and managed memorial day meals. With each passing postwar day, I found myself thinking more. I felt lonely having no purpose in life. By then, I'd stopped wanting to become a nun. For I'd grown desperately thirsty for human love—I wanted only to love people. I believed I might find joy and meaning through human connections. I wanted to love someone. I longed for my affection to be returned. Though I wished my heart would be stolen by my brother's friends or young commuters I saw on trains, none held any appeal.

School was gradually returning to its proper form. A sort of mock romance play among female classmates suddenly became fashionable. They tied ribbons in their hair, hid photos inside their commuter pass holders, and—with uniforms still not fully restored—the colors grew increasingly vivid under relaxed dress code allowances. Since I lacked feminine grace and took perverse pride in my slovenly appearance, I stubbornly kept wearing wartime work clothes and monpe trousers, my hair perpetually unkempt. Yet this very appearance made me adored like a Takarazuka male-role performer. Every day my classmates thrust pink and blue envelopes at me, forcing me to read their tear-stained letters scrawled in looping cursive. Being fond of letter-writing myself, I'd immediately scrawl replies in crude handwriting on notebook margins. Though I felt no attraction to these girls whatsoever, I began socializing with crowds of them purely for the joy of correspondence. My school life became glaringly conspicuous. Gradually I regained vitality, my childhood audacity sprouting forth anew. I began dabbling in mischief. Each day I sought to engineer some novel incident around myself, delighting in these affairs without considering personal gain or loss. Yet I never parted with my prayer beads. Though wearing them no longer signified true faith, I couldn't bring myself to remove them. It had become mere habit—like wearing a wristwatch.

Chapter Six

As the new term began, I continued as a committee member and came to take on roles in organizations like the student council—creations of democracy. I spoke my mind freely about everything. This wasn’t under some pretense of school spirit or liberal ideology; it was simply because it amused me. Yet nearly none of our demands were accepted by the school authorities—under the excuse of “consultation at a staff meeting,” every matter ended up decided solely by the principal’s whims. Since I figured it hardly affected me anyway, I delighted in dredging up new incidents and offering up those stories. School revival bazaars began springing up frequently, with arts festivals and concerts actively organized too. I nonchalantly performed in plays, gave solo recitals, played piano, and sang my own compositions backstage (—what audacity I had!—all while gathering popularity. Gifts and letters kept flooding into my desk and handbag. People who chased me through corridors or clung weeping to my body—I never found them particularly bothersome, sending each one a polite thank-you note. It was a strange sort of pleasure.

Around that time, we finally found a house where only our family moved in. It stood right below the school and close to a burned-out home. I delighted in my second-floor Western-style room—barely half a tsubo large—where after cramming in a bookshelf and desk, there remained just enough space to shift a chair. I had to write four or five letters each night. Among them was a letter from a female teacher. She had taken over from my former Japanese teacher—whose skin I'd once loved—and now taught Japanese grammar too. She held no appeal. She would waddle her obese frame into the classroom and read classical texts in a voice so clear it pierced through air. It was such an unusually resonant and warm voice that even class representatives would mutter, "She should've been an announcer." She often made me stay after class, inviting me on mountain walks. I'd trail behind as she quietly narrated translated novels or recited beautiful poetry. During one Japanese class, we were each made to give five-minute impromptu speeches. I prided myself on being articulate. I had to talk about anything. When my turn came through the attendance roster's order—topics like childhood memories or air raid stories—though claiming reluctance to speak about myself, I apparently ended up discussing Pestalozzi and Yoshida Shōin. At any rate, I so detested that mellifluous phrase "reading, writing, and abacus" that I believe I tore it to shreds. She spitefully contradicted my views. Lacking knowledge to counter her arguments, I stared blankly while narrowing my eyes at her face. That afternoon, she told me my expression during our clash had been adorable. I felt faint indignation but stayed silent.

She began sending me letters frequently. I showed her poems and miscellaneous writings I had casually penned while seeking her critique. She loved my poems. However，she disliked my prayer beads. “I have this dream—where only your hands，those bloodied hands，come chasing after me．The prayer beads on them glint sharply．” “I have such dreams every night．” She repeatedly told me，“Take off those prayer beads already．” I did not let go．

She was cooking for herself alone in a corner of the school’s etiquette classroom. I lay sprawled in that room talking with her until sunset. Among the staff members, my relationship with her had grown too conspicuous—I was scolded by the homeroom teacher, she reprimanded by the principal. I didn’t particularly love her. Yet she possessed an abundance of topics, spoke skillfully, and hearing her voice brought delight. Moreover, I had never known how to lean on others. Even at home, we were always bound by etiquette and obedience—Mother stood on an elevated plane. Thus those occasional treats—pumpkin sweets or steamed buns with baking soda’s bitter aftertaste—or having her comb my hair became profound joys. Around that time, my family began gradually relinquishing land and selling furnishings due to property taxes. Father weakened into nervous tremors, my brother developed chest ailments, my sister’s marriageable age loomed—our household churned in disarray. Though we knew the phrase “family harmony,” its essence had evaporated. We returned home, ate meals, retreated wordlessly to separate rooms—when bedtime came, each laid out futons independently. Children upstairs, parents downstairs. Each remained oblivious to what transpired with the others. Children couldn’t question parental methods. Even when selling possessions—Father’s passivity ensuring losses—a single complaint provoked his wrath: “Don’t insult your parents!” We children knew nothing of remaining assets or financial standing. The scorched land of my birthplace, the main estate grounds, even Rokko villa—all seemed transferred to others’ hands. I found it wretched how money matters frayed human bonds. Then came my plea after girls’ school—to attend higher education and become a teacher—met with parental refusal, forcing reluctant acceptance that women belong sewing and cooking at home.

Just before that, my older sister—who had regained her health—had also had her application to attend medical college rejected because she wanted to become a doctor. Such things increasingly caused the emotional bonds between parents and children to clash and become estranged. My sister had an exceptional talent for mathematics—so much so that solving trigonometry and factorization problems all night ranked among her pleasures—and possessed a scientific mind rare among women. For someone like me, who felt nauseous at the mere sight of numbers, emotional compatibility was never in the cards. My sister would calculate swiftly and act based on those calculations. I acted recklessly and impulsively, driven by whims. Even as we clashed with each other, the moment we did, we would pull ourselves back without ever trying to delve deeper. My sister was an egoist, and so was I.

I informed that female teacher about the family discord and consulted her on how to handle my position. She always said I should follow my parents' opinions as common sense dictated. I felt angry but didn't quarrel with her.

Before long, a major problem erupted for me at school. It was an ethics class nearing the end of the first term. It was a time of teacher shortages, and the person teaching ethics—nominally the vice principal—was in reality a music teacher utterly divorced from ethics. I despised him from the bottom of my heart. The reason was that he was someone who engaged in music yet lacked any musical sensibility. He banged on the piano. It was exactly like typing on a typewriter. Moreover, his baton differed not an iota from a metronome—its motions consisted solely of rhythm, with not a trace of emotion within. That he occupied the position of vice principal due to over a decade of service and taught ethics—a class they called "citizenship"—was utterly absurd.

I felt it was even foolish to take notes as he wrote terms like "good and evil," "consciousness," or "actions" on the blackboard and explained them, so I always ended up thinking about other things. That day too, as I was spacing out，suddenly came the instruction: reflect on your own actions over the next twenty minutes，use reason to judge right and wrong，and write down any points you deem bad to submit. He had apparently said they would use that as a substitute for the ethics exam. Papers were distributed. I asked the neighboring student what was going on. She faithfully conveyed his words to me. I stood up. I rattled off one thing after another without stopping. I said over and over that I absolutely refused. The students stirred. He grimaced.

“What’s the point of doing something like this?” He curtly stated that self-reflection was important. “I insist that reflection is something you do by yourself!” “And using that as a substitute for an exam is utterly outrageous.” At my words, he shouted even more vehemently and declared it an order. I stubbornly refused to accept it no matter what. And in the end, “Excuse me, but have you any idea how heavy a burden it would be for someone who isn’t even a confessional priest like yourself to listen to forty or fifty students’ confessions?” “I handle my own actions myself.” “Even if I confess to you, it won’t amount to anything.” “I don’t believe that confessing one’s misdeeds to others lightens the burden of that suffering.” “And what’s more, you’re nothing more than a mere music teacher, aren’t you?”

I must have gone on at length about such things. He twitched his eyebrows irritably and berated me loud enough to reach other classrooms. I flared up and pushed even harder to oppose him. Among the other classmates, a few supported me. “Diaries aren’t meant to be shown to people.” The big-eyed, short-statured girl who gave me letters every day said that. The rest of the class, half in fear of him and half with expressions of relief that this incident was killing time, were looking back and forth between me and the teacher. I realized tears were streaming down my hot cheeks. These were tears of girlish excitement.

“That’s in poor taste—you wanting to hear about people’s evil deeds like this…”

I said in a tearful voice while forcing a strange smile. I suddenly conjured up my sins before my eyes. Theft. Cheating. Deceptive actions and words. I plopped down into the chair.

“Teacher. “Now if I were to obediently write to your satisfaction—then when you spread out that answer sheet, you’d feel astonishment, terror, and regret. Yes.” “You’ll end up regretting your own actions.” “For instance, suppose I were to engage in prostitution...”

A loud burst of laughter erupted through the classroom. Yet most of them didn't even know what it meant. The teacher stared at my face with an expression too appalled to speak.

“You’ll naturally mark either Pass or Fail on the answer sheet.” “Without knowing my psychology or my motives for these actions.” “Yet you’d just mark it Fail—that’s truly irresponsible.” “If you actually considered this properly as an ethics teacher, you’d regret your excessive responsibility before even marking it Fail.” “After your emotional shock and horror...” He threw a piece of chalk in furious anger and left, muttering vague words about postponing the matter.

This incident of mine quickly spread throughout the school. The students' eyes toward me completely changed. I was now considered a delinquent girl. I heard from that Japanese language teacher that they were discussing in the staff room how best to guide me. I was reprimanded by the supervisor again. When the term ended, I found it utterly absurd that there was a 'Good' mark in the Civics section of my report card. The delinquent girl's label didn't disappear even when the second term began. My fans steadily dwindled. At the time of that incident, only the girl who had agreed with my opinion still gave me things like violet flower cards. I doted on her—she was like a Goya painting. I gradually lost interest in school. And I skipped almost all of the tedious gymnastics, sewing, and commerce classes. My constitution wasn't particularly robust, and wartime fatigue had begun manifesting around that time—even walking became painful—so by submitting a doctor's diagnosis, I had my occasional absences overlooked. I lay in the rest room gazing at the blue sky. I would push small translated novels into my futon and read them. Gradually growing bolder, I began leaving early to watch old Western movies on my way home. The delinquent girl became the real deal. I even skipped school for entire days to visit Kyoto temples. I secretly wrote and submitted absence notes to keep it hidden from my family.

I began feeling as though the air itself inflicted pain on my body. The autumn air resembled a vacuum. I grew intensely anxious about continuing to live. I wondered why I was alive. There, I found no happiness resembling true happiness. Though I wanted to live freely as I pleased, I knew it was impossible. Rules. Law. And a household still encased in its rigid feudal shell. A school life devoid of interest. Even solving math problems or studying commercial forms remained forced exercises utterly divorced from my true self. I could no longer find any joy. I detested constraints yet knew no way to escape them. I want to live freely, guided solely by my own emotions. And yet—household. School. Society. In all things, I must suppress my feelings, ignore them, and live unable to nurture my authentic self. Humans—how tediously they exist! I lost all will to do anything.

I finally threw the prayer beads from my hands. I no longer believed in gods or Buddhas. Even in the very moment of chanting the invocations, feelings of anxiety and doubt welled up profusely from my heart. I fell into a state of complete collapse from everything. I sold off the Buddhist texts. With that meager money, I went out into the town. Even calling it a town was generous—it was just a bleak postwar landscape of makeshift shops. And then the black market. Here, the thick body odor of Chinese people and the rancid smell of food were packed so tightly that both sides of the narrow path seemed nothing but uproar. I considered whether there was anything I wanted. There was nothing.

At dusk, I returned home wrapped in despair, confusion, and fatigue. From that day onward, an impulsive craving for death began circling endlessly through my mind. I ceased attending school entirely. The Japanese language teacher and some friends came to visit. "I'm going to die," I declared. "You must be joking," they replied. I offered them a bitter smile. The practicalities of dying had never occurred to me. I resolved to hang myself. An image from *Ninjin* surfaced in my thoughts. Two days later, I tried it. Yet death eluded me.

The relatives who noticed my actions grew wary of me. I received lectures. My parents repeated endlessly that they themselves had labored to raise me. This only made me more furious. Yet for seven days I kept declaring "I'll die, I'll die" without dying. I couldn't even die. I had thought dying would leave nothing but a corpse, yet simply couldn't find the means.

A great many letters pleading "Please live" poured into my hands. Even from my former Japanese language teacher who had returned to the countryside, "I can do nothing to comfort you or persuade you. But please, keep living. Please keep living.—"

she had written. From friends:

When I imagine that you have died, I would have no tears left to cry. My only happiness lies in being able to meet you. Please feel sorry for me. ——

From the overweight Japanese language teacher,

"I can understand you who detest common sense, but I want you to live for the sake of your talent. You should be a little kinder to yourself.—"

This letter struck me as the most ridiculous of all. How could I possibly love myself? I loathed myself as much as I loathed society, people, and common sense—and even if I possessed any talent, it would be utterly useless for surviving in this world.

White clouds, carefree and unbound, flying through the sky

From a certain woman I liked who always displayed this hanging scroll in her living room,

It has been thirteen years since my husband preceded me in death. I have been living in loneliness. To love someone—to love them passionately from the heart—and to live for that purpose. You must love as well.—

A letter written on purple paper arrived. The vitality that kept her living while loving a dead person seemed strange even to me. She was my friend's mother and had been closer to me than that friend. The widow too hated societal conventions. She said she had lived until then like a white cloud. She said she had been disowned by her family because of her love affair and had lived only with her husband. To me, she seemed like a soulless doll manipulated by her deceased husband. And I thought such a life wasn't free at all. Though bound by an invisible force, she didn't suffer from it. I who didn't yet know love remained completely unable to understand her feelings.

Family meetings from which I was excluded seemed to take place every night. I didn't go to school anymore, and for my parents, this must have been an unprecedented incident. I lay sprawled out all day, not caring what became of me.

By Mother’s will, I was made to enroll in a music school in Osaka. It was now just five months before graduation. I couldn’t refuse being thrust into this different world. Or perhaps there had been a faint hope that I might find something there. At first, I entered under the title of an auditor. I was to study both piano and vocal music. My hands had grown almost completely stiff, and since I hadn’t practiced the études, I couldn’t play a thing. I had to practice scales every day on the dilapidated piano at the neighboring church. In the morning, commuting to school took a full two hours. And I would enter the small practice room and play loudly. There were music theory, composition, and practical training. And then it would take another full two hours to get back.

This daily routine felt even more unpleasant than my recent time at the girls' school. There was scarcely any trace of musical atmosphere to speak of. I often marveled that I hadn't gone mad. Since the practice rooms lacked proper soundproofing, piano tones from neighboring chambers constantly invaded my ears - Bach preludes clashing with Chopin études in discordant cacophony. Each pianissimo passage had to be hammered out at fortissimo volume just to be heard over the din, creating sounds more mournful than wartime gunfire I'd known. The battered instruments themselves rattled out of tune, yet other students remained unperturbed - a fact I found utterly baffling. This wasn't music. Street clamor outside held more harmony. By week's end, my resolve crumbled completely. I attended only composition lectures now, spending other days watching endless Osaka matinees or idling at the widow's parlor until dusk. When winter recess commenced, I abandoned formal studies altogether. Neurasthenia gripped me; Bach's Inventions looped ceaselessly behind sleepless eyelids while sheet music transformed into undulating seas where black noteheads bobbed erratically like storm-tossed buoys. In final rebellion, I hurled scores against floorboards and bid permanent farewell to ivory keys.

Mother lamented that she had always envisioned me on stage as a first-class pianist. However, acknowledging that in my mental state it was impossible to continue engaging with the piano any further, and fearing that forcing me would make me want to commit suicide again, they allowed me some freedom after consulting with Father and Brother. Whenever I received a small amount of money, I would go out for walks to the outskirts. And then, I read nothing but poems. I loved Sakutarō. Around that time, I would also write poems. A poet looked at my poems and said, "You like Sakutarō, don't you?" To such an extent had I come into contact with Sakutarō and received something from him. I moved to the capital alone. However, unable to adjust to the fluent accent, I returned almost immediately. I still wanted to die. It wasn’t melodrama. Simply, I wanted to escape the suffering. My common-sense brother laughed derisively, saying that suffering was utterly nonsensical at that age. However, at my age, that suffering was immense. I wanted to live life as I saw fit and understood that it was impossible. And I had no strength. I lacked patience or perseverance. In my own way of thinking, I even came to envy my wartime self. That hectic life back then was still somewhat easier.

I longed for a busyness that would grind me away. I thought it would be just fine if my existence dissolved into that frenzy. If I could live without self-awareness, I believed that would be the easiest path. I sought employment. Father and Mother opposed it outright. In their minds, the image of our stately gate remained firmly entrenched. A disgrace to the family. This was their primary objection—they scolded me for irresponsibly chasing momentary thrills through this impulsive plunge into society. I couldn’t determine whether this aspiration was frivolous or sincere. Objectively speaking, voluntarily leaving girls’ school might have been reckless, and cutting classes to watch movies or wander Kyoto and Nara was certainly irresponsible. Moreover, I’d taken up smoking. This posed the most legally precarious problem since I was underage. By any objective measure, every action I’d taken until now deserved condemnation. Yet in those moments—each precise instant—my feelings toward those acts were undeniably genuine. I was earnestly contemplating myself. This sudden urge to work stemmed from forcing myself to adopt an absolute creed—I must survive—making employment a necessary compromise with my own peculiar logic. I secretly clipped newspaper ads and hunted for jobs behind my parents’ backs. After writing a resume, I interviewed at a woolen goods wholesaler and became an office attendant. By then, Father and Mother could only stare dumbly, offering no interference. It was midwinter’s cruelest stretch.

Wearing a rumpled navy jacket and dusty trousers, my sallow skin was parched, my eyes dull and clouded, my brow and the corners of my lips frequently twitching—not a trace remained of that heroic air I’d possessed as a child. I was sixteen years old at the time.

Chapter Seven

“Have you ever seen the unemployed—those who can’t even eat their daily meals—loitering before the Employment Security Office? Hmph.”

These were the first words given to me as a clerk. The portly female secretary who had been with the company for ten years came to my defense.

“Ms. Ishioka, that way of thinking won’t do.” “Even young ladies from good families must boldly go out and gain experience in society.”

It was a fortunate misunderstanding. I seemed to appear in her eyes as a plucky modern woman venturing into society. The executive—the Company President’s nearly incompetent younger brother whom we called “Mr. Branch Family”—declared me an irritating girl. However, I quickly mastered the technique of smiling sweetly and was promptly favored by him. From that day onward, I demonstrated my loyalty. Every morning, I cleaned the dusty converted warehouse—a structure that had survived wartime destruction and been repurposed as an office—almost entirely alone. Since all this company’s esteemed executives had risen from errand boys, they noticed every trivial detail, and we young workers faced constant scolding. My job consisted of menial tasks—cleaning, serving tea, binding newspapers, organizing mail—and I mainly scurried about under the secretary’s orders.

By the time my fingertips turned bright red and my chapped hands throbbed, the other female employees would arrive for work. And so, as a token gesture, they would take up brooms and dusters or change the flower water. When noon approached, they would light the charcoal brazier to warm lunchboxes and add more charcoal to the hibachi. When clients or people from the company that claimed to be Japan's top woolen fabric producer came—since this was a wholesaler handling their exclusive distribution—they would serve premium tea using fine tea sets. The water had to be kept boiling at all times. Even if the tea was too strong or too weak, the people from Japan’s top woolen fabric company would openly complain. Even if they were low-ranking youngsters, our executives would bow their heads in deference. Sitting in the cold reception area when they arrived,

“Maido, dōmo,” they greeted. If you dared ask their names, they’d glare furiously. They provided mahjong entertainment and lavish hospitality starting midday. They negotiated with nearby restaurants. Even when geishas clattered in on wooden sandals alongside the president, we had to treat them with utmost deference. They seemed to serve the company more diligently than I did. Since no department had been assigned to me, the typist would ask me to verify copies, salespeople ordered me to run errands, and accounting staff sent me to the bank. The daily bustle lasted until five or six. With labor laws completely ignored, overtime pay was naturally out of the question.

I didn't particularly feel tired. Amid the ceaseless physical labor, I had even less opportunity than during wartime to contemplate my existence's value or how to live. This proved fortuitous. Having mastered greetings and phone etiquette within days, I never wearied from nervous tension. Even when reprimanded, I couldn't sniffle like other girls. Both superiors and underlings showed me kindness. Unjaded, I'd chirp "Yes! Yes!" to any task. Though working without genuine respect for them or loyalty to those antiquated bosses, I effortlessly concealed my inner self completely then.

When work ended, I would go eat udon or oden with my fellow clerks or go see movies. When I returned home, I would go to sleep without exchanging much conversation with my family. Every day wasn’t exactly enjoyable, but at least life spent earning a monthly salary wasn’t entirely without purpose. My first salary was 1,500 yen. With that amount, I could sufficiently cover tobacco expenses, coffee expenses, buying picture books, and going to see plays. As for tobacco, I often smoked at the janitor’s aunt’s place. She was a heavy smoker herself. If I had been discovered by the elderly spinster secretary, I would have undoubtedly been lectured or fired, but fortunately, since I didn’t smoke too frequently, I remained safe. The young boys who had shaved their heads often came to me to bum cigarettes. They would lend me mimeographed obscene books and teach me the unique jokes and coded language associated with such topics. There were times when I felt bewildered by the gap between the love I imagined and the romantic feelings they harbored. And so I came to feel both slight disappointment and lingering interest toward them. However, I was bound to the company and could no longer stir up trouble like before. In that most constrained of lives, I grew accustomed to the constraints, became numb, and found something akin to resignation. I no longer felt any particular contradiction in casually suppressing my emotions, and my actions gradually became calculated.

When March came, our grade graduated. At that time, my graduation certificate was been sent to my home. I learned that fact from that particular Japanese language teacher's own mouth, and my mother never presented me with the certificate. Because of this, my classmates completely severed ties with me. There had apparently been another student who withdrew due to family circumstances after my case who didn't receive their diploma either - which only compounded the issue. Since I hadn't considered a mere slip of paper particularly valuable back then, I hadn't particularly wanted it anyway. If anything, I felt something akin to strange pride in having dropped out myself, making me even more furious at the adults' scheming that disregarded my personhood. This matter had apparently caused problems at a faculty meeting. However, since my father had once been prominent, made donations to the school, and held a board member position, the principal sent me the certificate almost entirely through unilateral decision. This left me deeply uncomfortable. Yet I managed to forget it almost immediately. My hectic daily work made this possible. The Japanese language teacher resigned and returned to her hometown, declaring the school had lost its vitality without me. I felt neither loneliness over being completely cut off from school and friends nor any particular regrets.

Due to high prices, my salary rose nearly every month. I took pleasure in buying small ceramic ashtrays and such. The janitor’s aunt was suspicious of me—a woman who didn’t wear makeup.

“You should put on a little lipstick.”

Because I worked diligently, she who particularly looked out for me said this. I gave myself a perm and began applying light makeup. Mr. Bunke grinned slyly while staring at my face. He always sat vacantly at his large desk with his mouth slightly agape. He was even worse at math than I was. Looking sheepish, he would slowly use an abacus and his fingers to calculate before handing me payment for the grilled rice lunches. He had a short temper and would often shout angrily. His stammer made him spray saliva everywhere.

“My pipe—pa-pa-pipe—” This was a matter that would invariably escape his lips every single day. The same went for lighters and cigarettes. When I had free time, I observed his behavior. I remembered where he left his pipe and quietly told him. He disliked it even when instructions came too quickly. I had memorized his acquaintances' phone numbers—since he never kept records himself—and responded to these requests immediately. Among the female clerks, I alone understood his temperament well enough to follow his orders. While I deeply detested him, I felt a peculiar attachment to his foolish expression. On Saturday afternoons, I watched with amusement as he went out to eat with his wife—who visited him wearing gaudy kimonos. Though I received his scoldings most frequently, his tyrannical ways felt oddly familiar, and even while being reprimanded, I did everything for him.

The secretary and I got along well. She would often giggle and joke around with the president in his office, but once she stepped out, she would command even the accounting manager and key figures in sales with great authority, while the aged men pretended obedience. The spinster's hysterical episodes occurred frequently. She swung her plump hips about as she ranted angrily. Because her menial tasks had been assigned to me, allowing me frequent access to the president’s office, I found her saccharine words in front of him comical. It fascinated me to watch how she could completely transform her facial expressions and even her tone of voice with just a single door separating us. Jealousy and slander were constantly repeated. Moreover, I learned that even trivial matters—like who was getting along too well with whom or who harbored jealousy—affected our work, with everything going straight from the secretary to the president. Though it seemed absurd that he would interfere in such things, I came to understand how greatly they influenced promotions. I was the youngest and didn’t stir up any incidents with anyone, yet I was always placed below even the girls who joined after me. That was because I had no clerical skills. I couldn’t do bookkeeping or use an abacus. I couldn't type on a typewriter, nor did I know how to handle fabric. I didn’t particularly feel jealous of the colleagues who kept overtaking me. The lowest position was the busiest, yet it had a sense of stability with nowhere left to fall. No matter how much time passed, I alternated between standing and sitting at the desk by the entrance and the reception corner. I was well-regarded by visitors. It was probably because my speech was fluent. Having given speeches at school and undergone strict speech training since childhood, I could use honorifics effortlessly.

Five busy months passed. For the first time, I was handed a large envelope called a bonus by the president and gave gifts to my parents, siblings, and that friend’s mother. The joy of receiving money and giving things to others was what gave life its vigor during this period.

Before long, I noticed that Ooka boy with his shaved head was being particularly kind to me. We would often coincidentally meet while running errands or stand together under someone else’s eaves during evening downpours, exchanging brief words until the rain passed. Ooka boy was a country lad whose face bristled with pimples. One day, we were tidying up the warehouse basement with other boys. Past five o’clock, amid dust and humidity and the moldy stench of fabrics, we sorted goods and bundled scraps, working under showers of straw debris. Ooka boy perched atop a ladder while I handed small packages up to him from below. His legs were wrapped in thick hair, and the toenails of his sandal-clad bare feet had turned pitch black with ingrained dirt.

Heave-ho. As he chanted "Heave-ho," I listened half in a daze to his vigorous breathing and work calls resonating above me. His tank top was stained light gray with sweat and grime, and every time he stretched, his sturdy skin and spinal column came into view. Our fingertips brushed against each other during the exchange of packages. His rough fingers were equally caked with grime under the nails. When handing over the final package and announcing we were done, I realized his hands, the parcel, and mine had frozen in position. Suddenly overwhelmed by an irrepressible bashfulness, I childishly stuck out my tongue and released his hand. He deftly tossed up the package, then attempted to leap down toward me. I didn't try to dodge, mesmerized by his dynamic mid-air posture. Thud—the impact on my shoulder made our lips reflexively graze each other. Abruptly irritated, I scurried five-six steps to where the other boys worked.

“I’ve already finished my part.” “I’ll help.” Entering among them, I began organizing the luggage. Ooka boy came over, wiping his face with the hand towel hung around his neck, and like me, began silently helping with the work.

After that incident, I became self-conscious whenever speaking with him, constantly keeping the worry that someone might be watching our movements. I felt considerably drawn to his sturdy physique. Sometimes after work, we would eat okonomiyaki under dim black-market lights or sweat through greasy udon noodles together. The country boy possessed a fearsome appetite. He disliked chilled drinks and frozen sweets. I watched with giddiness as he boldly scored sizzling rounds on the iron plate using a square tin tool—apparently called a griddle spatula—resembling an egg lifter, his mouth working vigorously.

Ooka boy and I never became the subject of rumors. He had an appearance so unattractive that he couldn't possibly draw attention, and was foolish to the point of absurdity. The ones everyone clamored about were the employees in their late twenties who'd returned from military service and the plump red-cheeked boys. When he was being scolded by superiors, I pretended not to hear. He got yelled at countless times daily from all directions—"Use your head!"—though it never stuck. I covered for him whenever possible, even leaving my own section to help when he got saddled with three or four tasks at once. This sometimes earned me scoldings too. Mr. Bunke would stand with hands in pockets gazing vacantly around office corners, then twist his already crooked mouth further when he saw Ooka boy and me talking, leaking strange chuckles. Whenever our eyes met, I'd fabricate a bashful smile and tilt my head coquettishly. He favored me.

When thin wools and yarns began appearing in the city, Ooka boy was suddenly transferred to the Tokyo branch office. There was no particular reason for this; after about six months, employees were to be dispatched in rotation to three branch offices. He greeted each person in the company one by one, without appearing lonely. Even in front of me, he bowed with a serious face and placed a small package atop both my hands under the desk. Since I was the last one he greeted, he promptly left the room. The small package contained foreign-made lipstick wrapped in newspaper with "souvenir" written on it. Despite the abrupt mismatch between the appearance and contents, I let slip a smile. I carefully unfolded the newspaper again to see if there was any writing, but all I could find was "souvenir" written in blocky pen letters. The origami-sized scrap of newspaper was merely an old, commonplace issue of the Securities Daily, and no suggestive text could be found. The lipstick was in a golden case. It appeared to have been bought from a black market—an expensive American-made item—but when I twisted the bottom to the right, a startling peony color emerged. At the same time I burst out laughing, I felt a slight disappointment. This color was entirely removed from my preferences. However, he seemed to prefer the golden case and peony color. It bore a resemblance to the heft of that okonomiyaki. He must have specifically chosen this color from among many varieties. I was able to gladly accept the sincerity of his heart.

On my way home, I meticulously applied that color to my lips. My lips glared garishly. And then I went to meet Ooka boy again at the janitor’s room where he was packing his belongings.

“Thank you for earlier.” “Take care of yourself.” “You’ll be going on business trips and coming back often.” “Let’s meet again then.” “I don’t have anything to give you—payday’s the day after tomorrow, so my wallet’s feeling rather thin.” “But here, take this.” I handed him the small mirror from my handbag. When going on business trips, they’d issue orders letting you grow out your hair. He accepted it straightforwardly and simply said, “Goodbye.” As he looked at my face—whether noticing the lipstick color or not—his expression stayed blank and unreadable.

On the way back.

I felt a sudden surge of sadness welling up from the depths of my chest.

From the next day onward, I once again went to work early in the morning and cleaned as usual. I simply couldn't bring myself to apply the lipstick he'd given me. I preferred the subtle red of cheap Japanese-made ones. Company life consisted of nothing but fixed routines every day. Once I had grown completely accustomed to the work, I gradually began developing acute self-awareness. I sometimes started leaning on my desk to think idly. Each time I was scolded for this, I grew increasingly negligent toward visitors and phone calls. The old man in accounting would recount bills three or four times over, snapping sharp reprimands over even a single sen before meticulously pinning down and filing away every scrap of paper—even useless ones; the sales department youths tucked pencils behind their ears while clattering abacuses from dawn till dusk, or sandwiched four-five carbon sheets between documents to scratch numbers into shipping forms; export staff typed multiple copies of sample costs; meanwhile the elderly secretary skillfully commandeered the president's car for personal errands; executives bowed and scraped before everyone out of ingrained habit; young girls chattered about makeup techniques and actor preferences during spare moments; delivery boys mimicked Tarzan and Westerns between bicycle errands; and then there was the president—who occasionally slipped off to his mistress' house in broad daylight (something the secretary knew all about and which I was privileged to overhear)—not to mention calls from women who stayed silent when asked their names…….

What had once been matters of great interest to me in my daily life gradually became nothing special, and now only Mr. Bunke’s every move held my attention.

One evening, I encountered him loitering through the streets with an unlit cigarette dangling from his vacant-looking mouth. He always kept his hands stuffed in his pockets. He stuck his legs out to the sides and had a habit of walking with his stomach thrust forward. He was immediately recognizable even from a distance. Since I was returning from the company, I had redone my hair and applied some makeup. After a short while, he noticed me.

“Heading home? Company’s done for the day?” He asked arrogantly. I smiled and nodded.

“Follow me.”

He commanded. I obediently followed a few steps behind, feeling like a maid. After turning through two or three back alleys, we came to a secluded house with a lattice door. He quickly took off his shoes—never bothering to untie the laces—and headed into the tatami room. I hesitated and stood in the entranceway. “Fumi… Is Fumi here…?” A young maid with her hair neatly tied up in a bun popped her head out from the hallway—her face thickly smeared with white powder—and flashed an amiable smile at Mr. Bunke and me.

“Get me some sake… Come in.” He issued commands to both me and her at once. I arranged my sandals, faded to a dull black, in the corner and approached the room the maid had summoned us to—that is, the six-tatami blue-tatami room where he sat cross-legged with his legs spread wide. “Get in here.” I perched primly before the central vermilion-lacquered table. “You’re gonna smoke, right? I know all about ’em.” He pulled out a cigarette box from his pocket—its white cellophane wrapper bearing a vivid red circle. I took one and put it in my mouth.

“Hmph.” He let out something that was neither a laugh nor a sigh and went out of his way to bring his lighter close to my face. Since it was still a bit early for dinner, there were no other guests. From the cheap, barrack-like ceiling, the white shoji-style lampshade stood out beautifully. A sake flask, a small bowl, and chopsticks were soon brought. The maid from earlier poured sake for him and me.

“Hey, Fumi.” “Don’t go blabbing about this.” He showed his thumb. She perceived it referred to the company president.

“You keep quiet too.” He commanded me with an upward glance. The sight of him and me sitting across from each other drinking sake struck me as utterly absurd, and I found myself smirking. He did not speak much. I too remained silent and ate the sushi that had been brought afterward. I felt slightly tipsy. “Mr. Bunke, why aren’t you treating me?” I deliberately used Osaka dialect to ask. “Hmph.” He laughed contentedly. His drowsy eyes gradually sharpened into focus. Outside grew dim, and the lights came on.

“Thanks a lot for the meal.” “I’ll have you send me home now.” I pressed both hands down and bowed politely. “I won’t let you go home.”

He glared at me intently. And then he suddenly grabbed my hand on the desk. The sake cup and chopsticks tumbled over. Then, a scene straight out of those cheap novels from mass-market magazines—the ones with covers gaudily painted in blues, yellows, and reds—began unfolding right beside me, drawing even me into its midst. I resisted. The vermilion-lacquered table was rattled and pushed into the corner. “Mr. Bunke, let go, let go!” I whispered those words in a small voice. The snap on the side of the cotton dress came undone with a sharp sound.

“You’re disgusting. Stop it.” I mustered all my strength, grasped his arm, and pushed his upper body away. This happened two or three times. Suddenly he rolled onto his back in the corner of the room like a cowering dog. “Hmph. You’ve been messing around with Ooka—don’t think I don’t know.” A surge of anger suddenly welled up inside me.

"Mr. Bunke, I can't stand you even joking about something like that." To him who'd grown timid, I snapped sharply.

“Hmph.” He made that familiar sound from his usual mouth position.

“Mr. Bunke, let’s go home now. How disgraceful. It’s still dimly light out. Besides, you’ve got a proper wife waiting for you, haven’t you?” I had always thought he was mentally deranged. I pulled his hand and raised him up. He let me do as I pleased. I fastened the buttons of his white shirt and retied his tie. His wife was a strong-willed woman with terrible hysterics—something I had heard from the secretary. I also knew that he was again doing exactly as his wife said. He had a childish side unbecoming of his age, and I felt sympathy for his apparent loneliness. I pulled his drunkenly numb hand and led him down to the entrance hall.

“Guh... shoehorn!” He shouted. With a relieved feeling, I quickly took the shoehorn from his right trouser pocket and slid his foot into the shoe.

The next day, he came unsteadily to work around noon. I brewed strong hot tea and brought it to his desk. He said nothing and didn’t even look at me. I now worked more diligently than ever for him. Through my actions, I showed compassionate care for him—someone whom everyone at the company viewed solely as the president’s younger brother and constantly scorned as utterly incompetent. Company life occupied most of my days, leaving me nearly estranged from my family. Before I knew it, my sister had fallen in love—a relationship that progressed to marriage—and I began realizing my place within our household for the first time. This was during that stretch of Sundays and holidays approaching winter. My older sister held her wedding ceremony. Her partner was a wealthy young gentleman.

Chapter Eight

Suddenly, I found it painful that I was living while resisting all sorts of things.

One rainy afternoon, the reception desk stood deserted with few visitors. I flipped discarded documents to doodle on their blank sides when abruptly I realized my strength had drained away. My daily existence felt hollow. I began seeing myself as a robot. The act of bracing against life’s current while feigning diligent service now struck me as absurd—resisting what needed no resistance. To persist meant willingly courting pain.

Impulsively, I felt the temptation of death. Affection toward Mr. Bunke was also entirely futile nonsense. Jealousy toward my sister—I was inexplicably furious that she had married happily (though this was merely how I perceived it at the time) by asserting her own will. I couldn’t even experience love. Even if I loved someone, I wouldn’t be loved. I possessed not a single quality that made me worthy of being loved. My sister was beautiful in appearance and sharp of mind. Moreover, she effortlessly handled both femininity and all the tasks expected of women. She had properly graduated from school and had even made her body robust. And how about this? As for me, my schooling was half-finished. I was stuck working as an attendant, and I didn’t have a shred of kindness or devoted affection.—Even this was utterly absurd.

When the company closed, I visited that widow's house.

“Auntie, I’ve gone and wanted to die again.” I can’t stand any of it anymore. I really have no attachments to anything—no desires either—I'm too miserable; I can't keep living like this. That’s futile. I hate working now—and I hate sitting still thinking quietly. I can't even enjoy gazing at nature—and interacting with people—loving or being loved—is too much for me. “I’ll die—it’ll be such a relief.”

She watched over me with a gentle gaze as I spat out my hasty words. “Do as you please.”

She offered me a cigarette and exhaled slow smoke from a long pipe herself. I forcefully opened the piano lid and began playing Chopin’s farewell piece. My sentimental behavior struck me as comical. I continued repeating the same motif many times while “It’s truly complex yet simple.” “The psychology of people who die or whatever.” “Even the motive to die can be summed up in one word.” “I die because I want to die.” “Why? Because—” “It can’t be rationalized.” “It’s instinctual.” “It’s impulsive.” “Crying, laughing, dying—they’re all the same.” “They’re just trivial gestures.”

When the sound of the piano and the words I was spouting became unbearable, I slammed the lid shut and hurriedly began preparing to leave.

“Auntie, goodbye. “Kimi-chan, goodbye.”

Kimi-chan was my classmate. She remained silent from beginning to end.

I turned up the collar of my overcoat, boarded the train, got off five minutes later, and stopped at a pharmacy. I bought forty tablets of medicine marked with a red ‘劇’ symbol and returned home.

I cheerfully finished my meal alone and late. When I entered my narrow, solitary room, I took out stationery from the desk. I wanted to put on one last performance. I wrote a letter to a fictional lover. I constructed myself so that my cause of death would be a broken heart. From various love stories, I extracted clever phrases and listed them. The fictional lover became various people. Twisted mouths, greasy shoulders and backs, a student companion with large eyes—even faces I didn’t recognize were present in that illusion.

I rolled the die. With the single die in hand, I tried rolling it while telling myself that if an odd number came up, I would take the pills immediately. A one came up. I fetched water into a glass and took all the medicine. Without even having time to change into sleepwear, I stretched out on the futon and pulled two quilted covers up to my neck. At that moment, the telephone rang downstairs. Before long, Mother called out from downstairs.

“Bobi.” “There’s a telephone call for you.” “Just tell them I’ve already gone to bed…”

I barely managed to say that. My head rang violently, and my heartbeat struck fiercely. I felt as if my entire body were numb and spinning around and around. Soon I could no longer feel anything.

That both attempting suicide and failing to die were utter farces—this realization came to me several days later. I have no memory of myself for fifty hours. According to others, I thrashed about in agony, writhed in pain, vomited, tore out my own hair—it was what people often call a living hell. When I came to, a radio reached my ears.

F minor, huh?

I seemed to mutter under my breath, but no sound emerged. Neither legs nor hands would move however I strained. A doctor's figure hovered nearby, dimly watching my face. The faintest awareness of being alive seeped through. Eyes closed, I shaped a smile too ambiguous for self-mockery or acceptance. Had two hours passed? Three? Pain bloomed through every limb. One hand crept slowly to touch the opposite arm. The skin's uneven texture spoke of countless injections. That same hand explored other limbs. More ridges met searching fingers. Fever burned high; headaches and back pain raged fierce. A filmy veil grayed all vision. Unquenchable thirst kept me clamped to the water pitcher's spout, gulping cold streams straight to my gut.

It was from evening into night.

The next day, my consciousness was mostly clear, and I felt my existence to be terribly pitiful. The faces of my parents and siblings came into view. I wanted to see characters. However, the newspaper that had been brought under the desk had doubled or tripled, making even the size-six type illegible. I raised my upper body and looked out the window. The way the wind rattled sharply against the windowpane and how the cherry and maple trees had shed nearly all their leaves appeared strikingly new.

It seemed my forged suicide note had already been read, and my older brother tried to probe into my love life. In response to this, Mother pressed her lips together and signaled to Older Brother to cease such inquiries. For some reason, I chuckled. Why did I have to fabricate even such things? Forcing upon myself things that would deliberately invite misunderstanding from those around was something I myself found utterly impossible to comprehend with common sense. I felt a complete disharmony between the white sheet, the gerbera under my pillow (which Mother said was a get-well gift from that widow), and my own body.

It was several days later that I came to think. That day, if I hadn't gone to the widow's house, and if that call hadn't come—it was from the widow— —everyone in the house must have remained unaware of me until morning. Then I might have died. I didn't feel particularly stricken. Only this chain of fateful events struck me as absurdly comical. Suicide should have been the most concentrated yet greatest form of all my resistance until now—yet here I was, devoid of resistance itself, attempting to resist life—I couldn't help but laugh bitterly at myself. The day after next, having had someone bring an inkstone and brush, I began scribbling on tissue paper. I felt nothing. No shame at having crawled back to life so ignominiously, no noble remorse for causing such an incident. Emptiness had occupied my mind long before that event anyway. I let the brush glide across paper, scrawling nonsense in large characters while staring up at the ceiling.

The doctor came twice a day and gave me injections. An elderly attendant came in the afternoon and rubbed my body. A week passed like that. I became able to walk using a cane. My family made no comment regarding my death. My desk remained exactly as it had been, with only the suicide note removed. I did not feel the impulse to immediately want to die again. Nothing mattered anymore; even dying seemed as troublesome as living. Even after the new year began, I continued going to the company while holding onto those feelings. I had not the slightest interest in Mr. Bunke anymore, and I was not moved at all by the other young newcomers who had recently joined the company. I merely did what I was ordered to do. I no longer found the pay envelope as pleasing as before, nor did I feel any sense of superiority when giving things to others. Receiving my salary came to feel natural, and I came to think that giving to others was a strange vanity meant to make myself look good, so I stopped doing it. Before long, I noticed that my body had become extremely prone to fatigue. The morning cleaning felt like excessive labor. Carrying a bucket and walking two or three steps would make my heart race. Even carrying a tray with bowls to serve guests caused pain in my arms. I would tumble down stairs, knock over the medicine kettle, and repeat these clumsy mistakes time and again. I had constant headaches and was even running a low-grade fever. Having received the doctor’s diagnosis, I learned that I had an acute, mild chest disease.

I was ordered to resign from the company. I had to recuperate for three months. I felt no particular fear of the illness. I had simply become able to move as told, and expressing my own will felt troublesome. No—I must have had no will at all.

At the end of March, I received my meager severance pay and that month’s salary, bowed obsequiously in farewell to the company president and everyone below him, and quit the company. Mr. Bunke said he wanted me to come back once I got better. The secretary gave me a doll. The janitor’s wife repeated many times that I had worked hard. When I joined the company, Mr. Ishioka, who had made a sarcastic remark, said, “After all, you really were a delicate young lady, weren’t you?”

“After all, you really were a delicate young lady,” he said. I heard those words without them carrying any particular weight. I didn’t dwell on how my skin had turned bluish and lost its luster, or how gaunt my chest had become. With the severance pay, I figured I could drift through two months. There was no need for strict bed rest—just daily vitamin injections, no medication. The shadow on the X-ray wasn’t large; avoiding stress made the fever subside quickly. Filling empty hours without forcing myself to read or watch movies, I idly sketched pictures for fleeting comfort. Suddenly cutting ties with society didn’t strike me as lonely. I began preferring air and nature’s colors over human affection.

It wasn't that returning to life felt strange; I felt no particular emotion beyond having undergone an experience. Even having damaged my body didn't stir me to address its cause—it all seemed fated. Placing myself in the current's flow, I realized I was being carried along its direction. Perhaps I'd grown weary of endlessly repeating events until now. Both body and mind had lost any vigor or confidence to pursue adventure. No passion remained whatsoever. Shedding the garments I'd worn until then, I recognized I was entering an austere world—not resolutely stepping forward, yet clinging to no lingering attachments to youth either. It amounted only to a vague yearning for austerity. Material desires dwindled away. Even forcing myself to think intently held no interest. Though still two or three years shy of twenty, I wore my hair tightly bound, dressed in dark clothes, and remained shut indoors without even makeup.

My family looked at my transformation with eyes half-doubtful yet half-believing. However, they seemed somewhat reassured by my demeanor that now appeared tinged with a certain composure. Around that time, I began awakening to my own womanhood as if for the first time. No—even during my days commuting to work, I'd occasionally dab on makeup and study my reflection in a hand mirror or mind my posture while walking, yet never truly touched upon what lay at womanhood's core. I sometimes browsed essays by Japan's female writers. Yet the women I found there were either wholly unhinged in spirit or else so shackled to daily life that they merely reacted to stimuli around them—nothing more. What I sought were undercurrents flowing through deeper strata, but none of this satisfied me.

As I observed myself and paid attention to what my mother and other women thought and did, I came to realize how ridiculously they—and by extension myself—were being skillfully manipulated by men or life itself, molded into round or square shapes. Even when exceptions existed, they held no validity in society and only appeared to be stubbornly concealing their weakness through sheer obstinacy. I felt utter contempt for both. And by including myself among them, I sank into self-loathing.

A certain writer had once said that when women look in mirrors, they look at themselves while simultaneously seeing how they appear. To me, every woman seemed to be constantly trying every possible pose for the sake of how she might be perceived. Even when women engaged in love affairs, it struck me as nothing more than self-satisfaction derived from their adeptness at such performances and the image of themselves reflected in others' eyes, rather than any genuine pleasure in the act of loving itself. (This might constitute women's pleasure,) but even in the romantic films I had watched through tears countless times before, every female character that appeared now seemed to me like nothing but that sort of self-satisfaction when I reconsidered them. Even when there was no happy ending, women would proudly proclaim their tragedies instead—their suffering and anguish undoubtedly being about displaying suffering rather than truly experiencing it. And even outside romance—whether female writers published novels or female politicians ran for office—it seemed they weren't expelling their true selves but rather layering themselves with multiple exaggerations. This realization disappointed me. And finding no women I wished to praise, a prolonged state of self-loathing followed.

A few days later, with fatalistic resignation, I came to realize I should maintain a veneer of womanliness. I devoted myself diligently to household tasks. My body gradually began to recover. Day in and day out through laundry and cooking, my family grew increasingly reassured about me. “After all, you really are a woman, aren’t you?”

My older brothers said that. I merely smiled. To quickly have an ordinary marriage, act obediently, and spend each day being chased by life. I wished to become that. No—I had thought there was no other choice but to become that. Even if I had regained enough confidence to express myself on my own terms, by now I had lost all interest in doing so.

And then one year passed. In contrast to my former hectic life, it became quiet and uneventful. I would arrange flowers, line up ceramics and spend hours gazing at their surfaces, or sometimes take evening strolls through Yamate Street.

Resignation drove me to that. As my intense, unrestrained character was gradually chipped away, so too did great joys vanish. Nostalgia for primitive things comforted me. I neither attempted self-manipulation nor agitated my nerves.

It was a solitary life. However, the loneliness of solitude had ceased to be a suffering for me. Rather, that loneliness was a kind of melancholic happiness. It was also around that time that my premature white hairs suddenly multiplied.

The self I wanted to discard, the self I detested. If it had grown this unresponsive, I thought with a wry smile, I could resign myself to its unavoidability.

During that time, as things to sell gradually ran out and the family’s living conditions worsened, the anxiety of having no income intertwined with their clinging to past lifestyles, causing Father to age ten years beyond his actual age, his words during nightly meals growing harsher. Father had his own vanity. The children had their own vanity. It was vanity of a completely opposite nature. They had to do something. They could go into business.

The children thought so. If they obtained money, their small luxuries would be satisfied. Father opposed it. "I simply cannot bring myself to bow and scrape to others. And if we show our struggling state to society, we'll lose the bank's trust as well." This proposal was incomprehensible to the children. Such reasons were merely Father's arbitrary interpretations; they believed it was ultimately his own unyielding, old-fashioned vanity that prevented anything from being done. Clashes occurred frequently. However, the absolute right lay with Father. The goods in the warehouse that survived the fire were secretly taken out. He would never say they had been sold. "They had been transported away," Father said. Amidst all this, the house they lived in reached a state where it had to be sold, and they came to live with relatives in the same city.

“Well, you see, the house we moved into after the war is rather inconvenient... And living together works out better in various ways—plus from here, we can even walk into town...”

Hearing Father's greetings to people, I couldn't help but smile wryly. The things to sell had run out. They had already sold even this. Each time the number of items dwindled—even as they said this—they managed to maintain a state where three square meals a day could be taken for granted. The life began with the family of Father's sister, with whom they had spent several months during the war and its aftermath, now joined by Grandmother. Just like my spirit, the family's life had come to an end.

I couldn’t tell what would happen even a month later. I truly couldn’t tell what was going to happen. The part of the garden before our eyes had passed into others’ hands, and even the sole family heirloom scroll had been taken out. However, though each person must have harbored their own impatience, it did not manifest in their actions, and the surface remained perfectly calm. This was because they had realized that the exchanges of opinions between Father and the children were nothing but empty talk.

Such daily existence. Such self. Neither had a future. What would become of me—I did not force myself to think about that. The times were changing steadily. However, I was living with stagnant emotions, stagnant thoughts, and a stagnant daily life. Could this be my own laziness?

Epilogue

The pretentious pose had remained still for a while, but no matter how comfortable that position was, I would inevitably rediscover fatigue and constriction there before long. Like post-rainy-season sunlight, I began moving again. It glared harshly. It started spinning at a rapid tempo. Until twenty. From then until twenty, I soared gracefully upward, collapsed into ugly sprawls, plunged into sudden declines, or clambered back up—repeating this cycle endlessly. Yet I don't remember it clearly. Or rather, even when remembering, the closer I approach my present self, the more that very self shows signs of fleeing. Frantically trying to catch it, I stretch out my hand with all my strength to touch it, but like a jellyfish, it slips slickly from my grasp.

My attempt ended in failure. My sudden, convulsive turn—just shy of completion—failed to merge seamlessly with my present self.

In other words, I remain undying. If my past self had vividly connected with my present self, I had interpreted that I could easily die. My fated death must have drawn near, only to suddenly make a sharp turn and retreat into the distance. This might be an arbitrary interpretation. However, I felt one disappointment and one relief.

I cannot grasp yesterday’s self. I cannot know what underpinned yesterday’s pose of mine. However, after I live through several more years, when a considerable distance arises between that self of that time and my present self—or the self just before reaching the present—I will likely be able to continue my gray memories once again.

The curtain of the endless play began to fall. Before it had fully descended, the audience yawned and rose to their feet. The curtain hung suspended midway, incomplete. 〈Showa 25 (1950)〉