Pathway to Japanese Literature

The rain that had been falling for two days finally let up, and it was one of those days when the summer heat seemed to slowly creep back in.

The lingering dampness and dull sunlight made everyone’s minds and bodies sluggish, and I—so sensitive to the weather—found myself in a deeply discordant mood.

I sat all day in the study, gazing vacantly at the trees outside and the rows of revered books, and as the sunken silence and listlessness of my surroundings seeped into me, I found myself recalling my uncle—how he had lain here in this very spot where I now sat, his body positioned midway through its final decline.

When I was seven years old, my uncle died.

And his death was an utterly ordinary one—possessing so clear a disease name and progression that few saw reason to question it.

He was mourned, missed, and carefully buried.

However, now that ten years have passed—as is the case with many of the dead—his name and face have mostly been forgotten, only occasionally resurfacing in faint memories as "old recollections" in the hearts of some brother or relative.

Therefore, for me—who had spent only about a year with him and was still just entering elementary school at the time—the events of his coming and going had not lingered as something that would still draw fresh tears.

It had passed naturally until around last year.

But lately, these fragments of memory woven between him at thirty-two or three and myself—things I find myself recalling at every turn—have in various ways become increasingly difficult for me to forget.

I don’t know what causes this.

Though I cannot make myself understand why, I recall that the feelings that passed between us—between me, confronting him with the fullest love my burgeoning emotions could summon, and him, pouring out what might be termed a heavy solemn affection shaped through religious discipline—were, however simple, a purity permitting no other's meddling.

I had been devoting more love to him than to my parents.

Until two or three days before his death, not once had I been apart from him.

I, who had lived like his shadow, now feel that the affection toward him—which had been diminished for some time—has begun to burn with added radiance of various kinds.

Most people, I believe, must have at least one instance where—when recalling the simple, childish affection they once held toward some particular event from their early years, encountering life's many happenings as years accumulate—they feel a nostalgic, comforting love that, though truly monochromatic in nature, they wish to call eternal.

I can assert that he was the focal point of that eternal love of mine.

He was the sole religious figure among my relatives.

Moreover, as he was a man of devout faith, those around him likely perceived and remembered him in variously transfigured forms, but to me, he always carried an air of profound, unrelenting melancholy.
His eyes were not particularly large.

Yet those black, steady pupils were imbued with such force that they seemed to intimidate others somewhat—even giving a sense of firmly maintaining one’s stance and being immovable.

His bluish-black, gaunt face.

Thick eyebrows casting deep shadows beneath a high forehead.

Solemn movements and a voice that spoke low and languidly.
These seemed to form all his distinctive features—people said they left an unforgettable impression after just one glance—but for me, the face of my uncle within my memory became confused with that of a man now living who is going blind, making it exceedingly difficult to conjure even each minute detail of his face in midair.

The reason was that the deep-seated gloom suffusing that man's entire face and its color bore an uncanny resemblance to my uncle's.

Since even the appearance of his face—the one I ought to remember most clearly—remained so indistinct in my own memory, most of these various incidents I now attempt to write about, occurring at different times, lacked any connection between them, their reasons and chronology equally unclear.

Nor do I intend to speak of matters such as his life history up until his death.

I merely seek to meet him—my beloved uncle—who lived and died within the childish memories of that less than a year we spent together.

He who had long resided in America studying religion suddenly returned to Japan without any prior notice.

This unexpected event greatly astonished the many people who had been anticipating he would settle there and live out his days until death.

"Oh my, you've made it back safely."

This single phrase was indeed whispered with manifold meanings.

Though he claimed he had simply returned because he wished to, looking back now—while this may be pure conjecture—it seems unlikely that was the sole reason.

Because Father often spoke of how he was someone susceptible to suggestion.

Of course, being susceptible to suggestion was not a privilege reserved solely for religious figures.

However, it was said that each time he wrote to my father—who was in England at the time—he never failed to note that he had received the suggestion stating, "Entering water will inevitably bring danger."

Father had no reason to refuse his only younger brother’s goodwill, and being too old to "tempt God," he had kept to those words as stated.

It is thought that this was why he had returned to the land of his birth, sensing his own death was near.

In any case, it was a day not long after he had returned amid everyone’s surprise.

At that time, as my father was away on a long overseas trip, I cannot express how unexpectedly overjoyed I was by this uncle’s return home.

I was swept up in joy.

And so, clinging to his shoulder from morning till night, dangling from his hand as I listened enraptured to tales of that storybook-like country said to lie beyond the sea, having to sit at my school’s hard desk from morning until noon and be parted from him became truly the saddest and most unbearable thing.

I threw a tantrum about not going to school.

I argued that Uncle's stories would teach me more than school lessons about things I already knew, but ultimately only left after getting his promise to come pick me up.

On my way there, I kept thinking about the return trip.

And how absurdly slow those three hours passed after that!

When the teacher finished bowing, I squeezed past the children at the narrow exit and dashed out—there, at the spot where the maid always stood, Uncle waited smiling today just as promised.

I leaped at him, my smile breaking apart.

Then Uncle patted my head.
Just as my satisfaction had peaked and I was about to start walking in a dancing manner, a boy much larger than me—who had been standing nearby watching our earlier exchange with apparent curiosity—suddenly let out a vulgar, hoarse voice,

“Hey, hey, Chinaman!”

“What kinda man goes around with long hair like that?”

With that, he flushed red and stomped off.

I was utterly astonished.

And when I looked up at Uncle’s face with faltering steps, his countenance—watching in silence as the child who had moved me so deeply despite my youth fled away—appeared both sorrowful and solemn.

I was worried.

But when I realized my uncle’s hair—which I hadn’t noticed until then—was long, I was seized by intense curiosity and found myself gazing up at his head high above.

There hung truly beautiful—I thought it looked exactly like Aachan’s—glossy locks of hair cascading down to his shoulders. I opened my eyes so wide—that was how splendid it was. Straight and thick and heavy-looking, like an ornament.

"How I adored it!"

"Oh, how truly beautiful they must be—all neatly aligned and gleaming."

With that thought, I could no longer comprehend at all why the boy had insulted him.

"Why is it strange for men to have long hair?"
"Why does that make one a Chinaman?"

I was filled with bitter frustration at hearing someone precious to me spoken ill of.

However, he silently took my hand and began walking.

I twisted my mouth this way and that trying desperately not to cry—contorting my lips or scowling to endure it.

Because there were many friends around me whom I did not want seeing my tearful face.

But when I could no longer hold back and a single tear spilled out, all restraint vanished and I began sobbing uncontrollably.

While holding my hand, Uncle seemed absorbed in entirely different thoughts.

He grew even gloomier in expression and walked on with downcast eyes, neither attempting to comfort me nor pretending otherwise.

I, sobbing, and he, lost in thought, slowly, ever so slowly made our way down the temple-lined street under the astonished gaze of numerous children.

While crying, I dimly felt the extreme warmth of the fine weather.

Outside, rain was falling.

And it was noon.

All I knew was that it was noon, but why Uncle had taken to his bed at such an hour remained utterly beyond me. I lay sprawled beside him, kicking my legs restlessly as I chattered on about this and that.

――The room was so terribly dark that it must have been raining.

After chattering on about various things, I inadvertently told him in a sweet, childish tone about how one of my friends had been cruelly tormenting me―all while faintly hoping for some comfort or agreement―

"They're truly such an unpleasant person―"

"I’m so detestable I can’t stand it!"

When I said that, I felt an unexpected pain in my outstretched arm—so sharp it made me jump.

When my startled mind finally settled, I realized he had pinched me.

I couldn't believe what I'd said was so wrong as to deserve this punishment, and ended up utterly frightened.

Being scolded by someone dear to me was the most unbearable thing.

There had been times when, though I felt like running away immediately, a sense of restraint arose—thinking it would be wrong to do so—leaving me utterly at a loss.

This incident came to impose restrictions on my unrestrained words.

From then on, whenever I spoke to him, an unprecedented wariness and tension filled my chest—I found myself slightly distanced from that carefree attitude of "I'll tell him anything."

Whenever I think of this, I ponder with great interest how my present life—in which I express myself quite authentically—might have been transformed had I spent these past ten years living alongside him, meeting and speaking together at least occasionally.

That I would have become a Christian had I done so was undoubtedly certain.

Whether that it did not end that way was misfortune or fortune for me, I do not know.

He spent his days from morning till night mostly shut away in his room, living within books.

At that time, the five-mat room—now my study, shadow-filled with its long eaves that blocked direct sunlight, truly well-suited for contemplation—stood vacant, and so it was promptly designated as “Uncle’s room.”

On shelves where the sand plaster was peeling terribly and all around the room, there were numerous books—merely taken out of trunks with nowhere to store them—lined up directly on the floor, and many thin russet-colored volumes lay about tied roughly with hemp ropes.

Those russet-colored books, were I to see them now, would be recognized as remaining copies of *The Great Day of God*—a publication he had labored intensely to produce—yet to my childhood self back then, they appeared as nothing more than "lots of the same books."

“Uncle’s books” were all glossy-paged things with lots of interesting pictures drawn on them and a pleasant fragrance.

Those books with red or blue covers—sometimes truly beautiful gold or silver ones—compared to textbooks bearing gray covers speckled only in black with illustrations of withered desks or branches—it’s impossible to say just how much more they stirred a child’s heart with interest and made one yearn to read them.

How utterly fascinating they seemed! Yet sadly they were all in English—not written in katakana or hiragana that I could read—so I couldn’t grasp even a single character. But what truly baffled me was how beneath those neatly arranged characters lay such an abundance of red and blue lines. Moreover, when I saw how all sorts of things had been scrawled so messily—to the point of being unsightly—over those carefully whitened areas, I was utterly astonished.

“Uncle,
It’s really awful how you’ve dirtied your books here…
Won’t the teacher scold you?”

He merely laughed and patted my head gently, yet my great question remained unanswered in the end.

However, when I saw pictures of winged, adorable versions of myself—groups of children just like in fairy tales and beautiful people ascending to heaven—I felt as though all the many stories I had read until then were coming true.

At times I would fantasize about wings sprouting swiftly from my own shoulders and flying off to wondrous lands where crowds sang and danced; or when seeing light radiating from every child’s head, I would stealthily check my reflection in the mirror only to feel profound disappointment at finding nothing but a small black head.

Those fantastical religious illustrations greatly benefited the material for “my stories,” so whenever the chance arose, my spur-of-the-moment tales—told alone—increased in number and grew more imaginary than before, until I became thoroughly dissatisfied with merely reading about ordinary humans quarreling or battling—things I had once considered peerless.
The magical old woman became even more welcomed, and princesses who could construct grand palaces in the blink of an eye came to be waited upon.

I told him all manner of stories.

Every story seemed to please him, but anyone who committed even a single misdeed had to somewhere—

“God forgive me,

I won’t do it again.”

The story could not come to an end unless one uttered these words.

He developed otitis media not yet half a year after returning.

He was admitted to the university hospital and had an incision made, but I later heard he had stubbornly refused—insisting that since fate had granted him death this way, he wanted no part of hospitals prolonging a life meant to end through artificial schemes.
Yet I heard my mother and relatives agonized over him, coaxing and persuading him as one might placate a child until they finally secured his hospitalization.

I also heard that when he tried to enter the operating room and saw the blood and tools from another person’s surgery scattered about in a gruesome state, he began to grow faint—immediately starting to worry about his own life—and that he kept repeating this story over and over until his death.

During the time when Uncle was hospitalized and immobile, it became my daily routine that without fail, each day upon returning from school, I would go straight to visit him.

I can’t recall at all what the hospital room looked like, but I do remember that the corridor from the entrance to the room was terribly long and quiet. The sound of my footsteps echoed ominously off the white walls on both sides, frightening me so much that by the time I reached the middle, I felt I had to break into a run.

The room I dimly recall was likely the second gray door from the end of an exceedingly narrow corridor.
Lest I make a mistake, I checked the surname on the placard hanging by the door—one I could read myself—then rapped on it with my fist as nurses do before entering with a feeling of having become an adult.

Countless times when passing the operating room on my way to that room, glimpses of figures flickering in view would stir my curiosity—I’d want to peek inside yet stop myself out of fear.

Even now, I still love that hospital’s distinctive medicinal smell—it was pleasant to me back then—and the moment I stepped through the entrance, I would already feel a faint excitement.

Especially the smell of disinfectant that drifted around his bright-ceilinged operating room remains as a vivid impression that I can still smell at the tip of my nose even now.

On a day of torrential rain, when I returned from school, I ignored my mother’s attempts to stop me, put on a raincoat and held up a small oil-paper umbrella, and set out for the hospital.

I think I was probably alone.

During the time when Hongo’s roads had not yet been improved to such an extent, its main thoroughfare would become a chaotic mess when it rained—a thoroughfare so terrible it’s now unimaginable.

In my determination not to fall, my geta—low weather clogs reinforced with claw leather that I never wore except in the heaviest rains—plunged into the mud and kicked up splashes, subjecting me to tremendous hardship.

When I finally reached the Red Gate after nearly an hour, perhaps while dodging a carriage or something of the sort, two apples I’d hastily grabbed and brought along tumbled out of the furoshiki bundle into the mud.

I don’t remember how I managed to bring them there, but somehow I reached the hospital room and opened the door as quietly as a cat—just as Mother had instructed—to find Uncle lying there with his eyes half-closed.

“Oyou?”

He said in a muffled voice.

“Oyou-san” was Uncle’s younger sister—a truly good person who had died young.

About this aunt too, I held various memories.

However, Uncle soon realized it was me and was overjoyed.

Despite thinking I wouldn’t come because of the rain—calling me an exceptionally strong child, remarking how admirable such resolve was—he kept saying these things while, upon seeing the mud-clod-like apples I had pitifully offered, suddenly grabbing them,

“Thank you,

Thank you so much.

Nothing could have made me happier.”

Saying this, he turned his eyes upward as usual and began to pray.

Standing silently beside him watching that, I felt an indescribable emotion welling up until my chest was full—I wanted to burst into tears so desperately I could bear it no longer.

That suffocating feeling like chest pain from back then still returns vividly to my heart even now.

I was gladdened and happy.

Yet I couldn’t understand why those mud-stained apples were such good things.

I thought about many things and wanted to ask, but this matter—being my own thoughts and something that had pleased him—felt too precious to share with others, so in the end I never spoke of it to anyone, not even Mother.

The various religious stories I heard by my uncle’s bedside were truly a great many.

The story of Adam and Eve.

*Noah’s Ark.*

*The Story of Christ’s Childhood.*

*The Tower of Babel.*

He spoke of various other stories in a tone as though matter-of-factly narrating quiet facts about everyday matters.

His manner was so solemn and profound—utterly devoid of any sense that these were mere children’s tales—that I would lose myself in his words, creating worlds where I ate figs and pretended to be among the people attempting to pile up massive stones.

And then, as if my heart had been completely captivated by these things, I hoisted a pillow,

“Ah, it’s gotten so tall,

Let’s raise something this time!

Stones! More stones!

You can’t hear me if you’re distracted—that won’t do!”

exclaiming such things, then becoming a snake to address my two younger brothers as Adam and Eve,

“You—that’s delicious,

Go on, please have some.

Because God is stingy and says not to eat it.”

There were quite a few times when my saying such things caused Mother to worry.
The fact that I was so dominated by fanciful imaginings was what Mother worried about.

Among those countless stories, the one that both brought me the greatest joy and made me grieve over how little I knew was the tale of Noah’s Flood.

I had never seen a great flood since the day I was born.

And yet, how could I possibly imagine a flood that would destroy the entire world?

Yet how I envied—Noah being the sole one in that great ark with cows and horses and doves, never dying as he crossed over mountains and sailed through what had become seas, day after day, steadily, steadily onward.

What a blessed thing it must be—that while even the greatest kings and all the beasts drowned, Noah alone lived to journey across the vast world.

If God was as great as Uncle said, then I couldn't help but think that if I just prayed, He would surely make me a Noah too.

If that came to pass, I even thought about taking along his books and his organ, Mother, Father, Kun-chan, Mi-chan—everyone I could think of.

Around this time, I was often told about God.

And though I came to vaguely sense that there might indeed be a God, I found myself wondering time and again—was the true God the one who wouldn’t take you to good places if you did bad things, or the one who gave you delicious sweets and rice?—never just once or twice.

Given that state of things, I could never truly feel grateful to God, and I might as well say I received almost none of the religious influence he had likely hoped for.

Yet it remains quite certain that within his heart lay this wish—to imperceptibly prepare me for automatically desiring a religious life.

The fact that he has not been present until today holds profound meaning in my life.

Had he remained here until now, and had I grown into exactly who I am today, we would have inevitably clashed in mutual anguish, and those childhood memories would have forced bitter tears upon me.

I confess with honesty.
That he departed on that day, at that hour, was truly for the best for both of us.
I now feel an eternal love for him and am able to continue keeping within my heart the quiet love he gave me.
The communion of our two spirits—pure as it was in his time, filled with love, untainted by anything—can echo within my breast until the day I enter my grave.
As the deeply cut wound had gradually begun to heal, my uncle—his head wrapped in thick bandages like an Indian—would complain that the hospital food he ate alone was tasteless and then slowly make his way back home around noon.

By then his once-long hair had been cropped so short that his scalp showed through, and his cheeks had hollowed even more than before—making his already gloomy face appear doubly ghastly.

There he sat in his dark cotton kimono with white obi, given specially meager meals just for himself while listening contentedly to us children’s chatter and Mother’s consolations; chewing each bite deliberately—the scene still floats before my eyes so vividly.

One day he entered through the garden gate as usual, thudded down onto the veranda ignoring his fallen cane, made that strangely contorted face again—then after sitting silent with a sigh—

“I must have been quite weakened—today on the way here I grew so dizzy I could hardly manage.”

At the corner of the high school, he had squatted for thirty minutes.

He said this with palpable exhaustion.

Never before had such pity for him surged within me.

Until that moment, I had always considered Uncle someone immeasurably greater and stronger than myself—a man untouched by hardship—yet this conviction now lay shattered at its very roots.

There he leaned against that fence of stacked poles, choking on pedestrians’ foot-borne dust as he suffered—and not one among the streaming crowd even paused to ask what ailed him.

What a dreadful crowd of people.

Why hadn’t I gone to bring Uncle back safely while glaring at those awful people?

I was tormented by the enormity of my own oversight as my body trembled with hatred toward those "bad adults."

And this adult-like sympathy toward him fanned my affection into fiercer flames, making me feel both a backbreaking responsibility and pride—the conviction that I alone in all the world stood as his ally.

From that time onward, adults beyond those I knew began appearing before me bearing greatly diminished worth.

Soon after that incident, Uncle came back home.
Yet though the bandage on his head had grown somewhat thinner, he perpetually seemed unwell and sorrowful.

At times, with his gaunt cheek—overgrown with beard—streaking ceaseless tears, he would hold me as I grew sorrowful without understanding why, and we would sob together for what felt like endless hours.

At that time, his affection toward me seems to have grown far more passionate than before.

When I saw him sitting there silently in tears, even without words, I could fully sense his heart—and our two melancholic hearts had found a profound harmony and unity.

His heart, as he neared death, must have been filled with various inspirations, profound emotions, and premonitions.

His deepest anguish and joy must have gathered and surged most intensely during this time.

If he had possessed words, he would have surely been compelled to speak of countless things—yet he knew only how to pray.

Indeed, he spent his days in prayer during that time.

The weather was exceptionally fine that day. I think it was probably the end of October—a day so fine that beneath a loftily clear sky, all the tree leaves danced like gold beneath it. I was taken by Uncle and left home. Without any particular destination in mind, we turned from the narrow path in front of the house and went down a sparsely trafficked slope toward the rice fields. Uncle had his usual bandage around his head and carried a cane, while I remember wearing a kimono with a red ground and thin white lines forming a checkered pattern so small that from afar it didn’t appear bright red—one I often wore until around age ten.

After walking a short way through the rice fields and vegetable plots, we unexpectedly found ourselves before a narrow, precipitously steep path flanked by woods on both sides.

Because the narrow path—where sunlight filtered weakly through treetops—was dotted with patches of moss, our feeble and faltering ascent along it proved no small feat.

The cane Uncle carried for emergencies proved invaluable, yet each time we planted our slipping feet, I watched with bated breath as the slender stick bent alarmingly under our combined weight—certain it might snap at any moment.

Gasping for breath, I pulled on Uncle's sleeve, planting each footstep firmly until we finally climbed the last step—and there before us stretched an expansive plateau, its outstretched hands lifting us up.

I had never seen such a place since my birth—so thick with grass, a grove so utterly devoid of people.

The grassland spreading out in all directions from where we stood stretched endlessly in yellowish-green hues. Far in the distance where sky met land like a sea, the grass tips swayed in unison—languidly, softly—and when a gust swept through, both the leaves in the woods and the grasses across the plain filled the air with sweet fragrance as they rustled and whispered.

From among a cluster of trees standing with their clear brown trunks aglow, small crimson leaves fluttered about; and from deep within came the chirp-chirp-chirp of small birds, their voices echoing all the way to those mountains resting serenely yonder.

My chest felt ready to burst with joy and astonishment.

The surroundings shone so brightly golden-brown that I thought we might have come extraordinarily close to the sun; the sky felt near enough to touch if I stood on tiptoe.

As I quietly pushed through, tall grasses bearing small black round fruits and withered flowers like grains of rice parted left and right at chest height, while small insects flew out with a buzzing sound in the wind.

In my delight, forgetting myself, I dashed all the way to the end and looked—there before me stood a cliff sliced as cleanly as a cut through Castella.

The face of that cliff—crawling up from depths so low and distant I couldn’t begin to fathom them, all the way to my very feet—appeared smooth as if sliced by a sharp weapon. Dry yellow mud, powdery compared to the hard red soil beneath it, blanketed the surface.

From there, I could see train tracks just like those in my younger brothers' toys, houses, and tiny figures busily working—the sort of people I'd want to inhabit my storybook realm.

Uncle, who had caught up from behind as I stood transfixed, sat down beside me at the cliff's outermost edge.

But noticing my toes dangling unsupported in midair—the dread of tumbling down with the very earth beneath me, the thought of who might retrieve these sandals should they fall—an eerie discomfort seized me, and I edged backward to sit on the adjacent grassy patch.

Uncle told me various things about the nearby mountain.

There had been a time when he climbed wearing night clogs as a child; hearing there was a tengu made my astonishment reach its peak.

I stared intently at the mountain’s gently undulating silhouette, wondering on which tree a white-haired tengu with a crimson face and pole-like nose might be perched—clad in red robes and holding a feathered fan.

Of course, there was no way the great tengu could be seen, but Uncle began speaking again—this time shifting from tengu to God.
In a highly agitated tone, he almost scoldingly expounded on various matters beyond my comprehension.

And finally, as I watched him—moving his hands, raising his eyebrows, speaking ever louder as if standing at a church pulpit before hundreds of listeners—I found myself seized first and foremost by violent terror.

Though merely being in such a place for the first time in my life had already put me in an altered state of mind, Uncle’s demeanor and voice proved far too stern and incomprehensible for a seven-year-old child—so much that I felt ready to bolt away any moment.

Yet I had no idea which way to flee.

I was at a loss, timidly watching Uncle's demeanor—which must have suddenly gone mad—until I could endure it no longer,

"Let's go home,"

"Hey Uncle,"

"Let's go home already."

I pleaded insistently.

Summoning desperate strength—shaking his bony shoulders and pulling at his hands—it was only after considerable effort that I finally managed to get him upright.
Our return home took far longer than our outward journey.
For years I couldn’t determine where this cliff—site of that unforgettable incident—might be located. There were even times I suspected these memories might be figments of imagination. But one day, when taken along a shortcut through Tabata en route to Meguro, I found myself precisely in that field preserved within my memories.

At this moment, I felt my heart grow light with a groundless reassurance.

That place was Mr. Satake’s property, a spot right beside Dōkanyama.

After that, I often went out to play with my brothers.
Deep in the woods, birds chirped as they had in his time, and the sun shone just as golden as before.

How long does the tengu of Mount Tsukuba live on?

That was the last time Uncle and I went out together.

I remember it was the evening of November 25th when he took a serious turn for the worse.

The house containing a gravely ill patient was so crowded—everyone tiptoeing yet practically running about—that I, being merely a hindrance, was put to bed early in the farthest room with my brothers.

It wasn’t from anxiety nor pity—but swept up in the household’s commotion—that I fidgeted restlessly. Burrowed deep beneath my bedding yet straining to catch distant footsteps, I’d clear my throat or feign exaggerated yawns whenever someone drew near, desperate to make them aware of poor sleepless me. But not a soul touched the shoji screens to check—they went bustling purposefully wherever needed, hurrying back without so much as a glance my way.

As my irritation intensified, the commotion in the house grew increasingly worse—the maid in the kitchen calling out in a lively voice,

“Tomita-san! Tomita-san!”

Amidst the shouting came the clattering of wooden sandals and the clinking of ice being chipped—sounds that disrupted the deepening night air with unusual intensity.

The far side was bright as day, and even lights not normally lit glowed crimson in every corner of the corridors and the bathroom.

What a lively, thrilling commotion this is!

I found myself wanting to get up and go see.

At first, I managed to restrain myself despite fidgeting my feet out of fear of being scolded by Mother, but those clamorous noises drew my unsteady spirit toward the sickroom—toward the sickroom—with a power surpassing even a brass band’s pull on a child’s heart.

My patience finally gave out.

And finally, with a feeling akin to stealing a neighboring apple, I rose and stepped out into the hallway—but the overwhelming darkness and the tension of this grand adventure I was about to undertake sent a puppy-like shiver through me.

Teetering on the verge of tearing my soles, I inched forward through the hallway until reaching its bend—where night wind slicing through an unlatched musō window on the right struck me like a blade. My body shook uncontrollably, teeth clattering beyond restraint, until I let out a guttural, animal-like cry.

Just as I—having finally pushed through the hallway after enduring truly eerie sensations—reached the vicinity of Uncle’s room, a tremendous moan erupted, one that seemed to snatch my very heart away.

I recoiled.

And even as I wondered why I’d come to such an eerie place, morbid curiosity compelled me nonetheless to press flat against the sliding door where a slight gap had formed and peer inside.

The room was lit by an oil lamp—unlike the one Uncle normally used—with a large gleaming jar that reflected its light, making it as bright as other rooms. Large shadows overlapped and separated on the far wall.

While many people were present, everyone remained silent as if they themselves were ill.

Grandmother, Aunt, Aa-chan… The ones wearing black suits must be the doctors.

My, my, how strange. What could be glowing over there?

A strangely warm feeling came over me—I completely forgot I was hiding as I peered around at everything—when suddenly Uncle’s voice erupted with tremendous force from behind Grandmother where his face remained hidden,

“Sister-in-law.”
he shouted as if hurling.

The voice that burst forth alongside an unbearably agonized breath—as if hurled out in desperation—was thick, brief, and hoarse.

“What?”

Huh?
“What is it?”

Mother seemed to bend her body, but it was so terrifying that I tore my eyes from the gap and squeezed my eyelids shut.

Wondering what sound would come next, my heartbeat suddenly raced as I stood frozen—breath caught in my throat—when abruptly, a bright light pierced through my thin eyelids. With a start, I opened my eyes to find Mother standing before me, appearing far larger than usual.

So utterly unexpected was it that I, unable to utter a sound, stood there dazedly when—

“Oh, you...”

“Let’s go over there and get to bed.”

While saying this, Mother escorted me back to the original room, then hurried off with a clatter.

“I’ll come right back once I’m done here.”

And then she immediately left me all alone again.
For a while, I couldn’t sleep and felt scared.

But before I knew it, I had fallen into a child’s untroubled sleep, and when I awoke on my own the next morning, the house was hushed as if last night’s events had been a lie—still as if water had been poured.

Through the maid’s account, I learned that Uncle, Mother, and the others had gone to the hospital again late last night, yet no particular surprise or sadness arose in my heart.

Whether school had been closed or we hadn’t gone, my brother and I were playing “Princess and Pony”—a game only we played that we’d grown obsessed with at the time—when around noon, I think it was, Mother returned alone still wearing her brown raincoat, eyes swollen.

Uncle had finally died.

“So Uncle died?”

I—who didn’t truly understand what dying meant—could feel no profound sadness, of course.

“You’re saying Uncle died? The same Uncle who was telling me stories just the day before yesterday?”

What happened?

What?

Something scary?

I couldn’t believe any of it.

That Uncle—with his seemingly strong body despite the bandages—dying so suddenly, then being buried after a quick funeral... It all felt like things were moving far too fast.

I couldn’t even bring myself to think of death as something truly strange—what could it possibly mean?

I was made to wear a black ribbon just as Mother did, and did nothing but remain solemn as told, refraining from laughing or being boisterous.

When I compare my state of mind at that time to my brother—now growing up before my eyes and exactly the same age—my heart was simple to such an extent that there was no comparison.

For one thing, he had already stopped using terms like “Aachan” from before even turning five, and toward people dying—though perhaps still abstract—he had developed a heart capable of feeling both a certain solemnity and sorrow.

And since he held an unwavering conviction that death must exist in this world, it seemed there was no such thing as being nearly as ignorant about death as I had been at that time.

Moreover, given my nature, Mother had always kept me insulated from such extraordinary events as much as possible—so it was here that I first encountered death itself.

I felt strangely restless and couldn’t settle down.

As I was being sent to the kitchen—now suddenly crowded with people coming and going—or scolded in the front parlor, a clamor of voices arose from the gate. Mother emerged from the inner rooms and, finding me wandering about there—

“Go in there.”

“You mustn’t look.”

“I mean it.”

—then pointed to the small room beside the entrance before bustling off in haste.

I entered the room as instructed and closed the sliding door. Soon after, I sensed something heavy being lowered onto the earthen floor of the entranceway.

Then, when the clattering footsteps of many people and the sound of something tremendously heavy being carried reverberated right before me with only a single sliding door between us, I was suddenly seized by a trembling terror.

"It was dead Uncle who had come."

An indescribably terrifying sensation flashed before my eyes.

As I clenched my hands together, widened my eyes, and held my breath, the sounds subsided. By the time Mother came to get me, the entire house was filled with muffled sobs and sorrowful whispers.

Silently led by the hand, I sat down before the rounded screen. In the room with tightly closed shoji screens and stagnant air, before the pale blue folding screen scattered with silver flakes could appear chillingly cold, I pressed my hands to the floor in a formal bow. And I bowed with a more formal and quiet reverence than even that which I would show to the teacher whom I considered the most respected.

Placing my hands on my knees and staring at that pale blue, the terrifying feeling gradually faded,

He really died—my uncle.

As this despairing, utterly irredeemable feeling crystallized within me—maintaining a quiet composure like an adult’s even as my chest felt torn to shreds—I shed tears of excruciating anguish.

From the next morning onward, it became my duty to place offerings of water and salt on the desk by the pillow.

When morning came, I would arrange fresh offerings of those things at my uncle’s dim bedside as soon as I awoke.

Just as I would arrange food for my living uncle, his large palm—as if being thanked somewhere—

“Thank you,”

“Do become a good child.”

I felt as though he were patting my head.

And if what Uncle always said wasn’t wrong—because people who did good deeds were supposed to go to a good place—

Uncle would probably go to some good place before long.

This thought comforted me greatly.

I think it was on the morning of the encoffining ceremony.

Somehow finding myself alone as usual, sitting blankly by the hibachi warming my hands, the rear sliding door opened and a man with a thick beard and angular face entered.

I turned slightly at the noise but remained silent upon seeing a stranger. The man who had been working behind the screen eventually leaned halfway out from behind it.

“Yuri，come here for a second．Let me show you something good．”

and he gestured for me to come.

I, without any particular thought,

“What is it?”

When I stood up and went over, I was put inside the screen.

There lay Uncle’s body on a thick futon—looking terribly tall—but feeling nothing strange as I stood behind that man while he lifted the white cloth draped over the face area,

“Look.”

With that, he twisted his body around.

Wondering what it could be, I leaned forward—

Ah—

No sooner had I cried out than I stumbled from behind the screen—trembling so violently from terror that my own wailing seemed to blur my senses—and burst into tears.

Though I stopped crying when Mother—having heard me—came running and held me, from that moment I could no longer bring myself to approach the coffin.

What a ghastly complexion it had.

That face—emaciated, all sharp bones like a monster from my imagination, something out of paintings—along with its slightly gaping mouth clung stubbornly to my eyelids and would not fade.

I was utterly horrified by the face of a dead person I had seen for the first time in my life, while simultaneously feeling extreme terror and revulsion toward death itself.

Through this single act by that peculiar man, nearly all innocence toward death was swept away from my seven-year-old heart.

Even if those frightful-faced beings did good deeds and gathered together, how could anything beautiful come of it?

Why must people die at all?
Must I too become as unsightly as he did in the end?

What a horrible, frightening thing dying is.
I had even come to imagine my own death as something far off.

And this drastic upheaval of the heart that occurred then—this conception of death that had profoundly stirred my childhood heart—lurked deep within me for many years until, after four or five years had passed, it wielded a mysterious force to propel me in an almost dreamlike opposite direction, one utterly unforeseen by my present self.

The appearance of that rough warrior-like man remains vividly etched in my memory in various ways.

For what reason had he decided to do such a strange thing?
When I think of that person, an uncanny sensation surges up in my chest.

In this way he died and was buried.

All who knew him lamented his misfortune, yet not one person harbored doubts regarding how he died.

Of course, the course of events up to that point had by no means taken any particular form.

He had been advised to enter the hospital and seemed to have convalesced there.
Yet lately—as I ponder matters with a sense of barely grasping what had welled up in his heart—I find myself compelled to think his death was a sort of self-destruction cloaked in an exceedingly peaceful form.

No one had told me or warned me.

But I do feel this way.

A certain doctor who had been solely attending to him with various treatments at the time of his death,

“No matter how much we tried to stop him, he wouldn’t listen and insisted on exercising…”

I had heard him say such things.

One could certainly say this was of course an excuse made by a doctor to lighten the unpleasant feelings and responsibilities he had to bear from the family.

The speaker himself had likely been in that state of mind.

Yet this became the starting point that planted a single doubt within me.

As everyone knows, after undergoing incision for otitis media, one must particularly maintain rest.

Permitting him to walk all the way from the university to Hayashichō before the wound had fully healed was unthinkable; and even had we been permitted, we surely would not have possessed the courage to readily carry it out.

There was no time we became such slaves to doctors as when falling ill while our desire to live blazed fiercely.

How carefully, how timidly—no, with what absurdly excessive caution did we handle ourselves?

Since my illness two years ago, I had come to feel deeply the endurance and obedience inherent in that desire to live.

Therefore, had he truly wished for full recovery, he would likely have become childlike like anyone else—staring intently while taking pleasure in each thinning layer of bandage.

It might be called childish, but it must necessarily be so.

Breaking free from being made to abandon his suffering—why did he walk daily to Hayashichō and leave the hospital despite being unhealed?

When I recall what I’d heard of his temperament and all the discordant circumstances surrounding him after his return from abroad, I came to realize his complaint about hospital food’s unpalatability must have been an utterly superficial reason.

He endeavored to remain himself until his death. Lately, I have come close to concluding that up to a certain point, he had willfully brought about his own death. I may be spouting imaginings—mere guesswork—that would make him laugh if he heard them.

But for him, it was all already over.

Without joy or sorrow, the soil above him enriches and the grasses grow thick.

That much is always an undeniable fact.