Pathway to Japanese Literature

Because it was too hot, Tsuda went to the washroom to wash his face.
The washroom had a large window, but today it was overcast without a breath of wind.
It was a sweltering afternoon.

“Mr. Tsuda, there’s a phone call for you.”

As Tsuda gazed absentmindedly out the window, the office attendant came to call him.
He returned to the office and put his ear to the desk phone,

“Mr. Tsuda?
“Is that you, Mr. Tsuda?”

A woman’s gentle voice spoke.

“It’s me, Kumiko… I’ve been neglecting to contact you.”
“I’ve come to Tokyo today…”

At first, as Tsuda strained his ears to listen to someone, Kumiko’s face from days gone by floated up vividly before his eyelids.

“You know, right now I’ve come to the Marunouchi Building—I just had lunch at Takeha downstairs—so, um, could we possibly meet?”

“…………”

“Are you angry? I’m sorry—but I need to see you… There are so many things I want you to hear…”

Tsuda looked at his wristwatch.
It was exactly two o'clock.
Thinking of Kumiko leisurely eating her lunch at this hour, Tsuda felt an unpleasant sensation, yet despite himself, he found he wanted to see her again after all this time.

"Well, isn't this a rare occurrence... Fine then, suppose I'll drop by for a bit..."

After returning the receiver and grabbing his jacket，Tsuda asked his neighbor Sakurai a small favor and went down to basement Takeha where Kumiko was waiting.

(How many years has it been… It’s been a full two years since then.)

When Tsuda entered Takeha, Kumiko was smiling in the window-side booth.
Against a blue kimono with fine floral patterns, the white Hakata obi stood out elegantly and strikingly dazzling.
"I thought you might not come after all…"

When Tsuda sat down, Kumiko said hesitantly.

“Just when did you arrive?”

“Just a while ago—my luggage is still at the station. For the time being, I think I’ll stay in Tokyo…”

“How was the flooding?”

“Yes, thank you for asking. It was quite terrible, but my place was all right. How was yours?”

“My place is in Yamanote, so it’s fine.”

Kumiko took out a pale purple handkerchief from her handbag and spent some time spreading it out and folding it. Regarding her current visit to Tokyo, there seemed to be some profound circumstance, and the fingers of Kumiko—who was toying with her handkerchief—trembled intermittently.

“Where will you stay tonight?”

“I don’t have any particular place in mind… but I’m thinking of going to a friend’s house from my girls’ school days…”

Shūji wanted to say “serves you right” in his heart, but even within that “serves you right,” there wasn’t not a thread or two of lingering attachment. Eventually, Shūji left Kumiko waiting at Tokyo Station and returned to the office. Then he went to accounting to borrow a small amount of money, took his hat, and went outside, but Shūji found it strange that he still felt attached to Kumiko, and as he walked, he felt an oddly dispirited mood.

The asphalt was white and parched, and the street trees before the station stood oppressively hot and eerily quiet.
Shūji was mentally tallying the money he had borrowed from accounting while thinking about where to take Kumiko.
Suddenly he remembered how long ago, after seeing a newspaper travel guide, he and Kumiko had gone to play at the Tama River together.
The house was structured like a kaiseki ryokan, with a murky pond in the garden and white wild roses blooming thickly along the fence.

(Even if we meet or part, there's still this lingering attachment—so maybe...)

Shūji found himself resentfully thinking of Kumiko, who had grown slightly plump in the year since they'd last met.

At the station, Kumiko stood at the entrance to the waiting room, looking weary from waiting.

“Oh, I’m so late… There were some errands to take care of. I’m sorry.”

“I thought you’d stood me up… since you were so late…”

“As if I’d do that to *you*…”

“Oh… that kind of thing… But it’s already five o’clock.”

“Where shall we go?”

“Anywhere is fine… If we go to your place, your mother will get angry, won’t she?”

“She’ll get angry.”
“She’ll get really angry.”

“That must be the case… But is your mother truly so angry?”

○

The two of them arrived at the Tama River inn around seven o'clock.
Dusk had completely fallen, and a hazy moon hung in the sky.

When they were shown to the guest room—perhaps due to recent renovations—the veranda and pillars stood newly built, the scent of wood pungently wafting through the air.
Beside the Korean bamboo blind stood a large vermilion-lacquered dining table, with two light-blue linen floor cushions arranged on either side in a refreshing manner.
In the alcove hung a scroll painted with bellflowers, and red gladiolus were arranged in an old bronze vase.

“This place has become quite cheap-looking...”

When Shūji placed his boater hat on the floor and sat down on the veranda’s rattan chair, Kumiko remained standing and quietly gazed around them. In the garden, a drainpipe let water drip with faint plinking sounds. The maid brought cold barley tea.

“We haven’t had dinner yet—prepare something and bring it here.”
“And bring beer too while you’re at it…”

The maid spread out yukata robes as she asked whether they wished to change clothes and bathe. Shūji changed into a yukata and briskly went to the bath. The water carried a medicinal smell, perhaps from mineral springs.

Wondering why they had come to such a place together, Shūji felt strangely unsettled himself, but no matter how late it grew, he resolved that he alone would return home in any case.
Even though she had been the one to leave without warning, now he couldn't bring himself to be the one trying to rekindle things.
Soaking languidly in the wide bathtub while wrestling with these thoughts, Shūji closed his eyes.

He had known since February that Kumiko's husband Yoshitarō died of acute pneumonia, yet he'd sent no letter of condolence.

The first time Shūji met Kumiko was at his Osaka uncle's house.
She was a merchant's daughter who had just graduated from girls' school, and with the matter of whether she would make a suitable bride for Shūji in mind, he and his mother had gone to Osaka and taken the opportunity to meet Kumiko at his uncle's house.

It was the autumn when Shūji was twenty-four and Kumiko was eighteen.
At the tea room behind his uncle's house, Shūji drank tea prepared for him by Kumiko.
Though he knew nothing of tea ceremony etiquette, Shūji felt something as precious as a jewel in his palm through beautiful Kumiko's presence—the bitterness of the tea and the sweetness of the confections became an indescribable delight.
After that, Shūji stayed at his Osaka uncle's house for over a month.

The two of them, now in what could be called a betrothed relationship, even went on day trips to places like Nara and Kyoto.
When Shūji returned to Tokyo, Kumiko would promptly come to visit as well, even staying over at his house for a week at a time—and of course, to both Shūji and his mother, Kumiko’s childlike innocence remained a delightful charm.

When Shūji sent a letter to his Osaka uncle proposing they hold the wedding ceremony early in February after the New Year, the uncle’s return letter contained a message that abruptly asked him to give up on Kumiko.

Because Shūji had no idea what this was about, his mother went alone to Osaka to inquire about the situation herself.
The mother who had gone to Osaka soon returned fuming with anger, and—

“That flighty girl—you’d best give up on her already! No matter how you look at it, it’s downright nauseating… Out of nowhere, some petty wealthy family proposed a marriage arrangement, and Kumiko’s parents are dead set on pushing her into it—ridiculous! Have you ever heard such an absurd story…?”

And she was even pointlessly berating the Osaka uncle and his wife as spineless.
Of course, Shūji himself couldn’t help but be inwardly surprised.

There was a time when Kumiko caught a cold and stayed in bed for about two days in Tokyo.
On the evening when the doctor had finally said she could get up the next day, Shūji had bought a record like Colorado Moon on his way home from work and played it for Kumiko.
Mother had gone out on an errand to Shiba since evening, and the maid was busy in the kitchen, making it a hushed night.
The two of them were holding hands naturally, without saying a word.
It was a natural gesture, like that of children together, but for the two who would soon have their wedding ceremony, there was something refreshingly clear—such brightness—in each other’s hearts.

That Kumiko—she of the scorching memories—would suddenly marry into the household of Yoshitarō Hatta, a businessman, was something Shūji simply couldn’t believe. Moreover, what struck him as strange was that upon hearing Yoshitarō was the older brother of Yoshiyuki Hatta—who had been in the same law department at Kyoto University and graduated at the same time as Shūji—he couldn’t help but feel a peculiar connection.

When he returned to the guest room after getting out of the bath, Kumiko—perhaps having been shown to a separate bath—sat before the dressing mirror in a yukata.

“It’s so hot…”

“It’s so muggy and unpleasant…”

The meal lay prepared on the dining table as the maid entered carrying chilled beer.
Shūji, privately amused at himself for having come accompanied by a woman, nevertheless settled leisurely into the alcove.
Dishes of carp offal stew, Tatsukawa tofu, and vegetable clear soup stood arranged on the table with an air of detached formality.

“The moon is out…”

While pouring beer, the maid peered through the bamboo blind at something outside.
Insects shrilled incessantly.
When they finished the beer, she entrusted serving duties to Kumiko and slipped out into the hallway.

○

“As for me, going to the Hattas was something like fulfilling an obligation to my stepmother.”
“Not a single day was happy… and dying like that was simply the retribution for all that alcohol he guzzled down…”

“Did he drink that much?”

“Yes, very much. Someone like that—a heavy drinker—is no gentleman… He’s the complete opposite of Yoshiyuki-san.”

“How is Yoshiyuki-kun doing?”

“Yes, very much.”
“He’s in Manchuria now.”
“He was there just the other day…”

“Oh… Manchuria, huh…”

“Your mother was so happy back then…”

Shūji gazed at the plump fullness of Kumiko’s clear-skinned chest and felt a throbbing in his own chest.

“Will you be staying here tonight?”
“Once I finish eating, I’ll be heading back…”

After finishing the meal, when Shūji went over to the rattan chair muttering “Hot, hot,” Kumiko sat listlessly using a round fan,

“Oh, are you leaving already?”
“I’m so tired I don’t want to go anywhere else… If it’s alright with you, won’t you stay here?”

“Ha ha ha ha… Even if I stayed, I’d be the one inconvenienced.”
“I have an early start tomorrow.”
“How about it?”
“Why don’t we at least take a walk by the river and then head back into the city for now?”
“Where is your friend’s house?”

“The truth is, I came to Tokyo intending to work… It’s fine if I rest here for two or three days before going to my friend’s place.”

“Then go ahead and do that.”
“But I’m going back…”

As Shūji hooked his suspenders over his shoulder and stood up, Kumiko gazed at him with a resentful expression,

"But there are things we need to talk about..."

she said in a voice on the verge of tears.

“I don’t even know what to do with myself for having come this far—sorry, but I’m going back…”

“Yes, I do understand.”
“But… if that’s how it is, I’ll go back too…”

Before long, Kumiko also went silently to the next room, her obi rustling.—Around eleven o’clock, the two returned to Shinjuku.
Since Kumiko said there was a friend’s house in Yakuōji-chō, Ushigome, Shūji first took her to Yakuōji-chō.
After parting at the entrance to the alley, Shūji plodded through the late-night town toward Sakana-chō’s streetcar avenue.

Whether it was male pride or something else—though he thought, What’s the point of a woman like that?—a lingering sense of regret remained. He had a vague sense of why Kumiko had wanted to meet him, but he had not the slightest desire to meekly play into her hands.

He arrived in Higashi-Nakano close to one o'clock.

The young maid who had arrived just four or five days earlier got up and opened the side gate for him.

“Has Mother already gone to bed?”

“Yes, she went to bed a little while ago… Shall I wake her?”

“Never mind.”
“Did you hang the mosquito net upstairs?”

“Yes, I hung it a little while ago.”

As Shūji went upstairs, a cool wind blew that seemed to lift the hem of the mosquito net.
Ah, this is my home’s wind… It was muggy at the Tama River, but here at my home, such a cool breeze blows.
Shūji hung his shirts and trousers on the veranda railing while stripping naked.

The moon was clear.
It was a small moon, but it shone as clearly as if placed beyond the treetops of the plane trees in the garden.

“Here is a yukata… Would you like to take your bath now?”

It was a low voice with a Tokyo accent, yet somehow alluring.
She was a petite girl with a mole by her nose and large eyes.

“It’s hot…”

When Shūji remarked on the heat, the maid Tsuya looked up at him.

“It was so hot earlier… I poured some tap water over myself…”

“Hmm, well that’s bad for you…”

“But today must be especially hot.”

“Tsuya, you have an accent—where’s your hometown?”
“Niigata?”

“No, it’s Shinshū…”

“Ah, Shinshū… Is that so…”

“Even if I say Shinshū, it’s Komoro specifically.”

“Komoro—that’s a nice place.”
“What was it again… ‘By Komoro’s ancient castle where white clouds drift’—there was that song… Mountain folk have such honesty.”

When Shūji entered the mosquito net, Tsuya brought water to his bedside.
Shūji did not smoke, but he liked water and often drank it.

“Good night…”

Tsuya tiptoed downstairs.
Shūji lay in bed, thinking about his encounter with Kumiko.

(Everything about her—she’s already become a distant person.)

In the distance, a searchlight shone.
A blue flash like lightning grazed his house’s roof—or perhaps it was the Milky Way streaking across the sky beyond the veranda.

O

Two or three days later, a letter came to Shūji at the company from Kumiko.

Thank you very much for the other day.

I am truly happy you granted me such a meeting.
When my husband passed away and I found myself alone, I came to feel deeply terrified of what my life would become.

Of course I didn’t get along with my mother-in-law either, and since I was treated like an outsider there, I returned to my hometown, but even there I couldn’t get along with my stepmother.
I have neither a place to rest nor a place to cry.
I moved to Tokyo and stayed at a friend’s house, but even there I found it difficult to remain, and yesterday, through an acquaintance’s introduction, I became an office worker at a small trading company in Uchisaiwaicho.
The monthly salary is forty yen.

For the time being, I intend to manage somehow.
Today, I found a small apartment in Yotsuya Shiomachi.
I will move tomorrow.
It is at the address noted above.
I earnestly request that you come visit me at least once.
Lastly, please give my regards to your honored mother.

Shūji felt a fleeting relief that Kumiko too had found somewhere proper to settle. Though they had once drawn close enough to marry, through some twist of fate—or perhaps the rapids—they had now drifted apart to unimaginable distances. After parting from Kumiko, Shūji had been with a woman or two, but those encounters were like passing breezes, and his life remained utterly ordinary to this day. Life with his mother and the maid wasn’t particularly difficult, and this new maid brought a feeling like adding blossoms to the foreground of Shūji’s existence.

“Mother, shall we go somewhere this Sunday?”

In the evening, Shūji—who had returned early and sat at the dining table with his mother—said while looking at the newspaper.

“That’s right… Anywhere is fine… Somewhere that serves something delicious would be nice.”
“By the water or something…”

“Well then, shall we close up the house and all go…”

“Where are we going?”

“Is the Tama River a nice place?”
“I’ve never been there before, though…”

Tsuya asked while serving somen noodles on a glass plate.
The indigo yukata with plum patterns and the red obi suited Tsuya perfectly.

“What? You don’t know the Tama River?”
“What a fool you are…”

“You call me a fool, but Shū-chan, I don’t know it either…”

“Oh, is that so… Well then, why don’t all of us go there together?”
“It’s not really anything special—but when it comes to Tokyo, there’s just nowhere else to go.”

Sunday.

It was a clear day from morning, with cicadas chirping incessantly.
Shūji and the others went by train to the Tama River early in the morning.
Tsuya seemed disappointed by the river’s scenery—its exposed bed giving it a parched appearance—

“Well, is this the Tama River?”

She kept asking the same question over and over.
The three of them descended the embankment, made their way through the wide, weed-covered riverbed, and entered the boat teahouse.
Indeed, a cool breeze blew.
Perhaps due to the rain from four or five days ago having slightly increased the water volume, there was a crowd of people who had come to swim in great numbers.

“I want to swim. Can you swim, Tsuya?”

“Yes, I’m from the mountains, so I’m confident in a river like this…”

“Confident, huh? Well then… I’ll get you a swimsuit—go ahead and swim.”

Since she said she would swim later, Shūji left his mother and Tsuya on the boat and went to swim upstream.
The opposite bank was a row of cherry trees in full leaf, where cicadas screeched as if scorched by the heat.

The water chilled his skin as the sky’s blue spread across the river’s surface like spilled oil, dark and viscous. For moments, Shūji became a boy again—plugging his ears with spit before plunging decisively underwater. Here and there along the riverbed, currents split around slimy algae that caught the midday sun, casting pale shadows on green-tinged water. A stifling vegetal odor clung to the air—until a woman’s laughter pierced through, sudden and near.

When Shūji lifted his head from the water with a splash, Tsuya in her red swimsuit was swimming vigorously like a schoolgirl. Her skin was beautifully white. The plumpness of her arms and legs had the pudgy softness of a child’s limbs.

“When did you get here?”

“Now…”

The offhand way she said “now” struck Shūji as endearing.

“You’re good…”

“Well, I swam a lot when I was a child…”

“Then let’s go further upstream…”

“Shall we race?”

“Don’t get cocky… How’s Mother?”

“She said she’d take a nap—I borrowed an air pillow for her.”

The two swam against the current, pushing upstream.
A shrike-like bird screeched from the embankment thicket.
Frogs and ground insects chorused—Tsuya suddenly arched her back skyward.
Perhaps exhausted from resting her hands, she was swept downstream two meters.
The gap between them widened to four meters as she drifted listlessly.
Shūji backstroked urgently, caught up, and pushed her toward shore.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m exhausted.”

“You’re such a fool… It’s because you pushed yourself too hard.”

Shūji embraced the exhausted Tsuya and lifted her onto the grass scorched by blazing sunlight.

“Are you tired?”

“Is it cold…? The water…”

“Yeah.”

“Finally… somehow it feels so warm…”

“Your lips are purple.”
“You’re such a fool… You didn’t need to push yourself like that……”

When Shūji rubbed Tsuya’s chilled arm, she stared fixedly at his hand while fat teardrops spilled over.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing…”

“Nothing? But you’re crying, aren’t you…?”

“Even if there’s nothing wrong… there are times when tears just come out…”

○

They had dinner at the kaiseki ryokan where he had once gone with Kumiko.
The dirty pond had been removed, a clean stream channeled beneath the veranda, and in the expanded garden, a fountain sprayed upward.
It was a cool downstairs room.
The three of them sat at the dining table in yukata with thin sashes, their casual attire showing no restraint.

“Tsuya, can you swim?”

Mother asked.

“No…”

Tsuya blushed.
Faced with Tsuya’s mercurial shifts—leopard-bold toward men yet cat-demure toward women—Shūji felt inwardly astonished, thinking how varied women could be.

They say a woman’s heart is as fickle as a feather, but Kumiko’s choice to marry Hatta on the brink of their own wedding now seemed to Shūji to share an undercurrent with Tsuya’s present changeability.

When asked “Does it hurt?,” Tsuya had offhandedly replied “Yeah,” yet here before Mother, she blushed and feigned shyness.
To Shūji, even this held a certain allure.

“The Tama River’s nice at night, isn’t it?”
“Oh, fireflies…”

A large firefly flew onto the veranda and perched on the bamboo screen.
The maid serving them explained that they had requested fireflies from the mountains to be released in the garden.

It was a clear, beautiful night.

On their way back, the three of them tried walking along the riverside, but occasionally Tsuya would quietly lean against Shūji’s arm.

(She could have been the kind of woman who’d done this sort of thing with any man nonchalantly…)

Though he thought this, Shūji could not forget the sensation of holding her soft body from earlier that day.

They returned home around eight o'clock.

Holding a wrapped melon, Kumiko stood awkwardly by the sawara cypress hedge, waiting.
Mother initially seemed displeased, but even so told her to come in.

The black Akashi crepe with a yellowish obi looked cool.

When they went up to the tatami room, Kumiko was looking around the surroundings with evident nostalgia.

“It hasn’t changed a bit, has it?”
“Just like the old days, right?”

“I’m not too fond of changing the room’s layout, so…”

“You’re also well…”

“You’re moving to Tokyo, I hear? Is that really true?”

“Yes, it’s true… But I’ll be going back to Osaka for a bit soon—because they say I took everything that belonged to my husband, and it turned into a legal dispute, you know…”

“Oh, that’s quite a situation...”

“But, Madam… I feel punishment has befallen me now…”

“Why?”

“Why do you ask…?”

Tsuya brought cold tea.
When had she applied powder?
Tsuya had put on fresh makeup.

“Did you go somewhere today?”

“Yes, since it’s our first Sunday off in ages, he made a special effort—the whole household went to the Tama River—”

“Ah, the Tama River—what a lovely spot…”

Kumiko glanced at Shūji.
Tsuya was chasing moths with a small fan she had gotten from the inn.
Kumiko was intently watching Tsuya’s hands roughly striking down moths.

“Well, a woman’s hardships are finally put to rest with your husband’s passing, after all.”
“If you can manage on your own, you’re better off staying single and carefree, ain’t ya.”
“Even me—it’s been thirteen years, but I’ve been carefree…”

Mother was saying the words “put to rest” with strange emphasis.

“Well, Madam, even I’m only twenty… It’s lonely…”

“That might be true… But y’know, for now, bein’ a nun ain’t such a bad idea.”

Kumiko silently fanned herself.

Shūji went upstairs to change.
Tsuya came up right away.

“Hey, want me to show you the fireflies at Tama River?”

“Did you bring them?”

“Yeah.”

Tsuya gave a childishly rough reply and showed him numerous fireflies wrapped in paper from her sleeve.
Fireflies with red tails instantly spread their wings taut as four or five swiftly flew off into the darkness.