Pathway to Japanese Literature

Autumn Fruit

When the play ended and she left the theater, Mon walked through a street that felt abruptly dark.
She was hungry, but these days not a single food shop stayed open this late.
Theatergoers streamed past her in an endless flow.
When she reached the safety zone at the four-way intersection where Shinjuku-bound trains passed, Mon felt someone shove hard against her shoulder and turned around sharply. But there was no telling who might have pushed past—only dark silhouettes streaming steadily toward the train tracks surrounded her.
An autumn-chilled night wind blew.
At the safety zone, she waited for a Shinjuku-bound train, but every arriving carriage remained packed full, leaving little chance for Mon to board.
Mon wondered where all these people could be coming from, clustering so densely.
For some time now, small groups of women who like Mon had been waiting through multiple trains chatted about the play, their bright laughter occasionally rising.
After their mirth subsided, one said, "Somehow whenever I think about what lies ahead, I can't help feeling terribly uncertain."
Mon stood alone by the safety zone's advertisement light, listening intently to this voice that had spoken of an anxious future.

Mon had returned from Shanghai just yesterday, and every aspect of Tokyo's streets felt unbearably nostalgic to her. Tokyo was still a good place, she thought. It wasn't that any particular spot stood out as good, but she still believed Tokyo remained the best place for living alone. After waiting some time longer, a train with slight vacancies finally arrived, and Mon boarded from behind a group of two or three women. The women—might they be painters?—wore such strikingly unconventional outfits that they seemed to brighten the dim train car through their individual styles. There were those with fashionable looped bangs wearing muted gold-brown crepe tied with red obis, tall figures in stylish black-and-white suits, others in pale green overcoats carrying large black handbags—to Mon, who had been away from Tokyo for some time, this group of women appeared fresh and novel. The people who had been chatting so animatedly in the safety zone all fell silent upon boarding the train, grasping the hanging straps. Though she couldn't tell who had voiced anxiety about the future earlier, looking at their tastefully vibrant appearances, none seemed particularly preoccupied with such matters. Mon stood alongside these women with her hand on a strap too, yet her own reflection in the dark window appeared far more consumed by future worries.

When they reached Yotsuya Mitsuke，the women got off.
In bright light，every one of the women looked older in the face than their outfits suggested，yet each of their attires harmonized perfectly with Tokyo’s streets.
They seemed like such happy people，Mon thought，and she too wanted to become like that now.
Until now，she had thought she’d been chasing foolish dreams，but now she wanted to find work somewhere again and apply herself diligently.
The figure of herself wearing the ready-made coat with a narrow waistline that she had bought at a Shanghai department store somehow looked Chinese，and she couldn’t help feeling like a Chinese prostitute walking around clutching a hot-water bottle.

It was around eleven o'clock when she returned to the Ōkido Apartment.
Her younger brother was already sound asleep.
He had covered the lamp with a purple cloth and lay sleeping with cigarettes scattered by his pillow.
After taking off her coat, Mon sat down on the rivet-studded trunk beside the desk and remained vacantly still for a while.
Various objects cluttered the desk, but the new paste jar caught Mon's eye.
Perhaps from hunger, she picked up the paste jar and gave it a brief sniff.
It smelled sweet like candy.
In warm countries it does not rot; in cold countries it does not freeze.
Pure white and clean with formidable adhesive strength; once applied it never separates, dries quickly after use, and possesses a special delightful fragrance that causes no discomfort during application—an indispensable masterpiece for daily desk use.
Mon read the efficacy text, scooped some paste with her little finger, and tentatively tasted a tiny amount.
The complete lack of flavor left her unsatisfied.
That her brother was twenty-six and still unmarried, still living in such an apartment, struck Mon as unbearably pitiful.
Claiming he might be summoned any time, he had lived alone here for two years now—vowing to remain single until returning from military service.
He worked at a trust company in Nihonbashi and occasionally wrote poems and stories.
Beside the paste jar lay a small leather-bound address book.
Mon picked it up and flipped through the pages.
Among various acquaintances' addresses were both Mon's own from Shanghai and Kudo's, carefully recorded.
From Kudo's place she had sought with such intensity, Mon now returned to her brother's Tokyo apartment feeling battle-worn.
Exactly a year ago around this time, in Nagasaki under steady autumn rain, she had sent Kudo the ship's name.
Kudo neither came to meet the ship nor—when she visited his apartment—was without another woman already living there.

Thanks to the assistance of a woman she had coincidentally shared the ship with—though their connection remained unclear—Mon managed to secure lodging at a Japanese inn at the end of Sichuan Road. Yet even now, she could not forget how unreliable that man’s heart had been in those moments.
Kudo was her younger brother’s friend and one year younger than Mon, but she had concealed one year of her age to present herself as being the same age as him.
Through her brother’s introduction, she had naturally grown close to Kudo, and the two of them had once traveled together to a mountain hot spring in Shinshu.
Kudo was employed at a newspaper company.
They had never once confessed mutual feelings, and even when traveling together, they managed interactions as uneventful as those of people who had been cohabiting for a year or two already.
After losing her mother over a decade ago, Mon had developed an almost masculine strength of character while living with her father and two younger brothers. Even after she began working five or six years prior, she had found no room in her life to seek out someone who could become her partner.
She was an ordinary working woman who, at a glance, had a certain beauty, but the male employees would say they felt not even a trace of romantic interest toward Mon beyond seeing her as a colleague.
At that time, Mon had felt a certain pride in how she was recognized as equal to the male employees despite such remarks being made about her, but she had recently come to realize the truth that a woman remained a woman, and being womanly was genuine.
When the next New Year came, she would turn thirty.
Once a woman turned thirty, Mon had come to believe, the general course of her future was already roughly determined.
The sole occupant of Mon’s youth until she turned thirty had been Kudo.
Through knowing Kudo, Mon had discovered another world as a woman’s path, but that joy had now vanished without a trace, leaving her to taste a darkness and misery even deeper than when she had lived in ignorance.
Mon found it strange to wonder whether so many men and women teemed in this world just to experience such misery.
Even without discussing anything, she had wholeheartedly believed that if a man and woman became bound together, their chastity would be firmly sealed between them, and she had also held great faith in Kudo’s character.
When Kudo was being specially dispatched to Shanghai, he invited her—saying it might be a long assignment—to quit her company job if possible and come along, and her younger brother Shuichi also encouraged her to go to Shanghai, but Mon had found working increasingly appealing since meeting Kudo.
After saving some money, she wished to build a proper home with Kudo.
Having graduated from girls’ school and been thrown early into the practicalities of life, Mon had become a meticulous woman who could neither dream of worlds beyond her reach nor budget money she would never possess.
She thought that as long as she worked, she could securely build a stable life for her future.
After Kudo had departed for Shanghai, there were once or twice brief communications from him, but after about half a year, all contact ceased, and even when Mon sent letters, not a single reply came from Kudo.
Mon thought that Kudo must be quite busy with work.

The less Kudo wrote, the more Mon desperately longed for him. There were nights she returned from work so exhausted her whole body burned, making sleep impossible. On those evenings—even now when remembering—sweet rainbow-like thoughts would pierce her chest, and she’d torture herself imagining Kudo’s face and limbs scattering like broken porcelain.

For a woman’s life, could anything in this world hold such mystery as knowing a man...?

Though no atheist, Mon felt she’d first understood humanity’s vast mysteries through Kudo—now an almost religious awe would rise in her, making her want to pray reverently to nothing in particular. She found divinity in every blade of grass, every clod of earth.

When Kudo’s silence stretched unbearably long, Shuichi—visiting casually one day—saw his sister’s desolate appearance and declared: “Moping alone won’t help matters, Sister.”

“Mr. Kudo’s feelings may have changed entirely.—You’re surprisingly naive about the world, leading such a dreary life.”

“Ancient folk—men and women alike—were nobler creatures. There’s a Manyoshu poem where a woman writes ‘Though seven oxcarts I fill with love herbs/Still my heart burns.’ Modern women lack one ten-thousandth of that passion.”

“You prattle about trifles—wouldn’t it be splendid if young women brightened up? Everything feels so damp and gloomy these days.”

“Yet they all act coarse and crude—completely misunderstanding womanhood.”

“Don’t you notice? Women with frightening faces multiply strangely nowadays.”

“They say it’s the same at companies.”

“When female clerks bring large sums to deposit—the way they handle money’s become lion-like in roughness.”

“They don’t even blink at huge amounts.”

“Depositing with blank faces—we clerks joke the men seem more feminine these days.”

“When women neglect elegance, they turn harsher than men.”

“A thoroughly disagreeable trend.”

“Shop mistresses past thirty from merchant houses have far more charm and human warmth.—I can’t fathom what modern girls think or hope for.”

“Expecting flowers without watering them—the world demands impossibilities.”

“In some parts of Kansai they’re trying out days without face powder or lipstick—utterly disagreeable.”
Shuichi made these remarks and even urged Mon to visit Shanghai and seek out Kudo.
Hearing such things from her brother made Mon feel all the more unbearably lonely.
When I looked in the mirror, I appeared parched somehow—dried out from work fatigue.
Even at the office, not a soul gazed at me with genuine interest.
However plain a woman might be, male employees invariably showed kindness to new female clerks just starting out.
These newcomers would grow more polished day by day until—within two or three months—they fully transformed into working women who could casually open compacts before male colleagues.
Then those same men would replace their earlier kindness with looks of contempt, calling the clerks by mocking nicknames among themselves.
Having worked there so long, Mon had seen these transformations play out many times before.

Having resolved herself, Mon quit the company and departed for Shanghai last autumn.
Even if no word had come, if she had informed him of the ship’s name, Kudo—no matter what circumstances he faced—should not have failed to come meet her.
On a rainy day she departed Nagasaki, and when she arrived in Shanghai the next day, the city was blessed with a beautifully clear autumn sky.
Amidst the many greeters she searched for Kudo’s figure, but Kudo was not there.
Having come to a distant foreign land, for the first time she felt something cold and false—as though abandoned by the person she had trusted.

Mon, through the assistance of a woman she had met on the ship, managed to secure a small room at a bustling Japanese inn at the southern end of Sichuan Road by humbly making requests.
When sitting inside the room—perhaps because the city’s buildings were constructed of stone and brick—the voices of people and bells of rickshaws resounded sharply.
Even if one walked around the neighborhood briefly to shop, prices were exorbitantly high.
There were Chinese shops that had opened their businesses on ground floors despite their second and third stories being blown apart.
Mon, wanting to visit before dusk fell, had someone at the inn arrange an automobile and went to Kudo’s apartment near Yangjipu.
Kudo’s room was locked and empty, but according to the young wife from the neighboring room, both members of the couple had been out since morning.
She mentioned that Mr. Kudo’s wife was from Kyushu and seemed to be a cheerful person with a pleasant disposition.
Ah—so that was how it was—Mon thought dazedly as she entrusted a business card bearing her address to the neighboring wife before returning to her inn.
Mon went to sleep early in the dark room without eating.

The linoleum-covered corridor echoed incessantly with heavy footsteps and men's booming voices.
Near the high ceiling hung a single blue-glass window.
The room contained nothing but a crude mirror stand in its alcove.
Mon lay watching through the darkening window.
I've been such a fool, she thought.
Clutching the pillow as she sighed—was this what passed for human ethics?
Kudo knew every inch of my body as a woman—how could he live so calmly with another?
Even now she couldn't muster deep resentment toward him, only this churning awareness of her own glaring foolishness.
To her father and brother she'd sent just an arrival telegram.

The next day, Kudo came to visit Mon wearing tinted glasses.
Kudo remained silent, lay down on the tatami mats, and removed his glasses.
When Mon said, “Why didn’t you send me a detailed letter? If you had, I wouldn’t have come,” Kudo replied that he had been too exhausted every day to feel like writing even a single character beyond what was required for company work.
"You’ve been together since long ago, haven’t you?"
When Mon spoke resentfully, Kudo sat up abruptly, prostrated himself on his stomach, propped his cheek on his hand, and said, “It’s all May Fairs.”
“It’s your fault.”
“You...”
Having said that, he took out a cigarette called Ruby Queen from a soft peach-colored package and placed it between his lips.
Kudo seemed to love his current wife dearly.
Though I don’t know what kind of woman she was, she must have been someone he was quite taken with.
Kudo’s eyes were entirely different from the intense expression I had seen in the mountains of Shinano.
As if meeting a female friend who required no formalities, he suggested things that held no relevance to their current situation—getting a meal together or taking a stroll down Nanjing Road.
In this situation, even if I tried to load seven cartfuls of love grass into a rickshaw, there would be no way to muster the effort.
Mon wore a look of exasperation and remained silent.

Mon worked at a Japanese-owned shop in Shanghai for some time after that.
It was a small sundry shop that carried everything from canned goods to silk fabrics, keeping her busy from morning until evening.
Though she occasionally encountered Kudo when he came to shop at the store, Mon made sure not to speak much.
On days when the shop was closed, she would sometimes spot Kudo walking drunk through unexpected streets.
Having parted ways in a manner that left neither satisfied, their occasional meetings felt nostalgic; yet Mon thought that clinging to her former lover out of mere loneliness in a foreign land would be tantamount to self-destruction.
Like unripe fruit falling to earth, Mon would think alone, act on those thoughts alone, and convince herself she was doing what was right.

Mon stayed at the shop's dormitory. Shanghai too proved no better place for Mon to live. After seeing in the New Year there, she tried working at a Japanese department store in Suzhou with a female friend from the shop, but even here Mon found no peace. At times she would remember Kudo. During her time in Suzhou she became acquainted with Yonekura, an employee at a land development company. Not long after meeting him came a marriage proposal, which Mon refused with a curt dismissal. Yonekura had lost his wife years earlier and spoke of a daughter back home in rural Saga. He drank often yet remained generous-hearted, helping anyone in trouble. When Mon first arrived in Suzhou and struggled to find lodgings, it was Yonekura—visiting the store—who arranged her stay at a Chinese inn within the city walls. Each time he called at the inn or store he brought rare delicacies and cosmetics as gifts. His large frame and good nature suited his past as a hotel doorman. About a month later Yonekura came calling in his finest clothes. Without asking about Mon's birthplace or reasons for coming to Suzhou, he raised the matter of marriage. Within herself Mon knew her age—that no man but Kudo held any interest for her now. There were moments she wondered if womanhood's end had come sooner for her than others, yet she cherished this part of herself that clung stubbornly to dreams of Kudo. Only when thinking of him did her heart blaze with kaleidoscopic light.

If she were to sink into the murky canal of Suzhou and die, and leave some final words for Kudo—perhaps then the real him, the him she once knew, would return to claim her corpse; such fantasies would well up within her.
On the day she departed for Suzhou, with the feeling of venturing into a distant hinterland, Mon called Kudo.
If she could leave even a trace of lingering attachment or regret in that man’s heart—that alone would fulfill her deepest wish—it was a phone call steeped in such sentimentality.
On the other end of the line, Kudo responded in a hearty voice, “Well then, I’ll take some time off and come visit you.
“Since you’re nearby, you should come out to Shanghai sometimes.”
“Take care of your body and watch what you eat,” he said, offering the sort of kind advice that anyone might approve of.
After hanging up the phone, Mon felt for the first time her own posturing—that there was not the slightest reason she had to go to Suzhou.
She found this feeling utterly repulsive.
Even as I said that, I couldn’t comprehend how to make it right—even I didn’t understand myself.
Even after coming to Suzhou, Mon had deliberately sent only brief postcards to Kudo.
Before long, a long letter arrived from Kudo.
“My love for Monko-san has not changed in the slightest.
“I even respect you.
“But now that you and I have ended up in this kind of fate, there’s nothing we can do anymore.
“My current marriage partner is exactly like Manon Lescaut—my wife’s a wicked woman, utterly beyond help—yet as if possessed by an illness, despite the daily storms never ceasing, I’ve sunk into being a worthless man who ends up chasing after this fleeing wife of mine.
“Please laugh at me.
“Is this feeling the work of the land called Shanghai?”
“Anyway, I am thinking of rescuing my wife and trying to return to the mainland once.”
“I will never forget your kindness.”
“Please understand my feelings of having been cold toward you who came to Shanghai.”

“Before long, we will recover and become a proper family to have the pleasure of meeting you again.”
“My wife will also give birth to a child this summer.”
“I believe it is my own child.”
“Please take care of yourself.”

As Mon read on，tears overflowed．Various memories were scattered and faded away by the wind blowing leisurely from the sea of the future．Year after year，seeing off the years as they receded into oblivion，Mon could only stare blankly．During her schoolgirl days，she had never even considered girlish dreams，yet now they were beginning to burn with a blue flame．O God，could it be that I alone—a woman like me—had lived a mistaken path．．．All things exist solely in the midst of passing．On a grand scale，there are nations fighting today；on a small scale，even a way of life like mine—that of a mere human speck—all flows into history．The thought that she had considered dying to win Kudo’s affection now struck her as utterly，ridiculously foolish．And yet，she couldn’t bring herself to feel any inclination toward marrying Yonekura．

After spending the summer in Suzhou, Mon’s health had deteriorated markedly, and doctors recommended she return to Japan.
Having lived there for nearly a year, both Shanghai and Suzhou had grown dear to her.
In mid-September, Mon finally managed to return to Shanghai, met Kudo just once at a Chinese restaurant, and thus returned to Tokyo for the first time in a year.

Now, in Tokyo, only her younger brother Shuichi remained. Her father had returned to the countryside in Sendai and was doing farm work at a relative’s house, while her youngest brother Koji had joined the Youth Volunteer Corps and gone to a place called Oiwake near Jiamusi in Manchuria. When she returned to Tokyo after a long absence, even their small family of four had undergone major changes in circumstances. Though Mon couldn’t help worrying about how Koji—frail as he was—was managing in Manchuria, she had resigned herself in her heart to the idea that Koji must have his own reasons. That evening, seeing Mon looking lonely, Shuichi bought her a ticket to a Kabuki performance, suggesting she go see a play for the first time in ages. Watching an old Japanese play after so long, she somehow began to feel a sense of calm settling over her. The tones of the flute, drum, and shamisen each rang clear to her ears. The time she had spent living in Shanghai and Suzhou now felt like nothing but a dream. On stage, Omiwa from *Imoseyama*, played by Kikugorō, was dancing with an innocent demeanor. While sniffing the paste jar, Mon found herself thinking about things like the splendid play and what had happened on the train ride home. Even the memory of Yonekura, who had kindly said he wanted to marry her, now felt dear.

The next day, Mon woke up late.
Shuichi was just about to leave for work, tying his tie before the desk mirror.
Mon abruptly sat up.
Out of habit from long employment, she immediately looked at the wristwatch by her bedside.
"There's no breakfast even if you rise anyway, so sleep longer."
Shuichi bustled about his morning preparations with the satisfied look of one who'd slept well.
"Well, but I can't lie abed forever."
"I mean to start job-hunting bit by bit from today..."
"No need to rush work matters yet."
"Rest properly first."
"If it's just supporting you alone, I can manage."
"Is it wrong for me to work?"
Feeling vulnerable, Mon asked anxiously.
She had scant savings - she couldn't keep burdening Shuichi like this.
Mon rose at once and boiled water on the gas burner.
"At least have some tea."
"That should do."
"I'll brew Chinese tea with rose petals."
"Do we still have time?"
Mon always longed to talk with Shuichi.

After folding the futon and washing her face, her hair was neatly tied up. Seeing his sister’s disheveled figure—a haori draped over her checkered nightgown towel—Shuichi remarked as if observing something rare, “I’ve never seen you dressed like that before, Sis.” Mon, appearing flustered, briskly tidied away the combs and cream bottles and changed into her usual gray suit in the corner of the room. Once dressed, she had transformed into the very image of a working woman—unrecognizable from moments before. “Sis, do you always meet Mr. Kudo dressed like that?” “Why do you ask?” “Hmm, I think a kimono would actually suit you better.” “Oh, do you think so…” Finding this an unexpected remark, Mon said Western clothes were more practical for work and cost less money. Shuichi, seeing his sister’s unchanged, ordinary appearance from a year ago, thought that while there were women in the world who remained distant from relationships and ended their lives alone, his sister might unexpectedly be one of them.

“Why didn’t you marry Mr. Yonekura? It might be strange coming from someone younger to say this, but if there’s someone like him around, Sis, you should give up on Mr. Kudo already and marry Mr. Yonekura instead. Unless you at least settle down and have a household of your own, we can’t just leave Father feeling anxious like that forever. Koji also said he was most worried about Father’s situation—ever since he’s gotten older, his family ties have strangely weakened. It’s truly pitiful.” Mon sipped her hot Chinese tea and felt remorseful toward her father. “You’re the one who should get married. Right now, you could get a bride from anywhere...”

Shuichi sat on the bay window ledge, carefully smoking the Three Castles cigarettes his sister had brought back as a souvenir.
“I won’t be getting married anytime soon.
It would be cruel to leave someone behind, and since I’ll be drafted sooner or later anyway, well—I’ll take my time finding a nice one once I come back.
Well, I get lonely like anyone else and would like to have a woman in my life—but I just don’t feel that way right now.
It’s true.
Rather than such things—I have far more important matters to think about... After all—it’s a tumultuous era...
I’d rather leave sooner than keep dragging myself to the company any longer.
As for me—I don’t know the pleasure of drinking alcohol—nor do I have anything else I particularly want to do—and since my education from university days has been to become a company employee who receives a salary—I’m just of the mind that it’s better to go sooner rather than later.
Dad also sent a letter the other day—you know.
Dad’s truly a good man—you know...”
Mon thought it had been a long time since she could have such an unfiltered conversation between just sister and brother.
“But you know—I don’t have any desire to get married anymore—and if the time comes for you to be drafted—Shuichi—no matter what anyone says—I’ll have to look after Father—so then—I’ll live here in Tokyo with him—just the two of us.
Our late Mother also passed away early—but in our family—all the women seem to be short-lived—you know.
Tamiko died too—you know...”
Tamiko was Koji’s older sister—six years younger than Mon.
After graduating from Sendai Girls’ School—she immediately developed chest problems and died.
Mother had also died around the same time as Tamiko—but strangely enough—a woman Father had brought home from somewhere two or three years earlier as a tea-drinking companion had developed chest problems and passed away last year.
“Everyone—the women’s luck is weak—but in our family—the men’s luck is stronger... So both you—Shuichi—and Koji will be just fine.”
She wanted to joke that perhaps it was now her turn to die—but Mon—feeling it was an ill omen—remained silent.

When Shuichi left for the company, Mon also prepared herself and went out into the city.
She wanted to find employment as soon as possible and bring the father to Tokyo.
Mon boarded the Tsukiji-bound city tram to go around to the places where she had clipped out newspaper articles yesterday and today.

The autumn streets of Tokyo, with their withered roadside trees, appeared whitish as if smoked with silver.
While thinking it pitiable that even at her age she still had to go out searching for work in the city, Mon nevertheless felt a faint sense of refreshment.
People with dark complexions and thick eyebrows were supposed to be affectionate souls, but her old girlfriends had often told her she alone didn’t appear that way. Troubled by her bushy brows, Mon would sometimes pluck them with tweezers.
When plucking her eyebrows—narrowing her eyes to slits—Oh, do I have such a face too?—she would gingerly experiment with different expressions in the mirror like a child.
Narrowing her eyes gave her face Buddha-like serenity.
Snapping them open made her look aloof.
Smiling brought meager wrinkles along her nose bridge.
Even now, Mon gazed intently at her reflection in the train window.
Unlike former times, this was an era when anyone could find work wherever they wished—for someone like Mon who could handle Japanese typing and manage clumsy English typing too, securing employment proved no great struggle.
That very day, Mon began working at the M Pulp Industrial Company branch in Kojimachi-Uchisaiwaicho’s Osaka Building.
In the past, employers wouldn’t glance at women her age, but now they could work anywhere untroubled by such concerns.
In exchange—perhaps due to rapid turnover—every employee was new, office desks surrounded by restless motion like churning waves.
Around Mon’s desk too sat girls speaking Kyushu dialect and others with Tohoku accents.
Ink-dried glass bottles rolled inside desks; broken penholders lay buried with scrap paper in drawers.
The departing workers’ lack of refinement struck Mon as forlornly as driftwood battering rocks midstream.
What girl had typed here before? After two days, everyone would forget her face and name.
What world had this become where people flooded Tokyo’s estuary like driftwood?
General Affairs staff praised Mon’s beautiful handwriting on her resume.
Her assigned desk bore knife scars and jagged marks like bottle-cap gouges—Mon felt vaguely repelled.
In this spacious office where women made one-third of staff, not one flower brightened the space.

Given this environment, no matter how much salary they received, it was only natural for the women to grow coarse—Mon tightened the typewriter's screws and tested each grimy key one by one. Perhaps the oil wasn't applied properly—the characters wouldn't transfer cleanly onto the paper. After returning, Mon told Shuichi about the state of the company she would start working at from the next day. “Hey, do you think humans can truly live just for the sake of working? No matter how turbulent this world becomes, if we forget even basic human compassion and just keep laboring away like winding some creaky gear in monotonous rhythm—I don’t believe we can go on like that.” Could my way of thinking be mistaken? Hollow vitality alone isn’t enough for humans to keep living, is it. When it came to office uniforms, there were people wearing ones with frayed cuffs, making it somehow feel like working at a fire scene. If you called it enthusiasm, then that would be one thing… but it’s strange. “I might be getting old too, you know.”

In the cramped six-tatami room, living with Mon and Shuichi proved rather stifling.
Shuichi possessed a relatively large number of books.
Though there was no phonograph, he had collected twenty or thirty records.
“Well now, Sister—you’ve grown a bit old.”
“This isn’t the time to fuss over feelings.”
“Whether you take the train or bus, isn’t there always someone shouting?”
Shuichi gargled and settled into the rattan chair.—“There’s absolutely nothing to eat in this room.”
“Tomorrow I’ll go buy various provisions to stock up.”

Mon felt as though the set meal she had eaten at a diner on her way home sat heavy in her chest. Wondering what Shuichi ate daily at those city cafeterias after work, she pitied her brother returning to a place that wasn’t truly a home. Though there was a kitchen, all it contained were two white teacups from morning tea—not a single plate or rice bowl remained. Mon wondered whether all single men and women living in apartments led such existences. She wandered about like someone searching for a lost child. Though her heart raced with wanting to at least furnish her solitary brother’s needs and transform their cramped room into a proper home-like space, Mon proved less than diligent in practice. Before blaming others—even cleaning one room doesn’t go as planned—she thought while wiping tatami mats, her breath growing short. Come evening, her fever would spike as her back throbbed with pain. She could no longer endure when Shuichi smoked tobacco. Though resolved to strengthen her body, she lacked savings for even a month’s convalescence—and while Shuichi suggested a hospital visit, Mon felt inexplicably timid about going. Since returning to Tokyo, she’d developed an odd determination to live long. No matter what happened, she wanted to survive. Even reduced to tatters like a beggar, she wanted to keep living. Though thoughts of Kudo still brought unbearable moments, Mon stopped mentioning him even to Shuichi. Within men and women alike exist manifold aspects—Mon found humanity’s varied passions terrifying to contemplate.

People walked about with casual airs while men lived being tormented by women and women by men—there were times she would stop and gaze at the crowd. Mon commuted to work daily.
Though she no longer held the grand, shining hopes she'd felt when first starting at the company, whether due to life in Tokyo after a year's absence or something else, Mon remained lively.
Before long autumn ended, and when Mon began commuting in her overcoat, she unexpectedly encountered Kudo before Hibiya Park.
Kudo wore a maroon suit without an overcoat.
Mon was so shocked she couldn't speak.
"You look well, ah. I've returned about a week ago."
Kudo did this out of habit—blinking rapidly as he walked with an arm draped around Mon's shoulder.
Mon walked in Kudo's direction without understanding what was happening.
"Since then I've been through terrible times... Not that I could help any of it—this too must be my fate... I did think of visiting Shuichi's place sometime to ask how you were doing."
"My wife passed away from acute pneumonia after a miscarriage."
Kudo spoke nasally.
"But how could she have died so easily?"
"She seemed perfectly healthy, didn't she?"
"She was healthy enough, but that woman had lost her bearings."
"Her final moments were pitiful, but since I was there, she closed her eyes peacefully."
"While alive she was nothing but a troublesome wife—but now she's gone, I can't help thinking she wasn't so bad after all..."
"Could this too be Ms. Mon's punishment?"
Mon thought him the sort who said unpleasant things.
He said he'd come to Mishima for tea without hanging up his coat since headquarters was nearby.
"So you've withdrawn from Shanghai and returned?"

“Ah, I’ve moved out of that apartment at least, but...”
“In the New Year, this time I’m going to Nanjing.”
“You seem somehow happy—you’ve got such a good complexion.”
“Those who seem fragile turn out to be surprisingly sturdy, don’t they?”
Kudo wore a soiled collar.
His complexion had turned sallow, and even his walk lacked energy, like that of an exhausted person.
Kudo became single and now walked with his arm around Mon’s shoulder, keeping close, yet Mon felt there remained a vast distance between them.
The two walked to Uchisaiwaicho and parted at a cold street corner without having tea.
He had said he would come by in a few nights, but Mon hadn’t really taken it to heart.

A few days later late at night, Kudo truly came to visit. He was carrying two beer bottles in his hand. When Shuichi said, “It’s this cold—surely beer isn’t the thing to drink,” he replied, “Heated beer tastes good,” then opened one bottle into an earthenware pot and placed it on the hibachi. Kudo was somewhat drunk. He said he had already quit the newspaper company and was now unemployed. He said that now there was nothing left in his own body—that he felt unburdened like brushed-off fallen leaves—and drank the hot beer. Mon had hung her haori over the towel sleeping robe. Kudo, seeing Mon’s rare and charming figure, said, “Ms. Mon also has times when she takes on such a gentle appearance, doesn’t she.” To Kudo, who had only known Mon in her kimono attire wearing a man’s yukata back in the mountains of Shinshu, her haori-clad figure must have seemed quite novel. Kudo got drunk alone. When he drank, his complaints about the deceased grew more frequent. The deceased woman was said to have been a girl who graduated from a rural girls’ school, came straight to Shanghai to work at a café, and was only nineteen—a very wild woman, they said. Kudo recounted that she would complain about having to walk down multiple flights of stairs in their apartment building, so he would carry his young wife on his back down to the lower floor even when people were watching. For Mon, this was difficult to hear. Mon thought Kudo must be quite unhinged. No matter that she had passed away, Mon thought he could speak of such things without restraint in front of her. Feeling she was being made too much a fool of, Mon said, “One can’t compete with the dead.” “When one sets foot on foreign soil, does it make them this self-centered and feeble-minded?” In the end, even Shuichi fell silent. Even if he indulged Mon, Shuichi wore an angry expression as if to say this was too pitiful. After drinking two bottles of beer, Kudo dejectedly went home. Mon hurriedly threw her shawl over her shoulders and chased after Kudo.

“Are you all right being this drunk?”
Mon pushed past Kudo from behind as he staggered at the bottom of the stairs.
Kudo said, “I’m fine.”
“I know full well I’ve been rude to you all.”
“Knowing that, I still had no choice but to speak plainly to settle things.”
“Do you understand?”
“Ms. Mon—live well from now on. As long as we’re alive, we’ll meet again.”
“Give my regards to Shuichi too.”
“Shuichi will be drafted eventually anyway—but you stay behind and take good care of your father.”
“I’ve done nothing but fail my parents.”
“I’ll go stay at a friend’s place in Nakano now.”

Mon released Kudo’s hand as he tried to shake hers and immediately returned to the room.
Shuichi had laid out Mon’s bedding.
“Kudo’s changed quite a bit.”
“Yes, he does seem terribly lonely somehow.”
“It’s an unpleasant thing to call it my punishment, but still—if he can feel a woman’s love that deeply in his bones, it’s somewhat satisfying that he understands even a little.”
Shuichi didn’t understand what she was talking about, but his sister’s words—“It’s somewhat satisfying”—pierced him like an arrow.

Then, within less than a week came the draft notice, and Shuichi was finally to depart for war—though according to rumors, Kudo too had received his conscription order and would be going to the front.
Mon thought it just as well that Kudo—sinking into some perilous abyss while leading his listless existence—had gotten drafted.
From Kudo himself came no word at all.
Having boarded the Sendai-bound train to see Shuichi off, Mon settled into her seat and thought how with this, she likely wouldn't meet Kudo again for a long time.
The memories of Kudo she contemplated in that moving train remained nostalgic and beautiful.
Perhaps even the Manyoshu poets had composed solely of such women's feelings—Mon recalled that verse about gathering seven cartloads of love herbs through sheer effort, and now more than ever she understood with piercing clarity—understood those billowing cloud-like emotions of women who could never grasp true love in reality.
To love someone must not be like the way of cats and dogs...
Mon spread her own wide shawl over Shuichi's knees.