Pathway to Japanese Literature

The girls of fantasy would never come again. Wearing tear-stained melton trousers, I walked like a day laborer. Ah, there was no hope left. No honor. No future. And nothing but irreparable regrets, They ran off like field mice.

Though the poet Hagiwara Sakutarō was no longer in this world, poems like these remain.

Senzō was walking slowly beneath the ginkgo tree-lined avenue within the university, flipping through the pages of this poet's book titled *Destiny*.

Ten minutes had passed the promised time, but there was no sign of Gorō. The luxuriant ginkgo trees formed a green tunnel of sorts. Their branches intertwined from both sides, suffusing the air with a richly fragrant cool breeze. These days, Senzō hadn’t eaten anything resembling a proper meal—so thoroughly that he’d stopped even considering the state of his stomach. The rent payments were chronically overdue.—Word had come back that even the two or three jobs he’d tried through friends had all shut their doors on him. To make matters worse, saddled with this troublesome child Gorō, it felt precisely like being a tiny boat cast adrift on open waters. Yet even those few friends were, in this current world, already stretching themselves to the limit just managing their own precarious lives.

“Sir!”

Senzō abruptly pulled back. Because a sweaty man had pressed up against him. The university grounds, now on vacation, were quiet and nearly deserted in the midday sun. “Sir!” “You mean me?!” “How about it? Need cigarettes?” He hurriedly fastened the button on his chest. Before his eyes, two orange “Hikari” boxes slid into view. Senzō flushed and asked, “How much?” “Thirteen yen.”

“Well… can’t even afford a full pack.” “Then how about five?” He was already starting to open the box. The man’s little fingernail was absurdly long. His gravel-bald head made him look oddly short when standing among others. After rummaging through his pocket and producing six yen and fifty sen in crumpled bills, five chalk-white sticks appeared—then the man walked off toward the main gate. What was Gorō hesitating about? He checked his watch again. On its smudged glass, the green of ginkgo leaves dripped.

He’s probably going to come back all wilted, isn’t he? Ah, the agony of living... Senzō always thought of his persistently gurgling stomach as nothing but a nuisance. He stopped abruptly. “Senzō-san…” In the manner of a rickshaw puller, Gorō came running, swinging both arms vigorously.

“How’d it go?” “He was there.” “He just got back now…” “I see.” “Did he give you anything?” “He gave me a letter.” From beneath the dirty piqué cap, he produced a coarse kraft paper envelope. The bright boy’s grape-like eyes darted widely. When he opened the envelope, five ten-yen bills came out. “You don’t have to sell those books anymore, right?” “There’s always next time.” Please suspend your tutoring services for the time being. The letter simply stated this.

“Did you tell them Mr. Fujisaki was ill?” “Yeah, I did.—When you go inside, he said that guy comes around too often and it’s annoying.” “Mother’s doing?” “Uh-huh.” O fool, O fool, thou art but a feeble tutor. Senzō crumpled the letter and shoved it into his pocket.

“Shall we try going to Asakusa?” “Yeah.”

“Can you walk?”

“I’m okay…” Gorō grinned and raised one leg high to show him. Senzō took out a cigarette and placed it between his lips. But he had no matches. “That’s incredible.”

“I just bought five here now.” “There’s even a cigarette seller in a place like this?” “Sure there are.” Though they didn’t eat properly, their youth showed no signs of fading. “Bridget Well Thanks… we’re doing *alright*.” “What’s that supposed to mean?” One mightn’t think the world so merciless after all—and yet, when Senzō found himself holding fifty yen, for a poor man in that moment, come what may, he was grinning from ear to ear; suddenly, he felt invigorated.

But if one were to set aside a little for rent from this amount and try to eat something in Asakusa, fifty yen was money as ephemeral as foam, leaving nothing to spare. This was like ritual buns for the dead, and Senzō became gloomy.

“Since we’ve come here next, let’s sell this book too…” “Why?” “You don’t need to worry.” “But Bro, didn’t you say the books were for next time?”

First, the two of them exited the main gate and walked past the row of bookstores. The radio music—thin as a mountain stream’s murmur—evoked the shimmer of sunlit water. Gorō had walked until exhaustion took hold, the core of his head throbbing with pain. The heat pressed down, his throat parched to cracking. They entered a cramped bookstore and traded Sakutarō’s *Destiny* for coins. At a price as paltry as the title suggested, Senzō’s chest tightened when he relinquished the book.

Beholding the pathos of this world that would wrest even a single book from an impoverished student, Senzō hummed his habitual strange song: “In the capital, skeletons wail—when will the day come when dogs and cats devour…”

“Senzō-san.” “What is it?” “My eyes are goin’ all fuzzy…” “What?!” “Are you okay?!” Senzō hurriedly cradled Gorō and entered the ice shop in the bookstore’s alleyway.

“A glass of water, please!”

The young woman in an indigo-dyed kasuri apron brought two cups filled to the brim with water. It was an unexpected kindness. Gorō, his face ashen, gulped down the water in one breath.

By 4:30 AM, she was already up and opening the rain shutters. Because a southerly wind was blowing, it was ridiculously hot. But the surroundings were clear. When she lit the gas, there was only the roaring of foul-smelling wind—the gas company was being thrifty as ever this morning... Sadako leaned an old hand mirror with a vermillion rim against the dimly lit lattice window and arranged her hair. *(I wonder what Gorō’s doing right now.* *Is Fujisaki-san taking good care of him, I wonder…)*

Tokyo was a garbage dump for human scraps, Granny Sakata used to say, but Sadako maintained her conviction that Tokyo was better than the countryside after all. Tokyo too was a place formed by gatherings of people from rural areas, making it as free and easygoing as Shanghai.

Sadako had never once thought coming to this house was painful. At night, drunkards would wander past the alley entrance, and there were even people who’d peek in suspiciously as if wondering whether it wasn’t some strange place. This street, bustling all day long, struck her as somehow fascinating. “Isn’t the tea ready yet?”

A voice came from Granny’s futon. “Uh…the gas still isn’t coming out.” “Sadako-chan—since you’re nose-deaf—why not stick your nose right against the gas?” “I did stick my nose against it.”

After grumbling something incomprehensible, Granny fell silent. Sadako took the laundry she had washed the previous night to the second-floor drying area.

The drying area was a sea of wind in all directions. The vast burnt ruins—overgrown with weeds, turned into fields, heaps of scrap metal—everything and anything, in its own way undulating through the low-lying districts, formed a distant vista of a boundless open plain. Amidst this stood buildings of somber hues and a forest of smokeless chimneys.

*Whenever she came to this drying area,* *Sadako felt like singing something.* *Apple Song and Rainy Blues,* *then the forbidden military songs,* *Mineko’s school chants.*

When she hurried downstairs, the dim kitchen reeked terribly of gas. She immediately lit the fire and put on the kettle. She brewed tea and brought it to Granny’s bedside where she lay.

“You know about the firewood ration at 8:30 AM, right? One bundle is seven yen and fifty sen.” “Yes, I understand.”

“Shall we make some *suiton* this morning?” “Yes, let’s do that.” “If the gas comes on, you should steam the bread for lunch too, you know.”

“Yes, I understand.” Using baking powder meant ten yen would only last three days, so the bread—hard as mochi without it—was their daily fare. Oyakata-san’s Ryōkichi was away on a two-day business trip to Fukushima.

When six o'clock came, the sound of rain shutters opening echoed from the second floor, and Masako awoke. “Last night, I had such a dreadful dream.” “A cow’s udder was dangling right from the heavens...” “No legs at all—an enormous cow, truly.” From halfway down the steep staircase, Masako descended while uttering these things. Perhaps because she’d slept deeply, her eyes were lucid. Inwardly, Masako must have been thoroughly convinced of her own eyes’ beauty.

They sat down at the breakfast table at eight o’clock. The surroundings were growing feverishly hot. “Just what are people out there eating…”

Sadako abruptly uttered this. “Within their means… I suppose they’re managing…” Masako, who disliked suiton, had placed a frying pan on the electric stove and was roasting flour. “Sadako-chan… what do you miss most from the old days?”

“About the old days… Oh, well—Mother… I always wonder why she died…” “No, I didn’t mean your mother.” “I meant things like where we lived or the foods we ate.” “Well, for example…” “Like Shintomi’s sushi, or Ponchiken in Shitaya’s cutlets…”

“Ugh—food talk again first thing. Finish your meal quickly, go to Ōkubo, and settle matters there.” “It’ll get hot during the day and make going out difficult again, you see.” Granny Sakata had rolled up the sleeves of her yukata student-style over her shoulders and was smoking with a long-stemmed tobacco pipe. “Hey, Sadako-chan, Shanghai’s dumplings were delicious, weren’t they?” “I often ate fried dumplings too.” “Why on earth did Shanghai have so many delicious things…” “I should’ve eaten until I was sick of it… Ah, how pointless.” “There’s nothing here—it’s so dreary.” “There was a Chinese man I had a one-sided crush on… I wonder what he’s doing now… Ah, how dreary.” Masako had stretched out her shapely legs under the dining table and was fanning herself vigorously with an uchiwa fan.

Since the gas was still on, Sadako stood up to reheat last night’s meat broth but suddenly found herself wanting to see Mineko.

The three siblings were scattered apart; their current life was lonely. If I had just a bit more income, I’d rent a room somewhere—the three of us could live together undisturbed…

In the tearoom，Masako was still chatting away about something． “Sadako-chan，today’s Sunday，isn’t it？” “Won’t you come to Ōkubo with me？” “It’s no fun going alone…”

Soon came the sound of a wardrobe being opened. Sadako, now on the verge of tears with just a breath, pressed her lips together and hummed "The Apple Song" in a small voice.

“Well then, why don’t you come along too, Sadako-chan?”

Granny Sakata gave her permission. She sprinkled a generous amount of pepper into the meat broth—ah, if only there were laurel leaves here—as Sadako recalled the Shanghai of old.

“Mother, may I have about a hundred yen?” “You’re saying such things again… Just yesterday you took out so much—lately you’ve been acting strange…” “When I think of Shanghai, none of this matters.” “This is Japan…” “Without money, I’m too unsettled to go out.”

“In Ōkubo, it’d be good if you went and picked up a little something.”

Masakō glared at Mother in silence.

Just as the meat broth came to a boil, the gas conveniently went out. As for Masako—perhaps having finished preparing after all—she stood there wearing a crisp yellowish linen one-piece dress, polishing her nails with flannel.

“Sadako-chan, don’t worry about the rest. Hurry and get ready.” Masako said in a gentle voice.

“How old is Gorō-kun’s sister?”

“Eighteen.” “Is she pretty?” “She’s pretty.” “That’s splendid. What’s her name?” Kunimune had begun one of his seven quirks—the census inquiries. Since he’d been given a gift of one hundred monme of beef liver, Senzō went to Nakano Market to buy vegetables. On the charcoal stove, organ meats were gently simmering in the pot. At last, a savory aroma began to waft through the air. “Is Shanghai a good place?” “It’s a good place…”

The books on the shelves had mostly been sold off, leaving a thin layer of dust accumulated on them.

Kunimune was Fujisaki Senzō’s middle school senior; after graduating from Waseda’s Political Science and Economics department, he immediately joined the military, was demobilized this April, and worked at a small, emerging pharmaceutical company.

When he returned after being demobilized, among his friends there were already several who had died in the war; others had not yet been demobilized; some had retreated to the countryside with their whereabouts unclear—each in their own way making human affairs in the aftermath of defeat truly desolate. Though Kunimune managed to find a job on his own, when it came to someone with whom to commiserate about the loneliness around him, he had no friends other than Fujisaki Senzō.

Senzō had also been drafted into the military, but when he arrived in Fukuoka, the war ended, and he immediately returned to Tokyo. He was still a student enrolled in the English Department at Imperial University—with his family home in Kagoshima burned down and his allowance now limited to a hundred yen, Senzō eked out a living by working as a private tutor and teaching English at a small cram school.

“Oh, sorry I’m so late…”

Senzō returned, wiping sweat repeatedly. A single cabbage, lighter than it looked. With a navy knife, without washing it, he chopped roughly and threw into the pot. He added salt and precious margarine, “Ah, with this, there’s nothing left to fear.”

Senzō wiped his hands with satisfaction. “Hey, any good news?” “There ain’t any…” “Isn’t there some outrageously profitable path out there?”

“Well, maybe Kunimune and I could form a duo or something…” “A duo, huh… Well, that won’t last long either. —I hear Gorō-kun’s sister is a beauty.” “Yeah, she’s still a girl.” “What’s wrong with a girl? “Girls are modern-day jewels, I tell you.” “Girls and boys everywhere are just fine…” Gorō was a sixth grader at the National School. He had been living with Senzō for the past month, but it was a much brighter life than in Kagoshima.

Two years ago, they lost their father in Shanghai and immediately returned to their hometown Kagoshima with their mother, their sister Sadako, and their younger sister Mineko, but due to overwork and tuberculosis, their mother passed away shortly after returning to Kagoshima.

The three siblings, still young, must have had some property left—what might count as assets—but Granny Sakata refused to loosen her grip on it. Sadako had brought Gorō and fled abruptly to Tokyo at year's end. They turned to Masako's household—an acquaintance from their Shanghai days... The two youngsters clung to their vision of Tokyo—a land born from desperate yearning... Moon-buoyant clouds—what winds move them?

The world does not bend to our will—alas. Vows made are akin to dreams, Already had it become our parting—alas. On the back of a torn paper fan—an elegant scrawl.

“It’s not you, is it?”

“What?” “These lines—it’s heartbreak, no matter how you read it…” “It’s the work of a certain distinguished person.” “A certain distinguished person’s work, you say…” After straining the pot’s contents and eating, they added water to the rationed flour to form dumplings, and the three organic bodies became as peaceful as sea cucumbers. The cigarettes—three sticks of yesterday’s university-brand tobacco at ¥1.30 per stick—were too precious to smoke carelessly. Kunimune, too, puffed on them reverently before launching into one of his seven habitual quirks again.

“They’re flooding the black market with cigarettes but claim there’s no ration supply—that’s the government’s sneakiest trick. —Not a single thing they do has any scientific basis; it’s all just incense-smelling rituals to fake divine favor. And when the people get riled up, they sprinkle insecticide-like stuff on us. —Go days without rationing staple foods, then stroll through town—potatoes piled mountain-high for sale…”

Humanity should have been loved by nature, yet in the aftermath of defeat, the common people had no such luxuries. Kunimune vigorously spouted his nonsensical tirades about how those with advantages were merely living advantageous fifty-year lives.

But the black-market cigarettes were surprisingly good.

Gorō was gathering pieces of scrap metal and wood fragments, diligently assembling a makeshift electric toaster. “Do you think you can make it work?” Senzō, using a torn paper fan, looked on with an air of casual observation. “With this—if you get me some cord—it’ll work.” “Alright, I’ll get you some.” “But baking powder’s pricey, huh?” “I’ll get it from Sis.” “According to Sis, the Natsukawa household’s stingy too, she said.” “But they must have at least some baking powder.”

“Ah, I desperately want to eat something intensely sweet.” “What’s become of this thing we call sugar?” “Sugar—that stuff…”

Kunimune, perched on the bay window ledge, abruptly seemed to recall something sweet. Gorō remembered the whiteness of sugar stored in a glass jar. There had been that time at Granny Sakata’s house when he and Mineko stole and licked the treasured white sugar. The sweetness that spread liquid-smooth across his tongue remained unforgettable. Sugar’s taste—plush as if swaddled in a soft thin quilt, luxuriantly dense…

They would wrap a little in paper and, just the two of them, lick it in bed. When viewed under lamplight, the glittering light resembled shards of glass.

“No matter what I do, it’s depressing there’s nowhere to work.” “The Hongo area seems hopeless for now too—leaves me feeling drained.”

Senzō tugged at his hair in a thoroughly worn-out manner. “Surely even if someone unloaded a Ruck by the roadside, a university student couldn’t just set up shop.” “Yeah.” “How about this? If I were to quit school and seriously start job hunting…”

“Living—now that’s a difficult business.”

“Even if you tell me to die, I can’t just drop dead on the spot…”

“Exactly.” “As for students like us, the world doesn’t give a damn.” “If you say there are too many problems, there probably are—but there’s got to be some other way—no matter what, you can’t study without five hundred yen.” “Yeah.” “You—exactly how much salary are you receiving?” “Well, let’s just say it’s about what a section chief used to make.” “Well, that’s nothing impressive.” “Well, that’s just how it is—a life starved of food first loses its vigor; then your dreams for living vanish. I can’t tell anymore whether I’m young or old.” “Ten years of letting things drift—if I keep going like this, there’s not much difference from a beggar’s life.” “Living while journeying through the underworld—this life’s no different.” “So carefree is carefree…” “Without ambitions for worldly success and social climbing, humans can be quite carefree.” “Every day you go to work carrying a briefcase, and in the evening you come home buying eggplants and tomatoes.” “Since books are expensive, I don’t buy them—well, so I diligently read the morning newspaper ads and end up getting sleepy.” “You wake up, grab your briefcase, go to work again… It’s nothing but a life where nothing opposes you—a smooth, flowing diagram like an ice seller’s reed screen…”

Just beyond the scorched fields, the Shōsen line ran.

In the narrow vacant lot below [their vantage point] grew a thicket of corn. The second-floor four-and-a-half-mat room—even so—was an incomparable heaven. Though scorched red with straw cores protruding, the tatami mats carried exorbitant rent. Merely sleeping on torn tatami after selling all his books, day by day as even the bookshelf seemed destined to be absorbed into these mats—the crumbling room’s encroaching decay struck Senzō as both uncanny and vexing. Meager destiny, though invisible to the eye, rang clear and cool like a wind chime under eaves, swaying with each passing breeze.

If it weren’t for Gorō being here, things might spiral endlessly into ruin.

At times—in visits as fleeting as the Milky Way—Sadako would come to see Gorō. For Senzō, that had been his sole comfort. “If things keep going like this… it’s just too lonely…” “Why don’t you get yourself a wife?” “Can’t even afford to eat—it’d be pitiful to keep a woman dried up like salted fish.” With a ferocious glare, Kunimune straightened his posture. “Mr. Fujisaki! Rations!”

The Okami-san downstairs was calling. "What is it?" Senzō asked. "They say it's tororokombu…"

“Ha…”

Because he had given such a deflated response, both Kunimune and Gorō burst out laughing. A question seemed to arise as to whether tororokombu qualified as significant.

“I’ll go check.” “I wonder if it’s not going to be as overpriced as last time. Ask Okami-san—if the price is too steep, just come back without buying. Anyway, it’s strange how absurdly overpriced the rations are.—Hey, have you ever eaten that substitute flour made from konjac powder? They say it’s eighty yen per kanme, but what kind of deal is that…”

“It’ll probably keep you full…”

Gorō took the pot and went downstairs.