Pathway to Japanese Literature

—Something like a great octopus appeared before my eyes. They stood with eight legs tucked in, shook their monk-like heads, and rolled bulging eyes as they swayed unsteadily—drifting and undulating through their dance. Their numbers swelled to ten, twenty, maybe thirty, moving through pale red lighting nearly indifferent to the music’s tempo shifts. They drifted and clung and separated while dancing onward until the music stopped, whereupon they scattered to the hall’s corners, splayed their legs wide, and squatted flat against the floor. It was an evening hour at Cabaret Ruby.

“Why are you silent?”

But what was there to say? Anyone would keep their mouth shut and stay quiet. Or even if they spoke, it would be in whispers—no different from silence. Does an octopus have a voice? They just gurgled through their mouths and made their suckers smack wetly. Those eight limbs served as both legs and arms. Entwining legs, crossing arms, tangling together as their suckers went smack-smack... How unsettling it was. How repulsive. There—the band started up again. This time with dancing girls. Watch quietly. Since the lighting had turned blue, it probably wouldn't be so distracting now.

“Hey, I’m hungry.”

What were you talking about at this hour? That’s why Kimura would tell me women only think about eating and sleeping. Though I had to admit there was some truth to what you’d said about men only thinking about drinking.

When Kimura got drunk at Bar Penguin, it was absurd. That guy had been gulping down brandy so recklessly that his legs completely gave out—yet without realizing it—he stood up from the sofa and went to shower Madam Penguin with charm at the bar counter... I had no reason to show respect to that madam. Bar Penguin—what a fitting name they chose. With her stubby legs, flat torso, and bucktoothed mouth—wasn’t she the spitting image of a penguin? If absurdity counted as a form of charm—well—it was only fair for us to offer some in return. Kimura walked a few steps with a smile in his eyes—but his hips had already given out; failing to grab the counter—failing to catch the stool—he plopped down hard on his rear end. That alone would have been fine—but as he tried to get up—he flailed his limbs wildly. He had forgotten to put his hands on the floor. The sight of him in his double-breasted jacket—pomade-slicked hair—and gleaming dance shoes—plopped on his rear end with limbs flailing through air—was so utterly absurd that I burst out laughing—and other drunk customers laughed too. No one went to help him. At that moment—Madam Penguin swiftly emerged—helped him up—and began dusting him off with an utterly serious expression...

And that was what led to that chain of events. It was likely the first time Kimura had felt Madam's body warmth and received her breath against his skin. He seemed to have taken a slight liking to Penguin's torso. When I think about it now—when Madam helped Kimura up—it felt like she took too long for such a simple act. If two octopuses become entangled, their suckers will inevitably touch somewhere on each other's bodies. Birds may have feathers for protection, but humans—like octopuses—are nothing but defenseless bare skin.

“I never thought things with Mr. Kimura would last forever. I knew Mr. Kimura was cheating, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. But to think… with Madam… It’s infuriating! Madam tries to look young, but she’s already over forty. So while I can sort of understand Madam getting worked up, Mr. Kimura’s... I just don’t get it. Rather than not understanding his feelings—it’s infuriating. …Infuriating.”

While pleading in that manner, Kyoko cried, but her crying was largely hysterical. Becoming hysterical apparently wasn’t limited to middle-aged women. Or perhaps it spread from the older to the younger. If Madam Penguin and Kimura had been involved first, and Kimura had then left her for Kyoko, Madam Penguin’s hysteria would have been something fierce. By the way, had Kimura switched allegiances from Kyoko in her twenties to some teenage girl, I couldn’t even imagine what Kyoko’s hysteria would have been like.

Kyoko made a characteristically feminine sarcastic remark and moved from Bar Penguin to another establishment.

“I can’t stay in a place with such poor manners.”

She alone believed herself to be the picture of propriety. So women were such trivial creatures. When I teased her by saying that, Kyoko got angry and devoured Tome Shichi's tonkatsu and fried oysters in one go.

Tome Shichi was a small shop, but its pork cutlet was Tokyo's largest. Though delicious, its size—filling an entire platter—made it difficult to finish. Yet astonishingly, there existed a woman who devoured two of these. Kyoko had an average build and height, but Mitsuko stood slightly shorter and thinner. Her nose jutted sharply upward, eyes gleaming keenly—she appeared aristocratic and intellectual in a word. Mitsuko seethed with anger. Her fury ran deeper than Kyoko's. At the dress shop where she designed patterns and worked sewing machines, Mitsuko faced criticism from all when sharing client-sent peanuts with coworkers—she ate too voraciously.

"But calling someone a 'scrawny glutton' is just cruel!" That much was certain. Since time immemorial, it had been ordained that lean women out-eat their plumper counterparts. Yet far more intriguing than this was how mere peanut-nibbling could spark such quarrels—a mystery residing in ladies' delicate sensibilities that defies all external probing.

Mitsuko was tearing up. These were not tears of frustration or sorrow, but of anger—a fact made clear by the faint blue veins surfacing on her forehead. "It got on my nerves, so I hurled peanut shells at them with all my strength and scattered them across the room." Judging by this, the peanuts must have still been in their shells. The scene of young women vigorously peeling, voraciously munching, and quarreling over those things was an awkward sight to confront.

Thinking it better to stuff her belly with tonkatsu than stew in anger, I invited her to Tome Shichi, but she showed no reaction to the sarcasm whatsoever. Still fuming over the peanut incident, she proceeded to devour two whole enormous pork cutlets. As a social gesture, I devoured one myself.

When I parted with Kyoko, the sun had already set.

The canal water was dull and dark, the streetlights reflected in it, and the willow's young leaves swayed despite the absence of wind. At times like these, strangely enough, the stars in the sky were invisible. No—rather, one does not look up at the sky. Eyes hung heavily upon the water's surface, and tonkatsu stagnated in the belly. Long ago, a certain poet had sung of tonkatsu’s melancholy and beefsteak’s hypochondria. But this feeling was far, far more oppressive than any of that.

Beneath the stone wall, in a narrow shoal within the canal, something black was writhing. Slowly, as if crawling, it moved. It couldn't be human. In an octopus-like posture, it shifted position with intermittent bobs. Were that thing to stand upright, it would surely become human.

The oppressive weight transformed into a vague dread.

Ah. Something flashed like a divine revelation.

―I have lost the dream. To realize one has lost is to wish to possess.

To hold onto dreams, cultivating one's everyday preparedness would likely be foremost; yet depending on time and circumstance, there should also be room for adaptable measures.

Cities were strange creatures—no matter how orderly they appeared—creating eddies and stagnant pools in every corner. In stagnant pools dwelt yin; in flowing streams dwelled yang. In war-ravaged cities like Tokyo，that difference became even more pronounced. If one went just a little further，it abruptly transformed into a clamorous thoroughfare. The rumble of trains，the blare of automobile horns，the tramp of crowds’ footsteps—and rising above them all，the loudspeakers blaring from advertising towers—this was indeed yang violence. Yet beyond these violent interferences，outside neon signs’ glare，there existed quiet corners. Quiet they might be—but not blind spots. There，drunkenness，dreams，and philosophy coiled together.

One such place, Sugi-goya, gathered a crowd of regulars. A bar where, according to the owner’s preference, they remodeled the first-floor hall of a scorched building using cedar wood associated with Japanese sake and lined it with junkyard furnishings made of cedar. It was almost entirely filled with regulars. There was, of course, no band there. No radios or phonographs played. They were all loudly chattering about self-indulgent topics. Greek philosophy, modern politics, labor unions, après-guerre ideology—you could hear anything and everything. However, strangely enough, even those loud debates were smoothly sucked into the void, leaving the hall's air oddly hushed. Whether due to the concrete walls' poor sound reflection or the high ceiling, all group voices vanished into the air, leaving only the chatterers' gestures behind. It resembled a secret meeting of octopus monks.

Since it was a gathering of octopus monks, they naturally had arms and legs to spare. But even those limb gestures proved of little use here. The waitresses were prim girls in indigo kasuri-patterned monpe work pants. However desperately the octopus monks extended their limbs with amorous intent, their suckers—much like those voices expounding profound logic that vanished into thin air—wandered aimlessly without gaining any traction. A hushed atmosphere settled over them, nurturing drunkenness and dreams alike. In a corner booth, a young man who'd been half-rising while holding forth suddenly found his cheek stinging from an open-handed blow delivered by his companion. He retaliated with a slap of his own, snatched a glass from the table, and smashed it against the floor with a sharp crack that sent shards flying everywhere. At that moment, a middle-aged man rose from the neighboring booth, seized the aggressor's upraised arm mid-swing, and spoke.

“Stop it, stop it.” “If you’re going to fight, take it outside.” The words “Do it” resonated with the cadence of “Pour another drink.” The young men paid him no mind, bursting into laughter as they retreated deep into their booth to whisper furtively with each other, while the middle-aged man likewise withdrew into his own booth and appeared to raise his glass.

Were they acquainted with each other, or were they complete strangers? I couldn’t begin to guess. At first glance, it was nothing more than an octopus peeking slightly out of its pot and then furtively retreating back inside. The indoor air was quiet like underwater. While glancing sideways at the girl sweeping up glass fragments, Manager Morita said: “Having property broken is what troubles me most.”

That was an entirely reasonable thing to say. "However, at my establishment, no matter what gets broken, I make it a rule never to have them compensate." Of course it was. It was too obvious to be either interesting or amusing. What he said was ordinary, but even so, Morita's eyes were sharp. Whirling acorn-shaped eyes that retained not the slightest cloudiness, their gaze seeming to survey all directions yet remaining unfocused. At times he would close his eyelids, ponder something within, then suddenly open them wide, his eyeballs whirling round and round. From where I watched, I felt dazzled.

There was an expression about loving someone so dearly you could hold them in your eye without pain—Morita’s eyes must have been gently embracing multitudes. I just wished they’d stay a bit quieter. Like a cup filled with sake. Right then, the cup on the table was filled with sake. The electric light reflected hazily, flashing in a perfect circle...

Ah.

I was inside the sake cup. I was flying through the air. The sky was uniformly blue and circular; the sea was uniformly blue and circular. The Earth appeared convexly round when viewed from the ground, while from the sky above, it appeared concavely round. The airplane was flying within two grand lapis lazuli sake cups stacked together. The seam where the sake cups met was a hazy, bright glint. An island came into view. They lay irregularly scattered in great numbers. As we passed over them, the sea grew ever bluer, and white waves encircled the islands. There was an unmanned rocky mountain; white waves swiftly swept over it all the way to its peak, then just as swiftly receded, revealing a black jagged crag, which the white waves again swept over. An eternal interplay of white and blue. It was a flight over Ryukyu.

The Okinawan-born waitress with eyes reminiscent of Ryukyu's lapis lazuli seas was at that house. With long-lashed limpid eyes, she stared through jet-black pupils. Wheat-toned taut cheeks and luxuriant black hair. A southern composition. Papaya, mango, durian... Let those pungent fruits stay further south; grant me at least a cup of awamori in the shade's cool breeze.

On the second floor there was a splendid tatami room, though in the entrance's dirt-floor area stood a small drinking spot with plain wooden tables arranged. Sipping Okinawan white broth and picking at pork, they tasted awamori from small cups. The Okinawan people gathered politely and spoke in low voices. In the postwar era, there must have been those for whom longing for home proved irresistible. But after they left, this time improper conduct began.

“Hey, awamori really gets you drunk, huh?” “Awamori’s the finishing touch of drunkenness.”

He was a dark-faced man with his striped tie's knot askew and his striped dress shirt cuffs pulled long out of his sleeves.

"Especially since what they serve here is the real deal." No sooner had he said something cheerful than he started sniveling again. "I've been drinking everywhere and blew through half my salary already." "Now I can't even get my wife's spring clothes ready." "That damn wife... wonder what she'll say..." "Hail Awamori Daimyōjin, grant me wisdom—so here I sit drinking. They say liquor's tears... or whatever..."

He had buried his face in the table and was genuinely crying. He had completely fallen apart. If he weren't a stranger, I would have knocked him flying. "Even if you tell me not to cry," he said between sobs, "how could I possibly keep from crying? Hahaha." He had suddenly composed himself. "They've all gone home," he muttered. "They've left me all alone here." "Nothing but heartless bastards." "I am lonely." "I am absolutely lonely." "And I am sad." He buried his face again.

Okinawan-born Ryoko came out and lightly placed her fingertips on his forearm. Kimono collar neatly fastened, neck held straight—a slender standing figure with the natural curve of an outstretched hand; an appearance that could be called the salon's leading lady. “Mr. Mikami, you’ve gotten drunk again. Since the sake flask is empty now, it would be best for you to head home.”

Her voice was beautiful.

"I am sad." "I'll go home, I'll go home." With astonishing obedience, he staggered out. Ryoko watched his retreating figure with a smile. Aren't you ashamed before that smile? No—more than shame, it was sadness. Everyone was sad. From the building's shadow emerged a petite Western-dressed woman with crimson lips—positioning herself within darkness while placing her mark in lamplight's reach, she whispered "Hey," gauged reactions through facial tells, let her gaze slide from chest to waist with a playful "Wanna play?", inspected down to mud-caked shoes and threadbare trouser knees before abruptly turning away—the professional sharpness in her eyes and his shabby attire alike, weren't these more pitiful than shameful?

What exactly constitutes sadness? Those who can resist are fortunate.

--I think of Okinawa's deep blue sea.

In that sea, even a floating corpse would likely be beautiful. The canals of Tokyo were hideous. Once in broad daylight near the bridge, a woman's body exposing chest and legs had floated gently back and forth with the tide's movements. Pedestrians gradually formed a crowd and gazed at it. No one uttered a word; they simply kept gazing. Since it wasn't a bridge with heavy foot traffic, this was no eccentric advertising mannequin but unmistakably a corpse. In such muddily murky water, why it floated there—even had you asked the corpse itself—there'd be no way to know.

Since that incident，I avoided passing through that area whenever possible.

However, the canals in the city center are mostly interconnected, with the same murky water intermingling throughout, and wherever one goes, one must cross a canal. Water soothes and comforts people's hearts, but I wish to purify these canals—not only at night but also during the day. Okinawa’s sea, the water of Okinawa’s sea. Crouching at the riverbank's edge and gazing at the canal water surface where the town lights flickered, yet another octopus illusion surfaced before me. Was it due to the muddy, fishy stench? Under the stone wall on the tidal flat, something black seems to be squirming. In the water, something seems to be squirming and creating bubbles. If that thing were to rise up smoothly and lift the giant monk specter's head, what would I do. There's no resisting that.

In the upper floors of the building behind me too, I knew for certain reasons there existed another giant monk specter. During the air raids, he had bought up furniture being sold at throwaway prices, transported it to the countryside for storage, and made a fortune. After the war, he had dealt in black-market goods and made another fortune. Now that social conditions had stabilized, he no longer involved himself in any ventures, instead sprawling arrogantly on his office sofa upstairs and simply observing the state of the world. He kept a single mistress at all times—though changing her out periodically—while maintaining a beautiful female secretary in his office to brew coffee and pour whiskey. That guy was nothing but a bald-headed octopus monk.

--There were great octopus-like entities existing both on land and in water. For warding off octopuses, tobacco was the only recourse. I took out a cigar I'd received at Cabaret Ruby from my waistcoat pocket and tried lighting it with my lighter, but the flame refused to catch.

“Uncle, what are you doing?”

When I looked back, this was a dwarf. In a blue jacket and black trousers—who knows what on his feet—he emerged soundlessly from the shadow of a willow trunk, drew near, and stood close by. He must have determined I was harmless by the light of my lighter. He must have been scared of the octopus monk too.

After all, it was a dimly lit riverbank edge.

“I’m fishing for octopus,” I bluffed, but the kid didn’t even crack a smile. “There’s no way there are octopuses in a place like this. “There are carp here. “Uncle, are you fishing for carp?”

This I liked. I stood up and offered a hundred-yen bill as a reward for his clever remark, whereupon the kid stared intently at my face, snatched the banknote, said "Thanks," and vanished along with his voice. Could this too be an illusion? An uncompensated act. My chest eased. The venom had been drawn out.

Leaving the riverbank edge—though I had no particular destination—I decided to walk a while longer.

The clamor's violence had vanished; only neon lights glowed bright. As I moved to cut across that space, I came upon Old Man Takagi with abrupt suddenness.

“Well now, this is quite the unexpected place to meet...” There was nothing unusual about that. The unusual one here was yourself. What made it even more unusual was that Old Man Takagi was drunk and in high spirits.

“I’m very happy today. Let’s drink a bit more.” “Take me to someplace you know.” He already seemed to have had quite a bit to drink.

“I don’t dance. I don’t care for cabarets either. Somewhere quiet like this would be preferable.”

In that case... Sugi-goya then. Taking the old man's arm, our steps naturally fell into sync.

“Earlier, I met Yuriko and finally saw the definitive truth through.” “That settles it.” Being told this abruptly while walking, I couldn’t grasp what he meant at all. “I went through considerable trouble.” “From time to time I’d visit to discreetly check on her situation, passing slightly larger sums as tips.” “Yuriko looked shocked and refused at first, but when I said there were circumstances... she started accepting it without protest.” “Though she never seemed to understand what those circumstances truly were.” “If she actually understood, it’d be awkward.” “Well anyway, that place had too many prying eyes—it really put me in a bind.” “First off, if I’d bumped into Sadaharu there, what a disgrace that’d be! And I couldn’t exactly peer through the entrance to check if he was coming... Quite the predicament.”

Sadaharu was Old Man Takagi’s son, and Yuriko appeared to be a café waitress or something of the sort. The image of Old Man Takagi cautiously avoiding his son—likely sneaking back and forth furtively in front of that café multiple times—wasn’t that somewhat endearing?

“Of course, I only went there during times when Sadaharu’s movements were restricted—when he had research, meetings, day-long outings, those sorts of cases—but since we’re parent and child living under one roof, I couldn’t help but notice.” “But there’s always the chance of something unexpected happening.” “Caution demands caution.” “It’s all the effort required for caution’s sake.”

It was already quite late, and Sugi-goya wasn’t particularly crowded. We settled into a corner booth and raised our cups. “Well now, this is a nice place.” After settling deep into the booth, Old Man Takagi finally looked around the interior and kept marveling at it. Now then, Old Man Takagi’s tale was like a textbook case of parental doting. An utterly mundane affair: their son Sadaharu had fallen for a waitress named Yuriko, run into money troubles, confessed to his parents and sought marriage approval—only to meet his mother’s stubborn opposition and sink into such despondency that suicide seemed not entirely out of the question. The mother refused to budge an inch. The father, Old Man Takagi, had resolved—out of excessive worry—to first assess Yuriko’s character. When he met her, she’d seemed decent enough. But given the establishment’s nature and the risk she might be tempted by unsavory men for money, the old man had occasionally given certain sums—not to Sadaharu, but directly to Yuriko. ——Probably not significant amounts anyway.

“I put the final touches on things tonight,” he said. “After handing over the money—though I felt a bit embarrassed—when I tried inviting her by saying, ‘Shall we go somewhere? Maybe spend a day or half-day at a hot spring?’ Yuriko turned bright red.” He leaned closer, fingers tracing an invisible curl. “Then she pretended to brush back her permed hair with one hand, tightened that slender face with its pale forehead, averted her eyes...” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “And you know what came next? ‘I am not that sort of woman.’” The old man’s cheeks quivered with suppressed delight. “What do you think of that?” He repeated the line with theatrical emphasis: “‘I am not that sort of woman.’”

This was naive drivel beyond discussion. Old Man Takagi and Sadaharu were so alike in features as father and son, and the old man's behavior must have come off as suspicious—Yuriko had likely sensed something amiss even without grasping the full truth of the matter. Women put on such skillful acts at times like these. She said nothing to Sadaharu or the old man, kept silent throughout, then finally delivered that single line: "I am not that sort of woman."

What was strange was Old Man Takagi’s manner of storytelling. From the very beginning, he had seemed thoroughly delighted. Even regarding his final preparations, there was something a bit too suggestive about them. It was practically like listening to someone brag about their romantic conquests. Could it be he'd unexpectedly developed feelings for Yuriko? Could it be that due to the old man’s delusion, he had become unable to distinguish between kindness and affection? If Yuriko were to warmly grasp his hand and say something like “Please take me with you”... what would happen afterward was known only to God.

Old Man Takagi smiled warmly at times and grinned slyly at others as he confided his story, occasionally letting tears pool in his eyes. What lay in the deepest recesses of his heart—joy or sorrow? This senile octopus remained oblivious to his creeping emotional numbness. I too seemed to have settled too comfortably into an octopus pot. A gloomy weight pressed down. When I stood and warned him, "The last trains will stop running soon," Old Man Takagi scrambled upright, settled his tab in one motion, then bolted outside. He might've slipped on that sloped street out there.

“He’s quite an odd old man, isn’t he?”

Morita smiled. I traced a spiral on my head with my fingertips. I'm a bit off in the head too. I could use a strong drink. Madam Penguin’s place, Kyoko’s place… Either option feels too bothersome right now, and Ryoko’s place is a bit awkward to visit. Thanks to Old Man Takagi, I feel as though I've lost sight of Okinawa’s sea too. I decided to drink the suspicious-looking cocktail Morita prepared for me. Both my body and consciousness feel unsteady, flickering on and off.

Morita escorted me outside and looked up at the sky. “Looks like good weather again tomorrow.” I’ve made it a rule not to respond to soliloquies. In the first place, who cares about the damn weather anyway?

Quickest solution—a rickshaw.

A space just large enough to fit one's body—the inside of that canopy was a different world. Not threatened by octopus monks, not lured by Okinawa's sea, I drifted in and out of sleep.

And I dreamed.

A boulevard resembling a bridge, with railings on both sides. It wasn’t a definite bridge, yet it resembled one. Along both railings, two women were walking. They walked slowly, slowly onward, as if taking a leisurely stroll. Upon reaching the end of the railings, the woman on the left turned around sharply, the woman on the right also turned around sharply, and they exchanged slight nods as if saying, "Oh." The woman on the right’s face was clearly visible—I knew her well—but I couldn’t recall her name. The face of the woman on the left was merely darkened and indistinct, yet she was the same person as the woman on the right. Who was she? The woman on the right approached the woman on the left and said in a whisper.

“Ms. Isako, I heard you were ill—are you quite recovered now?” The woman on the left responded with a nod.

Then, brightening abruptly like a conflagration, the dream vanished.

So those two were Isako after all. If it's Isako, I should know—she's my former lover.

The fire—it wasn’t real. A bright light shone into the canopy only to fade back into gloom. I thought again in this half-dreaming state—Isako should know.

I forced my eyes open, but it was dim.

I have seen a twofold person.

The rickshaw clattered on and on. Continued straight onward.