Pathway to Japanese Literature

Due to certain circumstances, one day he quarreled with his father. Driven by the momentum and lingering anger from that quarrel, he wrote his first short story incorporating the father about whom he had been wavering until then. That short story happened to catch his father's eye. Father, overcome with rage, "I'll never speak to that bastard again. "...When I die, I'll die in a hospital under some stranger's care!" he reportedly shouted, his face crimson. Therefore, ever since hearing that, whenever he caught sight of his father’s figure on the street, he would hurriedly turn on his heel. While they lived in one small town, the father, mother, and he each resided in separate households.

Therefore, having already adopted an attitude of reckless abandon toward his father, he found it easy to write the second short story. Moreover, what he had been working on for about two months now was yet another story that incorporated his father. If that could be completed without hindrance, he intended to give it the title "The Child Who Sells His Father."—The following tale concerns a time before he had written even that first short story.

I

That evening too, he and his father were passing sake cups while indulging in lighthearted banter. It was a late spring evening where the gentle lapping of waves became faintly audible whenever their conversation lapsed—they were on the second floor of his father’s mistress’s house. “When’s that brat of yours getting born?”

Affecting an air of forgetfulness, his father asked him such a thing. Both of them were already thoroughly drunk and had been badmouthing their relatives in perfect unison when their conversation lapsed. “June, I hear,” he muttered, mimicking his father’s attitude and deliberately affecting a nonchalant air. “So you’re finally becoming a father?!”

Having said that, Father glanced at the woman beside him and burst into exaggerated laughter. "And—" he said. "This Father here—" he broke off, finding it too direct to voice aloud, and instead indicated Father with just his eyes, "You're finally going to become a grandfather," he said. "You idiot—" Father—who had delivered this in a slack, booming voice—kept staring at him and the woman with equal measure even after speaking, his mouth hanging agape beneath that fixed smile.

“How old are you?” “Twenty-seven.” “Still twenty-seven?” “Your evasive act is getting old.” “But twenty-seven… that’s a bit too damn early!” “I’m pretty overwhelmed myself.” He said this, hunched his shoulders in an exaggerated manner, and smirked with a foolish-looking wry smile. “Though when you were born, I was about twenty…”

“Huh? And?” He closed his eyes and tilted his forehead toward the ceiling. Fifty-one minus twenty-seven equals what? He tried to calculate it but couldn’t easily find the answer. “Twenty… twenty-three, maybe.”

“That’s damn early! Ha! Ha! Ha!” He felt an oddly belated sense of ease and laughed with boisterous vocal enthusiasm—though truth be told, this manner was an intentional performance of sickly-sweet roughness, for anything less would clash with the peculiarly disordered atmosphere of this house. Regardless of Father, when he considered how excessively improper his own attitude as the son had become, this was absolutely not a scene to be witnessed by others—he thought. At first, the other women had looked on their conversations with curiosity, but now they had conversely grown accustomed to them. His mother likely never imagined they were carrying on like this elsewhere.

“Lately I’ve been getting plastered every single night and not doing any of my own work. “This just won’t do.” “Everyone thinks I led nothing but a hopeless life when I was in Tokyo, but I wasn’t nearly this undisciplined back then.” “For one thing, I didn’t drink alcohol that much—”

Suddenly he blurted out such things. This was getting a bit suspicious—he thought to himself. “So you’re saying it’s all because this old man’s to blame? Let’s drop it.” “You’ve become quite skilled at making snide remarks, Father.” The dim-witted father and son roared with laughter here as if it were the most amusing thing. “But—” Father said somewhat forcedly once his laughter subsided. “You don’t have a job now, do you? Since you’re supposed to start at that company around summer, just keep fooling around for now.”

“Ah, right,” he nodded lightly. What was he so immersed in mentally? Father knew nothing of his literary contemplations—"Quit that worthless salaryman nonsense! I'm starting a lumber company soon—work there instead," Father would repeatedly say, offering encouragement that did nothing to encourage him. Though Father seemed to be making various efforts behind the scenes, he neither understood nor trusted his father’s ventures, letting all such talk flow through him like empty air.

“It’s unusually quiet with no guests today, isn’t it?” he asked the woman. People connected to the company mostly frequented this house. To hold such consultations, one absolutely needed a house like this—Father would often tell his mother such things, which only irritated her jealous heart, leaving him frequently at a loss.

“No, there were three people here until just now,” the woman said with a knowing laugh. “When they heard the young master was coming, everyone made themselves scarce.”

“Young master, you’ve really shown off your handsome looks there.” Father teased him so.

Five or six days prior, he—incited by Mother and his wife—had barged into this house full of guests on the momentum of alcohol. “The other day, you know,” he said sheepishly, explaining to the woman. “It was all just an act… But Mother and Shūko were so damn naggy I couldn’t take it anymore…” “Your wife’s putting on airs too, huh. “I hate this!”

Father said, having already dismissed his mother from consideration. "I've come to hate this too," he said. "A low nose and crooked eyes!" "She's got a sharp tongue and puts on airs of refinement."

The two young geishas sitting there chimed in unison: “We were truly terrified the other day.”—“Young master may be rough with your words, but there’s something formidable about you.”

Unaware they had uttered those words contemptuously, he jumped to the conclusion—This must mean they recognize my authority—and felt fleetingly pleased,

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” he laughed with grandiose affectation. Stretching his slender frame and puffing out his chest, “Hey, pour the drinks,” he commanded through narrowed eyes. Losing all sense of himself, he put on the swagger of a potbellied man, “Well now, you all are quite the lookers,” he declared, nodding with the dramatic flourish of a Kagura actor striking his pose. “Shall I bail you out?” His father—seemingly tickled beyond endurance by his son’s idiocy—suppressed a snicker and humored him. “Truth be told—having some wife glued to you...”

“No good?” he said, raising eyes meant to convey irony as he grinned up at Father’s face. He’d intended to make Father utter those very words. “Talking back to your own father?!” Father stuck out his tongue and slapped his own forehead with an open palm—Disgusted, he turned sharply away. Then he felt the corners of his eyes grow faintly warm.

“Father… Father…” This drunken act of mine was the problem—this was the root of my blunder—and the more I realized it, the more his superficial drunken sentimentality leapt up with clockwork-like insensitivity.

“You’re an idiot!”

The woman sat in an uncomfortable-looking posture, staring fixedly at her knees.

“I ain’t gonna imitate you, old man!” he shouted, twisting his mouth further. But even as the words left him, a quiet corner of his mind—Shit, that went too far— “Sorry sorry—can’t even talk right—” he muttered half to himself, then aimlessly—ah whatever—planted a kiss on nothing in particular.

“Hey now, enough already—I get it.” His father raised his hand to stop him. “So it’s precisely because you understand?” He resentfully let slip a soliloquy whose meaning even he himself couldn’t grasp. —Father made a genuinely uncomfortable-looking expression for a moment.

But he quickly regained his composure, as if to steer the conversation elsewhere, “What name should we give to your child—my grandchild?” he said. He certainly felt relieved, though he had never before heard such imaginatively playful words from Father’s mouth, leaving him both tickled and pathetic. And then, curtly, “But we don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl—” he protested with a self-serving look of discontent.

“It’s probably a boy.” “Though I’m considering both possibilities.” His heart softened. “Liar!” He fawned with cunning, like a woman playfully needling an intimate friend. “No, he’s been saying such things all along,” the woman chimed in from beside them, briefly making Father flush with embarrassment. “Apparently in our family they say you must put the ‘Ei’ character in the eldest son’s name.” Father, slightly flustered, now decided his grandchild was a boy and tried to paper it over.

“Father, you hate traditions, don’t you?” “Lately I’ve grown rather particular about family customs.” “First off, neither you nor I—both eldest sons—have ‘Ei’ in our names.” “They say you’ll never amount to anything without that ‘Ei’ character.” Having said this, his father looked at his face—and then they both burst out laughing. “Come to think of it, my younger brother seems better stock than me—always topping his class...” “Right then—this time we’ll put that ‘Ei’ in proper-like.”

“Suppose we could go with that.” He too felt that might be preferable. “Grandfather’s name was Eitarō Eifuku, right?” “Eitarō?!” His father repeated this as if hearing his own father’s name for the first time in ages, but immediately forced a strained smile. “What was Grandfather like? He was very kind to me, but—” He posed such a nonsensical question. “He and I never got along.”

“So he must’ve been a model citizen.” “Cowardly and stingy.” “That ancestor before him was Sakubei Eikiyo, right?”

“Hmm, that’s right.” “Do you know Sakubei Eikiyo, Father?” “I don’t know.” “Wasn’t Sakubei Eikiyo at least somewhat great?” “Who knows...” As the conversation grew slightly more abstract—though Gen was prone to such tangents himself—his father immediately made a bored face. When his mother would talk about her portentous dreams, he never responded. In that respect, he was somewhat closer to his mother.

“Because when I was little, Grandfather would always make us sit before Sakubei Eikiyo’s hanging scroll during New Year’s and bow.” “Tch, what nonsense.” “Before Eikiyo—” “You sure know a lot about that stuff.” He said triumphantly,

“Sadaemon Eitsune,” he said. “Hmm—” “Whatever.” “Sakubei Eikiyo was apparently some swordsman from Shimo Tsuizui, you know.” “Then the ‘Ei’ character isn’t all that reliable either—or is it?” He felt his father was sneering with too much smug self-satisfaction, so he mockingly twisted that initial proposal. “Ah, whatever.” “Let’s drop this dream talk.” Father’s drunkenness sank to a new level.

“When it comes to that, I’m something else, you know.” “Now ‘when it comes to that’—that’s a suspicious turn of phrase.” His intoxication gradually deepened too, and like some miserly drunkard, his words grew increasingly combative. “Well, I’m Japanese—my outlook’s different. “My mind’s worldly. “That’s... you see.” “First off, your mother’s brother’s been looking down on me.” “I’ve got no use for Inari fox shrines or whatever, but what’s with all these gaudy court dresses and medals? Aren’t they just △△ servants? Hey... That’s why...”

“I also find that sort of global perspective ridiculous.” “Gaudy gold’s still better than nothing—I’d rather have it. What’s wrong with scorning salarymen or calling them △△ servants? Not that I’m some conservative youth spouting this stuff.” “My gut’s socialist through and through!” “Father’s gut seems suspiciously small.” “Nah—bigger than yours.”

“I wasn’t making a comparison—I was critiquing.” “Ah, I don’t get any of this anymore…” “That’s why—no, there’s no real ‘why’—but anyway, I can’t stand any of these family ties.” “Nobody’ll cry when I die.” “But here’s the thing—you’re a fool too, an even bigger fool than me. When I die, you’ll be the only one left floundering.” “No matter how drunk you get, I can’t stomach hearing such clumsy drivel.” “Makes me lightheaded.”

“That’s what makes you a fool,” he said. “Ah, my mood’s gone rather dark.”

“What do you mean by ‘mood’? Is your head a paper lantern?” “Yeah, a paper lantern.” “A paper lantern? That’s something. What a gloomy bastard! Make it a searchlight then.” “That won’t work—it’s innate.” Was settling on that conclusion too conventional? When he found himself fixating on such jokes, he thought about how he’d used the word ‘innate,’ and that if he truly felt that way, it would be disastrous—.

“By the way, let’s go over the child’s name again,” his father said, heaving his drunken body upright as the bored-looking woman beside him refilled his cup. “Shall I take the ‘Yū’ from my name and call him Eisuke?” “If it’s a boy.”

“This ‘hero’ business being a common noun complicates things.” “Then shall we take your ‘Ichi’ and make it Eiichi? But then wouldn’t that sound too similar to a younger brother named Eijirō?” “Taking Yū versus taking Ichi—which would make for a better omen?” “Well, so then?” So saying, his father tilted his head as if pondering a rather significant problem. He too was vaguely thinking of something. He faintly felt his drunken head swaying like a balloon, buoyant and unsteady.

“Well then, what about tonight?” “Going home?”

He remembered that he had come here tonight, as usual out of consideration for his mother, with the aim of taking his father home. Father was dozing. He had thought Father was considering his grandson’s name, but Father hurriedly opened his eyes, “Which do you suppose is better? But ah, let’s think about that later,” he muttered. “No—that’s not what we’re discussing anymore. —The matter of whether you’re going home tonight or not.”

“Let’s just have fun tonight! It’s fine—don’t give it another thought!” Perceiving his half-hearted attitude, Father said this. “Perhaps we should.” “Exactly—I can’t stand going home.” “I too am a bit… today…” At that moment, when he noticed the woman beside his father leaving her seat with purposeful air and descending downstairs, he watched her retreating figure before— “What’s even appealing about a woman like that?” he said.

“She’s a bit botched work. “And that face of hers is putting on quite the show.” Father boomed with laughter. He thought this way of speaking—repeating things so garishly that it lost any charm and became downright grating—was something he himself was prone to doing, and he recalled how friends had once roundly criticized him for it. “Mother’s a hypocrite.” “Your mother used to say I’m all bluster with my mouth, but my heart’s narrow as a needle’s eye.”

“Let’s go out and drink.” “Right—let’s go out,” he declared with forced vigor. But when Father took the lead in indulging him—only to later spread tales of his actions behind his back with perverse amusement—he felt a twinge of apprehension. “But keep today’s matter from Mother.” He made the request in a low voice. “Who’d blab about this shit? You bastard!” Father roared while swaying upright.

Two

In the bamboo grove at the back of the garden, a Japanese white-eye occasionally let out shrill chirps.

Shūko was in the sunny engawa, watching over the child who had just started walking about ten days before. As plum petals scattered down, the child would stop dead in his tracks, staring wide-eyed with apparent wonder. Shūko gazed intently at his behavior, “This child will surely be clever,” she murmured. And she involuntarily let slip a wry smile. Because the moment she thought this, a comparison surfaced—at least compared to this child’s father or grandfather—and that was why.

Her husband had shut himself away in the adjacent 4.5-tatami room, sometimes making rustling noises with books at his desk, sometimes muttering something under his breath. He had already been holed up in his room for four or five days now, barely speaking to either child or wife. She was indifferent to what he was doing. Lately, he hadn’t been coming home too late at night or getting drunk, so she’d only thought it a refreshingly decent situation.

After a while, in the 4.5-tatami room, “Damn it! Shit!” he seemed to throw a fit, slamming his desk with a bang before tearing paper with a sharp ripping noise that could be heard. And he,

“It’s no good at all,” he muttered to himself, sliding open the shōji door and stumbling unsteadily out to the engawa. “What’s the matter? You look pale.” Because he wore such a sullen expression, Shūko offered a perfunctory compliment. “I look pale? Stop giving me such anxiety. When I hear such things, nothing disheartens me more.” He struck a slight pose and muttered with exaggerated gravity. Shūko wanted to burst out laughing, but since his demeanor seemed unexpectedly serious, she made an effort to restrain herself.

“There are all sorts of ways to be unwell.” “Your face is oddly flushed.” “Like Eisuke’s?” He laughed awkwardly and picked up the child.

“Are you writing something?”

He only nodded and turned away. Shūko again found his meaningful air comical. Still—he’d been so unreasonably sullen lately, carrying on with absurdly childish selfishness while glued to his desk—what could such a man possibly be thinking or writing? The more convinced Shūko became that it couldn’t be anything proper, the more curiosity she felt toward his vacant face. Then a mischievous urge to tease him arose within her—

“Are you writing fiction?” she asked.

Despite Shūko having anticipated that he would make an extremely displeased face, he nodded meekly and timidly.

“To call it a novel—well, that’s probably just a cunning, vulgar act, but…” He paid no heed to his listener, turning red as he began muttering to himself. "I’ve been thinking about my own family since the other day. Father’s matters… Mother’s matters… my own matters… and Eisuke’s…” “Even you think about things like Eisuke?” “Shut up! “Even if I say I’m thinking…” he harshly dismissed his wife, but now he felt that—contrary to his own grave claims—he wasn’t really pondering family matters or Father’s matters or Mother’s…

“Mainly about Father…” he added. “And ultimately I couldn’t endure it anymore.” “What?” “Your way of thinking operates on a different plane—stop prying with useless questions! Right now I’m feeling cleansed—I quit because it became intolerable—” …… Shūko stared vacantly. Having uttered those words, he confronted the wretched superficiality of his own ruminations and found their ugliness unbearable. Even before Shūko—had he carelessly let slip such words and allowed her to glimpse some depraved corner of his heart?—this suspicion plunged him into deeper self-loathing. ……Ah, I must abandon this arrogant notion of writing about family matters…… He made this silent vow. Until now, he’d occasionally written fiction—mostly fantastical fairy tales or lyrical reminiscences of romance. But recently he’d lost all passion for such work.

“Then I should just quit—” he thus rejected this “new passion”.

"Maybe I'll go over to the house for a bit." "Which house?" Shūko instantly retorted. Whenever he went out, she would invariably pose this question. And were he to say it was Father's house—she would scrunch her face as if imagining her husband's disreputable companion. Though truth be told, his destination on such outings was generally Father's house. "I have some business with Mother." "Lies, lies," Shūko laughed. He found this prying suspicion intensely grating, yet since she had hit upon the truth,

“What do you mean ‘lies’?” he barked, contradictorily reproaching her with deliberate rudeness.

"No—or rather, I might stop by Mother’s place briefly—" he justified to himself.

“Starting today, I need to prepare for the Doll Festival. Won’t you help me?” “Ah, the Doll Festival’s coming up already.” He was feeling the guilt of having smeared lies, so from Shūko’s perspective, he gave an unexpectedly cheerful reply. “Since it’s a boy, having a Doll Festival is strange, don’t you think?” “It’s for me.” “Don’t joke around. Acting like a child is undignified.” “It’s none of your concern since I won’t have you buy it anyway.”

Dealing with such an insensitive lot was more than he could bear—forgetting his own obtuseness, he held back his foolish urges. He had grown tired of quarreling over such trifling triggers. Instead, he resolved to despise her all the more in his heart— This too revealed his cunning nature, for in truth, when he first heard her words, he had felt a momentary yearning for the feminine splendor of the Doll Festival's eve. "So you're preparing a feast?" "There should be two guests coming. But our main Doll Festival display is so pitifully meager—it's making me rather glum."

“Paper dolls would suffice for the Doll Festival.” “Then shall Father and I be invited as guests too?” “Father? Absolutely not—” “To be honest, I’d hate to lose my temper…… And you shouldn’t be here that evening either…” “Ha ha ha... That sort of thing wouldn’t anger me. “Instead, I’ll be going to Father’s place starting daytime the day after tomorrow.”

Eisuke had fallen asleep on her lap without anyone noticing. "I'll be going out for a bit." "Here we go again." He thought of devising some excuse to go out.

“Ah, today my mind feels uncommonly clear.” He made this declaration while gazing up at the pale sky. “Perhaps I’ll go play tennis.” “If it’s tennis you want, by all means go.” “Then I’ll be off.”

He had an idea and rose decisively.

“The shirts have dried already.” “Today I’ll pack both pants and shirts into the racket bag and take them along.”

“How suspicious,” Shūko said.

Since there was no place to change into his kimono at the court, he always dressed under his coat at home before leaving—he was unexpectedly startled, “Then I’ll just wear it and go,” he said with a pout. He had received word from Father that he was at a restaurant called XX on the coast with a guest from Tokyo and wanted to introduce him to this person— He had come to like Tonko, a young geisha he’d met at the same gathering as his father about ten days prior, and was inwardly delighted at the prospect of seeing her again. And he had been waiting for just such an opportunity.

He took the pants and shirt from his wife in reckless abandon and wretchedly threw them on. “A jacket? “Or an overcoat?” “Perhaps I’ll choose a kimono overcoat.” His wife laughed without engaging. He had been serious. His head grew foggy. He slipped on canvas shoes, leapt into the garden, and yanked the bicycle from the shed. Emerging onto the street, he swung onto the seat and raced down the straight road like smoke. This way, he determined to make straight for the coastal restaurant.

III

Recently, he had started writing again the novel he had begun—*Selling My Father*. The relationship with Father that had once grown estranged was restored through an unexpected opportunity. Now that he was dominated solely by his present emotions, he had lost all energy to continue writing *Selling My Father*. The last time he had left the capital, he and Father had parted ways after reenacting nearly the same scene as in this novel’s first section. Since he could no longer continue *Selling My Father*, after leaving the capital he began writing this novel without even considering a title. He had intended to write about each of the three households. This was going to become even longer.

He had written aimlessly up to the middle of the second section of this novel and, intending to write about Father more sharply from here on out, set down his pen.

It was a fine moonlit evening in early March. Having drunk too much with friends the previous night, his mind remained unsettled.

He received word of Father’s death that evening.

Father suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage at fifty-three. *Selling My Father* was of course abandoned, and he had even lost all power to continue this tepid novel.

“I can’t seem to write about Father anymore.” He thought. “There’s no point.” “Have you been neglecting your duties lately?” “You haven’t made a single visit these days, have you?” His friends said this to him who had recently begun working at a magazine.

“I just feel somewhat intimidated.” “Ha ha ha, no wonder you haven’t been singing any school songs even when plastered lately.”

“Hmm, now that you mention it, I suppose so.”

“Drink reverently alone, O night. That would be the best way for you to pray for your father’s repose.” His kind friends had said that to him. He frantically waved his hands. “No, no—spare me that! In another two or three days I’ll certainly regain my energy. It’s nothing serious. Someone like me...” “Is the father novel already finished?” “Yeah, it’s finished.” He scowled with feigned seriousness and nodded.

And so he decided to appropriate the title "Selling My Father" for this still-untitled novel.

Father’s 49th-day memorial would arrive soon. He felt weary at the prospect of meeting those unpleasant relatives again, but having suddenly become the head of the household this time, he thought he might as well display great dignity and was already dreaming up the remarks he should make that day and the attitude he should adopt.

(Year 13, April)