Pathway to Japanese Literature

He wrote two short stories in succession that incorporated his own father.

Due to certain circumstances, one day he had an argument with Father. Fueled by the lingering momentum and resentment from that argument, he wrote his first short story incorporating the father he had been wavering over until then. By chance, that story came into Father’s view. Father, in a fit of rage, “I’ll never speak to that bastard again as long as I live. When I die, it’ll be in a hospital, cared for by strangers!” he reportedly bellowed, his face flushed red. Therefore, ever since hearing that, whenever he caught sight of Father on the street, he would hurriedly turn on his heel.

They lived in the same small town, yet Father, Mother, and he each lived in separate houses. Therefore, since he had already adopted an attitude of reckless abandon toward Father, he wrote the second short story with ease. Moreover, what he had been working on for about two months now was yet another work that incorporated his father. If he could complete it without hindrance, he intended to give it the title "Father-Selling Child."—The following story takes place when he had not yet written that first short story.

I That evening too, he and Father were exchanging drinks while engrossed in carefree chatter. It was a late spring evening—whenever their conversation lapsed even briefly, the quiet sound of waves could faintly be heard. They were on the second floor of Father’s mistress’s house. “When’s that brat of yours gonna pop out?” Affecting an air of feigned forgetfulness, Father posed the question. Both were already thoroughly drunk, having been badmouthing their relatives in perfect unison when their conversation came to pause. “June, apparently,” he muttered with deliberate affectation, aping Father’s manner.

“So you’re finally becoming a father, you bastard!” After saying this, Father glanced at the woman beside him and roared with exaggerated laughter. “And—” he said. This old man—he began, but finding the phrasing awkward, he instead indicated Father with just his eyes, “You’re finally going to become Grandfather,” he said. “Idiot—” Father, who had said this in a sluggish, thick voice, continued to gape open-mouthed even after finishing his words, gazing with a smile at him and the woman in equal measure.

“How old are you, huh?”

“Twenty-seven.” “Still twenty-seven?” “It’s because you keep playing dumb that I get so fed up.” “But twenty-seven... that’s too damn young!” “I’m plenty troubled by it myself.” He said this, shrinking his neck with affected nonchalance as he grinned—wearing a bitter smile that made him look utterly foolish. “Though when you were born, I was about twenty...” “Huh? What’s that?”

He closed his eyes and turned his forehead toward the ceiling. Fifty-one minus twenty-seven—how much remained? He tried calculating it but couldn’t easily find the answer.

“Twenty—twenty-three, I guess.” “That’s way too young! Ha ha ha!” He felt an unexpected lightness of heart—as if realizing it anew—and laughed with boisterous sound alone. Though truth be told, this sweetly rough manner was deliberate; without adopting it, he couldn’t harmonize with the peculiarly disordered atmosphere of this house. Putting aside the old man’s behavior, when he considered how excessive his own conduct had been, this was absolutely not a scene to be shown to others—so he thought. At first, the other women had watched their conversations with curiosity, but now they’d grown thoroughly accustomed. His mother had likely never even imagined they were carrying on like this elsewhere.

"These days I do nothing but get drunk every single night and don't work on my own projects at all. This just won't do. Everyone thinks that while I was in Tokyo I led nothing but a hopeless life—but I wasn't as undisciplined as I am these days. For one thing, I didn't drink alcohol so much back then—"

Suddenly he blurted out such things. Things were getting a bit suspicious—he thought of himself.

“So everyone’s saying it’s the old man’s fault, eh?” “Enough of that.” “You’ve gotten rather adept at snide remarks yourself, Father.” The dull-witted father and son burst into uproarious laughter here as though sharing some grand joke. “But—” Father said with forced casualness when his laughter subsided, “You’ve no work at present, have you? Since you’re meant to join that company come summer anyway, just keep amusing yourself awhile longer.”

“Ah, right,” he said with a slight nod.

What was he so preoccupied with in his mind? Father had no idea he was even entertaining thoughts of literature—"Quit being some good-for-nothing salaryman! I'm starting up a timber company soon anyway, so you'll work there," Father would routinely exhort him, though such urgings did nothing to motivate him. While Father had apparently been busy making preparations, he neither understood his father's business dealings nor particularly trusted them, so he merely let the words wash over him with distracted indifference.

“It’s unusual to have no guests today, isn’t it?” he asked the woman. People connected to the company mostly frequented this house. To conduct such consultations, one absolutely needed a house like this—Father would often say such things to his mother, which only irritated her jealous heart all the more, leaving him at a loss on many occasions. “No, there were three guests here until just a moment ago,” the woman said, letting out a knowing smile. “When they heard the young master was coming, they all took their leave.”

“Young master, you’ve really put your dashing looks on display there!”

Father said that and mocked him.

Five or six days prior, he—egged on by his mother and wife—had stormed into this house full of guests fueled by alcohol’s bravado.

“The other day, you see,” he explained sheepishly to the woman. “It was all just an act… Because Mother and Shūko were nagging me so much I couldn’t take it anymore—” “Your wife’s putting on airs too, isn’t she?” “I damn well hate it!” Father said this about his mother, having already cast her aside. “I’ve come to hate her too,” he said. “Her nose is flat and her eyes are crooked!” “She’s sharp-tongued and acts all refined.”

The two young geishas sitting there spoke in unison: “Truly, the other day even we mistresses were quite frightened”—“Young master may not be eloquent, but there’s something rather resolute about him.” Unaware they had uttered these words in contempt, he jumped to the conclusion that this must signify recognition of his dignity—and felt a momentary satisfaction,

“Ha ha ha!” he laughed with a magnanimous, forced voice, and stretched out his slender frame, puffing out his chest,

“Hey, pour the drinks,” he commanded, squinting his eyes. And still oblivious to his own person, he affected a potbellied masculinity, “Hmm, you’re quite the lookers,” he declared with a nod, striking a pose like a kagura performer. “Shall I take this one off your hands?” His father, seemingly unable to endure being provoked by his son’s utter foolishness, suppressed a derisive laugh and egged him on. “It’s true—having some woman clinging to you like that...”

“No good?” he asked, raising eyes meant to convey irony as he smirked up at Father’s face. He had intended to make Father utter those very words. “Talking back to your own father?!”

Father stuck out his tongue mockingly and smacked his forehead with a sharp smack. He turned away in disgusted irritation. Then he felt the corners of his eyes grow faintly warm with a sweet heat.

“Old man… old man…” It’s my drunken antics that are to blame—this is where all my blunders stem from—and the more he grew conscious of this fact, the more his shallow drunken sentimentality sprang up mechanically like clockwork, utterly devoid of sensitivity. “The old man’s an idiot!”

The woman sat frozen in an uncomfortable posture, her gaze locked on her knees. “I ain’t copyin’ your act, old man!” he barked, his mouth twisting further. Yet even as the words flew out, some quiet corner of his mind whispered—Oh shit, went too far. “My bad my bad—can’t even talk right,” he mumbled half to himself, then planted a meaningless kiss mid-air—whatever, fuck it. “Hey now—quit it. I heard ya.” His father lifted a hand to stop him.

“Is that because you understand?” He resentfully let slip muttered words whose meaning even he himself couldn’t comprehend. ――Father’s face briefly contorted into a genuinely uncomfortable expression.

But immediately regaining his composure, as if to steer the conversation elsewhere,

“Your child—my grandchild—what name should we give them?” he said. He certainly felt relieved, but having never before heard such imaginatively playful words from his father’s mouth, he found it irritatingly pathetic. And then, brusquely,

“But we don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl—” he said with a self-centered look of displeasure. “It’s probably a boy.” “Though I’ve been considering both possibilities.” His heart eased readily. “That’s a lie!” He cunningly fawned, in the manner of a woman playfully teasing a close friend.

“No, he’s been saying things like that all along from our side,” the woman chimed in from beside them, making his father blush slightly.

“Apparently in our family, the eldest son must be given the character ‘Ei’.” Father grew slightly flustered yet decided then that the grandchild would be a boy, attempting to gloss over it. “You hate traditions, don’t you?” “Lately I’ve become something of a traditionalist myself.” “First off—Father and I are eldest sons too, yet we lack ‘Ei’ in our names.” “They say without the ‘Ei’ character you’ll never amount to anything decent.” Having said this, his father looked at his face.—And the two burst out laughing despite themselves.

“Come to think of it, my younger brother seems better in quality than me—always top of the class at school and such—” “Right then, let’s make sure to put the ‘Ei’ character properly this time without mistake.”

“Shall we go with that then?” He too felt this approach seemed preferable. “Grandfather’s name was Masataro Eifuku, right?” “Masataro?!” His father repeated the name as though hearing his own father’s appellation for the first time in decades, then immediately plastered on an unnatural grin. “Grandfather—what was he really like? He always seemed kind to me, but—” He lobbed this reckless inquiry. “I never saw eye to eye with him.”

“Then he must’ve been a model citizen.” “He was cowardly and stingy.” “Before that, it was Sakubei Eisei, right?” “Hmm, that’s right.” “Do you know Sakubei Eisei, old man?” “I don’t know.” “Wasn’t Sakubei Eisei at least a bit distinguished?” “Who knows…” As the conversation grew slightly more abstract—despite being about the Minamoto lineage—his father immediately made a bored face. When his mother would talk about her strangely meaningful dreams, he never responded. In that regard, he was somewhat closer to his mother.

“Because when I was little, on New Year’s and such, Grandfather would always make us sit before Sakubei Eisei’s hanging scroll and bow.” “Tch, how stupid.” “Before Eisei—” “You sure know a lot about that stuff.” He said triumphantly, “Sadaemon Eitsune.” “Hmm—” “Ah, whatever.” “Sakubei Eisei was apparently some swordsmanship practitioner from Shimotsu Mizu, I tell ya.” “Then I guess the ‘Ei’ character isn’t all that reliable either—or what do you think?” He felt Father was sneering too smugly and being overly self-satisfied, so he mocked that initial proposal.

“Ah, enough already. “Let’s drop this dreamy nonsense.” Father’s drunkenness plummeted into deeper waters. “When it comes to that, I’m magnificent, I tell ya.” “When it comes to that—now there’s a suspect turn of phrase.” His intoxication swelled by degrees, and like some miserly sot, he grew ensnared in his own verbal snare.

“Nah, as a Japanese man, my way a seein’ things’s different.” “Got a worldly mind, I tell ya.” “That’s... ya see.” “First off, that brother of your mother’s thinks I’m some fool.” “I ain’t got no fancy title like Inari-sama, but all them gilded formal wear and medals—what’re they but △△ servants? Eh? Hey... That’s why...”

“I find such worldly pretensions comical myself. Gilded things are pretty after all—better to have them than not. What’s wrong with scorning salaried workers or calling people △△ servants? Not that I’m some conservative youth for saying so.” “My gut’s socialist, I tell ya.” “Your gut seems rather small, old man.” “No—bigger than yours.”

“I wasn’t making comparisons—I was critiquing you.” “Ah, I just can’t make heads or tails of this anymore.” “That’s why—no, scratch that—there’s no real ‘why’ to it. Anyway, point is, I can’t stand any of these family connections.” “There won’t be a soul who’d shed tears over my death.” “But look—you’re a fool too, see? An even bigger fool than me. When I kick the bucket, you’ll be the only one left in a real fix, I tell ya.” “No matter how drunk you get, I can’t handle hearing such clumsy remarks.” “It’s making my head spin.”

“That’s what makes you a fool, I tell ya.”

“Ah, my mood’s turned a bit dark.” “What’s this ‘mood’ nonsense? Is your head a paper lantern?” “Yeah, a paper lantern.” “What kind of lantern is that supposed to be? What a gloomy bastard! Make it a searchlight.” “Can’t be helped—it’s inborn.” Was stubbornly clinging to that conclusion too hidebound? When he found himself suddenly fixating on such banter, he thought how he’d used the word “inborn”—and if he truly believed that, it would spell disaster—.

“By the way, let’s go over the child’s name again,” said his father, heaving his drunken body upright as the bored-looking woman beside him poured more sake. “Should I take ‘Yū’ from my name and call him Eiyū?” “If it’s a boy.” “Having a common noun called ‘hero’ around is such a nuisance.” “Then, should we take your ‘Ichi’ and make it Eiichi?” “But then that would make it sound like younger brother’s Eijirou, wouldn’t it?” “Taking Yū versus taking Ichi—which would be more auspicious, I wonder?”

“Well, then what?” Having said that, his father tilted his head as if pondering some considerable problem. He too was vaguely thinking of something. He faintly felt his drunken head swaying like a balloon, floating lightly.

“Speaking of which—what about tonight? Going home?” He remembered he’d come here tonight as usual with the purpose of taking his father home out of consideration for his mother.

Father was dozing off. He had thought Father was considering the grandson’s name, but Father hurriedly opened his eyes and— “Which would be better? But let’s just keep that in mind for now,” he muttered. “No, that’s not what I’m talking about anymore. —I’m talking about whether you’re going home tonight or not.” “Let’s make a night of it! It’s fine—I’m telling you, don’t give it another thought!” Realizing his half-hearted attitude, Father said this.

“Perhaps we should do that.” “Exactly—going home would be such a pain.” “I think I’ll… stay out tonight as well…”

At that moment, when the woman beside his father left her seat with an air of purpose and went downstairs, he noticed and—after watching her retreating figure— “What’s good about a woman like that?” he said.

“That’s a bit of a hack job. “And she’s been putting on such airs with those expressions too.” Father laughed boisterously. This way of speaking—repeating it so garishly wasn’t endearing at all, just plain obnoxious—he thought, recalling how he himself had such tendencies and had once been roundly criticized by friends for them.

“Mother’s a hypocrite.” “Mother said your bluster was all lip service—that your heart’s as narrow as a needle’s eye.” “Let’s go out and drink.” “Hmm, let’s go out,” he declared with unnatural force. But when Father took the lead in indulging him like this—knowing that Father would later gleefully gossip about his actions behind his back—he felt slightly concerned about that. “But keep today’s matter a secret from Mother.” He requested in a low voice.

“Who’d blab about it, you idiot!” Father shouted and staggered unsteadily to his feet.

II

In the depths of the garden's bamboo grove, a Japanese white-eye occasionally chirped with shrill insistence. Shūko was in the sunny spot of the veranda, 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, eyes wide with wonder. Shūko gazed intently at the sight,

“This child will surely be clever,” she murmured. And unintentionally let slip a bitter smile. For no sooner had she thought this than—at least compared to this child’s father or grandfather—the comparison had surfaced in her mind. Her husband had secluded himself in the four-and-a-half-mat room next door, rustling books before his desk and muttering under his breath. For four or five days now he had scarcely spoken to either child or wife, holed up in his room doing God knows what. She remained indifferent to his activities. Lately he hadn’t been returning late at night nor drinking himself into stupors, so she’d found it rather agreeably refreshing.

After a while, in the four-and-a-half-mat room, "Ugh, damn it!" he flew into a rage, slamming his desk with a thud before tearing the paper with a violent ripping sound. And then he,

“It’s no use at all,” he muttered to himself, sliding open the paper door and emerging unsteadily onto the veranda. “What’s happened? Your complexion looks bad.” Because he was making such a sullen face, Shūko paid him a hollow compliment.

“My complexion looks bad?” “Stop giving me such unease.” “When I hear such things, nothing disheartens me more.” He struck a light pose and muttered with disagreeable solemnity. Shūko wanted to laugh, but since his demeanor was unexpectedly serious, she made an effort to restrain herself. “There are different ways something can be bad, you know.” “Your complexion is oddly bright red.” “Like Eiyū, you mean?” He laughed awkwardly and picked up the child. “Are you working on something?”

He merely nodded and turned away. Shūko found his meaningful manner amusing once more. Still, he had been so unreasonably sullen since earlier, behaving with absurdly foolish self-indulgence while clinging to his desk—what on earth could a man like this be thinking or writing? …The more she thought it surely couldn’t be anything worthwhile, the more curiosity she felt toward his vacant face. Then she suddenly felt a mischievous urge to mock him a little,

“Is it literary work?” she asked.

Despite anticipating that he would make an utterly disgusted face, he nodded meekly, almost timidly. “To call it a novel—well, that’s probably a cunning, vulgar pretense, but…” He began muttering to himself, flushed and unmindful of his listener. “I’ve been thinking about my family for a while now.” “Father... Mother... myself... and Eiyū...”

“Even you think about something like Eiyū?”

“Shut up!”

“Even if I said I was thinking—” he sharply rebuffed his wife, though privately he felt he wasn’t truly pondering matters so solemnly—not the household affairs, nor Father, nor Mother… not nearly as deeply as he’d claimed— “Mostly about Father…” she added. “And in the end, I couldn’t bear it anymore.”

“What?” “Our perspectives on thinking are fundamentally different—stop asking pointless questions! Right now I’m feeling clear-headed because I quit when it became unbearable—” “...” Shūko stared vacantly. Having spoken those words, he observed the wretched superficiality of his own contemplations and could no longer endure their repulsiveness. Even if this was merely before Shūko—had he carelessly let such words slip, allowing her to glimpse these depraved fragments of his heart? This suspicion plunged him into even more depraved self-loathing. ...Ah, I must abandon this arrogance of trying to write about my own family... He made this vow in his heart. Until now he had occasionally written short stories—mainly fantastical fairy tales or lyrical reminiscences about love. But recently he could no longer sustain any passion for them.

"If that’s how it is, then I should stop—" With this, he rejected the "new passion." "Maybe I'll go home for a bit."

“Which house?” Shūko immediately asked in return. Whenever he went out, Shūko would invariably pose such a question. And if he were to say it was Father’s place—she would grimace as though imagining her husband’s disreputable friend. Though when he went out, his destination was usually his father’s place. “I have some business with Mother.”

“Lies, lies,” Shūko laughed. He found this deep suspicion utterly disagreeable, but since she had neatly pinpointed the truth, “What do you mean ‘lie’?” he barked contrarily, as if reproaching her with deliberate rudeness. No—perhaps I’ll stop by Mother’s place for a moment—he made such excuses to himself while... “Starting today, I need to prepare the Hina dolls. Will you help me?” “Ah—it’s already time for the Doll Festival.” He, feeling guilty about having smothered his lies, issued a reply that struck Shūko as unexpectedly cheerful. “But he’s a boy—isn’t having Hina dolls a bit odd?”

“It’s for me!” “Don’t mess around. Acting like a kid’s just pathetic.” “Acting like a kid isn’t dignified.” “I won’t have you buy it anyway, so spare me the meddling.” Faced with such an insensitive person, he couldn’t cope—forgetting his own obtuseness, he suppressed his foolish vigor. He was already tired of quarreling over such triggers. Instead, he resolved to despise her all the more inwardly. This was yet another instance of his cunning—in truth, when he first heard her words, he had felt a fleeting yearning for the feminine splendor of the Hina Festival evening.

“So you’re making a feast?” “There should be two guests coming.” “But the crucial Hina dolls are so pitiful it’s left me worn out.” “Paper Hina dolls would be plenty good enough.” “Then shall Father and I be invited as guests too?” “Father? Absolutely not—” “To tell the truth, I’d hate to get angry… And you’d do better not being here that evening either…” “Ha ha ha… Over something like that, I won’t get angry.” “Instead, I’ll be going to Father’s place from noon the day after tomorrow.”

Eiyū had fallen asleep on her lap before they knew it.

“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 refreshingly clear.” Having said this, he looked up at the pale blue sky. “Maybe I’ll go play tennis.” “If it’s tennis, then by all means go.”

“Well then, I’ll be going.”

He stood up with a sense of triumph. “The shirts are already dry.” “Today I’ll put both pants and shirts in the racket bag and take them along.”

“Suspicious, suspicious,” Shūko said. Since there was no place to change into a kimono at the tennis court, he always prepared under his overcoat at home before leaving—he found himself utterly disconcerted, “Then I’ll just go wearing it,” he sulked. He had received word from his father through a messenger—that he was at the coastal ×× restaurant with a guest from Tokyo and wanted to introduce him. He had grown fond of Tonko, a young geisha he’d met ten days earlier at a gathering with his father, and now felt secretly elated at the prospect of seeing her again. And he had been waiting precisely for such an opportunity.

In a mood of reckless abandon, he received the pants and shirt from his wife and dejectedly threw them on. “A jacket? “Or an overcoat?” “Shall I go with a kimono overcoat then?” His wife laughed and ignored him. He had meant it seriously. His head felt foggy. He pulled on canvas shoes, leapt into the garden, and dragged the bicycle from the shed. When he reached the street, he nimbly mounted it and raced down the straight road like trailing smoke. This way, he’d resolved to head straight for the seaside restaurant.

Three

Recently, he began writing again the short story he had started earlier—*Father-Selling Child*. The relationship with his father that had once turned sour was restored through a chance opportunity. Now dominated solely by present emotions, he had lost the vigor to continue writing *Father-Selling Child*. When he had left the capital previously, he and Father had parted in a scene nearly identical to the first section of this novel. Since he could no longer continue *Father-Selling Child*, after leaving the capital he began writing this novel without even considering a title. He had intended to write about each of three households. This was going to become even longer.

Having written up to the middle of the second section of this novel in a desultory manner, he set down his pen with the intention of writing about Father more incisively from that point onward.

It was a fine moonlit evening in early March—he had overdrunk with friends the previous night, leaving his nerves unsettled.

That evening, he received news of his father’s death.

His fifty-three-year-old father had died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Of course he had lost the will to continue writing *Father-Selling Child*, and even this tepid novel now lay abandoned. "I can't seem to write about Father anymore." He thought this. "There's no drive." "Have you been neglecting your duties lately? You haven't been making any visits at all." A friend said to him who had recently started working at a magazine. "I just feel somewhat hesitant." "Ahahaha! No wonder you haven't been singing when drunk lately—I thought as much!"

"Hmm... Now that you mention it." "Why don't you just drink yourself blind alone tonight? That'd make for perfect prayers toward Father's eternal peace."

The kind friend had said that to him. He flusteredly waved his hands. “No, absolutely not.” “In another two or three days, I’ll definitely perk up.” “It’s nothing serious.” “Someone like me...” “So is the father novel finished now?” “Hmm, it’s finished.” He frowned with affected solemnity and nodded.

And so he decided to appropriate the title *Father-Selling Child* for this novel he hadn’t yet named.

Father’s forty-ninth day memorial service loomed near. He felt daunted at the prospect of facing those detestable relatives again, but having abruptly become the family head this time, resolved to make a grand show of his dignity and was already rehearsing in his mind both the solemn address and composed demeanor he would adopt that day.

(13th Year, April)