Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Taki, finding it oppressive to dwell solely on his novel writing, took his sketch box and went out for a walk.
—Having descended the stone steps and unsteadily made his way toward the seaside, he found himself midway through a pine grove near the shore.
He, more concerned with passersby than scenery, left the path and crouched into a dwarf pine thicket where trees reached his head, vanishing from view.
Then arriving at the hill's edge, he sat cross-legged among evening primroses.
Though distant across gray-glinting sand, four or five cloth-like shapes tossed by wind were wheeling grandly—when he wondered what they might be and looked up, they proved shadows of seagulls tracing low great circles in their dance.

On the sweltering second-day evening, having completed his seaside sketch from afar—but Taki merely wandered back in a daze and encountered his wife pacing about near the stone steps as if searching for his whereabouts.

“Did you just arrive? Did you come here to play?”

“I came to watch them catch the brocade carp, but they say they simply can’t manage to catch any!”

“You should... really stop this. First off, taking them to that pond won’t make for any sort of display—it’ll just cruelly assault your nose—”

“But they dug it specifically for that purpose! It may be small, but since it’s relatively deep, it should be perfectly fine!”

“I hear that hole was just dug haphazardly when they needed soil somewhere.”
“It seems there are a few goldfish and common carp in there, but I think that’s just as well.”

“But what’s the point of keeping them here? It might make sense if someone were actually living on this property, but they’re going to clear everything out anyway—they say some sort of warehouse will eventually be built here. Unless... do you have some other plan in mind?”

“Nope—” Taki snorted.

“If there isn’t, then keep quiet. How odd—you’re acting so strangely cold about everything that’s there—”

“……”

“Here too—” she said mockingly, gazing up at the house half-hidden among mandarin orange trees though there was nothing amusing about it.
“With this, things should finally be settled properly soon—though you must find it rather dull, being worth not a single penny!”

“This house holds few memories for me, you see—”
Taki said this.

“But with this, you must be completely rid of it all now—finally and truly over.”

“I suppose so—”

“So the brocade carp are what remain!” she muttered, more to herself than anyone.
“Considering this house has nothing worth burning anyway—even so, you don’t feel the slightest sentimental twinge about things like the carp, do you?”

"For some reason—" Taki nodded with an earnest seriousness, his manner composed.
"I feel nothing at all—to the point where even I myself grow uneasy—"

“That must be because you’re finally getting properly immersed in your work. How splendid.”

“Hmm.”

“Since you’ve stopped spewing complaints like you used to—Mother says she’s most relieved about that and is delighted.”

“Delighted!”

“It’s all well and good to set her mind at ease, but even in front of Mother—though of course nobody truly means what they say—spouting such empty platitudes… It’s utterly mortifying for us! Not just ordinary emptiness—some preposterous, beyond-the-pale dreamlike nonsense…”

“I don’t even know what I said—I’ve forgotten! But I wasn’t lying—”

“You don’t know any words that would make a listener’s heart grow solemn, do you? When it comes time to say something to comfort others, you end up spouting outrageously grand things—but well, I suppose that’s better than whining or sulking!”

Was it because we lived apart that she became so eloquent whenever we met? Or was this some sort of sarcasm? Such thoughts crossed Taki's mind.

“That doesn’t matter at all. More importantly, have you been able to work? You seem quite enthusiastic, don’t you?”

“About halfway—” he declared without a hint of hesitation.—He had recently become engrossed in conceiving entirely fictional stories. He had believed that if only he took up his pen, he could start writing all at once from any point, with no need for half-measures. Or rather, he hadn’t even been concerned about the act of writing itself. There were even times when he grew so overwhelmed by his unrestrained thoughts that it became oppressive; yet whenever he took up his pen to render them into prose, the result proved as awkward and convoluted as conversing with strangers—utterly mismatched to the precious inspiration he’d felt.

“When that’s done, will you really go on the trip?”

“I can go.”

“It’s fine to go—I tell you! It wasn’t you who brought it up first—I’ve been saying it all along!”

“That’s why I’m going. I want to go.”

It was his habit to mishandle verbal exchanges in this manner, contrary to his own intentions.

“It doesn’t matter what I think, does it? Otherwise you’ll just end up not going through with it as usual, I suppose.”

“Surely not—this time—”
“Just think—since I don’t know any place, anywhere would be new and interesting without fail.”
“Even if I intend to live there, it’s fine.”

“The idea of settling down feels so oppressive.”
“By the way, we’ll have to look for a rental house soon enough.”
“Tokyo again?”

“Tokyo would be fine.”

“Mother says she doesn’t mind whenever we reunite, but if you were to come there, there wouldn’t be a study, would there?”

“I’ve grown accustomed to not having a study during my Tokyo life so far, but—”

As they exchanged these words and rounded into the garden, the two scaffold workers sat bare-chested on the veranda with headbands tied about their foreheads. They wiped sweat and sipped tea while lamenting their persistent failure to catch the carp.

A looked down at the reddish-brown water and crossed his arms. “Gets murky again right quick—” he muttered.

“Ain’t no use!” B furrowed his brows. “They’re spooked proper now—soon’s we step in, them bastards thrash ’n’ churn up the water first thing!”

“If we ain’t done by the day after tomorrow or somethin’, it’ll just go back to bein’ clear as before!”

“Let’s just bash through it blind—one more push!”

“Ain’t no plannin’ left once it’s come to this anyhow.”

“Since I went ’n’ charged into the thick of it with no fire in me, goddammit—been pullin’ till I’m sick to death of it!”
“Water’s just seepin’ back up, ain’t it?”

“Never figured it’d be such a damn queer job! So idiotic—makin’ us bust our guts like this! My head’s all bashed to bits!”

“Ain’t no choice but to call in a pro—if we keep snatchin’ ’em up all willy-nilly and end up killin’ ’em, there’ll be no fixin’ it!”

A’s tattoo featured a magnificent dragon striking a dramatic pose across his entire back, with tremendous swirling clouds extending wing-like patterns to the very tips of both arms—a splendid engraving. By contrast, B’s appeared abandoned before completion for unknown reasons, leaving only the roughly eighty-percent outlined contour of a Hannya mask on his untreated skin.
There had even been times when Taki thought to ask B why he had stopped at just that outline, but for some reason he felt it would be improper and held back.

The two men’s strained conversation passed by and pierced vividly into the ears of Taki, who had opened the lid of his sketch box in the back room.
Catch 'em!
“Catch ’em!”
—He found himself intrigued by their words. Could there really be specialized merchants who caught fish in such situations?
He had such thoughts—though he later realized it had meant goldfish vendors—.

“Did you draw that?”

“Hmm.”

At this, Saikun replied in an utterly straightforward tone,

“It’s still not finished, is it?” she said.

Taki blinked his eyelids unnaturally for an instant but made an effort to sound decisive,
"No—this counts as finished already."
Having said this, he leaned back with arms crossed and fixed narrowed eyes on the canvas in intense scrutiny.

"So?" she seemed to mutter involuntarily.
"And,
"Somehow it looks like a snowscape... even though it's midsummer—"
"Even though it's midsummer—" he objected.

“...”

Taki’s complexion suddenly flushed, and he muttered something under his breath.
Was my wife in the wrong?
For the first time, this thought occurred to him.

It had been rare of late for others’ words to affect Taki—as though his warped nerves had awakened to nothing in particular, he found himself assailed by an unpleasant chill.
My own eyes are those of an owl exposed to daylight!
He sank into self-mockery.
How much sorrow must his existence—intoxicated by nothing but vague reveries—have inflicted upon those around him? He even indulged in such feeble yet plausible anxieties.
Moreover, all the realistic novels he had written until now, and indeed the very manner in which he had conducted himself through this world with such frivolous foolishness—all of it coalesced into a clumsy, error-riddled "snow scene." Then at once a terrible blizzard would arise, forcing him to shut his eyes, press his chest to the earth, and flee headlong into a vast white wilderness where nothing could be seen...

“Ah…” Before he could even finish that moan, peony-petal-sized clusters of sinful snowflakes had already buried his entire body in an instant, ceaselessly piling up.

“What’s wrong?”

“…………”

“Eh?”

“I’m not mad. The countryside’s nice enough, but these evenings get so lonely I can’t stand it! Damn mugginess—maybe I’ll go help them after all—”
He deliberately forced a wry smile.

“Stop it—it’s strange.”

“It hit a leg!”

“Oh!”
“So deep…”

In the twilight’s murky water, the sight of two tattooed men thrashing about like madmen struck Taki as eerily sinister.

II

That day too, they thrashed around in the pond until dusk fell, but it ended in failure again.
Clicking their tongues in frustration, they withdrew to the old caretaker couple’s living quarters, then without even attempting to return to their own homes, started a drinking party.

Taki lay on his back in the very center of the desolate drawing room, gazing up at the ceiling.
During the day, as long as the weather permitted, he would go straight to the sea and devote himself entirely to swimming.
He never tired of losing himself in fanciful poetic reveries for no particular reason, but upon noticing financial matters and such, he muttered something about finally getting down to work.

“All at once!”

That phrase had become a habit; thinking this, he readily turned optimistic and, creating even more margin for himself, immersed himself in "dreams." And he listlessly made no move to retire to his own room. The room Taki had designated as his study somehow had no electric light installed. The addition had been left half-built and abandoned for four or five years, though it seemed there had been some consideration of turning it into a Buddhist altar room. To restore his long-inverted day-night cycle, he instead took advantage of this situation and refrained from installing the electric light that could have been easily brought into that very spot. And so, unaccustomed as he was, he would sit at his desk only during the daytime—though this occurred extremely rarely—on cloudy days when he couldn't even go to the sea. When night fell, he would read by the dim light of lamps or candlesticks—half out of eccentric whimsy—or lose himself in truly absurd musings akin to his "snow scene."

“What about dinner?”

“Here’s fine. Did you get something?”

“Since it’s gotten dark, why don’t you walk me into town? For once, I’d like to eat out somewhere else.”
“And don’t worry about money—I have a bit with me today.”

Hearing this, Taki agreed at once.
As the drinking party across the way grew increasingly rowdy, Saikun resolved that on the next carp-catching day they would try a different method—to catch them swiftly before the water turned muddy, exercising patience—

“Once it's all muddied up like this, there ain't a damn thing we can handle! Ahahaha...”

“I’m tellin’ ya, this really gets my goat! Once it’s come to this, it’s all about stubborn pride—waitin’ around for the water to clear ain’t somethin’ I can sit through!”

Concerned that Taki had apparently been listening to those boisterous voices for some time now, she prompted them to go out.
She had been concerned that if she were not there, Taki would surely join their drinking party.
She found it unbearable to imagine that Taki, given any opportunity, would engage with people from entirely different fields and stage some foolish spectacle…

They waited for the bus that was supposed to come on time, but as it did not arrive easily, they walked along the moonlit pine-lined road while discussing their trip and such.

“The feeling of midsummer seems to be just a brief moment between July and August.”

“When you put it that way, August nights do feel more like autumn—but if you think that way, even winter and spring only have a few true peak days each year. The whole year feels like a series of seasonal transitions—”

“That’s true…”

“From now on, it’s nighttime no matter what—wouldn’t the lighting in that room be an issue?”

“What’s wrong with that? That way—”

“Such a mood—”

“No—no matter that it’s autumn now, this time I’m absolutely going to stop working at night.”

When the conversation ceased, she took out a harmonica from her obi and walked while playing it.
Aside from this, there was nothing else she could be said to be good at, but the strange thing was she was quite adept at it.
And she would obtain popular songs from her junior high school-aged brother from time to time and devoted herself to practicing them.
Recently, she had mastered playing what might be called rather difficult pieces—songs like "Ai-Ai-Ai," "Valencia," and "Light Cavalry."

“Play ‘Tokyo March’ for me.”

“You do love that one, don’t you? The old sports day—”

“……Good!
“Now then, next up: ‘American Patrol.’”

“You certainly know it well!”
“Alright then…”

“……Good!
“Good!”
“I can’t even whistle that.”
“Well then—this time—!”
“Hmm, what should I have you play next?”

In a rather refreshed mood, Taki was pondering various possibilities for the next piece when—as if his requests had become too bothersome, or perhaps because she hadn’t taken out the harmonica merely to oblige him but intended to freely console her own solitary idleness—Saikun, seemingly in such a state of mind, replied in a dismissive tone:

“Nancy Lee is a no-go,” she declared—or something to that effect—and immediately began practicing “The Forest Blacksmith,” a tune unknown to Taki.

“What’s this? You had to go and preempt me like that.”
“Who said anything about asking you to play ‘Nancy Lee’?!”

What should I actually listen to?
When wavering over what to choose, Taki—who knew few musical pieces—invariably ended up at "Nancy Lee."

“How rude—you’ve gone and decided I’d ask for that song again!”

She seemed not to register Taki’s mutterings at all.

Nancy Lee was the whistled tune that Taki’s deceased father had taught them.
Taki’s father claimed he had learned it from sailors there when, during his time at an American school long ago, he had used his summer vacation to board a whaling ship.
He said sailors working on deck often made a habit of humming 'Nancy Lee.'
The father, who had become so enamored with whaling ships that he once abandoned everything to work as their sailor, would grow overly enthusiastic whenever maritime topics arose—interjecting sea shanties while vigorously reenacting his recollections through animated gestures, a performance he delighted in repeating.

Taki remained enchanted not only by the simple cheerfulness of "Nancy Lee" but also by its unique rhythm carrying an elusive thread of bittersweet melancholy—a habit that still lingered whenever he whistled.
Taki had scarcely any other whistling habits besides this.

She would plug her ears whenever Taki absentmindedly whistled the tune—whether because its melancholy sweetness felt unbearably saccharine, or because the chorus sections resembling strained voices struck her as theatrically contrived, or simply due to her anti-aesthetic disdain for what she considered an antiquated, vulgar American sailor's ditty.
To hoist rigging ropes, grasp helms, scramble up masts—the work chants that naturally accompanied such labors; the choruses shouted involuntarily while straining arms to haul lines without sparing effort—these would inevitably seem crude and affected when hummed by someone in placid composure. But the hearts of those laboring mid-ocean... such things lay utterly beyond the imaginings of Saikun—born and bred entirely in the capital city, a reformed delinquent girl.

Buffeted by the sea breeze while passing through the utterly deserted pine-lined path where all foot traffic had ceased—crossing the bridge and nearing the town—Taki found his emotions had shifted to such intensity that he could no longer endure his loneliness.
Though he'd borne no particular feelings toward Saikun requiring restraint, he'd unwittingly morphed into a sullen chatterbox.

“Oh dear, you’re still drinking? Even though I came here meaning to barely drink anything!”

“How much money do you have?”

“What does it matter how much?”

“How on earth did you come by money like that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Give it here!”

“…………”

“Then lend it to me.”

“No—”

The proprietress there, who had known them even before they had started such a restaurant, poked her face out through a gap in the curtains,

“Ma’am, you mustn’t give in,” she whispered.

Whether it was admirable or cowardly, she couldn't tell, but when it came to money, this man wouldn't invent any debts unless there was a clear prospect—so no matter how drunk he got, it was safe—muttering words to that effect to no one in particular, Saikun stood up and said to him,
"I only had ten yen," she announced, sticking out her lower lip, then briskly left on her own.
As Taki returned home singing loudly, midway through the pine-lined path he encountered an elderly caretaker holding a lantern who had come to meet him.

“……If he wasn’t coming this way, he must’ve immediately gone back that way—it’s a single path, so that’s certain—I concluded, and since the wife called to have me come here—” the elderly man said.

“Oh my, the lantern holder ends up lagging behind—how remarkably swift your legs are!”

“…………”

—(That’s right—the telephone!)

“I heard your voice, I did! As soon as I came down the stone steps—”

“…………”

—(That is definitely mine! Why hadn’t I noticed such a thing before?!)

“Your wife’s unmatched—if she tells you to go home, that’s final!”

“…………”

(Sell that—sold, sold—that’s where I can finally catch my breath.) “Old man, do you know anyone who’d buy a telephone?”

“Why on earth would you do that?
“How sudden!”

“Can’t such things be sold right away?”
“By tomorrow even?”

“I can’t make heads or tails of any of this.”

“Old man—I’ve got this devilishly difficult task on my hands now, you see… Doesn’t matter when I start it or anything, but right now, I want to keep it all bottled up in my head—doesn’t matter if it stays bottled up forever—it’s fascinating!”
“Mother and wife wouldn’t understand.”

“…………”

“I want to go on a trip—hell, I’d welcome that too—so let’s head out… You there—even when driven into a corner—I don’t want to work.”

“That’s not necessarily so.”

“Sell it, sell it! Sell that damned telephone—!”

“Though mind you—we won’t be needing a telephone here going forward anyway.”

“Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” Oh, his mood brightened for no particular reason at all.
“Can’t stand being woken up by that blasted thing every damn morning—”

“But didn’t you yourself go asking your wife for help?”

“Wouldn’t it be a relief—if that thing stopped ringing every morning…”

“With this recession—who knows if it’ll sell quickly? But if that disappears now, you’ll be in a fix—call your wife, I tell you! What do you even want? I tell you! Go buy fireworks, I tell you! If I have to dash out like this every time, it won’t suit your precious schedule now, will it?”

“I’ll be gone, I tell you—once I’m gone, there’ll be no need for concern! Once it’s sold, with a fortune in my pocket—huh?”

“My, my, you’re in such fine spirits—.”
“Be careful at the stone steps, the steps there, the stone steps… Not yet, not yet—a bit further, a bit further—it’s not the steps yet, with those awfully long strides!”
“What a dangerous stance!”
“My, my—truly, it’s as if you’re walking through a blizzard—”

III

Scaffold Worker A conveyed to Taki that he had heard about the value of the brocade carp from a goldfish shop owner who had come by. If he were willing to release them—and if they could be caught and handed over there—the buyer would immediately take them at this price; how about that? That was the proposal he brought. Once they were caught and based on their number...

“You probably wouldn’t sell them, but apparently they’re worth that much,” Scaffold Worker A informed Taki.
Taki was astonished at the unexpectedly high sum of around four hundred yen.
“I’ll sell them,” he declared with a firm nod.

That evening, Taki brought A and B along and drove his car up to the town’s brothel district.
From the second floor of a seaside teahouse where the sound of strings was rarely heard due to the recession, a resplendent drumbeat resounded.
The sound of applause arose, and the voices of Toki surged up.

From the very next day, the gloomy house above the stone steps—surrounded by mandarin orange trees—suddenly took on a liveliness as if construction had begun.

Out of sheer stubbornness, they would show they could do it alone—capture every last one alive—and now with a bounty promised based on how quickly they succeeded, Worker A and B’s eyes were bloodshot.

“It’s clear!”

“Move it!”

“Why don’t we try casting the first net?”

“Idiot, you use that after it’s been muddied.”

“Should we try luring them with bait?”

“The bait ain’t gonna bring ’em up now.”

With a thief-like whisper, Taki woke with a start and kicked the floorboards.
By the time Saikun’s call came through, he had laid out a breakfast tray bearing a sake flask near the veranda and now leaned against the newly acquired Hakone woodwork on its side, watching Workers A and B’s efforts through grave eyes.
Taki—now a haughty bourgeois who kept his gaze fixed on the pond while awaiting his prey—had let everything scatter like goose feathers: the “vexing task bottled up in his head!”, the “delightful poetic fantasies!”, the “fabricated tales!”, the “self-obliterating poetic realm that should have been suffocating in the vast, boundless void where all trivialities before his eyes were erased!”, “Nancy Lee!”, “the telephone!”, the “terrifying blizzard!”, the “mere snowscape before him!”, and even “…All at once!”

“You needn’t come! You’ll be in the way.”

“...Is that alright?”

“Set all payments for month-end and have my share ready too.—Enough already!”

With a clang of the receiver, he returned to his seat like some harried bureaucrat.

“Crouchin’ an’ starin’ ain’t gettin’ shit done! Scared o’ muddyn’ it up? Go fer the small ’uns first—hey, moron! What’re ya lollygaggin’ fer? There’s a brocade carp floatin’ right ’ere in this corner!” he roared imperiously, aping Worker A’s manner with vicious intensity.

“There! They’ve gathered under the Japanese aralia! Throw it! The net!”
“The net!”
“The net!” he roared, vigorously swinging his commanding arm,

“Now!
“Dumbass! Ah, hasn’t it gotten this muddy already?” he snarled through gritted teeth, pounding the table.

“Here, do it proper! You can still see its figure in the dim light, can’t ya? Take a look through the glass box—the waves are rising!” he barked encouragement, then suddenly—

“Now now, gentlemen—it’s already noon! Take your rest! They’re not going anywhere even if we don’t catch them this very instant—no need to panic! Have your meal—for lunchboxes, just tell the old man to get whatever you like.” He busied himself with such officious meddling.

“Even if you catch a glimpse of their shadows, they’ll just dart away! Come over here—come on up to—”

He forcibly ushered the onlookers peering through the fence up to the elevated viewing seats, never neglecting such warnings.

When spectators joined the crowd, Taki’s enthusiasm mutated into savage intensity.

“If it’s muddy, let it stay muddy! Keep plowing through and churn it all up!”
“What’s it matter? Even if you bash in two or three heads, nobody’ll care!”

He displayed such utterly foolish generosity.

“Chase ’em down there with yer legs!”—“Did it bolt? It’s holed up in the trap now fer sure! Block the entrance an’ check!”

A and B seemed like Taki’s puppets.
Taki kept chattering incessantly.

“No good? Swear I saw it go in there just now...”
“Right—open another entrance! This time link arms an’ comb every corner proper-like. Then drive ’em all in one go! How’s that fer a plan?”

...Taki had before he knew it forgotten all about the pressing circumstances requiring urgent attention. Out of sheer idleness—having them pull the seine net while he watched from his elevated perch like someone engrossed in frivolous diversion who cared not whether they caught anything—he had slipped into a carefree mood of groundless opulence.

Ah—no amusement of any exhilarating sort could compare; this held a strange fascination instead—what a delightful game this must have been!—Taki narrowed his eyes and grew drowsy, as if intoxicated by a spring breeze.

The glaring midday sun shone white upon the densely grown green leaves' surface.
With a hush, the water’s surface returned to a board-like calm, still turbid with mud.
The cicadas’ voices clamored with a scorching intensity.

A—unmistakably a battle-weary stage yakuza—leaned against a long-handled net that could be mistaken for a spear, thrusting half his body out from between the Japanese aralia leaves to stare fixedly at the muddy water where nothing could be seen.
By the stone lantern on the opposite bank, Worker B—wearing a headband—stood frozen in a casting pose with his net held ready, transformed into a wooden puppet.

Blub!
A bubble burst on the water’s surface.

“There!” At the same moment as Worker A’s strained cry, the net was cast from Worker B’s arm…….

“Looks like it’s gone in!”

“Got it!”

They leaped into the water again, and
“Whoa, so deep!” they exclaimed, stamping their legs and thrashing their arms in poses like foxes transformed.

“Smash it to pieces!” Taki commanded.

A and B appeared like leaping fish.
A fountain-like spray pitter-pattered like rain against the spatterdock leaves at the water’s edge.

“A water fight in this heat!” A muttered sheepishly.

“Damn! Rubbed my calf raw climbing up—ugh, that’s creepy!” B said, rubbing his chest.

“All-out attack!” A shouted, and the two men charged toward the enclosure’s entrance with a roar.

“Ah, so damn fun!” Taki roared with laughter, clapping his hands widely.

When evening came, the two men came to Taki’s side and—

“At this rate, I don’t think...”
With that, he scratched his head.

“Well then, let’s take our time with this. Starting tomorrow, we should avoid rough methods and try to rethink our approach somehow—it’d be absurd to damage these valuable items after all.”

“Somehow… it’s just the days piling up—”

“There’s no need for such restraint. As long as you catch them properly, there’s nothing to worry about. I’ve resolved to sell every last one.”

“Won’t we lose face in front of those people over there?”

“I’m the master here—this place’s affairs are…” Taki trailed off, then lowered his voice confidentially: “You see, there’s this pretty geisha named Pinko—she’s rather fond of me!”
He declared, “...she’s rather fond of me!”
“I ended up thinking about her all day today.”
“It’s awkward going alone—how about keeping me company? Even if I’ve only gone three or four times yet—if we sell them all, wouldn’t there still be plenty left?”

While saying such things, Taki began detailed mental calculations.

IV

When night fell, the croaking of frogs around the pond intensified, and insect chirping joined the chorus.

The house encircled by mandarin trees atop stone steps now received visits from creditors of every stripe.

Between Workers A and B, a plan solidified—they would borrow a hand pump from a villa they serviced and drain the pond in one concerted effort.

Taki stared at the abacus beads clicking beneath an elderly hand.

“The journey” waited only for the “all at once—” in Taki’s study.
The journey waited only for work.

The cloudy days of mid-Doyo had persisted.
A rumor spread that waves had begun to rise.

The area around the pond was in a commotion like that of a fire site.
The elders, automobile shop debt collectors, restaurant bill collectors, brothel “stablehands,” restaurant proprietors, liquor store managers, and teahouse “cashiers”—all these people had bared their torsos and, following A’s direction, strained their voices in unison while working the pump handles.
Not a single person uttered an idle word; the whole group was breathlessly absorbed in the task before them.
With their full strength expended in raising and lowering, their strained voices—bursting forth involuntarily—were filled with a latent power like that of *Nancy Lee*’s chorus, brimming with brisk vitality.

The muddy water gushing from the nozzle that B was supporting toward the roof blew small horseflies into midair, then shattered into glittering rain that grazed the eaves.

Taki had left word that he was going to buy a lamp and gone out to Tokyo, leaving the house unattended.