Pathway to Japanese Literature

I The reason I decided to live in Kyoto wasn't because the city held any particular meaning for me. It had simply become unbearable to remain in Tokyo. I grew so weary of staying in my familiar rented room that I took my unfinished novel to Udono Shin'ichi's house and continued working there. The moment I resolved to go to Kyoto came when I suddenly stopped working at Udono's house and sank into deep thought. "When are you leaving?" "Right now."

Udono dug out a trunk. Though it was a small trunk, with the only luggage being about a thousand sheets of manuscript paper, it was far too large. I said I didn’t need it, but he insisted I take it, arguing that when money got tight, I could sell it for some amount. Once the unfinished long novel was completed, it had been arranged to be published by Takeumi Shobou, so I called to inform them of my move to Kyoto, but no one was there. That evening, I stayed overnight at Ozaki Shiro’s house, and the next day, Oe from Takeumi Shobou also came there, so it was decided we would hold a farewell banquet—Mr. and Mrs. Ozaki then guided Oe and me to a house near Ryogokubashi Bridge where we ate wild boar. As the car passed in front of Tokyo Station, the vigilant military police appeared imposing. "By the time you return from Kyoto, this whole area will likely have changed completely," Ozaki Shiro remarked with feeling in early spring of Showa 12. This was during the stillbirth of the Ugaki Cabinet.

It was the first time I had ever eaten wild boar. For Ozaki Shiro, it was his second time; he had first tried it two or three days prior and, unable to forget the taste, had guided us there. There was a slight odor, but not enough to be particularly bothersome. It came with the commentary that it was surprisingly light, and no matter how much you ate, it wouldn’t sit heavy. Three large wild boars hung in the display window. Next to them hung a monkey as well, but with a visage filled with resentment—an expression that seemed to say it had died in sorrow—so I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. As for the wild boars, they were relaxed creatures. They were merely round and plump, now deep in dreams—appearing to be dancing the stacco in their sleep, headbands tied tight. Pigs and cows would never be like this. Even cows have nervous eyes when alive. Wild boars need never worry about being haunted by vengeful spirits—even if you tilted a corpse right before their eyes. We ate endlessly. “It’s fine.” “It won’t sit heavy,” Ozaki Shiro egged on.

We left there before eight, and since there was still time before the last train, Oe and I went to say a brief goodbye to the woman. Oe suggested it might be better to leave quietly, but I thought it would be better to make a clean break. Oe and the woman came to see me off to Tokyo Station. With the woman, it had been as if we were already separated by then, but some emotional connection still lingered between us. “You’d do better not to see me off,” I told her. “There’s nothing more wretched than waiting on a platform for a train’s departure time.”

However, the woman came to see me off.

“I’d meant to casually say goodbye with just a word, but as Oe said, we shouldn’t have met.” “It’s the end anyway.” “Since we were never meant to meet again, I should’ve kept those gloomy hours to a minimum—” “I understand.” “I know we’ll never meet again, and I don’t intend to, but just say something sweet when we part.” “Even if we do meet again, just say one sweet word.” I couldn’t respond.

“You should travel to some unknown place too.” “You must go out all alone.” “If you do that, everyone will change.” “People all shut away their misfortune in a room along with themselves.” “Even though there should come a day when I mean nothing to you, if you don’t make an effort to bring that day about, then your way of living is flawed.” “True happiness may not exist in this world, but some measure of happiness surely does.” “But right now, it isn’t here.” “Especially having you see me off on the platform—isn’t that just unbearable?”

However, the woman did not leave. She stood rigidly on the platform, not speaking to Oe either, just silently staring at my face. Those eyes appeared as if angry, even glaring. As the train began to move, the woman chased after it for two or three steps and cried out, "Take care of yourself," her entire body seeming to exist solely for that single phrase. Unwittingly, tears streamed from my eyes. Oe saw me off as far as Shinagawa.

II

Oki Waichi’s villa was located in Saga. At that villa, Oki’s sister was recuperating from an illness, making it unsuitable for my stay, so he found me a room in Fushimi instead. In the accountant’s office on the second floor, eight tatami mats and four and a half tatami mats cost seven yen. I had thought it might be especially cheap because it stood before the gunpowder storage, but Fushimi turned out to be a place where everything was inexpensive. However, I did not stay long in this second-floor room. And so, there was nothing left to say.

On the night we moved in, Oki and I went out to look for a bento shop while having a meal. In the immediate vicinity of Fushimi Inari, there were any number of bento shops. However, they were all slightly grimy, and I found myself hesitating to settle on any particular one. Outside the exit of Keihan Electric Railway’s Inari Station, there was a sign for bento catering. Entering the alley in the direction indicated by the hand led first to descending stone steps into an area where ditches overflowed year-round and dark houses untouched by sunlight stood crammed together. The alley was a dead end; when one reached the terminus and turned, bento shops and dubious inns lined the path, which itself ended in a cul-de-sac. Would there ever be customers who came to such a filthy, dark alley? The house felt somewhat tilted, the walls were crumbling, the clapboards peeling, and the interior pitch-dark. It wasn’t just customers. It was a place where even a single person straying inside was utterly inconceivable.

“This is too much.” Oki laughed. I managed a laugh too, but even this felt permissible. Rather, I even thought this squalor suited me perfectly. Just keeping myself alive—that would suffice. Though filthy, it differed from ordinary bento shops. This wasn’t mere shop grime. A dead-end alley with overflowing gutters. A noon-dark house. Perpetually shuttered windows, crumbling walls, listing frame. Perhaps from the gutters rose a stench that made this place—in its filth and gloom—feel like humanity’s endpoint. If survival alone mattered, this suited me better. The light must come from within… So thinking, I tried opening the door, but it only creaked stubbornly, showing no signs of life inside. We left the bento arrangements to our lodgings’ keeper, emerged onto Inari Street, drank sake, and parted ways.

However, not only was this house the very bento shop that the innkeeper accountant had arranged for me, but when I had to leave my lodgings after about three months, the room he found for me instead was a single room on the second floor of that same bento shop. Thus, I came to live in the final dead-end alley of my life. I am not saying this pretentiously.

It was the alley where Oki and I first wandered into this dead-end and, both feeling the same way, burst into laughter for no particular reason. The vicinity of Fushimi Inari was the cheapest area in all of Kyoto. Fushimi Inari being the original and main shrine of Inari meant worshippers came in considerable numbers even on ordinary days. From Keihan Electric Railway’s Inari Station to the shrine, shops catering to pilgrims lined the path—Fushimi dolls standing as their distinctive feature while chicken restaurants occupied most spaces. Yet this chicken was cheap. It had to be cheap. They were selling rabbit meat with semi-official tolerance. At the small eateries along this shrine approach, a bottle of sake cost fifteen sen with dishes priced accordingly. This area served as Kyoto’s garbage heap; even the dimmest bar women working around Shinkyogoku all lived here. Moreover, life’s defeated warriors—those clinging to hopes of cyclical renewal—eked out meager livelihoods around Inari, glaring at nothing but fortune slips; and though human traffic never ceased along the narrow approach, not one soul floated atop its transient prosperity.

However, the bento shop where I lived stood out even among these. The bento cost thirteen sen per meal, enough to fill even a laborer, while I ate just twice a day. Sake was twelve sen per bottle. That too was roughly one gou net, and since the wholesale price was forty yen per cask, there was hardly any profit to speak of. I drank as much sake as I wanted every night, ate until I was full, and could live on about twenty yen.

At this bento shop, I lived out a full year. If I were to say I got through that entire year wearing only the dotera I had on when leaving Tokyo and two yukata undergarments, would it seem strange? It is not an iota of exaggeration. When summer came, I would take off the dotera; in spring, I wore it directly against my skin without a yukata. A bit of heat or cold felt the same no matter what I wore. And so I would sometimes go out to drink sake and even visited the teahouses of Gion. In such establishments, I was not particularly disliked either. In other words, Kyoto was full of poor students like myself—we were accepted as about two-thirds of a person. They were budding painters. The people living there—with their disheveled heads left to the wind and faces that seemed to entrust their entire lives to the day’s weather—called those fellows “painters” or “teachers,” and though they couldn’t be treated as on par with renowned artists, at least they were treated as human. Even the police detectives were like that. So I too came to be called a painter and was able to live a life requiring minimal effort—one where I could go about two months without shaving or washing my face and feel perfectly fine.

III

The bento shop had a sign that read ※(Maruju) Shokudo, but it was also called Ueda Shokudo. Ueda was the housewife’s surname, and her husband’s surname was Asakawa. As even this makes clear, the husband was henpecked. The couple had no children of their own and had adopted the housewife’s older sister’s child—this was Asako, seventeen years old—making them a family of three with no servants.

To believe this couple were genuinely husband and wife—not some jest—required navigating several layers of doubt. The couple were forty-three, aged about as much as their years would suggest—yet she remained a beauty. Her hair curled red and wild, tied in a bun no larger than a chignon, while she spent each day berating her husband with snorts like an unbroken stallion. The gestures of male Bunraku puppets—hands fluttering, heads shaking, knees slapped at dramatic climaxes—are theatrical to excess; yet this housewife adopted those very mannerisms despite her sex. Though fiercely strong-willed, she deployed lines like “Oh me? I’m too tender-hearted for such things”—enough dialogue for five characters. That she delivered these words with utter sincerity made them all the more unnerving. She stood nearly five feet four inches tall, her figure still elegantly proportioned. Yet her sunken chest carried nothing resembling feminine softness.

On the other hand, the old man was already hunched over despite being under five feet tall. Though he claimed to be only sixty, he looked no younger than seventy to seventy-five. Within his wrinkles sat a small reddish-black face, with two or three remaining teeth jutting out like fangs. When walking his back stayed straight, but when resting he’d curl up like a shrimp. When slumped in his room needing to fetch something—tobacco or a pipe—he never rose properly. He crawled instead. Groaning “ugh… ugh… ugh” as he went. After grabbing the item, he’d crawl back rear-first, still rhythmically groaning “ugh… ugh… ugh.” Year-round he wore his obi sloppily; near the train crossing he’d hitch up the sagging sash, rub his trachoma-clouded eyes, then wipe his nose on his sleeve.

It was not a marriage of the usual kind. If it was not a marriage of the usual kind, then how had these two come to be united? Without even a semblance of affection, how could that woman have ended up with him? However, regarding the couple’s marriage, I knew almost nothing. I never even asked. From what I overheard in passing, the housewife had once worked as a shopgirl somewhere, and the old man had become infatuated with her and talked her into marriage. I never asked how old she had been when working as a shopgirl either, but "I was tricked, you know," the housewife said. "She claims the old man was once a notorious playboy who sweet-talked her into it, but who knows what really happened." But the old man had been a child of Seigoin Yatsuhashi. Among Kyoto’s many famous products, Yatsuhashi was undoubtedly the grand champion. Seigoin Yatsuhashi was the undisputed originator, but the old man was its eldest son—albeit born to a concubine. Therefore, when he took up with this woman, it meant ceding the house he should have inherited to the legitimate wife’s children—so he ran away from home himself, they said. He had been a splendid, imposing figure. However, not a trace of that remained now; to any observer’s eye, he could only be seen as the end result of the most ill-bred failed child of the family.

The old man drank a bottle of sake with each meal. That alone appeared to be his reason for living. Next came Go. Now, there’s a saying that “what one loves, one masters,” and another about “clumsy enthusiasm,” but to love something this much while being this inept defied all reason. He only grasped the basic rules of life and death. Naturally, there was no hope of improvement. I too had some interest in Go—though I would later grow obsessed and somewhat stronger, at this time I wasn’t yet that keen—being skilled enough to give a country first-dan player a nine-stone handicap. Yet against the old man, even with a nine-stone handicap plus a hundred-point komi, I would win. In other words, his stones would be nearly annihilated. Though it seemed too absurdly foolish to ever try again, I—finding no sustained interest in other amusements—still took pleasure in these games as mere distraction. I humored the old man’s requests and played against him.

The old man’s skill level was so far removed that he must have grown somewhat concerned. Eventually, he began inviting a man named Seki as a guest. Mr. Seki was forty-three years old—the same age as the housewife here. He had once run a liquor store in Fushimi but failed; now he languished in a single room of an apartment near Inari. Regarding liquor transactions, he had been the old man’s longtime acquaintance. In Go, he stood between me and the old man—his skill being about six or seven stones below mine—yet even so, he still defeated the old man hundreds of times over.

Mr. Seki was unemployed, so he came eagerly every night. The cafeteria closed at two, and Mr. Seki’s Go games would persist until then. Mr. Seki was a man of utmost simplicity—driven solely by his own desires and utterly devoid of consideration—so rather than play against the inept old man, he would persistently insist on facing me. I was utterly perplexed; the old man sulked. I too was worn down and thus devised a plan here. This was an ingenious plan indeed, but later it became a disastrous scheme—a self-constricting trap that buried me in my own grave.

I persuaded the old man and decided to have him open a Go club. Fortunately, the second-floor hall of the dining hall had been left vacant, and since this was a separate building from my own second floor, even if many customers came, it wouldn’t be noisy. Since beginners would inevitably appear at the Go club, the old man was perfectly suited to be their opponent. Next, I made Mr. Seki the caretaker of the Go club. The Go seats also doubled as Mr. Seki’s bedroom; though there was no salary, meals were provided. Since Mr. Seki’s wife worked as a housekeeper for Hayashi Chōjirō and had her food, clothing, and shelter provided from her meager salary, it worked out perfectly. Next, for me, it was just a ten-second walk to play Go whenever I wished, at the proper time. It was a triple blessing all around.

The Go club didn't require police permission either. Mr. Seki's enthusiasm reached fever pitch. I too got swept up in the excitement and thought I'd write the sign myself despite my terrible handwriting, but even that notoriously stingy old man forcibly stopped me and went out personally to commission a sign maker—such was his sudden fervor. Whether this sign maker actually had any artistic sense was debatable—he created a Go parlor at the dead end of that alleyway, a slanted den where monsters might materialize—but his sign stood out starkly with white background and crimson lettering in gaudy script, looking more suited to an art club. The old man hung it triumphantly at the alley's entrance where it glared conspicuously at anyone stepping off the tram.

However, with three amateurs, it was difficult to maintain the Go club. So they hired a 1-dan player. Now, when they saw how things turned out, this 1-dan player was met with terrible reviews. When they tried switching to another 1-dan player, this one also received bad reviews, that one also bad reviews. Before long, once the regulars’ lineup had settled, they were all worse than me at Go, and they said they didn’t need a teacher—they just wanted to play. The regulars’ meeting reached a decisive resolution and dismissed the teacher. However, one or two strong players would come each day. Because all the regulars were amateurs, they never came again. In Kyoto, someone of my disheveled appearance was deemed a “Painter-san”—in other words, a “Teacher”—and the old man called me “Teacher.” The old man was a man of poor memory; even when express mail arrived for me, he’d say, “Huh? Sakaguchi-san? Never heard that name before.” Therefore, he would nonsensically mix up customers’ names year-round, while secretly referring to them by code names. Therefore, in this house, I was a nameless man—always Teacher, merely Teacher, and nothing other than Teacher. In the end, even among the Go club regulars, I became merely Teacher—nameless, and incapable of being anything other than Teacher.

Since everyone called me Teacher, strangers assumed I was a Go teacher. Since unfamiliar customers were generally people far stronger than me, I too grew flustered. Before long, that Go club became known as the Duffers’ Club. Rumors spread that there was some sort of remarkable Teacher there, and everyone marveled at how cleverly they’d dubbed it the Duffers’ Club—roaring with hollow laughter—but when I came to my senses, it was ultimately about me. With so many regulars gathered, you’d think at least one might be of average skill—they’d exchange glances—but when it came down to it, among them all, I remained both the strongest and youngest. With everyone chanting “Teacher, we’re counting on you,” I steeled myself and began rigorous training under a 2-dan teacher named Shima. Dreams in sleep, illusions upon waking—day after day held nothing but Go. In my room, Go books soon piled high while newspaper clippings lay scattered; walking the streets meant studying Go strategy cards. While heading to the Go club one day, a familiar Special Higher Police detective tapped my shoulder at Shijō Street: “Quite the study regimen you’ve got there.” When I walked anywhere now, it was only to scour used bookstores for Go manuals—as if I’d bought up every secondhand Go text in Kyoto. But after two months passed this way, I could finally play rural 1-dan players with a three-stone handicap. Then came Chinu no Ura Koshū—a naniwabushi master living nearby who’d first promoted the Duffers’ Club as the area’s strongest player—and soon he began frequenting our club again until we played each other as equals.

The light that had burned in my chest when I abandoned Tokyo was gone. No—even when I first came to live in this bento shop in the dead-end alley, a glowing thing should have still been burning in my chest. The second floor next door was a lodging house for waitresses with red kimonos hanging limply; below it lay a storage shed with shattered windows, and in one corner stood a factory where thread-spooling wheels whirred incessantly. The rear was a secondhand dealer’s backyard; junk piled up, a loudspeaker radio blared around the clock, and the sounds of marital quarrels never ceased. Even so, from the north-facing window, the verdant Hiei mountains could indeed be seen.

But for me, there remained only a dark room where no sliver of light pierced through. Dust accumulated on the manuscript paper atop the desk; I hauled my hollowed body across and burrowed into the chilled futon. Devoid even of regret—merely when I drank—I would find myself growing enraged indiscriminately at anyone and everyone.

I stopped playing Go every night at twelve o'clock. The heavy drinkers among the regulars gathered downstairs in a circle to drink twelve-sen alcohol. Yamaguchi, the ex-policeman turned villa caretaker—an alcoholic—had blood ceaselessly spurting from his head; he wiped it with paper before gulping sake from a cup. Old Man Sugimoto from Gion Otsu Kenban interrupted only with lewd stories before growling folk ballads. The brain-disease quack duo—one in a seal-patterned workman’s coat, the other in haori and hakama—jolted at every door creak, likely fearing either brawlers or detectives. The Inari Mountain diviner cast indiscriminate Four Pillars of Destiny fortunes for regulars—this one’s bad, that one’s bad—claiming he felt too sorry to tell the truth; I couldn’t help agreeing. This thirty-year-old diviner sported a brown beard and fifty-five-year-old face. The tea-shop old man administering visible-ray treatments glared murderously; the one-eyed ex-sailor masseur told tales so lewd even Sugimoto averted his gaze. It was a Night Parade of Demons. But I led this Night Parade. Mr. Seki took sake cups from all—just when expecting pleasantries, he’d pick fights or sneer—while only the old man stayed silent, shrimp-curled. Amidst this, solely the housewife shrilled like a gamecock—knee-slapping, pipe-waving—chattering undiminished.

I would drink my fill and sleep my fill; I could live on about twenty yen. If I didn’t have to think—what a hollow peace that would be! Moreover, I feared thinking more than anything, and instead of thinking, drank alcohol. In other words, I sold my soul to a twenty-yen existence, and each time I came into extra money, I would select one demon from the hundred to lead along as I went to buy women.

The one redeeming aspect of this crowd was, at least, that they didn't try to seduce the housewife. Eh، Otsan. Why don’t you just die already? "I'll handle the rest then." I heard such blatant jokes at least once every day. Someone would always be the one to bring it up. The old man bared his fangs and let out a shrill “hee hee hee” laugh. He wasn’t necessarily getting angry. No, he had given up entirely. But could he truly resign himself completely?! Even so, these days, this joke had become something like the dining hall’s customary seasonal inquiry. Even with one foot already stuffed in the coffin, what a stubborn bastard he was. Now, now—don’t you dare catch your breath now. This joke functioned as humor, and they laughed themselves into a stupor. This was certainly a joke. Yet at the same time, it was undeniably no joke. For how fervently had the housewife continued to wish for her husband’s death? Was her prayer not solely for that alone?

There was a boss of showmen who would come to patrol Inari Mountain and drop by here on his rounds. Then the housewife would start applying makeup, and the boss would thud down in the back tearoom and begin drinking. When the boss got drunk, all his underlings went home. Then the old man too, driven away by the housewife’s glance, would crawl into the second-floor Go area as usual, groaning lowly while dragging himself forward. With veins bulging on his forehead, he began playing Go in silence at an abnormal speed. Ah—another strange customer had arrived. People realized this immediately, but how many had ever shown sympathy to the old man? Not a single soul knew a shred of sentimentality, nor was there even one person to furrow a brow in concern. No—rather, people had likely convinced themselves that such a fate was only natural.

Though not a Go regular, this slightly plump fifty-three- or fifty-four-year-old man who ran a stone shop in Fushimi had a fixed rule of coming once every month to drink for fifteen or sixteen hours straight—as if he were here to confirm that the old man still hadn’t died.

IV

The Four Pillars of Destiny diviner cast a divination at Mr. Seki’s request. When he came to my place, there was nowhere in Mr. Seki’s divination results to find an aspect that might console him. He was a natural-born defeated warrior, he stated—from now on he would only decline further still. What could it mean to decline even beyond this? But I too couldn’t help thinking that must indeed be true.

Even when surveying all the Go club regulars, only Mr. Seki stood out as exceptionally innocent. But in rock-bottom existence, the more innocent one was, the less salvation they found. Mr. Seki became the target of censure among the Go club regulars. Among them was a yuzen dyeing workshop craftsman named Sōma—a man who had carried a red flag at Yamamoto Senji’s funeral procession, whose hot-blooded sense of justice drove him to pick defiant fights, yet who remained oddly impossible to resent. In his guilelessness he matched Mr. Seki perfectly and generally grasped what I said, yet he alone refused to befriend Mr. Seki.

Mr. Seki prioritized his own enjoyment over business. When customers came, he would be overjoyed, half-heartedly serve tea, and immediately challenge them to a game. He became completely engrossed in an instant. When defeated, he would bitterly lament his loss—"That was a fluke! I’m actually stronger!"—raging vehemently; yet when victorious, he’d instantly perk up and boast grandly, "You’re just no good!" Everything about him was overt and abrasive. Moreover, being so absorbed in the matches, he wouldn’t pour tea or even provide cushions for customers who arrived later. The regulars managed on their own somehow, but unfamiliar patrons would remain sitting alone in a daze indefinitely. This was because Mr. Seki wouldn’t seek out suitable opponents for them. Naturally, the number of regulars never increased.

The seat fee was ten sen per day, and membership was one yen per month. If you called it cheap, it was incredibly cheap—but then again, in the Inari neighborhood, everything from start to finish was cheap. In the end, their only income came from the regulars’ membership fees, and it seemed they barely made twenty-four or twenty-five yen a month in revenue. Since earnings weren’t increasing, the old man and housewife grumbled incessantly. When Mr. Seki served a third helping of rice, they would glare at him sidelong and leave only about two servings’ worth in the pot; meanwhile, Mr. Seki himself kept muttering things like “This line of work isn’t suited for someone who can’t move around,” his complaints delivered in constant, petty jabs. Then the regulars would all chime in together—“The service is terrible,” “Your attitude’s rotten whether you win or lose”—creating a clamor like a gossip session by the well. At rock bottom, there was no patience or compassion to be found. Selfishness and self-importance—the service of a single cup of tea became an issue that reflected one’s very character.

Mr. Seki promptly sulked and—this time—began devoting himself entirely to laying out cushions and pouring tea, launching a one-man strike where he declared he would absolutely not be anyone’s Go opponent. Even when customers without opponents pleaded, “Mr. Seki, how about it?” he would answer: “No, I can’t possibly.” “I’ve got to pour the tea, you see?” “This here’s my duty.” He answered in this manner. And there he sat, veins bulging as he sulked. The customers’ complaints grew even worse. Though I tried to endure as Sensei said various things for my sake... Mr. Seki came to me and declared that he could no longer bear it and would go find another position. And then, twice in total, he truly found employment and vanished from sight. However, both times, on the fourth day, he had already returned.

The housewife showed up in my room. It was still morning. She shook me awake, muttering “I’m real sorry to disturb your rest, Sensei, but…” while explaining she’d gone upstairs upon hearing a noise—only to find Mr. Seki had returned, sweeping floors and wiping Go boards clean. That’s fine. “If he’s come back, let him stay.” I pulled the futon over myself. When I got up around noon and went downstairs, Mr. Seki was bustling about with a tasuki sash tied around him, splashing bucket after bucket of water across the earthen kitchen floor and even scrubbing the toilet. Normally he’d neglect even sweeping the Go seats—never mind wiping them down.

At one time, he had apparently worked as a clerk at a kimono shop in Fushimi. Even calling him a clerk was an exaggeration. Probably something like a manservant or bathhouse attendant, but I simply relayed Mr. Seki’s account as he told it. Their daughter was a fifth-year student at a girls’ school—somewhat simple-minded but said to be a stunning beauty—who couldn’t stop making eyes at Mr. Seki. Had she been a maid or even a divorced daughter—a woman past her prime—it might have been one thing, but for a man of forty-three to carry on with the master’s schoolgirl daughter was unconscionable. One evening, when the daughter entered the bath later than anyone else, Mr. Seki—unaware of this—opened the bath door to find her naked and beckoning him repeatedly. He said he had run away because he could no longer endure such blatant emotions.

The second time was at the private residence of a small yuzen dyeing workshop owner. The widow who owned the place—a woman around forty rumored to frequently bring young monks into her home for purposes unrelated to sutras—had given Mr. Seki a meaningful look telling him to sneak over that night. Just as he thought, "Surely not...", she began pacing back and forth along the corridor outside his room late at night—though it wasn’t even a passage to the toilet. Though it was only his second day on the job, deeming it far too soon for such advances, he didn’t go—then the very next day, her attitude turned hostile as she ordered him out, driving him to return here again, or so he claimed.

All of Mr. Seki’s stories were like this. Of course they held no validity. Yet he went around cornering each regular one by one to make them listen. This included me, the old man, and the housewife. Even when teased with “Mr. Seki, quite the ladies’ man again, eh?” he’d chuckle—“Heh heh, no, not really”—and beam. But let someone suggest it was all lies, and he’d flare up, veins bulging. “Ain’t nothin’ like that!” He’d sit up straight, trembling as he glared. “Then go ask ’em yourself!” “Who’d traipse round kimono shops askin’ ’bout your master’s simpleton daughter?” It was fury fit for a man whose existence had been called into question.

However, from the Go club’s perspective, even while being so detested and told to get out, Mr. Seki was ultimately someone they couldn’t do without. How many people can live without pride? Mr. Seki, too, had his pride. Moreover, all these people were systematically crushing Mr. Seki’s pride, one by one. And what all these people demanded of Mr. Seki ultimately boiled down to this: do not stand as our equal—become a slave to the Go club. The compensation was merely a bedroom and the leftovers from the thirteen-sen set meals. There were any number of applicants for caretaker of the Go club, but none could meet Mr. Seki’s conditions. Therefore, when Mr. Seki returned, both the old man of the eatery and the housewife would scowl but serve him lavish side dishes and let him eat as much rice as he wanted.

Aside from the Go space, the second floor of this house had two rooms. Not long after I moved into one of those rooms—though I can’t recall exactly when it began—a young man called Nonbiri-san appeared in the other room. He was something like the housewife’s sister’s third son—a twenty-six-year-old tailor from Wakayama. Just as I went by the nameless "Sensei," this man too was known as Nonbiri-san, and I never learned his full name at all. He had trained in tailoring in Tokyo but fell ill and returned home, where he drifted about for a year without fully recovering; through letters exchanged between his mother and the ※（Maruju） housewife, he had been neatly expelled from his hometown to seek work in Kyoto.

Though he was called Nonbiri-san—a moniker suggesting ease—he wasn’t nonchalant in the slightest. He always fidgeted nervously, and whenever he started talking, foam would gather at the corners of his mouth while his face glistened with sweat. Perhaps due to his sedentary occupation, his legs were extremely thin and bow-legged; whether sitting, standing, or walking, he appeared perpetually bewildered. He had never been liked by anyone since birth and had apparently grown up being treated as a burden. What kind of discussions could those two sisters have had in their letters? In other words, even the Maruju housewife seemed to have been taken for a ride. In other words, it was understood that once he secured employment, he himself would pay for his lodgings; however, there must have been an agreement that until then, his family would provide financial support. However, the man himself arrived along with his futon, and after that—vanished like a thrown pear pit—not a single penny was ever sent. Three months passed, then four months passed, and still there was no job to be found.

However, there had been a period—about three weeks—when he had actually found employment. He was promptly driven out. The manner of this expulsion was again so outlandish that no one else could have managed it. There were five fellow craftsmen at that shop, including one particularly skilled worker who excelled not only at his trade but also had a talent for pilfering fabric from the warehouse to sell off for drink and women. When night work ended, the craftsmen would all go out together for drinks—about half covered by that skilled worker’s payments while the rest took turns treating each other. Nonbiri-san alone had never paid a single time. He made excuses like “I was fixin’ to pay but someone beat me to it” or “I ain’t used to this socializin’—don’t even know how to settle proper,” yet he’d invite Mr. Seki—who clearly had no money—to cafés and always make him foot the bill.

When I went out for a walk, he would silently follow behind. After walking three or four blocks, he called out “Sensei” for the first time and pulled up alongside me; from then on, he never left my side. Even after passing through Inari Mountain to Tofuku-ji, going by Sanjusangendo, emerging from Miyagawacho onto Shijo-dori and Shinkyogoku, he still wouldn’t leave. Even when I said, “I’ll take my leave here,” he would reply, “But Sensei, I ain’t bein’ a bother,” and whenever I entered a drinking den, he would follow right in. He wouldn’t order anything and sat there next to me. Since it couldn’t be helped, I would order something for him, only for him to mutter, “Just leave me be, Sensei—I don’t even want it,” and he’d grudgingly eat it while acting as if he were doing me a favor.

“Sensei，there’s somethin’ I wanna ask ya，” he said，his narrow eyes—uncertain whether they held any real intent—darting about．“So，Sensei，what’s the trick t’ grabbin’ a girl’s hand at just th’ right moment?” “I’m dyin’ t’ hold her hand，but I'm such a coward—my heart’s just thump-thumpin' away，an’ I can't do nothin'....” He'd come out with that kinda talk．

He wasn’t someone who could be persuaded through calm words. I became enraged and drove him out like a stray dog. Of course he didn’t understand why I had gotten angry.

He was never meant to be loved by his colleagues. He was quickly disliked and subjected to every possible harassment they could muster within their own lives. Having even his meal’s side dishes taken away, he had no choice but to slurp down plain rice with tea every day. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he went to report to the master. He recounted the numerous insults he had endured and informed on that skilled worker who was sneakily pilfering fabric from the warehouse to fund his drinking and womanizing. However, the master—who had been grunting in acknowledgment until then—suddenly roared upon hearing this report: “You idiot!” “...is what he roared,” it is said. He had already known that much earlier. “It’s precisely because he has that level of skill that we let him keep doing it. And what about you? “I’m firing you right now, so get out.” A craftsman who can’t even socialize with friends is nothing but a nuisance to the shop.”—And so, he was driven out. He turned pale with shock, dashed out without even a thought of retrieving his futon or belongings, and returned to the cafeteria with a thoroughly blank face—for the first time in three weeks—around three in the morning. Even he, after all, had apparently sat down on a park bench and found himself at a loss.

In short, this man was abnormally sullen and reticent, yet despite being oblivious to others’ sensibilities, remained neurotically fidgety—in no way leisurely in any regard. Even nicknames coined by uneducated people generally strike true and contain elements that make others nod in recognition. Yet with Nonbiri-san alone, there existed nothing whatsoever to make people think “Ah yes.” If one considered it, the person who had bestowed this nickname must have been thoroughly unhinged. That is to say, while this nickname did possess an apt rationale behind it, that singular reason had utterly erased and inverted all his other attributes. So overwhelmingly potent was this sole reason that it formed the great rootstock of those people’s worldview. Namely, for the cafeteria’s proprietress and master, this single rootstock constituted life’s entirety—all other attributes mattered not. And as for how this youth came to be called Nonbiri-san, it stemmed purely from this solitary cause: his lodging payments were proceeding at a leisurely pace.

However, it couldn’t be helped that Nonbiri-san—having no income—would delay his payments. He still did not want to work in Kyoto. He had wanted to recuperate from his illness in his hometown a while longer. His mother and aunt had arbitrarily exchanged letters and sent him out along with his futon as if he were luggage. Not only that—how could a woman who was supposed to be a housewife have anticipated this situation? Needless to say, she must have calculated it would be profitable. Even relationships like those between sisters or parents were not supposed to entertain motives beyond their own calculations. When considered, her sister must have been an even more skilled actor. The pitiable one was Nonbiri-san—hounded for payment at every meal, each time he lifted the lid of the rice tub met with the housewife’s bloodless eyes glaring askance. “I... I’ve reached the point where I want to kill myself.” And he would mutter in such a way.

At this time, Mr. Seki was kind. The next day, he urged Nonbiri-san to go apologize to the master. The day after that, he went out alone. When he realized even this was futile, the following day he loaded Nonbiri-san’s belongings onto a handcart and returned. “Don’t fret—it’s alright.” “It’s fine.” “I’ll definitely find you a good position.” Mr. Seki gathered courage. And in fact—about once every ten days, no, perhaps once a month—he went searching for work for Nonbiri-san. Of course, it was nothing but wasted effort. Did Mr. Seki actually search for employment? He might have barged into a retired acquaintance’s place and come back after playing a game of Go or something.

The Japan-China Incident began.

The Kyoto division also departed for the front. The division commander was also injured. As mentioned before, the old man was born into Shōgoin Yatsuhashi, and in exchange for relinquishing the family headship, he obtained from his son (this son was not the housewife’s child) the rights to produce Yatsuhashi under a different mark from Shōgoin’s. This Yatsuhashi came to be supplied to the division as military provisions. The son was breathing fire. He treated the old man—who had abandoned his birth mother, run off with a woman, and grown old in destitution—like a servant. The old man, out of spite toward the housewife, took perverse delight in this treatment as though it were his son’s triumph—enduring servitude while affecting the airs of a trusted advisor. Now, considering what business he could possibly have coming to the old man’s house he’d never once visited before—it turned out he was there to say they needed boxes packed for supplying Yatsuhashi to the division. They were packed into small cardboard boxes and submitted at ten or twelve sen each, but this box-packing paid one rin per box—that is, ten boxes for one sen—so after packing a hundred boxes you’d finally earn ten sen in wages. Enough with the jokes already—even an eight-year-old girl these days wouldn’t do such work. Even packing a single box was quite a task given their angular shape. However, the old man agreed without a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t about cheapness or expense. He was overjoyed at his son’s success, and with two idle individuals—Nonbiri-san and Seki-san—around, he must have thought that even ten sen coming in would be cause enough for joy.

A truck pulled up to the entrance of the dead-end alley, mountains of Yatsuhashi were piled up between the bedroom and tearoom, and both Seki-san and Nonbiri-san were conscripted. But Mr. Seki, after packing twenty boxes, fled upstairs with the excuse that “a customer had come,” while Nonbiri-san—barely managing five—muttered, “I’ve been feelin’ poorly since mornin’, might get a spell o’ dizziness,” then likewise escaped to the second floor, buried himself under a futon, and fell asleep. Since then, Nonbiri-san had completely stopped handling the Yatsuhashi, while Seki-san—only when persistently urged by the old man—would start packing about ten boxes at a time before concocting excuses about customers arriving or having errands to run and slipping away. “You’ve still got eighty left.” “It’s only eight sen, isn’t it?” she retorted. “Since I don’t need that money, I’ll give it to you.” She coldly declared this and headed up to the second floor. Mr. Seki was also being extremely spiteful. Of course, forcing such cheap work upon others under the pretense of doing them a favor was wrong. However, there had been no malice in the old man. Lo and behold, the son would come roaring up in his automobile to inspect, expecting the work to be nearly complete, only to find barely a tenth of it done. He would bellow furiously at his own father, and from then on came around to inspect nearly every night. The old man could no longer even deliver bento. Entrusting the shop’s work to the housewife, he labored at box-packing from morning until midnight—trembling hands haphazardly crushing Yatsuhashi, forcibly cramming them into boxes. When things had come to such a pass, even the housewife had no choice. She could no longer even sell oil properly; finding herself assisting with box-packing, her resentment seeping into her very marrow, she would dash upstairs—“Aren’t they truly people without desires? Those born into court noble families ain’t like us common folk.” “Oh, just listen up, will ya?” she explained in her gamecock’s crow to various regulars. However, ultimately, the fault lay with the old man who had been forced into this unreasonable work. Who other than the old man would take on such work? However, to exploit the weakness of an old man who, compelled by love for his child and working joyfully without self-interest for his sake, and force upon him labor that no one would undertake—this son was incomparably cunning.

However, whether out of paternal love or sheer stubbornness, the old man refused until his dying day to believe that this unreasonable task—one no one else would undertake—had been cleverly foisted upon him by his son. And so, without even playing his beloved Go—veins bulging as he groaned "Uu... uu... uu..."—he finally packed every last box. That was not all. Even though he already knew that Mr. Seki and Nonbiri-san’s assistance was no longer available, he took on the second truckload. And this too, finally, he managed to finish. Blind love or spite—which drove him? It was fearsome stubbornness.

However, even regarding this matter, there was a superfluous addition. "You there—call this stubbornness?" said the housewife to me. "That’s greed for you." "Go on then—pile up five or six thousand and see." "That’s grand. Once you’ve forgotten all that, this Kono-tsusan here’ll do it for ya, won’t he?" "Aye, ’tis truly so." The old man looked up at me drinking sake and chuckled softly—a laugh of divine innocence.

The old man looked up at me as I drank sake and chuckled. It was divinely innocent.

Postscript: As I didn’t have time, I tentatively titled it Ancient Capital, but since I’m entirely dissatisfied with it, I’ll change the title when it’s published next time. (Unfinished)