Pathway to Japanese Literature

I When four years had passed since the war’s end, demobilization parties seemed out of place; yet perhaps because Yamakawa Hanayo’s return was unexpected, an assortment of faces had gathered. The hosts—former French consul Iizawa and his wife Akiko (who had been Yamakawa’s student)—along with Suda (Bachelor of Science), Chūbee Kasahara of the Morikawa Group (soon bound for Lyon to resume trade), and Painter Iwagaki (who had served as a Malay interpreter for the defense team at Singapore’s war crimes trial) had arrived; yet even past the appointed hour, Yamakawa himself remained absent.

Iizawa had been talking with Kasahara on the sofa by the window about his days as consul when, declaring he had something good for them to hear, he brought out a timeworn record with a sky-blue label. “It’s Tett Skipper’s ‘Butterfly’.” “Those who were in Paris at that time must have unforgettable memories.” A faint singing voice began to leak out from within the orchestral ensemble, as though unraveling threads of sound. Skipper’s Habanera—with its delicate technique and passion that rippled like beauty itself—proved how even the most polished flamboyant voice would falter in that thin, inhuman style of singing, all while drawing its listeners into profound intoxication.

When the song ended and the aperitif was served, Kasahara— “Back then, when Toyosawa Dainagon—who had come to visit Paris—heard this, he insightfully remarked that it had the flair of Kawato or Ogie. But when the art of singing reaches such heights, there ceases to be any distinction between East and West.” “I must’ve heard it dozens of times myself—while listening, I’d somehow forget it was a Western song.” He said. Then Iwagaki, who sat nearby, began to speak as though suddenly reminded of something.

“That Habanera just now reminded me—among those tried at the Batavia war crimes tribunal, there was a Japanese man who was immensely popular with young girls in the Philippines and went by the nickname ‘Butterfly.’” Suda asked in a disinterested tone. “What did he do?” “The massacre of 800 non-combatants at Manila Polo University, the slaughter of children in Laguna’s Calampano, the atrocities in Patanes’ Vasco… He must have been involved in one of those. That’s why they kept dragging him to court—but when it came down to it, five or even ten young women would appear as witnesses, provide counter-evidence, and get him acquitted.”

“Tanjirō.” “Quite something.” Kasahara interjected disruptively.

“So he managed to escape?” “He was that sort of man, but ultimately they had to lower the final curtain. He’d escaped justice in the Philippines, but after being exposed by some Spanish mestiza regarding the Palembang massacre in Sumatra, he was finally hanged at Batavia Prison. When they removed the hood, ‘Butterfly’ proved unexpectedly ordinary—yet those he saved were young girls, and those he killed were young girls too... It felt like examining the meticulous details of a war painting executed with perfect draftsmanship—a profoundly complex impression.”

They hadn't been idly engrossed in such talk. In reality, everyone was growing increasingly irritated. It had turned eight, but he still hadn't arrived. When they were growing weary of the effort to fill empty time with aimless conversation, Suda said to Iizawa's wife through a yawn, "Things have gotten suspicious... Was it really Yamakawa you saw at Shiseido, Ms. Akiko?" he said pointlessly.

“Suspicious? How so?” “There’s no reason he should’ve survived the war and returned.” “It’s illogical no matter how you consider it.” “Isn’t this just Ms. Akiko’s confessional fiction?” “Didn’t you start praying from desperately wanting to see Yamakawa?”

“*Hankonkou*?” “Don’t be absurd.”

Iizawa’s wife brushed it off nonchalantly.

“The one who was surprised wasn’t just me. Mr. Yamakawa, wearing a pale gray double-breasted suit or something of the sort, suddenly glided into the garden without any warning, so Elder Sister Tsuneko clung to the veranda pillar with a start and couldn’t move a muscle, you see.”

Five days prior, when Iizawa’s wife stopped by Shiseido on her way back from shopping, at a table positioned near the gallery’s cast-metal handrail—where he always sat—Yamakawa Hanayo was drinking coffee just as he had in the old days. So she went to his side, “Mr. Yamakawa, the other day...” She had greeted him with “the other day,” but between sending off Yamakawa in his red sash through the barracks gate and this very day lay six mercilessly long years encompassing both war and postwar periods—making “the other day” an utterly absurd way to refer to events so distant.

“Six years—you’d expect some aging or weight loss, some change or other—but there was absolutely none of that. He had the exact same face as the day he left, eyes cast down shyly… So I ended up blurting out something foolish, but when I realized it, I felt so unpleasant.” “I didn’t even think it was a ghost, but… I realized I must be dreaming.”

Yamakawa’s enlistment had occurred on a drizzly, chilly morning. Elder Sister Tsuneko—her eyes upturned—layered a heavy blanket-cloth overcoat and pulled her muffler up to her nose as she held a collapsible umbrella over Yamakawa, droning on and on with instructions as if speaking to a child: he must do such-and-such about this-and-that, not forget to take Neo-Lever, and so forth.

Japanese cultural history will surely devote a page to recounting how an esteemed Christian family—in their madness to raise their sole male heir—resorted to folk superstition by bestowing upon him the feminine name Hanayo; yet Yamakawa Hanayo managed to achieve a semblance of normal development only through the sacrifices and devotion of his mother and two elder sisters.

Because of this, Elder Sister Tsuneko ultimately missed her chance to marry, but from the day he was born until age thirty, Yamakawa’s daily life resembled that of a sanatorium—he drank no unboiled water and ate nothing from outside. At unavoidable parties, one of his sisters would famously fill a thermos with distilled water and accompany him. Even after becoming a teacher at Gakushūin’s girls’ school, all unpleasant or difficult matters were handled by his mother and sisters, and Yamakawa hid behind his household and the women, doing as he pleased in his own way. Even when washing his face, his toothpaste had to be Dumalet’s “Colgate” semi-paste and his soap Morinu’s “Veru”—when these became unavailable in Tokyo, his sister would make a special trip to purchase them at Kuhn & Komor in Kobe.

Military training was unthinkable. For his short-term active duty period, they had pulled strings with a surgeon general relative to create a special exception where he spent his days reading books in the hospital ward and was commissioned as a reserve second lieutenant without performing a single day of actual duty. For war and the military, there were few men as harmful and useless as this one; for Yamakawa, nothing could have been more ill-suited to his nature than war itself. Among the students from the girls’ department, about ten who had particularly favored Yamakawa lined up at the barracks gate holding paper national flags instead of bouquets—but caught between pitiable earnestness and absurdity, they ended up tearing up, stifling laughter, and making a complete spectacle of themselves.

“Mr. Yamakawa, if you were to get caught in the rain even once, you’d melt away completely, wouldn’t you?”

One of them let slip their thoughts with tearful laughter.

Without his mother and sister’s protection, he could not survive a single day. Yamakawa—as delicate as a mimosa that would catch cold from mere washwater splashing on his instep—would likely succumb to pneumonia or some such ailment under ten days of barbarous foreign tempests, long before enemy bullets could find him. As they gazed upon his pale, slender face—only the eyes beautiful, gooseflesh rising at the drizzly morning chill—a cold certainty swelled that this man would never return alive. After he offered a cursory greeting and passed through the barracks gate for the last time, all memory of Yamakawa died within their hearts.

Not a single person held the futile expectation of trying to see Yamakawa alive. In such a place, were one to suddenly encounter Yamakawa, even if it weren’t Iizawa’s wife, they would gasp and take a step back. They fully understood this "unpleasant feeling."

When they called Yamakawa’s house, they were told he had left two hours prior, but with no way to wait any longer, they began—and as it neared nine o’clock, Yamakawa appeared with a smooth, unblemished face. As he glanced around with a shy smile—uncertain where to sit—Suda, who had been growing increasingly irritated, “An ill-mannered guest who arrives this late after being invited shall remain humbly in the lowest seat until forgiveness is granted,” he suddenly hurled.

As befitting his refined upbringing, he apologized without a trace of shame and took the humblest seat, yet when his gaze fell upon the crystal wine decanter on the dining table: “Wine, isn’t it? May I have a glass?” “A baby drinking alcohol? Don’t shock me like that.” “I picked it up in the army… Though it’s a secret from Mother and my sisters.” Yamakawa was swirling the glass, making the facets of the cut glass sparkle as he gazed at the wine’s color as though appraising a gemstone—but upon inhaling its aroma and taking a sip—

“It’s La Rose, isn’t it? Quite good.” He nodded with an air of connoisseurship.

“This guy drinks like a first-rate connoisseur.” “Where’d you learn that?” “It’s not like you went off to war in Europe or anything.” “You’re a strange one, aren’t you?”

“This guy drinks like a first-rate connoisseur,” said Iwagaki. “Where did you learn that? It’s not like you went off to war in Europe. You’re a strange one, aren’t you?” Kasahara was scrutinizing Yamakawa’s face. “You’ve been off at war for six years, but you haven’t changed a bit,” he said in a dumbfounded tone. “There’s not a single part of you that looks like it’s been through any hardship.” His white skin—like silk crepe soaked in water—showed no trace of sunburn anywhere, while his delicate hands retained their slender form, still appearing sensitive. The luster of his eyes remained unchanged; his voice too remained the same. Setting aside the war, how he had managed to maintain his former appearance without suffering the corrosion of time—this alone struck them as utterly mystifying.

“A friend of mine—no sooner had he reached the front than he deserted. After the war ended, once he’d confirmed the court-martials and wartime penal codes were abolished, there he was strolling back in... What branch had he even been in? To still have that pristine face—”

“Anti-Aircraft Artillery Unit… We saw fierce combat, but we were fortunate regardless.” “The surrender came at Kaimana in New Guinea, but we’d fled so deep inland that we remained unaware for two years.” “In those vast woods where sunlight never reached… with nothing to eat…” “I’d say that sounds dreadful, but however I look at it, that face of yours shows someone who’s been dining well and living comfortably.”

“Someone once said that the morality of taste is nothing more than a difference in latitude.” “Change your perspective, and you could say I was enjoying extraordinary feasts.” “What’s this ‘difference in latitude’ supposed to mean?”

“In Africa and Arabia, monkeys are said to be the finest delicacy, but we subsisted solely on orangutans. When discarded orangutan arms and palms lay strewn about, I felt guilt akin to having consumed human flesh.” “Appelius’s Borneo travelogue describes capturing orangutans alive—but those creatures must be fiendishly hard to catch. To think someone as lumbering as Yamakawa actually managed it!”

“Even so, I killed a great many… The durian—a tropical fruit with a ferocious odor like cheese—is a favorite of apes. When it ripens, they emerge from the jungle depths in groups of fifty or a hundred.” “First, we would fell surrounding trees to isolate the one where the apes were; then, with many men encircling it from a distance and gradually tightening the ring… soldiers would crawl up to the base and strike the trunk with hatchets.” “When they understood our intent, they would thrash the branches and struggle, but soon the tree would come crashing down.” “The mother ape would charge at us clutching her baby, but they’d blind her eyes, throw a net over her, and send her crashing to the ground... Then we’d take aim beneath her breasts and plunge the bayonet in.” “The mother ape pulls her children close with one hand and plucks the surrounding grass with the other, stuffing it into the wound on her chest.” “Then, with a look of despair, she sniffs her bloodied hand... The mother ape’s death throes are terrifyingly human-like.” “There are few hunts that so threaten one’s conscience—the apes are intelligent, well-mannered, even appearing moral at times.” “We humans are the lowly, barbaric ones—filthy with grime, eyes darting wildly, launching into ferocious battles over the theft of a single ganemo leaf… And when it comes to killing apes, our cruelty defies description.” “As I watched, it began to feel strange—not like humans killing apes, but apes killing humans.” “This isn’t about others.” “With ape blood still smeared on my face while making stew—I myself couldn’t believe I was human.” “As I became more animal-like with each passing day—this process I understood clearly—the awareness and despair that even if I survived, I could never return to human society… there were times it nearly drove me mad.”

Apparently still agitated, the normally taciturn Yamakawa—unusually for him—leaked his innermost thoughts intently and, claiming fatigue, left alone ahead of everyone else.

II

Around the time the Tokyo Trial entered its final arguments phase while running parallel to the Yokohama Trial’s POW section proceedings—on returning from an early morning golf game in Atsugi—someone impulsively stopped by Yamakawa’s residence where his younger sister Keiko emerged, “He’s currently attending to his duties,” she said with a laugh. It was Sunday—the day of the Yamakawa family’s home worship.

As I waited on the veranda smoking a cigarette, I could hear his elder sister Tsuneko talking to the gardener beyond the brushwood fence. “Since we can’t leave the area around the pond in its ruined state—I thought if we were to plant something eventually… For low-growing varieties—Tessen azaleas, Japanese quince, asebi shrubs, Enkianthus, and sasanqua camellias.” “For the stepping stones’ surroundings, red-spotted Kirishima would be ideal, among others.” “As for flowers… Since he’s had them all uprooted anyway, I suppose it’s pointless to even suggest planting new ones.”

Yamakawa’s deceased father had been a flower enthusiast akin to Lord Akimasa of “Hyakka Village,” planting asters along the pond’s edge and mounting a decayed wooden plaque inscribed “Shion’en” on the central gate’s panel. It was not Shion’en. Since it had to be read in biblical style as the “Garden of Shion,” one could see in the Yamakawa garden a crystallization of faith even in the flowers themselves—yet on summer mornings, where hydrangeas and multiflora roses once swayed in the breeze, there was now no trace of anything resembling blossoms, only wild green leaves raging in tangled disarray.

“What a terrible mess.”

“You still hadn’t heard about it, had you? My brother said gardens with flowers were vulgar and had them all uprooted.”

There are those who dislike flower gardens, but to call a garden with flowers vulgar is absurd. Looking at the garden’s ruin—somehow discordant in its destruction—one could sense Yamakawa’s mental unraveling, and it grew unnerving. “Hasn’t he finished his worship yet—these duties of his?” “My brother places a large basin under the bathroom faucet, whips up soap suds, and scrubs his hands with a sponge dozens of times a day… That’s what he calls his ‘duties.’ When he first returned, he’d flood the bathroom doing laundry from dawn till dusk.” “He even drags out perfectly clean handkerchiefs and scrubs them until the fabric thins… That composure has settled somewhat, but the hand washing… well, that persists unabated.”

The fact that washing one’s hands multiple times a day, bathing excessively, or doing laundry compulsively stems from a sense of guilt—an unconscious desire to cleanse oneself of sin’s defilement—is something anyone who has read popular books on psychoanalysis would know. “It’s not normal.” “Is there anything else strange?” “But he finds everything filthy.” “The other day when Tsuneko barely touched his foot, he shot up and went to wash it in the bathroom… And on the day he returned home, he stripped off every stitch of clothing right there in the garden—stood there stark naked—and made the maid spray him down with a watering hose for a full hour. He even doused things like his notebook with kerosene and burned them… Only after all that did he finally go inside.”

Bowing his head and stroking his cheek, he was lost in thought when— “Please come here for a moment.”

With that, she led the visitor up the broad staircase beside the entrance and into Hanayo’s bedroom.

“Please take a look under the bed.” Peering inside, he found Bourbon whiskey, Gilbey’s gin, and Suntory empty bottles crammed in haphazardly—enough to make one marvel at how much had been consumed. “He does these things without showing any sign to us.” “In the mornings, he seems to be struggling to mask the smell of alcohol… For generations, there hasn’t been a single drinker in the Yamakawa household—if Mother or my sisters found out, they’d be devastated… Please don’t tell anyone I showed you this.” “If they found out I showed you the Yamakawas’ inner workings, it would be disastrous… Shall we go downstairs? It should be around the time his duties end.”

When they returned to the veranda, Yamakawa entered with an air of nonchalance. He turned toward the window—now bringing his hand to his nose to sniff it, now picking at his cuticles—but when his sister rose to leave,

“What was that all about today?”

He fixed him with a probing gaze.

“Earlier, you went up to my bedroom with Keiko, didn’t you… No need to make that face… I’ll confess this only to you—in the military, I developed severe dipsomania.” “What’s that?” “Maybe I’ve gone mad from drink.” “It’s a grade above regular alcoholism.” “When the craving hits, I can’t think of anything but alcohol.” “My heart pounds until my vision goes dark.” “It’s unbearable.”

“Corruption in the military happens everywhere, I suppose.” “There’s men like Tanaka who came back saddled with syphilis and turned senile overnight.” “That’s manageable.” “Your newfound alcohol tolerance might even count as progress… Fine enough—but this business of washing your hands nonstop, muttering ‘filthy’?” “That’s far more suspicious!”

“Washing hands is a good habit.” “Did Keiko say that?” “She’s such a fool.”

"But when you hear he had all the garden flowers uprooted, anyone would be taken aback." "Why not have Dr. Hashimoto in psychiatry examine you?" "He does analysis too—he’ll find what shocked you."

“I don’t know if it’s shock or something else, but letting others rummage through my mind—I absolutely refuse that.”

“War neurosis can be surprisingly terrifying, I tell you. If you feel something’s wrong, you’d better get treatment soon.” “There’s nothing strange about it. In the South—kayu mela trees, flame trees—those poisonous-looking red flowers bloomed everywhere. But after coming home, whenever I saw red flowers in the garden, those awful Southern images would flood my mind… It became unbearable. If I’d mentioned anything about the red color, Mother and my sisters would’ve worried themselves sick—so I made up some flimsy excuse about flower gardens being vulgar… But they didn’t have to go that far,” he said, sounding like he was making excuses.

He was making his account unnecessarily convoluted—but unfortunately for him, those around him weren’t naive enough to be taken in by such transparent ploys. Yamakawa clearly harbored some private torment he wished to keep hidden from others—yet by preemptively making unnecessary excuses, his contradictory statements only ended up fueling their suspicions instead. He wasn’t unintelligent—a man who’d once had clear direction in life—and this very inability to form coherent arguments could only be explained by mental deterioration.

“New leaves clamor as they envelop the great temple”—was that one of Shiki’s haiku? “When you live somewhere like Karuizawa, surrounded by fresh greenery for half a month, you develop this unbearable craving to see red.” “Letting the leaves rage on like this—how can people remain so calm?”

Yamakawa gazed at the uneven patches of fresh greenery in the garden, but upon leaning his head against the chair back and closing his eyes, he began grinding his fingertips against his eyelids.

“A garden without flowers is indeed exhausting… Tsumura has been pushing to sell off the garden trees to cover the property tax shortfall, but I’ve been weighing what to do about it.”

“Is Tsumura Utarō’s father?” “That’s right… The Tsumura household must have some fine pieces, but facing the old man weighs on me… When I went to pay my demobilization respects once and mentioned Tsumura’s Sumatra days, he broke down crying—it was awkward.” “That’s not something to be happy about.” “You, the soldier, survived and came back, while the son who went as a civil administrator ended up dead.” Tsumura Utarō had been with Sudō, Yamakawa, and others from junior high through Tokyo University. While working in the High Section of the Police Bureau, he was recruited as a civil administrator and sent to Sumatra. At the war’s end, he was officially reported to have died of illness while interned in a camp. However, according to accounts from those later repatriated from Sumatra, the truth appeared to be that he hadn’t died of illness but had been executed by hanging after being implicated in a war criminal case.

“What exactly was Tsumura doing in Sumatra?” “He became chief secretary and lorded it over everyone from his marble-clad official residence… Sprawling on the sofa in his yukata, swilling that vile palm wine while proclaiming, ‘I’m the king here.’” “The Chief Administrator kept the local rulers in check, and the Chief Secretary kept the Chief Administrator in check—so I suppose that made me the King of Kings here… Such indecent grandstanding.” “That sharp-witted man had utterly gone to ruin.”

“Since he wasn’t the type to die of illness, he was executed as rumored, right?”

“I think so. The Chief Administrator there must have oppressed the natives quite severely—through their connection, Tsumura might have been targeted as well.” “Didn’t you know? I thought you knew all along.” “I heard he’d been sent to Batavia’s Cipinang Prison, but soon after my unit was transferred to New Guinea… At that time, Iwagaki was working as an interpreter for the defense team, so he might know more than I do.”

“What about Tsumura’s old man?”

“He must have heard some rumors by now—so he’s probably vaguely aware of it, don’t you think? He’s turned sullen and does nothing but drink, I hear. They say he’s selling off the garden trees—less for the property tax than to prepare for moving to the countryside, it seems.”

As he was saying such things, he seemed to make up his mind and laboriously rose from the chair.

“Just to look... Maybe I should take a look. How about it? It’s right nearby—why don’t you come along?” Taking the gardener along, the three of them went to Tsumura’s nearby annex. An elegant old man who resembled the patriarch of a long-established downtown merchant house emerged from a sukiya-style cottage with sagging eaves, dressed in a wrapped sash and white tabi socks.

“Mr. Yamakawa, was it? … We have nothing of real worth, but please do take a look.” Stepping on the stepping stones laid out along the garden path, tying palm-fiber ropes around the marked trees they meant to purchase, they proceeded toward the property boundary where—within an iron-barred cage against the fence—sat a two-year-old orangutan child. Dried mud and straw scraps clung to its entire body as it listlessly perched with one knee drawn up.

Yamakawa stopped in his tracks and glanced briefly—perhaps recalling how he’d killed and eaten monkeys in the jungle—his face twisting into a disgusted expression obvious even to onlookers, yet with his usual timidity,

“There’s an orangutan here.”

he said something to draw the other’s attention.

“Orangutans and gorillas had never been in Japanese zoos.”

“It was apparently scheduled to return to the mainland about three months before the war’s end, and they supposedly sent it ahead on a fuel depot ship intending to present it to Mr. Tojo.” “When I went to the fuel depot after being told to collect some cargo, even I was startled when this creature emerged.” The orangutan child stood up while scratching its chest, gripped the iron bars and stared intently at Yamakawa, then extended its long-haired arm and placed a hand on his shoulder as if seeking favor.

Tsumura seemed taken aback. “Oh! It appears this creature recognizes you, Mr. Yamakawa.” he said cheerfully. Yamakawa forced a wry smile, “When I thought it resembled one Tsumura kept in Sumatra... well now we know.” he muttered by way of explanation. The orangutan child—perhaps seeking Yamakawa’s attention—had been shrieking and rattling its cage until suddenly wrapping rope scraps around its neck. It flared its peony-red mouth trumpet-wide and emitted a guttural “Kuuu!”

“I wonder what’s gotten into it.” “Usually, it doesn’t do things like this.”

“When we were in Sumatra, it would mimic Tsumura—quite the amusing creature.” “Though it does act up at times, so caring for it must be rather burdensome.” “Until this spring, I was wholly occupied tending to my youngest child, but since its passing, I simply can’t manage…” “And truthfully, I’ve no skill for handling such creatures—the burden wears me down.” “What if you sent it to Ueno?”

“When I considered sending it to Ueno, but due to inadequate facilities, I was hoping you could keep it there a while longer… That’s how it is…”

He looked utterly at his wit’s end. Yamakawa was thinking something, but— “Shall I look after it while we send it to Ueno?” “Since it seems to have grown accustomed to me.”

“If only that could be arranged.” Almost as soon as they were about to leave, the young gardener came dragging in the orangutan’s cage on a handcart as if chasing after them.

“My, this was rather prompt.” After taking the orangutan child out of its cage and bringing it to the second-floor living room, Yamakawa had the maid bring dried apricots.

“Since I owe a great debt to this orangutan, I’ll take care of it for a while as atonement.” The orangutan child sat on the windowsill, scratching its head and fidgeting restlessly while gazing longingly at the plate of dried apricots, then wrapped the nearby curtain cord around its neck and leaped up with a nimble, dancing motion. “What a creepy creature.” “What on earth is it mimicking now?”

“Where Tsumura was stationed—a sweltering wasteland whose sole merit lay in its oozing petroleum—there was nothing to do but guzzle liquor and nap through the afternoons. So he’d fly into fits—drawing his sword to chase maids about, hurling soup plates… pure madness.” He thrust a finger toward the ape. “And this creature grew just as feral over time—lunging at servants, looping ropes around necks to drag people down… unleashing chaos however it pleased.” “That’s it aping Jongos’ panic when they wrung his neck.”

As he said this, he glared irritably at the orangutan.

“In the past, it would stretch out those long simian arms and snatch anything in reach,” he said, jabbing a finger at the ape. “But having endured hardships, it seems convinced it must perform tricks to earn its keep.” “Indeed—it’s grown docile,” he added with clinical detachment. The orangutan child leaped onto the table as though concluding an act, perching with one knee cocked upward. It plucked a dried apricot and offered it to Yamakawa before taking another for itself—meticulously dusting invisible debris from the fruit—then began eating with the measured composure of a veteran performer.

III

Yamakawa seemed to live days as perfectly rounded as a greenhouse melon—secluded within the shell of his former domestic life, or rather, confined within himself—but around that time, there were those who claimed to have seen him walking through the charred ruins of Ochanomizu with a mixed-race-looking young girl.

One might think teaching at Gakushūin Girls' School—attending to young noblewomen—would be a pleasant occupation, but that assumption proved mistaken; few schools were as troublesome to manage. It was equally notorious for its students’ disrespect toward teachers—girls would conduct brazen background checks, declaring *Teacher So-and-so* had been a retainer to Count So-and-so* or *Teacher Such-and-such* once served as a page to Marquis Such-and-such—while the instructors could only bow in meek acknowledgment, unable to issue reprimands. As for the parents, they too would make bold pronouncements before servants and children—claiming the current dean was an upstart minor aristocrat or a relic of the old nobility who’d scarcely risen from baron to viscount—thereby inciting their offspring. The prewar girls’ division students generally maintained a veneer of composed elegance while being spiteful and jealous beneath, yet were also alarmingly precocious—boldly brushing against young teachers in corridors as they passed by.

Yamakawa had been as translucent as a silkworm until around age five; in his boyhood, his face took on the faded pallor of an albino, but by the time he graduated university, he had transformed into a Narcissus-like effeminate gentle man. When Yamakawa was assigned as the English teacher for the girls’ division, the female students took an instant dislike to his feminine name, Hanayo, and immediately began bullying him en masse. However, his extremely timid and fragile demeanor—with long, dewy eyelashes casting shadows over his eyes in a sentimental fashion—evoked sympathy and protective instincts, so far from tormenting him, they began fussing over him excessively, cooing “you poor thing.”

Yamakawa's aversion to social interaction, his scrupulousness, and his wariness toward others were partly a reflection of his family's temperament, but in truth, nothing vexed him more than the conflicts born from the girls' excessive exuberance—for above all else, he dreaded the eruption of disputes. Yamakawa's face was the sort of guileless visage common among nervous men, leaving his emotions fully exposed. Fraternity and equality are fundamentally irreconcilable; one cannot regard fifty-odd faces with flawless impartiality. Thus during class hours, he practiced an elaborate self-preservation technique—wearing lightly tinted glasses despite perfect vision to blur his gaze ambiguously—thereby avoiding any disturbance whatsoever.

Not only war and romance—anything intense or aberrant was Yamakawa’s enemy. Even in matters of love, it was inconceivable for him to envision such a thing without the backdrop of lineage, pedigree, tranquil family life, tasteful salons, refined conversation, and decorous etiquette. That Yamakawa would roam the open ruins with some mongrel of unknown pedigree—a mixed-race girl—was utterly impossible. Upon hearing it, they would lightly laugh it off, but before long, Suda began claiming he had seen such a pair on the platform of Tsuchiura Station along the Joban Line. And not just casually—the girl had thrown both arms around Yamakawa’s neck, whispered something as though on the verge of collapse, caressed his cheek, kissed him—a scene so entwined with what one might call macabre allure or tragic beauty that it felt unbearable to witness directly, or so it was said.

“I hear there’s a dormitory in Tsuchiura—called something-or-other—where dozens of Indonesian and Dutch-descended girls who pursued Japanese men from Java and Sumatra live together. She might be one of that group.” “If that’s true, then Yamakawa’s life story has gained quite the prestige.” Suda took on an angry demeanor, “He puts on an honest face, but that Yamakawa guy might be a hypocrite. The other day, he came to my lab spouting some plausible-sounding pretext to mock me… Asked if I knew of other cases where orangutans show such ‘excellent responses to Japanese’—since Yamakawa’s pet orangutan child supposedly does—while citing studies from the Soviet Sukhumi Institute of Primate Research and Dr. Köhler’s Anthropoid Park… Their reports claim orangutans can fully comprehend two European languages.” “English and Celtic dialects… It has no aptitude for Dutch or Dayak either.” “Of course, it couldn’t possibly understand Japanese or anything like that.” “That’s why I told him—it’s not that the orangutan understands Japanese, but as retribution for eating apes, you’ve become able to speak their language instead. Isn’t that it?” “If that’s true, it’s a bit of a scary story… That Yamakawa guy went home sullen-faced, but anyway, it’s a bit strange.” “Yamakawa certainly has a shadow about him.” “His true self was trying to speak out, but Yamakawa was holding it back.” “I could sense that struggle... As for that orangutan story from the demobilization party—that’s all a fabrication, I tell you.” “There are absolutely no orangutans in New Guinea.” “If there were such things as durians, I’d have come across them by now.” “Even a grade schooler knows this much.” “If you intend to mock us, I can understand that—but even so, why bother telling such a pointless lie?” “I kept quiet, but that night, I wasn’t feeling too cheerful myself.”

When considering things like his hand-washing and preoccupation with the color red, one couldn’t help but imagine certain possibilities. Whatever secrets Yamakawa might have had, they were entirely his own affair—he bore no obligation to confess them—but why he would speak of such superfluous things as killing a nonexistent ape or bloodstained hands remained beyond comprehension.

When Suda left, Iwagaki Nankō arrived.

Around the same time as Izawa, he had been a clerk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in London, but inspired by Makino Yoshio, he threw himself into painting, abandoned his diplomatic career, and joined the ranks of impoverished artists in Paris. On his return voyage to Japan, captivated by the southern landscapes of Singapore and Haiphong, he drifted carefree for nearly twenty years—beginning in Malaya, then Java, Sumatra, and the Philippines—selling his paintings at Japanese-operated rubber plantations and sisal farms. He was known as a principled man of justice who had cared for war criminals and repatriated compatriots in Singapore at war’s end, but having been persuaded, he now prepared a solo exhibition of his Southern paintings and seemed perpetually busy.

“Has the venue been settled?”

“I’ve finally squeezed into the Japan-France Gallery’s schedule, but now I’ve gone and gotten cold feet.” “When are you holding it?”

“At best, early February... So I came here today with a small request. De Vigo was a wealthy man who ran a large sugar factory on Negros Island in the Philippines—his eldest daughter Lina followed Yamakawa here and is now in Tokyo.” “I’d discussed this with Suda too—we’d heard rumors of such a person existing.” “So the rumors were true.” “Though Yamakawa was just a battalion adjutant, he carried himself like a leader of the pro-Philippines faction. That’s why intellectuals and upper-class families welcomed him. He frequented the De Vigo residence alongside Tsumura Utarō—the one called Mariposa—and they treated him like family. But when De Vigo was suspected of commanding guerrillas on Negros Island, the military police massacred his entire extended family—over forty people—to the last soul.”

“Was that ‘Butterfly’ you had mentioned before referring to Tsumura?”

“That’s right… Yamakawa had been transferred to Nancichet on Panay Island about a month prior, but Lina followed after him to Nancichet and survived… Ever since then, she trailed along each time he was reassigned, and by the war’s end, they were cohabiting in Sumatra.” The claim that Yamakawa had been to New Guinea was a lie, so he was demobilized shortly after the war ended. Lina, believing Yamakawa’s vows of love, joined over a hundred brides from Java to reach Japan, slipped out of the Tanabe Dormitory in Kobe, and came alone to Tokyo. Yamakawa kept making vague excuses about his mother and sister and failed to fulfill his promises, so when Lina went to meet Yamakawa’s mother, she was told, “If you wish to return home, we will cover your travel expenses,” and was handed five thousand yen.

“At the current exchange rate, that comes to about eleven dollars and some change… So I don’t know where they expect her to return to, but Lina is in circumstances where she can’t go back even if she wanted. On Negros Island, they harbor irreconcilable resentment toward Japanese people in general—anyone with pro-Japanese tendencies gets shot dead regardless of who they are… Lina abandoned both her country and hometown to devote herself to Yamakawa, but this constitutes such blatant betrayal that she’d be killed if she returned. In the midst of such dire straits, autumn arrived and the cold came suddenly, so she collapsed, overcome by the unfamiliar climate. She’s now in a charity ward bed in Mitaka, but it’s a scene of misery beyond depiction.”

He slumped dejectedly.

“An acquaintance’s daughter from Java has come to the bride dormitory in Tsuchiura.” “Our connection was just an introduction, but I couldn’t ignore it. When I confronted Yamakawa, he admitted they’d lived together but said there’d been no promise of permanence.” “Since boredom’s always possible, he can’t guarantee the future—a grand reply about having stated this clearly from the start… And you must know Lina’s situation well enough.” “I tried reasoning that while you might accept this, dumping someone here without provisions once you’re bored is intolerable—but he just sulked back, ‘If you pity her so much, why don’t you handle it yourself?’ That ended any meaningful discussion.”

“The Yamakawa family constitution permits demanding any sacrifice from others if it serves their peace and happiness.” “They rigidly guard their way of life and reject everything beyond it.” “When cornered, they’ll even haul out maxims and never budge an inch.” “Their laws are incomprehensible and self-serving—not something someone like you can challenge.” “Going there is what’s childish.”

As she kept saying such things, he grew increasingly angry until he could no longer taste his cigarette.

Four

From Mitaka Station, he followed the embankment. A swift river raced between banks thick with a mixed forest. The large trees on the embankment were chestnut and cherry, some still retaining their leaves. Except for the bamboo grass and pines, all had turned autumn colors; the harmonies of red, yellow, and crimson, reflected in the ever-shifting water patterns, were beautiful.

When he entered the entrance to a long, horizontal building buried in withered susuki grass, a corridor stretched leftward, and at its farthest end there was a girl called Lina.

Seated on a canvas bed spread with a thin cotton futon, she had been facing the window and occupied with something when the sound of the door opening made her rise to her full, slender height. Her profile caught the faint afternoon light of early winter streaming through the window, her large blue eyes fixed in their direction. But seeming short of breath, she propped herself up with delicate hands on the windowsill and gradually lowered herself back down. Her age was indeterminate—still retaining a childlike quality, with a tenderness akin to a fragile flower in fleeting bloom—and she left an impression of pristine clarity, as though one were gazing upon a finely etched line drawing or a delicate sketch.

Like someone perpetually unlucky who expects misfortune at the slightest change, she had seemed uneasy about the unfamiliar man accompanying Iwagaki—but once he finished the introductions, she grew strikingly animated,

“I’m glad to have become acquainted with you.” She greeted them in Latin-accented English with resonant vowels, gasping for breath as she repeated her gratitude for their coming all this way. “Lina, today’s visit is to hear your demands and make Yamakawa crack—you’d better spill every thought you’ve got.” “We’ll have you moved to a proper hospital soon enough, but first—do you need anything right now?”

The girl named Lina lowered her eyes and,

“There is nothing I am lacking,” she said in a threadlike voice. Her tone had sounded so mournful that one might have thought she was weeping—yet what floated across her angelic face was nothing but a guileless, natural expression. “That’s the problem,” he said. “Even if you call it a common-law relationship, as his de facto wife you shouldn’t accept such treatment. Normally dragging this to family court would be the quickest solution, but I’m holding off on that.”

“But I no longer resent Mr. Yamakawa.”

“If you say such things, we won’t be able to do anything for you.”

“The other day, I received a letter from Mr. Yamakawa and came to understand.” “That Mr. Yamakawa had loved me, that he had made a promise of marriage—those weren’t lies at the time… In other words, he felt obligated as a Japanese person to console the surviving family members who had suffered such things at the hands of the Japanese as best he could, but now, that burden has become far too heavy for him to bear.”

“What do you mean by ‘heavy’ and ‘light’?”

“If you were to marry me, every time you stand, sit, or move about, you’d be unable to stop remembering what the Japanese did in the Philippines… When I think that this would continue until one of us dies, just imagining it makes me feel unbearable.” “Mr. Yamakawa broke his promise not because his love had vanished or his heart grown cold, but because he feared our home would become such a dark place.”

“That’s been clear from the start.” “Calling attention to it now amounts to nothing but pretext.”

“Not only Mr. Yamakawa, but I too have come to think that way.” “I naively believed that as long as our love remained unchanged, we could simply step over those memories… but it seems I was wrong…… If we were to regret marrying each other or blame one another once the heat of passion cooled and we became calm… if we’d always have to see each other’s faces through those inerasable memories wedged between us……”

“So Yamakawa told you that himself, did he?”

“Moreover, I once testified at the Sumatra war crimes trial and helped establish the guilt of the Japanese.” “I had forgotten that… No matter what happens, Mr. Yamakawa and I cannot marry under any circumstances.” “It’s sad, but there’s nothing left but resignation.” “Lina, you were accusing Tsumura—the one they called ‘Butterfly’…”

Lina kept her eyes downcast and did not answer that.

He understood perfectly well what she had intended to say. Struck by the truthfulness of her words, he listened with respect and sympathy, but the girl named Lina, blinded by love, seemed to have constructed an entirely different image of Yamakawa. The Yamakawa we knew bore no resemblance to this; he lost all vigor and became utterly listless.

“This has become rather disjointed.”

“But even so, I can’t just leave it be.” “That’s going too far.” “I’m heading to Yamakawa’s place now.”

With that, he parted ways with Iwagaki in Shinjuku.

When he arrived at the Yamakawa residence near dusk, a black shadow flickered within the thick foliage of the pagoda tree by the entrance. Thinking that perhaps a child had climbed up, he found instead that same orangutan perched on a horizontal branch, gazing at the fluttering dead leaves with a face like a Greek sage.

As he waited in the parlor, a forty-five-year-old spinster appeared in an odd imitation of Her Majesty the Empress's court attire. “Hanayo has been holed up for about three days now with a slight cold…… He won’t let anyone near him except Keiko." “If you have business, I shall attend to it.” “What is it?”

“About a girl named Lina…”

“That girl… let me see… she came to our house twice or so.” “Not exactly dark-skinned, but with this soot-like tinge—had she possessed any charm it might have worked, but no, just a girl as plain as a withered field chrysanthemum… And what they called affection was downright peculiar… Merely brushing Hanayo’s hand would send her into convulsions—eyes rolling white, body trembling—this grotesque hypersensitivity… I nearly thought her deranged.” “Once she came—which would have been tolerable—but without uttering a word, she simply burst into tears. I found her impossible to manage and was thoroughly exasperated.” “So how do you come to know of these matters?”

“Today, Iwagaki Nankō invited me to see the autumn leaves, then ambushed me by introducing that person… It was a terrible situation.”

“It might not be my place to say, but you’ve brought this upon yourself.” “Lack of planning… Fanciful girls usually end up like that.” “I hear that during the postwar chaos, Hanayo received some assistance locally, but even so, for her to chase him all the way to Japan is utterly absurd.” “Love is inherently irrational, but from what I’ve heard, since Mr. Yamakawa made a promise and took her away, I suppose she was simply too innocent.”

Tsuneko stared intently with a cold smile, but—

“You’re hopeless. You don’t understand Hanayo at all… Not all truths necessarily move people, nor does innocence always touch others. Depending on the person, there are cases where one must not treat them with honesty—mixing lies into one’s words can even demonstrate virtue. If necessary, Hanayo would make a hundred promises and break them all… At the girls’ school, he handled over one hundred and fifty difficult individuals—inflaming passions here, cooling tempers there—with complete mastery. A single woman could never make him lose emotional coherence. If someone were to suggest he’d done something with such an out-of-place girl, Hanayo would feel terribly wronged. It was a failure not to have foreseen she’d press so relentlessly—but once he realized this, he apparently resolved matters swiftly… What did that girl say again? I already told you she doesn’t resent Hanayo anymore, didn’t I?”

“She said that.” “So she was deftly managed by Mr. Yamakawa, I take it?” “I’d neglected to inquire about your purpose… What brings you here?”

“...With meddlers like Iwagaki around, and journalists digging into things—it’d be troublesome if our name got mentioned—so I thought it might be better to transfer her to a somewhat better hospital... Though I know it seems intrusive.”

“That’s very kind of you to go out of your way… but there’s no need for such trouble.” “It will resolve itself naturally if left alone.” “The doctor says she likely won’t survive this winter.” “Didn’t you hear?”

“I see, that does make sense.” “Time is the greatest mediator… The people of old sure had a way with words.” “I don’t wish for that outcome, but if she is to die, there’s nothing to be done.” “God is summoning her.”

From upstairs came what sounded like rustling commotion, but soon it transformed into rough, scuffling noises as of bodies grappling. “What could that be?” While Tsuneko listened with a puzzled expression, the clamor reached a fever pitch—stampeding footsteps now mingled with the shrieks of the ape.

From the door leading to the inner room emerged Keiko and Yamakawa’s mother in her nightclothes.

“I’m sorry for this unseemly attire… Tsuneko—what’s all that commotion about?”

“Who knows?” “Now, don’t just stand there talking—go and see… Keiko, you shouldn’t be standing there either.” Muffled gunshots rang out chaotically—six shots in total. “Is Mr. Yamakawa the only one upstairs?”

“No, there’s the orangutan.”

In a voice that seemed to see through everything, Keiko answered. No sooner had the stairs thundered with footsteps than Yamakawa entered the parlor—eyes unfocused, gaze feverish as if delirious. "What happened?"

“The orangutan started doing something strange. I had to dispose of it because it was dangerous… You don’t find orangutans that talkative.”

With a gloomy face, he muttered, then sank into the sofa and clasped his head in both hands. Tsuneko stomped over to Hanayo’s side and,

“Exposing family secrets before others… Why must you persist in this manner?”

she scolded him with an ashen face. “Tsune-san, saying that now…” “Mother, you stay quiet. “In the Yamakawa household, there should be no Judas.”

Having said that, she came over here.

“Today, we are occupied, so I must ask you to take your leave… Perhaps another time.”

With her customary polite insolence and an insincere social smile, she began driving him out.

V

Around 8:00 AM on February 5th, Yamakawa met an accidental death after being thrown from the national railway at the so-called "devil's curve" between Shinjuku and Shin-Okubo. After falling onto the roadbed, he was apparently struck by the wheels and flung beneath the embankment, where he lay dead in a drainage ditch in Hyakunincho, Okubo.

In objective terms, it was an accidental death—but in truth, a planned suicide disguised as an accident. The letter stated that he had researched the location and conditions on-site for a considerable length of time. The reason he chose such a maddeningly indirect method for his suicide was that he believed it to be the best option, with no other contrivance involved. When considering the various circumstances and predispositions that had hounded Yamakawa to that extent, it could be understood that for Yamakawa, there had been no other way to act but to do so.

Because he was going to Kirigaya Crematorium, he left home early but took the opportunity to stop by the Nichifutsu Gallery to see Iwagaki’s paintings. Despite the sunny weather, it was a morning that felt somehow gloomy. When he entered the gallery, sweat broke out across his skin. The walls held nothing but sluggish paintings devoid of wit that seemed to mirror Iwagaki’s amiable face. As he angled his body to hurry past them, a shock of vivid color suddenly seized his gaze from a dim wall distant from the windows—a surface where shadows pooled like stagnant water.

At the center of a gray canvas uniformly painted, a voluminous blood-red hue—like cut and pasted scarlet velvet—swelled in an indefinable shape. At first glance, it seemed like a flower—but no, it was a painting of a single butterfly flying diagonally.

The painting’s title was “Mariposa Roja (Red Butterfly)”… What was its scientific name? It resembled a lycaenid butterfly but was distinct. From head to wingtip, over solid crimson, white delicate arabesque patterns adorned it—an unprecedented and peculiar sight. At the swell of its back, the blood-red hue deepened intensely, its dense scales conveying thickness as they shaded into the lower wings with an inexpressible nuance. The serrated edges displayed what might be imagined as this world’s most intricate lacework of arabesque tracery, melting dreamlike into the blanc de zinc background.

The final letter Yamakawa left was long-winded and exceedingly troublesome, yet such confessions rarely manage—without succumbing to sentimentality—to be spoken with such candor or maintain a pious attitude resolutely until the end. Yamakawa was called a disagreeable man, but one felt a kind of bewilderment—might there not have been a profound soul brimming within the depths of his nature?

The Yamakawa family too belonged to the lineage of prestigious houses—the Beisaku, Hata, and Fujiike clans—who, through marital strategies, had forged a vast network of alliances across academic and financial circles.

The Yamakawa household married off their female members to social workers and educators, adopting a method of establishing marital alliances in those fields. Through mutual aid among these marital alliances, cultivating influence in educational circles became the Yamakawa household's supreme directive—every child born into the family, and even maternal second cousins sent off in marriage, became indispensable personnel for advancing this policy. Yamakawa's conscription order struck like thunder from clear skies; they exhausted every measure campaigning for its revocation. But as the war entered its final defeat phase with the National Mobilization Law enacted, they realized even the Chief of Staff's influence couldn't falsify records unless he developed a disqualifying illness as a reserve second lieutenant. Centered around Colonel Kihara—military affairs undersecretary and husband of younger sister Asako—they convened a family council,

“It’s fine if all the men of Japan die, but Hanayo must not.” “You must absolutely guarantee that he won’t be killed.” Yamakawa’s mother said this to Kihara. Positions offering both freedom and prestige—like staff adjutant or headquarters attaché—came with stringent service regulations and unpredictable deployments to unfavorable fronts. Even considering food supplies alone, mainland postings held little appeal. For intelligence officers in resource-rich occupied territories, they could keep their hair long, eschew uniforms, and bear vague titles like “adjutant-level” while enjoying hotel luxuries free from disciplinary oversight—provided they desired it.

With the annihilation of the invincible navy at Midway halting Operation M and a twilight hue settling over all military operations, the perceptive upper classes in occupied territories had swiftly discerned Japan’s doomed fate. In Negros Island, alcohol tanks were blown up; in Panay Island, Ishihara Industries employees were killed. While island mobs served as the visible perpetrators, it was understood that Manila’s intellectual elite commanded the guerrilla forces. These objective circumstances created demand for intelligent special operatives who could infiltrate closed social circles—personnel beyond the reach of crude military police corporals and brute-force faction squad leaders.

After thorough deliberation, he accepted the conscription—evidently there had been prior notice—and upon enlistment was immediately selected as a Category C student, undergoing a short-term special training program focused on personal intelligence, primarily in occupation zone administration studies and covert operations. In the Philippine Islands region, Yamakawa’s life consisted of residing in first-class hotels or flats; dressing in white linen suits and Tagalog camisas; moving with deliberate steps through salons and bars frequented by elites and intellectuals; modestly lowering his gaze while offering a polished smile; delivering witty jabs at the military’s ignorance; murmuring things like “The Japanese lack imagination—they cannot govern other nations”; all while cultivating the impression of an intellectual democrat or a noble scion opposed to the military clique—then, upon detecting subtle shadows in his interlocutors’ reactions, he would hand over intelligence to the Kempeitai and promptly transfer to another district… Such was the pattern of his conduct.

Yamakawa felt perplexed by how the materials he had gathered were being processed through extreme methods he had never wished for—but as this aligned with the accelerating pace of defeat, [the methods] grew increasingly cruel, the amount of blood spilled became boundless, and the occupation zone administration in the Philippine Islands had taken on a bleak visage. Even if he had thought he didn’t want to die in the war, he had never wished to seek his own safety and comfortable life amidst others’ calamity and ruin—but due to the organizational structure of special duty, one could neither withdraw nor quit simply because they had grown weary of it. When he realized there was nothing to do but carry on as long as the war continued, the magnitude of retribution for his cowardice left him newly appalled.

"From the very moment I was appointed as a special duty officer, my desires fulfilled, and it was decided I would not have to die in the war, my spirit began its irreversible collapse. If I could have foreseen the baseness of this work—if I had known my peace would be so shattered, tormented day and night by blood-drenched visions—I would never have chosen such an ill-suited mission. Around that time, I happened upon Vildrac’s poem… Had I known it would come to this, I should have been the first to fall in battle’s opening salvo… It struck me deeply during those days of unendurable regret. Yet despite it all—because I so desperately clung to life—I had no choice but to persist in that sordid work."

When the war ended, Tsumura—having played a role in guerrilla suppression massacres in Sumatra and further exposed as an operator of atrocities in the Philippines—was sent to Batavia and hanged. Yamakawa, however, had just before the war’s end secured a position as a senior employee of Ishihara Industries, transferred from the Philippine region to Dutch-controlled Sumatra under the pretext of bringing Lina as his secretary, and settled into Medan’s Nambo Club. By concealing his background, he managed to evade pursuit as a war criminal. In the course of the Manila Philippines War Crimes Trial, Yamakawa’s name surfaced repeatedly. However, he was perceived by the Philippine intellectual class as one of the mild-mannered, pro-Philippines Japanese, and with a multitude of witnesses testifying that he had not been present at the scene of any incident, he ultimately avoided becoming an issue.

In November following the war’s end, Yamakawa was demobilized via the earliest Liberty ship and lived leisurely at Kanazawa’s Hakunsou Hotel while closely monitoring the progress of the Philippines War Crimes Trial until the spring of 1948; when it concluded in May, he returned to his home in Meguro. During his stay at Hakunsou Hotel, there had been constant communication with the Yamakawa household, so there was absolutely no occurrence of his sister Tsuneko ever saying to Mrs. Izawa things like “Oh!” and clinging to a pillar while remaining motionless.

All incidents had become things of the past; the truth of the Philippine atrocities should have been forgotten along with war memories—yet images clung to every flower and blade of grass, an irksome weight that defied shaking off. The debility proved more severe than I’d imagined, reality itself assuming a phantasmal guise—I found myself tormented by baseless despair, this conviction that I existed severed from society’s people and things, undeserving of human connection.

"I know the logical reasoning that the best way to conceal one's thoughts is not to think of them—but there's no task more arduous than forgetting or refraining from thought." "No matter what I see, it immediately reminds me, and I inevitably become lost in contemplation." What ceaselessly tormented Yamakawa's psyche was the brutally simplistic notion that exposure would mean hanging—and as everything returned to peace and society grew more stable, his terror swelled beyond all measure.

He had labored to reconcile six years’ worth of actions, convinced that no trivial matter could become the spark of exposure and that he had forged an impregnable fortress impervious to any scrutiny—yet at a demobilization celebration, someone had declared, "Your face is that of a man who has dined well and lived in comfort." Despite having been confident it was foolproof, the realization that such a glaring oversight had slipped through left him bereft of all faith in his own mind.

Lina's coming to Japan had been disastrous enough, but the encounter with Tsumura's ape—precisely because it was unforeseen—shook Yamakawa to his core. Had he calmly considered it, such a coincidence might have seemed possible—yet to Yamakawa, it could only be perceived as some will intent on condemning his sins, leaving him utterly flustered. The first thing that flashed through my mind was that eventually, this ape would denounce me. I don’t know why such a thought occurred to me. In that sense, Lina was the more dangerous one—yet that possibility had never even crossed my mind. Afterward, I calmed down somewhat, but due to the impact I had received at that time, I ultimately could not escape it until the very end.

Taking in the orangutan from Tsumura’s father and confining it to the bedroom had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, but ever since, he had become tormented by its chattering. What appeared to others as mere ordinary simian behavior manifested to Yamakawa as words conveying clear meaning; when inebriated to the brink of stupor, Tsumura’s voice would demand, “Hey, pour more, pour more!”

When he startled awake, the orangutan was scratching the back of its neck with a hind leg, its face the picture of innocence. Dismissing it as his imagination, when he dozed off, it was Tsumura’s habit to sneer in a nasal tone—"Hmph." This continued for several days until he could bear it no longer, so he went to Suda’s place to inquire, but was evaded and returned home. He killed the orangutan because he could no longer endure the irrational mental oppression.

At the beginning of January, Lina died.

The Yamakawa family’s treatment of Lina was not as cruel as it appeared; in truth, they secretly sent her just enough each month to prevent hardship, binding her through their supposed kindness. When she died, Tsuneko went to settle matters discreetly enough to avoid future trouble, relieved to have rid them of this burden—but Yamakawa, who had found some solace in sharing his secret with another, now felt crushed by loneliness, the path to exposure sealed now that Lina was dead.

Yamakawa became increasingly unmoored by his desperate wish to be freed from oppression, and whenever he encountered MPs in town, he would be seized by the impulse to approach them with a “Excuse me, I…,” only to break into a greasy sweat as he fought to suppress it. One night at the end of January, when Yamakawa told his mother and Tsuneko that he intended to turn himself in because it was utterly unbearable, the two were aghast, exclaiming that if he did such a thing, not only would Keiko’s pending marriage arrangement collapse, but all the social credibility Yamakawa had painstakingly built up to this day, their ties to the Moromiya family—everything would be ruined. “No matter how painful it may be, we will not permit such Judas-like acts.” “I beg you, please don’t do that.” Even his younger sister Asako, who had become a war widow, came rushing in and, with tears, joined in dissuading him—the situation reached a dramatic climax. When he stubbornly insisted that he would simply die—“In Christianity’s eyes, suicide is the gravest sin”— they said that doing such a thing would be tantamount to extinguishing Yamakawa’s life of faith.

To preserve the Yamakawa family’s honor and thereby avoid the public suspicion and societal criticism that would arise, they must have arrived at the conclusion that there was no alternative but to stage an accidental death. Was this line of thinking to be called profound or shallow? In short, Yamakawa’s life—including himself—was the history of a man too timid, overly considerate in every direction.

Was this blurred ashen-gray portion of the canvas sky or water? Was the butterfly flying or being carried by some current? A solitary butterfly with wings colored in blood-red and bone-white hung perilously within a desolate void. Though Yamakawa's letter had remained silent on it, through various circumstances it had already become evident that Mariposa was not Tsumura but Yamakawa himself. The butterfly in this painting appeared to satirize the entirety of Yamakawa's existence.

The road to Kirigaya stretched interminably, melancholy and evocative of mournful reflections. In the waiting room, those connected to the Yamakawa lineage—university presidents, doctors, their wives, clever faces and shrewd countenances—wore religious guises as they waited in hushed solemnity. After some two hours, Yamakawa’s lanky frame returned to them transformed into a scant accumulation of bones, still searing with heat. His remains displayed the austere elegance of Utrillo’s whitewashed walls—a blend of white, pale gray, and the brown of teinte de naturelle autumn leaves—resting upon an iron plate with refined poise as though ready to scatter at a breath of wind. When the attendant began sweeping them toward the center with a small broom, Yamakawa rose like butterfly scales in weightless flutter, meticulously apportioning himself as mementos into each person’s nostrils.