Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

Kitagawa Chiyo was an inmate serving time at Tochigi Prison; her charges were injury resulting in death, with a six-year sentence finalized in March of the 28th year. She was transferred from Kosuge Tokyo Detention House to Tochigi Prison and gave birth to a baby girl within the facility that July.

The prison register lists Kitagawa Chiyo, but since the woman under that name died on Mount Mikumayama in Awaji Island in September of the 27th year, she naturally cannot be the actual person.
The one serving time under the name Kitagawa Chiyo was Masayama Asahi—a separate individual—but due to complicated circumstances, she apparently could not sufficiently prove to the authorities either that she was Masayama Asahi or that she was not Kitagawa Chiyo in a way that would satisfy them.

There existed a merciless legend that a certain percentage of infants—whether those carried into prison by female inmates or those born within its walls—would, like birds returning to their nests, eventually commit crimes and find their way back to their mothers’ place of hard labor; in the era of the old penal code, such unfortunate souls were called “homecomers.”

Masayama Asahi gave birth to a girl within the prison, though she herself had first drawn breath twenty-five years earlier in Tochigi Prison's delivery room. The "Asahi" in Masayama Asahi's name came from the prison's location at 19 Asahi-cho, Tochigi City—making her one of those very "homecomers" the legend foretold.

After her mother died shortly following childbirth—a time when no Child Welfare Law foster care system existed—Asahi had no choice but to receive institutional care. She remained at Tokyo Yoikuin's Itabashi main institution until finishing elementary school, then transferred to its affiliated workshop where she learned knitting techniques. During this period, she completed schooling equivalent to the second year of girls' school.

In the spring of her sixteenth year, Asahi left the main institution and entered “society,” but her registered mother’s criminal record followed her everywhere, forcing her to swallow bitter tears on multiple occasions. Daughters born to inmates in prison couldn’t even get hired as maidservants; even when they thought they’d successfully slipped into positions, their origins would soon come to light, leading to their expulsion through cruel means akin to being kicked out.

The world she could infiltrate would at best be as a dancer or a barmaid—and perhaps even that would prove impossible, leaving no path to survival but to plunge into some darker, narrower abyss. If that was how it had to be, then so be it—but what was she to do if she fell in love with someone and wanted to marry? Asahi peered into her bleak future and resolved to leave Tokyo—that inhospitable soil—wearing an expression as desolate as one who had glimpsed hell’s precipice mid-fall.

In the autumn of 1947, anticipating that such circumstances might arise in the future, she went to Osaka carrying a falsified disaster victim certificate obtained from another district amidst the chaos following the air raids.

Upon arriving in Osaka, she immediately plunged haphazardly into the station-front black market's shantytown, lived as a kitchen hand at a beef bowl restaurant in exchange for mere meals, and between shifts standing at the stove, hoarsened her voice hawking for customers.

She stayed at the shop for about two months, but at the end of November, amidst the bustling crowd of customers, the day’s earnings were snatched away along with the money basket.
Though innocent, fearing implication, she fled before nightfall.

Having grown somewhat familiar with Osaka’s geography, she began at a 10-yen café in Sennichimae and drifted through the southern entertainment districts—changing her name and occupation with dizzying frequency, from barmaid at a tavern to bar hostess, veneer board seller, and ticket scalper—so rapidly even she could scarcely recall the sequence.
Since she had resolved never to stay at the same establishment for more than two months, over the six years leading up to the summer of 1952, she ended up changing workplaces nearly thirty times.

Masayama Asahi’s registered domicile was Tokyo Yoikuin at 5-1014 Itabashi, Itabashi Ward, Tokyo; tracing back a little further would lead to Tochigi Women’s Prison.
So fearful was she that committing any incident might trigger a background check to her registered domicile, throughout her six years in Osaka, Asahi had scrupulously avoided even the slightest brush with petty crime.
She had convinced herself that once her mother’s inescapable old label and the circumstances of her birth were exposed, she would unquestionably be framed as having criminal tendencies, and from there, she would find herself at a dead end with no path forward.
Asahi did not know that, thanks to the new constitution, all criminal records had been erased from family registers.

In late 1951, Asahi began working under the name Suma Akemi at a cabaret-style stand bar called Yotchan on Tobita Daimon Street.
Since it was near the special entertainment district, there were nightly fights and the environment was rough, but the income was substantial. She found a room along the Nankai Railway line in Motoimamiya and worked diligently until around the following summer.
It was the first time she had stayed at the same place for over half a year, but this time the establishment collapsed.
The Madam botched some short-term market speculations and abandoned the shop, after which it became a pachinko parlor.

On a stifling night just past nine—the air thick with lingering daytime heat trapped under a post-rain calm, as if the world were being steamed in a pot—Asahi lay listless in just her chemise when Kitagawa Chiyo, who went by Ashihara Sayoko at the shop, arrived carrying a suitcase.
Though they weren’t particularly close since they worked different shifts, their shared Tokyo origins fostered a mutual intrigue—a relationship of casual curiosity. Yet at the shop, Chiyo alone knew Asahi’s real name.

“This isn’t a good moment… but could you let me stay for two or three days? I’ve just vacated my room.”

“Fine… You’re soaked through. We’ll talk later—just get undressed first.”

“Osaka summers are so depressing… Well then, I’ll get undressed.”

Chiyo stripped down to panties, stretched her legs across the tatami by the window, and lit a cigarette with a sunken expression.

“It’s not just the shop’s fault really—this sudden homesickness hit me… Ms. Masayama, how many years has it been for you in Osaka now?”

“Six years.”

“Come to think of it, six years for me too.”

“Where in Tokyo do you live?”

“Azabu’s Kasumicho… We’d lived in Fukagawa for generations, but the year I came to Osaka, my family moved to Azabu. A sixty-two-year-old blind grandmother lives there all alone in quiet solitude.”

“That must be hard.”

“When I imagine her moving to some unfamiliar uptown area like Yamate—depending on neighbors’ kindness and scraping by—it sinks in so deeply.”
“Lately, whenever I dream about Grandmother, my heart lurches.”

“Is there no one to look after her?”

“My parents, siblings, even any relatives we might’ve had—they were all completely wiped out in the Fukagawa air raids.”

“Are you in touch with her?”

“The other day, I sent a letter saying I’d be returning soon, but…”

“Then go back.”
“That would be better.”

“You say that so casually… I’ve been quietly observing you, but even you don’t seem to belong here either. Sometimes I think that ‘East is East, West is West’ must be talking about Kanto and Kansai.”
“Osaka’s so provincial—it doesn’t suit people like us…… Hey, why don’t we go back together?”

For these six years, I think it was thanks to Osaka’s easygoing breeze—which didn’t nitpick into others’ private affairs—that I could forget my oppressive family history and live as freely as anyone else.
If I return to Tokyo, there will be no hole I can slip into while bearing this label; and even if by some chance I manage to settle into some unhoped-for place, I’ll have to remain constantly on edge, wondering when the contamination of the past might seep through.
There’s no need to return to Tokyo just to endure that kind of torment.

“You’re fortunate. Someone like me—even if I went back to Tokyo, there’d be no one to say ‘welcome back’…… If merely staying alive is all there is, then any godforsaken corner of this earth would do just as well. I want you to leave me be.”

“Well then—not that I want to force you… Sorry—one more favor.”
“I have Gurikō waiting outside my apartment.”
“Could you let him stay here just tonight?”

“Why not go somewhere cool like Rokko or Wakaura instead of stewing here?”

“Guri-san says he wants to go to Takarazuka, but being alone together tonight would be troublesome.”

His oddly protruding face—resembling a malformed wooden statue—earned him the nickname Guri-san, meaning Mr. Owl-Eyes. He was Wakatsuki, a stockbroker’s son from Senriyama who had graduated from a Tokyo medical school and now interned at Kansai Medical University, yet nearly every night he slipped out of the hospital to haunt Yotchan. Unusually reticent for a Kansai native and maddeningly elusive, he nursed this peculiar habit of hauling in armfuls of books and pestering hostesses to read them.

Around the end of spring, there’s someone like you in this novel,” he said, shoving a book titled Montparnasse’s Byu-Byu at Asahi. “Oh, is that so?” she replied. “Then I’ll borrow it,” though she had no intention of reading it. She took it home only to toss it under her desk, but when a cold left her bedridden for three days, she remembered and pulled it out.

As her eyes grew heavy and she skimmed pages at random, she stumbled upon Berthe—a young prostitute—drifting into a chapel at dusk to offer prayers that barely qualified as prayers. There, it struck her. She sat up and read obsessively until Pierre—Berthe’s lover—thrashed while crying, “Help! Everyone come—a woman’s being murdered over there!” The climactic line hit with such force it left her head numb.

Though Asahi couldn’t quite grasp what it was, here lay something she had unconsciously sought for so long—something that could cleanse her heart, something that could make up for everything she lacked, something that offered both reassurance and solace.

Berthe went to the chapel,

(Dear God, those who know me as I usually am would surely laugh if they saw me here—but even so, I offer this prayer.
I may be a wretched prostitute, but I don’t think I’ve fallen as far as being a villain yet.
You will look upon me and think, “Hmm, the young Berthe Meténier is praying,” I imagine.)

She could vividly picture Berthe’s pitiable state and had reread those passages countless times until she’d memorized them, but since this was something that happened solely within her own mind’s imaginings, she never mentioned it to Wakatsuki or anyone else.

II

“We’ve been pushing back and forth like this for about a month now, but we’ve finally reached an agreement… We’ll go to Awaji Island for a picnic or something, and that’ll be the end of it.”
“Guri-san seems intent on reconciling, but once we board the ship from Tempozan Pier tomorrow morning, no matter how much he thrashes about, there’ll be no time left for him to make a move.”

Asahi herself sometimes ended up staying over at a friend’s apartment after seeing someone off or being seen off, so there was no reason to refuse.

“There’s no bedding, but if you don’t mind sleeping rough.”

“That’s fine.
“Then I’ll go call him.”

After taking out a yukata from the suitcase, Chiyo hurried downstairs, dragging her decorative sash behind her.
She didn’t seem to dislike Wakatsuki as much as she claimed.

They seemed to be arguing over something and took quite some time, but after about ten minutes, Wakatsuki followed Chiyo inside.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I suggested going to Takarazuka, but she absolutely refuses.”

“It’s fine, though I can’t offer you proper hospitality,” she replied.

A delivery person from a nearby caterer brought chilled beer.

They talked until around one in the morning, then sprawled out using cushions as pillows, but only succeeded in sweating profusely—sleep refused to come.

“If we have to stay here staring wide-eyed until morning, it’ll be unbearable.”
“Guri-san.”
“You have Bromvalerylurea, don’t you?”

Wakatsuki pulled the Boston bag closer, took out a small bottle of Bromvalerylurea, and tossed it toward Chiyo.

“Keep it to about two tablets. Take too much and you’ll be too sluggish to get up.”

“I know… Ms. Masayama, how about you?”
“It’s common stuff, but it’ll definitely make you sleep.”

“Sleeping pills?... Maybe it’s this endless heat, but I don’t think I’ve slept properly these past few days.”
“Maybe I should try them.”

For Asahi, that night was no ordinary night.
In the oppressive dream, she experienced searing intensity.
That helplessness of infinite falling moments before losing consciousness... A relentless barrage of anguish that pressed sensuality to its breaking point and shattered it completely. Yet this itself wasn’t unpleasant—there were moments when she instinctively recoiled with inexplicable awe at that ecstasy born from agony’s extremity.

Asahi’s anxiety grew sharper by degrees, her nerves tensing until they could bear no more—Ah, I’m dying now.
As she hazily thought this was her punishment for getting cocky and taking those sleeping pills, she sank into numbing sleep and dreamed.
The dream became an endless metamorphosis of carnal unions between men and women—combinations so outlandish they defied description.
Every style and form writhed while unfolding without end.
She had assumed she roughly understood such matters, but what she experienced in the dream was something far beyond Asahi’s naive imaginings in its richness.

She couldn’t tell how much time had passed.
As dawn’s haze seeped into her senses and her consciousness rose like surfacing from watery depths toward wakefulness, she began questioning whether the weight pressing her chest felt too substantial for a dream.
Her skin registered another’s body heat; her limbs lay in such involuntary positions that she found herself in an unexpected state—one she would never have consciously arranged herself into.

In her half-awake, muddled consciousness, she realized something terrible had happened; she thought she had to do something about it but didn't know how. As she drifted in this unfocused state, the sensations that had persisted until now were abruptly severed with merciless finality. She had believed this dream would continue endlessly and had surrendered greedily to its sensations, but when it was cut off so suddenly, she found herself overwhelmed by an indefinable sorrow and before she knew it let out a cry—"Ah!" At that instant her body became free, and in the still-dark room she thought she saw a shadowy figure roll away across the floor.

She had fallen into a deep sleep, and when she awoke fully, it was nearly eleven o'clock.
They must have left quite some time earlier—only Chiyo’s suitcase remained, the two nowhere to be seen.

As harsh sunlight began beating down, Asahi sat before the small vanity mirror and studied her face.
The hazy darkness’s events seemed dreamlike, but proof they were neither dream nor illusion lay in her body: something new now dwelled within, stiffening unexpectedly with each movement.
Though cataclysmic shifts had occurred in both body and mind, she couldn’t reconcile how only her face stayed pallid as yesterday’s.

“That’s what the act truly is.”

While wiping sleep grease from her face with cleansing cream, Asahi muttered vacantly.

She felt something like resentment, yet didn’t consider herself wrongfully violated.
It was simply that something destined to arrive someday had happened to come last night.
In entertainment districts where men and women mingled freely, notions like chastity or virtue had never been part of life’s fabric.
She’d been propositioned countless times before—opportunities beyond numbering.
Her body must have wanted it, but whenever she neared the brink, her reluctance stemmed from fear—the terror that if cornered, secrets she needed hidden might be dragged into light, making everything unbearable.

Chiyo had said she would return on the last ferry, but even the next day, she did not come back.
She had probably anticipated such an outcome and, since the suitcase remained, hadn’t paid much mind to her absence, assuming she’d show up eventually. But when she read the Hyogo edition of the Osaka News—an article about a man named Sueda Eitaro and a woman named Masayama Asahi who had consumed Bromvalerylurea in a lovers’ suicide at Mikumayama on Awaji Island—she jolted upright.

It appeared that Wakatsuki and Chiyo had stayed at Shishūen in Sumoto that day, left the inn the next morning saying they were going to Komoe in Kōjiya Valley, then entered the mountain pass of Mikumayama and consumed Bromvalerylurea.

The fact that Kitagawa Chiyo had used Asahi’s name in the guest register was no different from how they’d borrow money among themselves—a mutual understanding she couldn’t protest. But she never imagined that spirited Chiyo would take her own life, leaving her with a strange, hollowed-out sensation.

While anxiously reading through the Hyogo edition and fearing some complication might surface, it became clear they had provided a fake address—none of her anticipated troubles materialized. Masayama Asahi and Sueda Eitaro, remaining unidentified, were transferred as vagrant patients to Sumoto City Hall and buried in Chigusa’s unclaimed cemetery. With that, this tourist destination’s ordinary lovers’ suicide case was brought to a close.

"A woman named Masayama Asahi isn't worth mourning if she disappears," she thought. "When I consider it properly, she was such a pitiful creature though..."

In the corner of the room sat Chiyo’s suitcase.
From that night when Chiyo took out the yukata and she saw what appeared to be a family register copy and resume inside, there had been a secret wish within her to know what kind of past this woman Chiyo had.
Asahi was stroking the suitcase with her hand but, thinking she wouldn’t be able to resist looking anyway, opened the lid.

Kitagawa Chiyo… Born in Showa 5 (1930).
Legal domicile: Koto Ward.
Grandmother: Fusa.
Father: Genjiro.
Her mother Kayo was the second daughter of a man named Nagao Kiyotaro, married Genjiro in Taisho 13 (1924), and gave birth to Genichi the following year.
Father Genjiro and mother Kayo died in the war disaster of Showa 20 (1945).
The eldest son Genichi died in battle in the South during Showa 19 (1944).

The resume listed Fukagawa Daiichi Elementary School and two years in the Crafts Department at Nippon Girls' High School.
One year at Keika Dance Hall, one year at a bar called Verami in Nishi-Ginza, then Osaka... This was Kitagawa Chiyo’s history.

Asahi returned the family register copy and resume to their original place, then lay on her back using the suitcase as a pillow.
Something strange and unimaginable was beginning to unfold.
What that meant—Asahi had dimly sensed it in the depths of her heart.

"Since Masayama Asahi had entered beneath Chigusa's soil..."

Without any difficulty, she could transform into the woman called Kitagawa Chiyo; if she wanted to return to Tokyo, she could return, and she had complete freedom regarding both employment and marriage.

“If that were the case, how happy I would be.”

However, this was nothing more than the fleeting mental diversion of someone bearing an indelible stain upon their past. Asahi had toiled her way through life’s hardships, and through experience knew nothing was more foolish than a woman’s shallow wisdom or schemes. If you thought such deception could go unnoticed, that was a grave mistake. If that were the case, how happy I would be—it was nothing more than that, she told herself.

III

When Asahi returned from the bathhouse holding Fusa's hand, she quickly laid out the bedding in the back eight-tatami room.

"You must be tired... It would be best if you rest in bed for about an hour."

When she whispered this close to Fusa’s ear, the white-haired woman shifted her head and nodded deeply, murmuring, "I suppose we should."

She was an undemanding old woman who complied with every instruction—if told to do something, she’d agree with a “Hmm, that would be good,” and if assured “That would be good,” she’d accept it as such. Neither her blindness nor her deafness troubled her. She let matters follow their natural course, always maintaining good spirits with a gentle smile.

With plump, gentle features and impeccable grooming.
Her voice held depth and beauty that spoke of bygone affluence.
Both hands resting on knees, she sat compactly at the veranda's edge like some antique ceramic figurine.

At first, driven by a sense of guilt and horrified at deceiving such a kind old woman, she had felt goosebumps rise on her skin. But as days accumulated—diligent days of preparing meals, tending to sleep routines, taking her to the bathhouse and scrubbing every inch of her body—there came moments when she would momentarily forget she was an impostor, lulled into a peaceful feeling that she and Fusa were true blood relatives who had maintained this lifestyle together for years beyond count.

Fusa felt for the edge of the futon, shifted her knees without rising from her seated position, and with her hem remaining undisturbed, eased herself down onto the futon in one fluid motion.
Asahi draped a light robe over herself and placed the tobacco pouch and bamboo candy canister in their designated spot by the pillow.

“Do you need to use the toilet?”
“The tobacco and candies are right here.”
“Mmm-hmm.”

When her laugh lines smoothed into a serene expression and Asahi started to stand up quietly, Fusa murmured in a heartfelt tone, as if recalling something.

“Even now, I sometimes dream of you. Dreams of you being far away.”

“But I’m right here, aren’t I?”

She had intended to respond calmly, but her heart raced and her voice grew hoarse at the end.

“In those dreams, you’re somewhere far away—I don’t know where exactly—and I’m wondering when we’ll meet again... Then I wake up and think, ‘Oh right, Chiyo has already come home,’ and I feel so relieved. ‘Thank goodness,’ I say to myself.”

She was a carefree, generous person, but her magnanimity made it difficult to gauge what lay in her heart. She kept calling me Chiyo—Chiyo—but I couldn’t tell whether she truly believed I was Chiyo or was knowingly letting herself be deceived. If interpreted resentfully, even these current words could be understood as Fusa indirectly hinting—Chiyo is somewhere far away; I know it full well—through veiled implications.

After wandering for nearly an hour through gloomy town blocks resembling a valley floor wedged between Aoyama and Azabu's elevated districts, she finally located what appeared to be the correct address.
A row of modest townhouses with aligned main entrances and service doors continued onward, their terminus marked by an aged latticework screen sitting deep in shadow.
She approached the front entrance only to find this too seemed mistaken.
Just as she turned to leave in frustration, the greengrocer's delivery clerk entered the alleyway.

“Are you looking for a house?”
“It’s the Kitagawa residence.”
“If it’s Ms. Kitagawa you’re looking for, it’s at the very end.”

Taking the lead, they opened the lattice door,

“Good afternoon, Ms. Kitagawa.”

When they called out in a high-pitched voice, a calm voice responded from deep within.

“Is that you, Mr. Toku? Please go around to the back entrance.”

“Come out this far. There’s a visitor… A young woman.”

“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”

A refined elderly woman in her early sixties—white hair combed back in an all-back style, wearing what looked like a Yūki pongee garment—cracked open the shoji screen slightly to peer out. After murmuring “Oh my,” she crawled out to the two-tatami entryway and bowed formally.

“My apologies… These people do enjoy spouting nonsense to tease… Now, who might you be?”

“Um, I’m…”

Asahi began to greet,

“If you don’t shout loudly, she won’t hear a thing. She’s hard of hearing.”

The deliveryman tended to things by her side.

“I have come from Osaka.”

The deliveryman snatched it from the side,

“You’re Chiyo-san, aren’t you?”
“Granny’s been waiting every day with her neck craned for you.”
“‘Whether you’d come back today or tomorrow,’” he said.

Having said that, he put his mouth close to the grandmother’s ear,

“The person you’ve been waiting for has come back.”
“She’s trying to surprise you, so she’s keeping it quiet.”

The grandmother straightened up, waving her hands through the air like swimming strokes,

“Oh… It’s you… You’ve really come back.
“It’s been twenty days since your letter arrived—not a word since then—you can’t imagine how worried I’ve been…… Come in, come in.”

The deliveryman snatched the suitcase and pushed Asahi into the two-tatami entryway,

“Tell the landlord that.”

He dashed down the alleyway while bellowing heedlessly.
The residence was modest—a two-tatami entryway, a six-tatami tearoom adjoining the kitchen, and an eight-tatami back room overlooking a narrow garden. Yet with its long hibachi, tea cabinet, mouse deterrent, and hot water spill container, everything stood tastefully arranged and functionally complete as found.
When he pushed Asahi in front of the long hibachi, the grandmother stroked Asahi’s cheeks and shoulders, murmuring “Chiyo, oh Chiyo” with unflagging tenderness.
The lattice door of the entrance opened,

“There are some rather grand shoes here. You’ve come back after all.”

While saying this, a fifty-two- or fifty-three-year-old man with a flushed face entered. The grandmother turned her face toward him and,

“Is that you, Mr. Kanae? I must have caused you concern, but Chiyo has come home.”

She covered her face with her hands and wept quietly.

“Thank goodness, thank goodness.”
“Now Madam can rest easy.”

When entering this house’s entrance, Asahi had been ruthlessly calm, intending to tell everything without concealment as she carried Chiyo’s suitcase—but when Fusa grabbed her shoulder and subjected her to wretched sobbing, Asahi lacked the courage to say, “Chiyo-san is dead.”
When the landlord Kanae came rushing in,

“I’m back. Grandmother has been looked after in so many ways…”

The words slipped out on their own, but caught up in the moment, she found them neither unnatural nor brazen.

On that first day, she muddied the waters with stories about Osaka.
As days passed, even the slightest slip of the tongue threatened to peel away her disguise, keeping her perpetually on edge.
Fusa showed not the slightest sign of suspicion. Though she would occasionally lower her face in thought, nothing else could disturb her good cheer.
Thanks to all her struggles, even remarks like "You’ve grown gentler" or "You seem like a different person" no longer troubled her in the least.

“We’ll talk about the dream properly later. We can’t have your blood pressure rising, so close your eyes and try to sleep.”

“She was beginning to fall asleep.”

“Liar. When I stay by your side, your mood improves—that won’t do. I’ll start preparing dinner, so please do try to actually fall asleep.”

Fusa seemed to have resolved to sleep and nodded with a hum.
Gazing intently at her serene face—one that seemed touched by Buddhist grace—Asahi found it impossible to believe this was someone capable of spiteful behavior.
Her feelings settled immediately with the realization that it had indeed been a grudge.

Asahi passed through the tearoom and went to the kitchen.
The kitchen beyond Mizuguchi was narrow and connected to the alleyway, but given that a blind elderly woman had been living there alone, every detail—from where the knives hung to the placement of the bamboo baskets—had been thoughtfully arranged for practicality. Even boiling vegetables could be managed without moving about, offering a convenience beyond description.

Asahi leaned against the Mizuguchi glass door and earnestly considered what to make for dinner.
She had probed discreetly to learn Fusa’s preferences and habits, but upon realizing the grandmother—ever the grandmother—hadn’t included her own meals in any plans, she couldn’t help but laugh.
By this old woman’s side—someone with neither blood ties nor connection—she sometimes wondered why she went to such trouble, yet being here brought an inexplicable joy that made all hardship weightless.
Within these feelings lay a longing and affection for family, imparting a consistent, profound joy that sustained her existence.
For the two months since becoming Chiyo’s substitute and settling into this house, Asahi had been wrapped in a happiness unlike any she had known since birth; there were times she wept with emotion, wishing this life could last forever.

IV

When she went out to check at the entrance after hearing a voice, there stood a gaunt-looking man of thirty-seven or thirty-eight. He wore a worn serge suit with both hands thrust deep in the jacket pockets. This pose stirred an unpleasant memory she recognized.

“Are you Kitagawa Chiyo-san?”

“I am.”

“I’m from Akasaka Police Station. This won’t take long—come with me to the station.”

“There’s a blind elderly person sleeping here. Is that not allowed?”

The plainclothes detective’s tone turned brusque.

“Isn’t it you who’s in a tight spot here?”

he sneered darkly. From the timbre of that voice, foreseeing collapse, Asahi despaired. She went to the back eight-tatami room,

“The police have come to summon me, so I’ll be going.”
“I’ve asked the landlord to handle things afterward.”

She told Fusa this but received no response.
After a while, Fusa murmured,

“I’d simply thought you’d settled everything and returned with a clean body.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There there. Come back quickly.
Take care of yourself.”

When she went to the police station, she was immediately taken to the second-floor detective room.
In a cramped space where desks stood lined up, about three detectives were chatting around a brazier.

The plainclothes detective named Nagata led Asahi to a desk at the back of the room and abruptly—

“You worked as a hostess at a bar called ‘Verami’ in Ginza six years ago,” he pressed.

She had learned about working as a hostess at a bar in Ginza from Chiyo herself and had also read it in her resume.

“That is correct.”

Nagata turned toward the detectives,

“No mistake about this one, right?” he pressed.
When the detectives nodded, Nagata retrieved a Persian-patterned maroon neckerchief from storage and threw it down in front of Asahi.
“You remember this, don’t you?”

She picked it up but had no recollection of it.

"There's no way you don't remember. You ran off and hid yourself for five or six damn years, then had the gall to come sauntering back like nothing happened? If you don't get it, I'll make you get it. C'mere."

She was taken to the interrogation room, and the formal questioning began.

When Kitagawa Chiyo was working as a hostess at Verami, she lured a man named Suenobu Tatsuo to Amagi’s hunting mountain and pushed him off a cliff.
Suenobu was rescued by a forestry officer and taken to Ohni Hospital, but died two days later from a spinal fracture.
The Persian-patterned neckerchief was said to be an item left at the scene.

“In the interrogation report, Suenobu testifies that you’re the one who pushed him off.”
“Suenobu had taken up with another woman, so you resented him.”
“So you lured him out under the pretense of boar hunting with the intention of killing him and being done with it.”
“I’ll read it out for you.”
“At that time, Suenobu and you were sitting on the edge of the caldera cliff at Mount Manzaburō…”

“Lately, I feel like I’m going to die, and I can’t bear this anxiety, don’t you know? Have you never once felt that way?”

“I’m not going to die that easily.”

“What tremendous confidence you have.”
“You really think you won’t die?”

“I’m too healthy for my own good.”

“You’re going to die.”
“And soon at that.”

“Why?!”

“It’s because I’m going to kill you.”

Having said that, she thrust the hunting rifle at Suenobu.
"She apparently lacked the courage to pull the trigger, but Suenobu—startled—missed his footing on the cliff and fell into the caldera’s depths… There’s no mistake there, I suppose."

In trying to erase her mother’s criminal record and the secret of her birth, she had apparently ended up shouldering a criminal record for injury resulting in death.
Somewhere, there was a voice of heaven, and she felt as though it were declaring this to be her moral lesson.

Asahi’s cell was a back room near the latrine, its wooden floor—about four and a half tatami mats in size—covered with a soiled straw mat.
The feeble sunlight of early winter bent at awkward angles through some relation of space, filtering in for just two hours each morning.

On days without interrogations, Asahi sat facing the wall all day long. As long as she didn’t confess to impersonating someone else’s name, there was no way to refute the false charges, but believing the truth would naturally emerge if the investigation progressed—and hoping they would interrogate her thoroughly—she adamantly stuck to her denials of “I don’t know” and “That never happened.” This apparently led them to view her as a woman who couldn’t be broken through ordinary means, and the interrogations grew interminably long. Perhaps finding the interrogation room chair exhausting, they took her to the duty room instead, where they grilled her relentlessly for three or even four hours as she lay sprawled on the tatami, arm pillowed beneath her head.

That she could endure if she tried, but what proved unbearable was being handcuffed in her cell.
The cold, heavy handcuffs possessed a strange power that weakened human will, and when bearing their weight with both hands, she truly began to feel as though she had committed murder.
Perhaps due to mental distress, her menstruation had stopped and her face had become so small it could fit within her hands, so when Kanai, the landlord, came to visit, she filed a complaint about bodily rights violation and had a medical examination at the police hospital, where, unexpectedly, she was found to be three months pregnant.

The next day, Nagata came at her with a different tone than usual.

“If you just confess, I’ll let you see Grandmother and allow care packages… You’re pregnant, aren’t you? Keep up that stubborn resistance in your condition and you’ll get yourself killed. Tochigi’s got a proper delivery room—you could give birth there easy enough. Well? Changed your mind?”

Even if returning to one’s roots was acceptable, just the thought of two generations of mothers and children giving birth in a prison delivery room made all the blood in her body run cold.
For the sake of the child about to be born—no matter what happened—she could not possibly shoulder someone else’s crime.
Asahi changed her attitude and solemnly asserted, “I am Masayama Asahi—I am not some woman named Kitagawa Chiyo.”

“In Osaka I worked at such-and-such establishments—if you investigate properly, you’ll uncover proof immediately.”

The next day, Nagata said dismissively.

“There was no record of a woman named Masayama Asahi working at any of the establishments.”
“Not only that—the woman named Masayama Asahi died on September 8th of Showa 27 on Awaji Island!”

“That would be Kitagawa Chiyo… You claim there’s no evidence she worked there, but one look at her face would force recognition—whether willing or not.”

“They say you changed jobs over thirty times—do you expect me to drag you around for shop-by-shop identification?”
“Stop spouting nonsense.”

Before her legal wrangling with the police reached conclusion, her detention period expired and she was transferred to Kosuge Tokyo Detention Center—where interrogations resumed immediately.
In the facility’s interrogation room, a narrow-faced interrogator of prim demeanor sat waiting across the round table from Asahi.

“At Kitagawa Fusa’s place and with the police, you went by Kitagawa Chiyo.”
“Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“While affirming you’re Kitagawa Chiyo, you try denying her criminal facts—but Kitagawa Chiyo and her indictment charges are inseparable.”
“Doesn’t this strike you as contradictory?... Before going to Osaka, you told Grandmother Fusa you were leaving Tokyo because something became unbearable there—but begged her not to tell anyone you went to Osaka.”
“You left saying you’d return in two or three years, didn’t you?”

“There may have been such a thing, but that wasn’t me.”
“I am Masayama Asahi, and I am not Kitagawa Chiyo.”

“The woman named Masayama Asahi was born in May of Showa 5 at Tochigi Women’s Prison—but can you prove that you are Masayama Asahi?”

“That is precisely why I am requesting that you devise a method to prove it.”

“According to the response from the family registry office that the police inquired with, Kitagawa Chiyo is registered as alive.”

“Kitagawa Chiyo died on Awaji Island.”

“So you’re saying you knew Kitagawa Chiyo was dead, yet you still claimed to be her?”
“How do you explain that?”

“It’s not something I can explain in a few words.”

“That’s fine… You said Kitagawa Fusa was a complete stranger with no relation to you, but Kitagawa Fusa insists you’re Chiyo.”
“Even if she’s blind—after living in the same house for nearly three months—would any grandmother mistake a stranger for her own granddaughter?”
“It defies common sense.”

“Is Kitagawa Fusa saying such things?”

“No one forced you…… You’re persistently trying to deny everything from start to finish, but if there are facts matching part of the charges, why not admit them and stand trial?”
“We’re not concluding you killed Suenobu.”
“From your side too—if there were hidden circumstances like brandishing a hunting rifle during intimidation leading to that outcome, or the other party tumbling off the cliff while horsing around—you should fully state them through legal proceedings. Keeping up this denial will only backfire.”

“I would like to inquire.”
“What exactly has Kitagawa Fusa been saying about Kitagawa Chiyo?”

“She wasn’t the kind of daughter who could kill someone, so I think it must have been some kind of accident.”
“If it’s a punishment you must face, then face it with dignity and come back as soon as possible—that’s what she said.”
“She said she wants you to come back as soon as possible, did she?”

There was someone waiting for her return.
Asahi’s happiness was so complete it felt suffocating.
Days of failure and despair had continued until all hope of solace vanished—then came that happiness which unexpectedly invigorated her.

“I must apologize for the trouble… I am Kitagawa Chiyo.”
“I admit to the facts of the charges.”

Masayama Asahi’s Kitagawa Chiyo had by now served two-thirds of her sentence; however, based on behavioral monitoring results that recognized her excellent conduct, she became a first-class inmate under the progressive treatment system and appeared to gain the freedom to write letters.

Masayama Asahi’s daughter had remained in the prison nursery until June of Showa 29 but was to be cared for at Tokyo Nursery Home in Itabashi until foster parents appeared.
Masayama Asahi’s remaining sentence was about two years; however, since the staff committee appeared to be petitioning for a sentence reduction, she would likely soon be transferred to parole or house arrest.
Recent letters contained these words:

Over these three years, I have been allowed to study various things within the institution, for which I am grateful, but the fact that two generations of parent and child have come to follow the same pitiful path is something I simply cannot resign myself to.

As for myself, I do not wish to be separated from my child, but when considering the eventuality of my daughter’s marriage, there truly remains no alternative but to have her be taken in by someone.
My daughter has turned four years old, but before she comes to understand her unfortunate circumstances, I wish for her to be taken in by a kind person—that alone is my one and only prayer.