Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Oda Sakunosuke

I

This New Year, I didn't set foot outside even once. No one came to visit. With the radio left on, I spent three days writing a novel about a homeless man. While writing about a homeless man with skin as parched as a ground spider's, I couldn't bear to see real homeless people during New Year. It wasn't just the homeless. If I went outside, the depressing state of society that would inevitably meet my eyes everywhere—I didn't want to see even during those three days.

However, listening to radio revue broadcasts made me realize Japan's pitiful poverty even more acutely than seeing the homeless, the bombed-out ruins, or the black markets.

There had lately been many revue broadcasts. Broadcasting revues—which are inherently visual spectacles—as radio programs was an absurd proposition from the start, utterly devoid of artistry. Yet according to letters sent to the radio station, there apparently existed fans who delighted in these revue broadcasts. Was this a reactionary impulse to listen to what had been prohibited during the war?

However, as I listened to broadcasts like "Nostalgic Takarazuka Hit Collection" and tried recalling revues I’d seen in the past, I thought: while banning such things had been absurd, there was hardly any need to hastily revive them or put them on air either. Girls merely shaking their hips in short pants and kicking up their legs hardly offered any real eroticism, and it was absurd how people carried on about it being luxurious or some youthful dream. In the end, wasn’t it just a cheap spectacle aimed at children—something neither poison nor cure, merely a shabby show? When I reconsidered how prewar Japan had boasted of such things as luxurious, only to prove ultimately a stingy, meager country, I felt ashamed all over again. Even if you called it luxurious, Takarazuka revues were nothing more than displays of petit bourgeois tastes along the Hankyu line. If they’re equally meager, places like Shinjuku’s Moulin Rouge, Asakusa’s Opera Hall, or Osaka’s Sennichimae Pierrot Boys (which also migrated from Asakusa) at least feel somewhat better—more down-to-earth and unpretentious. Takarazuka and Shochiku’s all-female revues don’t have a single male actor, but surely no sensible grown man would dedicate his life to such work. While there are quite a few men who enjoy revues enough to handle literary department duties, compose music, or design sets, I can’t help but doubt whether they truly consider this a man’s lifelong vocation. When listening to revue actors deliver their lines in a manner that requires interjections like "Oh!", one indeed feels this is not men’s work.

Speaking of line delivery, I remember feeling perplexed when I first saw Kabuki at age seven, wondering why they spoke in such a strange manner. When I entered high school and saw modern theater productions, I again found myself mystified—why did the actors speak in such an argumentative tone, why did every last one of them adopt expressions and voices that seemed excessively sensible? Yet when I heard revue actors deliver their lines, their voices showed such utter lack of discernment that I was thoroughly repelled.

However, having peculiar set patterns in vocal techniques wasn’t limited to Kabuki, modern theater, or girls’ revues. In the realm of vocal arts, there existed not a single exception that had escaped falling into its own peculiar patterns. Rather, those who fully committed to their respective forms were said to be first-rate. Shinpa had its Shinpa forms, Gidayū its Gidayū forms; female sword plays and film actors’ live performances had their own forms too, and nowadays even Naniwa-bushi had developed specialized vocalists dedicated solely to its style. Kōdan storytelling, rakugo comic storytelling, manzai stand-up comedy—these went without saying. When it came to radio, the patterns grew particularly striking. Take radio announcers’ speech techniques—they adhered to such unchanging day-after-day patterns that they’d have worn out the ears of every last person across the nation. The New Theater actors in radio dramas would put on their sanctimoniously sensible voices with a pitiful affectation that turned every story melancholy, while even someone proclaimed a master like Tokugawa Musei—whose rendition of Gone with the Wind could make Buddha himself lose patience by the third listen—ended up sounding no different from his Miyamoto Musashi. The young actresses in radio dramas were always excessively cheerful, their voices as thin as socks with holes—whether they possessed any allure was questionable, though frankly, the very word “allure” felt too good to waste on them. High-ranking government officials emitted voices that evoked images of folding screens and potted plants in any situation. The panelists vacillated between addressing their debate opponents and the microphone, unsure which to direct their words toward, while Communist Party members barked with all bluster and no skepticism. Even Nagata Seiran—the late master of broadcast oratory—would make listeners weary with his transparently predictable delivery, his constant “I’m speaking in a relaxed manner” tone evident every time one heard him. And when a certain high official imitated this style, he became so overly casual that he seemed to let his guard down completely, lapsing wholesale into his native Tohoku dialect.

It was said that Tsuji Hisako, a violin prodigy, would cover her ears and cry out "My ears hurt! My ears hurt!" upon merely hearing the tofu seller's trumpet when she was eight or nine years old. I was not as sensitive to sound as Tsuji Hisako, but whether I had grown oversensitive to vocal patterns—whenever I listened to the radio and encountered these stereotyped patterns as unchanging as ten years in a single day—I found myself frequently wanting to cover my ears: "My ears hurt! My ears hurt!"

This was especially severe during the war. When I listened to radio information broadcasts day and night during that time, what concerned me wasn't the content of the reports—it was their stereotyped patterns. Though it was natural for patterns to form naturally since they broadcast daily, and their excuse about not having time to mind such formalities might have held water, hearing the same words repeated every day—the same vocal inflections, the same informational templates—left me utterly weary. Shortly after the war ended, there was a live broadcast of an outdoor music festival. The announcer seemed determined to break from wartime conventions, adopting an ingratiating tone: "Here above Such-and-Such Music Hall's azure skies, a single red dragonfly glides gracefully through the air—truly an ideal autumn day befitting an outdoor concert." I listened with admiration for how society had changed, but grew somewhat exasperated when that red dragonfly got mentioned three times during the broadcast. Still, I resolved to acknowledge this novel approach. However, when I later asked someone who'd performed at that concert, I learned the day had been heavily overcast without a single dragonfly in sight. My enthusiasm evaporated completely. The announcer who'd tried something new had merely recycled old baseball broadcast formulas without any real artistry.

Innovation is difficult. Is there truly nothing new in this world? The vocal artists remained trapped within decade-old shells of stereotyped patterns, likely obsessing over trivial distinctions between good and bad—like counting tatami threads within their confines. However, this was not limited to vocal arts alone. In art, dance, and literature—as with all things—each had its own stereotyped patterns, and deviating from these forms proved difficult. Even in an art form as free as the novel, stereotyped patterns existed. James Joyce attempted to shatter these patterns through his audacious Ulysses, yet even there trite phrases like "..." he said persisted; it seemed he couldn't entirely break free from novelistic conventions. Even Jean Cocteau—that magician-like poet-playwright who composed music, conducted bands, and designed sets—when writing novels produced utterly conventional works adhering to stereotyped patterns. With their descriptions, dialogues, explanations, and conclusions, it appeared even Jean Cocteau found himself unable to wildly break the mold when writing novels.

Life too was no different. To go on living, one had to willy-nilly abide by society's stereotyped patterns of convention. If you declared walking on your feet too stereotypical and tried walking on your hands instead, they'd brand you a madman. An old man who'd exhausted his life as a delinquent once told me: "I've known many women, but no matter how many I try, they all end up being the same." "If you sleep with them, every woman's body feels identical—sexual intercourse is nothing but the same old patterns repeated day after day for ten years." "Even when it comes to perversions," the old man had said, "there are only so many deviations humans can conceive of—it seems even perversions have their own set patterns." Though I'd known few women myself, I couldn't help but share in the bleakness of that sentiment.

In all aspects of life, there exist stereotyped patterns. The existence of set patterns isn’t inherently bad, but when these stereotyped ones get repeated endlessly, you can’t help but grow weary—you think, "Here we go again." Bergson cites "repetition" as one of laughter’s elements, and indeed, these endlessly recycled stereotyped patterns would likely become its object. It’s absurd. This isn’t to say revue actresses’ line delivery is flawed because of its frivolous nature. When I discovered these words in Simmel’s diary—"One cannot avoid succumbing to either boredom or frivolity without falling into one of the two"—I cried out in delight, thinking "There it is!", which should make abundantly clear that I have not the slightest inclination to attack frivolity. What made me recoil from revue actresses’ line delivery was precisely how ludicrously formulaic it proved. I kept thinking there must be better ways to phrase things. Yet if you asked the fans about stereotyped patterns, they might argue that their very stereotyped nature enhances their appeal. Revue fans must surely yearn for those peculiar cadences of line delivery.

II

There was a girl who lost her life through her admiration for the stereotyped patterns of revue actresses. It had happened ten years prior. One morning, the corpse of a young girl was discovered within the wooden planks lining the gutter behind the dressing rooms of the Osaka Theater in Sennichimae. The autopsy revealed she had been dead for four days, with signs of assault evident. This was clearly murder. After committing the crime, the perpetrator had apparently dragged the body into the gutter to conceal it.

When they investigated her background, they found she was an orphaned girl who had been taken in by her aunt's household. However, due to her obsession with revues and subsequent reprimand from her aunt over this passion, she had run away from home and been staying at a cheap inn in Sennichimae, making daily trips to watch revues at the Osaka Theater. There had been someone who claimed to have seen her walking with a delinquent-looking man, and the police—convinced he was the perpetrator—had combed through every troublemaker in the Sennichimae area. Yet they ultimately failed to identify the culprit, leaving the case to vanish into obscurity. Even now, ten years later, the perpetrator remains unfound—likely forever lost to the labyrinth.

According to the inn’s proprietress, her funds had apparently grown quite meager by then—her attire just a frayed meisen kimono with a modest artificial silk obi tied about her waist—and they saw no indication that theft had been the motive, nor any suggestion of some convoluted affair. While she was frequenting revue theaters, she was targeted by delinquent boys, dragged around, assaulted, and ultimately killed out of fear that their crime would be discovered. "She used to drop by my place now and then, she did." "No, that girl definitely came here, sure enough."

At the time the incident appeared in the newspapers, the owner of a coffee shop called Hanaya said that to me.

Hanaya was a modest coffee shop located across from Yayoi-za Theater in Sennichimae. Next to Hanaya stood a public bath called Naniwayu. Naniwayu boasted a Tokyo-style washing area and an electric bath. At that time, while lodging at my sister’s house in Nihonbashi-suji 2-chome, I visited this bathhouse daily, always stopping by Hanaya afterward for coffee. Hanaya kept its doors open past two in the morning, making it ideal for a night owl like me. Across the street, Yayoi-za Theater specialized in Pierrot Boys revues—when performances ended, revue girls would come streaming into Hanaya in boisterous groups. With Osaka Theater practically next door, Shochiku Revue actresses too would arrive with fans to eat omelet rice and tonkatsu. Waitresses from Sennichimae’s traditional restaurants stopped by after closing their establishments. The steamy scent from the bathhouse permeated the air. Resembling Asakusa’s Hatoya coffee shop yet more vibrant, it embodied Sennichimae’s distinctive blend of gaiety and melancholy.

The murdered girl too must have come to Hanaya, longing to see the true faces of the revue actresses she admired. That petite girl with her stocky frame, hunched shoulders, and round face like a rice ball would always sit at a corner table, directing timid glances toward the revue actresses yet seemingly lacking the courage to request an autograph or strike up conversation. It seems she even hesitated to sit at the same table as the actresses. And yet, she wouldn’t get up until the actresses had left.

That she, so enamored with revues, lay in the gutter behind the dressing rooms for four days after her death must have been some twist of fate. Unaware that a corpse lay within the wooden planks lining the gutter, the actresses walked over it daily. For the girl, this might have been her ultimate fulfillment. However, when the incident appeared in the newspapers, the Osaka Theater actresses grew unsettled. The actresses who came to Hanaya all whispered about that girl. Since she had always occupied the same seat in the third row from the front on the first floor, their gradual recognition of her face must have made the reality press upon them with heightened intensity.

"Why don't we all pitch in and erect a Jizo statue?"

"That's right, that's a fine idea. Let's enshrine one, let's enshrine one!" At the neighboring table where such talk was occurring, the Pierrot Boys actors were gossiping about the lodging house visible from the dressing rooms of Yayoi-za Theater. Though the second-floor windows of the lodging house had curtains drawn, they claimed that by using a long pole extended from the dressing room window to quietly part those curtains, they could see inside as clearly as if holding it in their hands. During breaks between acts, they would come up to the dressing room and peek into the lodging house's second floor. When they forcibly brought an unsuspecting young revue girl to that dressing room window and made her look, there was one girl who burst into tears—they were gossiping about that incident.

“Chaa-bou’s still just a kid.” “You think so?” “I thought I already knew everything there was to know about Chaa-bou...”

“But he’s still seventeen.” “Seventeen my ass! That Takasuke bastard’s putting on airs like ‘Oh my, what dreary weather tonight,’” one man sneered. “Gotten himself hooked on peeping at that second floor—greedy slut.” “Futoe Ama’s yesterday’s girl.” “That one’s not even twenty yet.” “Twenty or not, she’ll suck you dry.” “But they say she don’t wear a stitch—total greedy slut!” “Might be a whore.” “Idiot! Since when do whores pull such sloppy, trashy stunts? She’s gotta be amateur!”

“Decided, huh? Hah! So this one’s got a history of not wearing a single stitch.” “What a gluttonous bastard!” As I listened to such obscene talk, I was suddenly reminded of the murdered girl. To suggest that dying in that gutter behind the dressing rooms might have been her heart’s desire as a revue enthusiast was nothing but careless conjecture. To lie there in that shameful state of violation must have been more agonizing than being killed...

Leaving Hanaya, I wandered down Sennichimae Avenue with a hand towel slung over my shoulder and bought cigarettes at Sennichidō in front of Tokiwa-za Theater.

Sennichidō sold tobacco too, but it was at heart a candy store. The shop with its sprawling frontage bore a sign reading "Everything 50% Off" on its roof, though it was better known by the name "Gowariyasu". In summer they sold chilled sweets and in winter grilled rice rolls, but it was the candy that became the shop's specialty; selling from early morning until late at night left no time to shut the doors, making it the sole establishment in Sennichimae that stayed open through the night.

At Sennichidō too, they were talking about the murdered girl.

“She came to buy candy every day.” “No, it’s definitely that girl.”

I pitied her—imagining her sucking on the candy she'd bought, wrapped in a cracker-thin futon at some cheap boardinghouse, gazing at revue programs.

That "Gowariyasu" candy was something I too bought when I was a child. At that time, the place showing Onoe Matsunosuke's moving pictures in Sennichimae was Tokiwa-za across from Sennichidō. When I lived in Uemachi, whenever the day came for the program change at Tokiwa-za, I would fidget restlessly while descending Genshōji slope, crossing Suehiro Bridge over the Nishi-Yokobori River, hurrying through Kuromon Market to Sennichimae, first buying two sen worth of shiso-flavored candy at Sennichidō before entering Tokiwa-za. As I sucked on the candy, a faint shiso fragrance would drift up, like distant nostalgia.

Shiso-flavored candy holds memories.

One autumn night during the year I entered high school in Kyoto, I spent my first night in Miyagawacho's red-light district. Having heard that going after midnight would let me stay for three yen and fifty sen, I spent time wandering the late-night streets of Kyōgoku and Shijō-dōri, then turned into the dark alley along the river beside Minami-za once it struck twelve. After walking a block down the dark road and turning left five or six paces, I found myself in an alley of Miyagawacho. The moment I saw a prostitute clutching a red handbag enter the brothel with the listless slap of her straw sandals, I nearly turned back—but by then, the hem of my black cloak had already been

“Kan’ichi-hān, won’t you come up?” I felt a grip on my arm. Thinking she must have called me by the name of The Golden Demon’s protagonist since I was a high school student, I was led along. “Do you have a regular girl…?” “No.” “Well then, shall I arrange it for you?” “Yeah.” I answered in a parched voice and drank tea that tasted salty. “Then I’ll go fetch a nice quiet young one. Could you wait in the room?” “Yeah.”

The room I was shown to was a narrow, grimy three-tatami space on the third floor, facing the Kamogawa River. A dull bare light bulb burned dimly.

“Lie down here and wait, please. I’ll be right out.”

A red-patterned cover futon lay pressed flat and thinly soiled atop a white under futon caked with grime. The bedding was like the corpse of a cat that had been run over by a car.

“Yeah.”

Though I had answered, I couldn’t bring myself to get into it; instead, I went out to the riverside corridor, smoked a cigarette, and waited for the prostitute to arrive.

From there, the Kamogawa riverbed was visible, the mist-shrouded lights of Shijō-dōri blurred hazily into a distant vista where night seemed to have abruptly deepened. As my heart swelled with regret and nostalgia for the self that would soon grow sullied, I stood rooted there endlessly, buffeted by the cold river wind. The headlights of a Keihan train raced past before my eyes. At that moment came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.

“My, I’ve kept you waiting so very long. “I’m Kaoru, sir.” When I turned toward the voice, a petite prostitute with a pallid complexion—who must have hurried up the stairs—stood there panting heavily, still half-crouched, “My...” ...she bowed her head. A stale odor of cheap face powder hit me. “Well, you came out to the hallway, did you sir? “It’s cold out here, sir.” “Hurry up and close it, then come on in, sir.” Then, as the madam went downstairs with a “Well then, take your time…”, the prostitute quietly came to the corridor, stood beside me, took a candy from her sleeve, and silently placed it on my palm.

“What’s this? —Oh, candy.”

“I bought this in Kyōgoku during the day.” “Did you go to Kyōgoku to see a movie?”

“No.” She shook her slender head, “I went to buy candy.”

“To buy candy…?” “Did you only buy candy?” “Ahaha...” A fleeting sense of reassurance came over me. The remorse from my debauchery vanished as my heart warmed with childlike innocence, and I put that candy into my mouth. It tasted of shiso. “Oh, this has shiso in it.” “Delicious, isn’t it?” The prostitute sidled up to me. I abruptly pulled her close and transferred the candy from my mouth to hers.

……I woke to the sound of the river. When I glanced beside me, the prostitute still seemed unable to sleep, sucking on her candy as she looked at the frontispiece of a women’s magazine. “You like candy, don’t you?” “I do. Next time you come out, could you bring some candy for me, sir?” “Yeah. I’ll bring some.” I said I would, but I never saw that prostitute again.— When I heard that the girl who had been killed behind Osaka Theater had come to Sennichidō to buy candy, I recalled that prostitute.

The prostitute's limbs were thin and her complexion dusky. The Murdered Girl, too, was said to have been dark-skinned. Even though I had bought her with money, I had violated the prostitute. I had deceived the kind-hearted prostitute who had offered me candy. My remorse transferred itself onto the Murdered Girl—I bought cheap candy instead of Western sweets or chocolates, and as I used them to distract myself from the loneliness of my bleak lodging's makeshift bed, I felt as if sensing her sorrowful nostalgia, suddenly struck by a sensation akin to hearing a lullaby.

That she lay undiscovered for four days after death was also poignantly characteristic of the Murdered Girl.

When I heard that the Osaka Theater actresses had soon erected a Jizō statue in a corner of the vacant lot behind the dressing rooms to enshrine the girl’s spirit, I made a special trip to burn incense there.

III

When the war began, Sennichimae too fell abruptly into desolation. The Pier Boys of Yayoi-za—once a landmark attraction in Sennichimae—had already disbanded before the war began. Afterward, Yayoi-za became a second-run movie theater, then transformed into a newsreel hall, then degenerated into a third-rate youth kabuki troupe's permanent venue, until at last it fell into the shabby decline befitting a ramshackle theater on Sennichimae's outskirts.

The once neat "Hanaya" had also turned into a grimy porridge canteen. Naniwayu public bathhouse had many days when it was closed, and the electric baths and Tokyo-style sento had vanished. Sennichidō no longer sold candy, instead selling water chestnut seeds and corn snacks, renting out a corner of its shop with a wide frontage to street vendors who sold elastic waistbands for pants and hemp rope cords there. The Tokiwaza theater across the street had become a Yoshimoto Kogyo manzai venue.

At the Jizō statue behind Osaka Theater, incense smoke had grown rare, and the murdered girl’s case had become a thing of the distant past. At night, Sennichimae turned desolate—no one passed through save Civil Defense Corps members, not even a single kitten.

I had been living in Osaka's southern suburbs since before the war began, but that Sennichimae had already grown somehow too distant.

However, on the night of March 13th last year, Yayoi-za, "Hanaya," Naniwayu bathhouse, Osaka Theater, "Sennichidō," and Tokiwaza all burned down—yet only the Jizō statue remained standing through the flames. Yet this very survival made it appear all the more pitiful.

About ten days after that day, when I went to Sennichimae, the owner of Hanaya was busily digging through the scorched ruins, and the moment he saw my face— “Even if I get burned to a crisp, I’ll never leave Sennichimae.” They were living as a family of four in an air-raid shelter. “It’s cramped as an eel hole, but our garden’s plenty wide!” That Sennichimae was his entire garden—the owner of Hanaya had always been fond of such wordplay.

After chatting for a while with the owner of Hanaya and parting ways, when I came to the front of Osaka Theater, my name was called. When I turned around, it was San-chan from Namiya. "Namiya" was a bookstore across from a manzai theater on Nankai-dori—the avenue connecting Sennichimae and Namba—where I had been buying books since middle school, making San-chan and me old acquaintances. San-chan had originally been an employee at Namiya but later received the shop from its owner and became Namiya’s proprietor. His name was Shibamoto Sanji, but he had gone by the nickname San-chan ever since his days as an apprentice. San-chan had also suffered in the fire.

The moment I saw San-chan's face, even before offering condolences for his fire losses, “Since your place burned down, I can’t buy magazines anymore.” When I said this, San-chan pursed his lips and— “Don’t be ridiculous.” “You just wait and see!” “I’ll have my bookstore up and running again soon—make sure you buy from me.” “They’ll never make me quit this trade!” he said. “Where will you set up?” When I asked this, San-chan looked at me as if to say You already know—

“I’ll do it in Minami. “I’ll do it in Minami.” he answered immediately. Minami refers to what Osaka people often call “going south”—the area encompassing Shinsaibashi-suji, Ebisu-bashi-suji, Dōtonbori, and the Sennichimae district. The fact that this Minami had burned down overnight had plunged me into Wakayama Bokusui-esque sentimentality—“How dear are things that have perished!”—and because I found heartening the attachment that Hanaya’s owner and San-chan held toward Sennichimae, I wrote about these two men in an article titled “Rising Osaka” that I had been commissioned to write for a weekly magazine. However, when I considered whether Osaka could truly rise from its scorched earth and realized that the Hanaya owner and San-chan were the only material I could write about in “Rising Osaka,” I felt an inexplicable unease—the grandiose title “Rising Osaka” began to seem like nothing more than an empty incantation.

However, about a month later, on a certain day when I got off the Nankai Electric Railway at Namba and walked straight north along Ebisubashi Street, I saw San-chan's face in a bookstore that had been converted from half of a scorched sign shop on the right side before reaching Ebisubashi stop. "Well, you've finally opened up, huh?"

When I entered, San-chan—

“In all of Minami, we’re the only ones handling new publications. Even Nichihai said you were the only shop around and went out of their way to encourage us!” He continued, listing two or three names of large bookstores that had been in Minami, then declared in a loud voice that startled the customers in the shop—explaining how while all those bookstores had gone under, Namiya alone was still going strong right before everyone’s eyes. However, the books and magazines sparsely arranged there were fewer than what you’d find on a middle schooler’s bookshelf. The large sign reading “Namiya Shobō Provisional Office” standing in the shop’s center could easily be mistaken for a sample product from the sign shop taking up over two-thirds of the space.

“Oh, right! You wrote about me the other day, didn’tcha? That’s downright cruel of ya, ain’tcha!” San-chan said this as if suddenly remembering, but showed no signs of anger. “I showed that magazine to the old man at Hanaya too.”

“Oh? You showed it to him?” “Hanaya put up corrugated iron over his air-raid shelter too and lived inside it,” he said. “If you write about him like that, then even if he wanted to leave Sennichimae, he couldn’t anymore.” Hearing this, I found meeting Hanaya’s owner increasingly painful and began avoiding Sennichimae altogether. I felt no urge to see the Jizo statue that had supposedly survived the flames. With Japan’s defeat now imminent—when both Namiya’s revival and Hanaya’s corrugated iron existence could be overturned at any moment—I walked with my head bowed low, trudging through the streets.

On the train home, when I read the evening paper, there was an article about the formation of the Shinonouchi Revival Alliance under the headline "The Grit of Osaka’s Sons," but something about that headline’s wording felt unpleasant. I have no fondness for the term "Edokko," but I detest "Naniwako" all the more. To take a story from some corner of the scorched earth and call it "The Grit of Osaka’s Sons"—I wanted to tell them to cut out this hollow optimism. The phrase "Rising Osaka" that I had used now struck me as precisely the kind of exaggeration writers easily fall into, and a sense of self-loathing welled up within me.

IV

However, when that same weekly magazine for which I had previously written "Rising Osaka" requested on the second day after the war ended that I write an uplifting story about Osaka immediately following the surrender, I once again wrote about Hanaya's owner and San-chan. Freedom of speech still wasn't permitted, and at that time—two or three days after the surrender—Osaka's path to recovery remained utterly indiscernible. With no way to write beyond expressing relief at being freed from the long war's nightmare, I ended up glossing over things by writing utterly commonplace stories: how Hanaya's corrugated iron shelter now shone with bright electric lights for the first time, illuminating a corner of Sennichimae; how San-chan never stopped selling books—that sustenance of culture—no matter what hardships he faced; tales that were neither harmful nor helpful.

And I had grown utterly sick of myself for being unable to write anything but such stories.

By nature, I have never liked true stories or uplifting tales. I detest attitudes that try to draw parallels to the present by citing historical facts, as well as that type of writing and speech which trots out special examples while claiming "there are cases like this" in an attempt to generalize the whole. Yet I ended up writing shack-like articles that forcibly emphasized stories about Hanaya and San-chan to hint at Osaka’s bright future. To put it bluntly, they were articles devoid of reality—ones that saw only one side of things. Neither Hanaya’s shelter nor Namiya’s shop under the eaves could be dismissed as merely bright. It might rather be a sorrowful image of Osaka. I felt disgusted by my own tendency to create uplifting tales while turning a blind eye to that sorrow.

Four months passed, and as Showa 20 rushed to its end amidst rumors of homeless people, inflation, and the black market, a strange New Year arrived.

Even I, who hadn't stepped outside once during the three ※ days, finally ventured out after they ended and went to Minami for the first time in three months. Perhaps it was because hearing the revue broadcast made me remember the girl who had been killed behind Osaka Theater, but partly I wanted to go to "Namiya" to buy the inaugural issue of a newly released magazine. To get to Namba, one would transfer from the Koya Line to the main line at Kishinosato, but since changing trains was bothersome, I rode all the way to Shioimibashi Terminal and took the city streetcar to Ebisubashi.

The street from Ebisubashi stop to Namba had black marketeers lining both sides, makeshift eateries with unfamiliar shop names erected, and before one knew it had become a black market. When pushed along by the bustling crowd to before the sign shop, I thought Ah! The Namiya that should have been renting part of the sign shop was already gone. Thinking a bookstore shabbier than a middle schooler's bookcase could never sustain itself, I wondered if they had changed businesses after all, and even I found myself feeling forlorn as I was jostled by the bustling crowd.

Reaching the end of Ebisubashi Street, I turned into Nankai-dori. Nankai-dori too was lined with garishly painted makeshift eateries, black market stalls under eaves, and street gambling stands. As I thought bitterly, 'Is this what Nankai-dori has become?' and quickened my pace toward Sennichimae, my name was called twice in rapid succession. When I glanced toward the voice's source, there was San-chan grinning from within a makeshift shack where Namiya used to stand. He had returned to his old haunt and resumed running his bookstore. From the shack's eaves hung a signboard reading "Namiya Shobō Shibamoto Sanji."

“Ah! You’ve come back!”

When I entered, feeling nostalgic after all, San-chan doffed his hat, “Thanks to you, I was finally able to return.” “Since you wrote about me twice,” he said, “I figured I had to keep pushing on—started rebuilding right after the war ended and finally managed to come back here last December.” “I was the first around here to come back, I tell ya!” He looked pleased with himself. The proprietress was also there. “Since they kept writing ‘San-chan this, San-chan that’ in the magazine,” she said, “even when you go to Nippai, you’re all the rage as ‘San-chan’ there too!”

And before I could even bring it up myself, he produced revival issues of Kaizo and Chuo Koron. “What about Bunshun…?” “I already got Bungei Shunju.”

“Ah, right! It was in Bunshun you wrote that piece, wasn’t it? I read that story in Graph too, I tell ya! And that new whatchamacallit magazine—oh right! The one with that title about Semba or something!” The proprietress had always loved novels, and whenever something I’d written long ago appeared in a magazine, she’d inevitably bring it up, making me blush before the other customers. Yet now, seeing that old habit of hers felt oddly nostalgic, leaving me sweetly numb with the sensation of having truly returned to the original Namiya. The number of books and magazines had swelled far beyond what they’d been during the sign shop’s eaves-front stall days.

As I left Namiya and was about to turn onto Sennichimae-dori, a man coming from ahead suddenly grabbed my arm. When I looked, it was Hanaya's owner. Hanaya's owner released my arm and bowed with an oddly formal air, "Thanks to being allowed to keep at it, I've finally managed to get to where I can start my coffee shop again." "I'm right in the middle of rebuilding now, but should be able to open by mid-month."

And he said that since he absolutely wanted to invite me for the opening, I should give him my address. When I wrote it down, “―Make sure you come now!” “If you ain’t the first one here…” He hadn’t brought up the magazine, but it seemed he wanted to thank me for the encouragement those articles had given him. Both were pieces I myself hated to remember, but when it struck me they’d somehow ended up cheering San-chan and Hanaya’s owner, I too—

“I will certainly come.” With my voice tinged with excitement, I soon parted ways with Hanaya's owner and found myself walking alone down Sennichimae-dori—now as familiar to me as my hometown. That I had encountered these two men simultaneously might have been coincidence, but precisely because of that, Sennichimae now felt intimately close. The charred Osaka Theater had been repaired internally and was already screening films and revues just as before. Tokiwa-za too no longer resembled a scorched shack; restored to its original form, Yoshimoto's productions were being staged there.

As I reached the front of Tokiwa-za, swept along by the New Year's bustle distinctive to Sennichimae, I found myself stopped yet again.

When I looked, from the makeshift shack across from Tokiwa-za, the Sennichidō proprietress was guffawing as she beckoned me over. “Oh! You’ve…” When I went in, saying “Have you come back?”— “You think there’d be folks who’d just walk on by without stopping? You’re tall, so I spotted you right away.” Because only my head was sticking out from the crowd, the Sennichidō proprietress—who’d always been prone to laughter—burst into giggles as she always had. “Hahaha…. We’ve become a zenzai porridge shop.”

“Five yen a bowl—sweet as can be. Go on and have some now.” “Alright.”

“How’s it? Tasty? How’s it compare to other places? Is five yen a bowl worth it, I ask you?”

“It’s sweet.” But it didn’t taste like sugar. When I mentioned this, “It’s zuruchin, see? We can’t break even using sugar at five yen a bowl. Even these tiny mochi cost eighty sen each. Azuki beans have gone up to 120 yen too.” In Kyoto’s black markets, a bowl went for ten yen. “Your place has always been fifty percent cheaper, after all.”

When I said this, the proprietress looked pleased,

“We’ve got Sennichidō’s reputation to uphold, see? Can’t go doing anything shady.” “Well now, why don’t you take a good look at this building.” “In all of Sennichimae, ours is the only makeshift shack with a proper tiled roof, see?” “We started last August and finally finished on December 31st, see?” “I thought to open from New Year’s Day—well, we were in a real frenzy then!” Whether it was the prime location, its status as a long-established shop, or its affordable prices, Sennichidō was thriving. “Why don’t you serve coffee too?” “Cake included for five yen.—Why don’t you change the entrance curtain? That thing looks just like a diaper.”

I left Sennichidō, speaking like a backer. “Drop by now and then, you hear?” “Yeah. I’ll come.” Thinking how I’d come to look forward to visiting Sennichimae now, I returned home with light steps, buoyed by the joy of reuniting with old acquaintances. However, four or five days later, when I opened the morning paper, there was a statement from Osaka Prefecture’s Public Health Section warning that zuruchin and shiso sugar contained toxic agents that destroyed red blood cells and harmed the brain, advising caution regarding sweets sold in black markets.

I worried about Sennichidō—what would they do? Would they use sugar? Could they break even using sugar? First off, could they even obtain that much sugar? I'd heard Hanaya would reopen as a café again—but would they too use zuruchin? Now that thought had me worrying about Hanaya as well. Yet when I returned to Sennichimae the next day, people ignored those newspaper warnings and swarmed around the sweets. When I tried Sennichidō's zenzai porridge, the aftertaste remained exactly as before. Still they ate it without concern. I found myself nearly devoid of any fear toward zuruchin's dangers.

Had our nerves become so dulled that we no longer feared something like zuruchin? Had the world become a place where you couldn't survive with nerves still sensitive enough to fear zuruchin?

Every time I went to Sennichimae, I thought I should visit that girl's Jizō statue at least once, yet without fail, I always ended up forgetting.