Pathway to Japanese Literature

I moved to my hometown village on March 7th.
Just because I moved to the countryside didn’t mean I could buy extra rice, nor did it mean vegetables would come pouring in.

After consulting with close relatives and my wife, we decided to sow wheat starting that autumn and plant rice from the following summer onward. To begin with, I resolved to cultivate vegetables in a corner of the residence and the field adjoining it.
In other words, this was probably just a half-hearted imitation of returning to farming.

However，vegetables were not to be taken lightly．Humans cannot live even a single day without vegetables．While fish and meat went without saying，over the past year or two，vegetables had become something I particularly craved．Especially，my family members adored leafy radishes，and when it came to pickled vegetables，they smacked their lips with such delight that they could hardly contain themselves．

My family too had been farmers for generations．In my generation，I left my hometown and strayed into wandering the provinces while engaging in such dubious pursuits as writing，but until my middle school days，I had gripped hoes and sharpened sickles．Therefore，it wasn’t that I had no cultivated land at all．

I may not be skilled, but I can cut furrows and twist out seeds from between my fingers.

The first task I undertook was breaking ground with a hoe in a corner of my residence in mid-March.
From then until mid-May, what I sowed and planted included Shinashi radishes, Mino wase radishes, cabbages, taro, summer onions, spring-sown Chinese cabbage, chrysanthemum greens, cucumbers, squash, watermelons, Kameido radishes, and Shantung cabbage—twelve varieties in all. How splendidly abundant!
A mere eighteen or twenty *tsubo* garden transformed into a veritable vegetable emporium.

In the field adjoining the residence， first of all， I planted potatoes.
Then I planted eggplants， tomatoes， bush beans， Iwatsuki radishes， komatsuna greens， sorghum， and more.
And this gardening mentor was none other than Kunio-san from the main family—a young man who had graduated from agricultural school.
I thought that from this summer through autumn， splendid fruits and vegetables would adorn our table in mountainous abundance.

What a joy.
Thanks to this, I rose at four in the morning, peered into the soil of the fields, and checked on how the sown seeds were doing.

Early summer mornings came early.
As I remained engrossed in observing the cucumber cotyledons, golden threads of sunlight resembling brocade began scattering from beyond Yashū's mountain ridges at half past four.
In the joy of beholding this scene, the leaves trembled in the gentle breeze.

Seven in the evening was supper time.
When I finished eating, I collapsed like a withered tree and snored thunderously on the tatami mat.

Though it amounted to a mere 120 to 130 tsubo of vegetable fields, since this included even collecting night soil fertilizer, it constituted considerable labor for an unaccustomed body like mine.
Pleasant fatigue was health itself in its truest form.

Now，just because one sowed seeds and planted seedlings didn't mean there would be a harvest in twenty days or a month．Then，the question arose：what exactly were we eating during this period until crops could be harvested from the fields？Daily，the items we received through rations were only rice，miso，and soy sauce．As for other items such as side dishes，fish，and vegetables—it was safe to say this rural village received no distribution of them whatsoever．

Since moving here in early March，we had received only once—half a raw herring per person and a small amount of tea leaves．As for other items，we hadn't seen hide nor hair of them．

However, these were critical times in the war.
Even under such circumstances, our family harbored neither complaints nor grumbles.
We had ended up dutifully complying with what the government called its "brilliant plan"—making do with shortages and filling our bellies—as we muddled through each day.

For a household wife, this was where she had to truly demonstrate her skills.
One might say women’s abilities were finally seeing the light of day.

However, as for my household alone, there was no need to worry. Precisely because my parents had brought me into this world in Kamishinden’s farming village—where both the dignity of ancestors and villagers’ kindness resided—people came bearing gifts to my kitchen morning and evening: “How about some spinach?” “Here’s leeks!” “Carrots!” “Burdock root!” they said. This was especially true when potatoes and taro arrived.

Occasionally, we also received donations of wheat flour, dried noodles, white rice, soybeans, and such. With this, to go around saying that food was insufficient or that our stomachs were unbearably empty would have been highly improper.

With this, we would somehow manage to keep our stomachs filled until we faced the fresh potato harvest beginning around late June—but I could not believe that everyone else lived as happily as my household did.

The phrase "making do with shortages through resourcefulness to fill your belly" was truly a *brilliant* notion.
For someone as slow-witted as myself, such an idea would have been impossible to conceive.
There’s an old saying: “You can’t wave sleeves you don’t have,” and no matter how skilled a magician may be, they can’t perform without their tricks.
But when war came, you had to wave sleeves you didn’t have and keep living even without your tricks.
Complaints and dissatisfaction were out of the question.

Thus we arrive at this conundrum: through what gestures and pantomime might one wave sleeves they don’t possess? Yet what all people yearn for with the primal urgency of an infant seeking breastmilk is precisely this—the compassion of humane rulers.
It was the opposition of low-ranking officials.
It was also about having those called leaders and the semi-official businessmen engaged in controlled enterprises abandon their arrogance.

If fellow humans approach one another with overflowing compassion, waving sleeves one doesn’t possess becomes effortless.
Even without seeds, the magician will still put on a proper show.

My daughter, who had been married off, recently evacuated to Isesaki with four of them—caring for two young children and accompanied by her elderly mother-in-law.
If one had an infant to nurse, unless one received two full meals, the breast milk simply wouldn’t come.
Moreover, even four- or five-year-old children now ate as much as adults.
In this era when neither sweets nor fruits could be freely purchased, when it came to children’s snacks, they ended up scooping up rice balls mixed with miso two or three times a day.

It was only natural that the rice container remained bone-dry.
Therefore, the first place one could go to consult about enduring such hardships was my household.
But this was a major problem.
In truth, while my wife and I maintained the facade of having full bellies before our neighbors and relatives, I was in fact entirely reliant on my wife’s resourcefulness.
Even when my married daughter sneaked in with a sorrowful face to consult us, there was nothing we could do.

After much deliberation, my daughter visited relatives in Tsukida, Kasukawa Village, Setta Prefecture.
To go from Isesaki to Tsukida, one had to first go to Maebashi and take the Jomo Electric Railway from Maebashi Central Station; however, the relatives’ house lay in the very depths of Tsukida village, midway up Mount Akagi.
From Kasukawa Station, it must have been a full one and a half ri.

At the Tsukida relatives’ house, even before my daughter could voice her complaints, they perceived her need and wrapped sweet potatoes in a furoshiki cloth to give her.
Though called an infant, the child strapped to her back was relatively heavy, and with her four-year-old dangling from her left arm, no matter how greedily she tried, she could only carry seven or eight hundred momme of sweet potatoes.
Even so, she set off briskly for home with a look of complete satisfaction and exited through the ticket gate at Maebashi Central Station.

However, a pitiful incident occurred.

“Hey, you! Stop right there!”

It was a policeman.
"What’s in that bundle?"
"Here."

My daughter was taken aback.

“Open it.”

“No—it’s just some vegetables—”

“Open it.”

For the first time in her life, my daughter was reprimanded by a policeman. With trembling hands, she opened the small cloth bundle. Inside were some sweet potatoes.

“This is outrageous! Where did you get these? Hmm?”

“I received them from relatives in Kasukawa. The children don’t have enough food—”

“Unacceptable. Sweet potatoes are restricted items. Leave them here.”

Being told to leave them behind, my daughter turned pale. The helpless children would cry from hunger come morning, leaving her no choice but to go plead with relatives. And so she hauled three children and a bundle along the one-and-a-half-*ri* path from Akagi’s midslope to Kasukawa Station, then exited the ticket gate at Maebashi Central Station with a sigh of relief—only to be met with a gruff “Hey, wait a minute!” the moment she thought *at last*. In the end came the order: leave these sweet potatoes—.

She was on the verge of tears.

“Please have mercy—I’ll never receive sweet potatoes from relatives again—if I leave these here, I’ll...”

My daughter sobbed faintly, stroking the child’s head as she endeavored to plead her case.

“If you go carrying around sweet potatoes like this again, I won’t stand for it!”

“Yes.”

Fortunately, she was permitted to leave and, with hands still trembling, tied the corners of the furoshiki.
In the train, she had been sitting with the sweet potatoes on her knees, immersed in supreme delight, but upon being shouted at by the policeman, her heart plunged to the depths of hell.

Since this concerns my daughter, I’m not here to grumble about this and that.
In such cases:

“—Oh, I see.”
“You’re fortunate to have such kind relatives.”
“But you see, sweet potatoes are controlled items.”
“Well, a bundle this small probably won’t catch anyone’s eye.”
“You’d better hold back next time, you hear?”

This was how I had wanted him to speak kindly. Due to the surge of vegetable buyer squads from Tokyo after the large-scale air raids, Chiba and Saitama Prefectures had struggled with enforcement. They had therefore decided to tacitly permit up to two kan per person.

I didn’t know how things were handled in Gunma Prefecture, but if I were to voice my wish, I would have wanted them to overlook a mere seven or eight hundred momme bundle carried by a mother with children. Even so, I supposed my daughter could be counted among the fortunate for not having it confiscated.

Relatives sharing sweet potatoes and leafy greens in small amounts with those in need is a commendable Japanese custom.
Even a young policeman in Gunma Prefecture would understand this commendable custom, I think.

In such cases, I have no desire to debate whether a young officer shows flexibility or not.
If the leaders of policemen—that is, their hardworking superiors—were to set aside rigid regulations and instead thoroughly impart compassionate consideration to their subordinates as part of their daily instruction, what might that look like?

The common people would rejoice.
They would strengthen their self-restraint even more.
Not a single person would presume upon the considerate treatment by those in charge.

Regarding controls and rationing, the government must be working very hard indeed. To supply all citizens equally without leaving anything wanting is truly an impossible task. That’s precisely why we’ve managed to live without worrying about our staple food even amid these trying social conditions. Such benevolent governance! While our bodies still move, we must pour every ounce of strength into military needs and production, bending ourselves to the nation’s demands. The people still possess reserves—physical and spiritual—a wellspring yet unexhausted.

Therefore, across the nation, there sprang up those who were more grateful than we were for the rationing system. People who could receive ordinary meals for the first time came into being, reaping the benefits of the controlled economy.

In my household, we had relatives in Ōaza Aonashi, Kiyosato Village, Gunma District.
Aonashi lay about one and a half ri north of my village at the foot of Mount Haruna; from our village, this direction was called Upper Village and also referred to as Upland Fields.
In contrast to these upland fields, my village produced rice and was thus called Rice Fields.
Against the upland fields that bore no rice, even the children of Rice Fields people harbored a sense of superiority.
In other words, it was the self-complacency of Rice Fields dwellers.

That was already a story from fifty years ago.

From our relatives in Aonashi, children of the same age as me would occasionally come to visit.
We would always tease that child by saying, "When you come, the Shinanden buntings get so excited."
The Aonashi child hated being told that.

The reason was that Aonashi, being at the foot of the mountains, had no rice fields and was a region where they cultivated fields and reclaimed land, so they subsisted on millet and barnyard grass.
Thus, this was a taunt implying that the buntings—who also subsisted on millet and barnyard grass—would rejoice upon seeing you, thinking a companion had arrived.

Evening came, and we heated the bath. When the Aonashi child began to undress, we would call out, “Hey you, hey you! Should we give you a sinking stone?” and taunt them again.

The reason was that the folks from Kamigō usually ate nothing but barnyard grass and millet, making their lower abdomens as light as pumice stones. When they entered the bath, their bodies would tip over, and their buttocks would emerge above the water—this was the mystery. “And hey, you! Eat lots of rice and go home.” “Otherwise, you won’t be able to study!” and such—since we were children, we teased without restraint.

Before the rationing system came into effect, if one were to investigate the food situation in villages spanning the mid-slopes of Mount Haruna and its foothills—including Kuni, Komayose, Kiyosato, Kaneko, Kuruma-Kamigō, Shagō, Momoi, and others in northern Gunma District—they would find that rice consumption amounted to only one *gō* (~180 ml) per person per day.
The rest of their diet consisted of a mix of grains—sweet potatoes, taro, wheat and potatoes, millet, barnyard grass, and corn—depending on local agricultural conditions.

Therefore, the farmers in the foothill regions did not make rice their staple food.
In other words, they had eaten heartily and worked vigorously without being picky, sustained by the produce of their land—the miscellaneous grains.

And though there were no rice fields, mulberry fields spread as far as the eye could see.
They raised silkworms to sell cocoons, used that money to import rice, and thus enjoyed the nourishment of rice.

However, once the rationing system was implemented, they came to receive an allocation of two *gō* (~360 ml) or more per person, the same as the farmers of the plains.
In other words, they had encountered the good fortune of receiving more than double the amount of rice compared to before—the controlled economy had ushered the people of the upland fields from their age of miscellaneous grains into a new era.

For the people of the upland fields, it must have been something like a blessing from the war.

Turning this around and considering that they began distributing rice even to regions that had not regularly consumed it until now, the demand for rice only continued to grow.
The northern part of Gunma District was still manageable.

Tano, Kitakan, Usui, Azuma, Tone—Gunma Prefecture was almost entirely a mountainous region.
It was the home of millet-flour oyaki and barnyard millet porridge.

In the depths of Tone District, there were even stories of ritual rice shaking.
In mountain households near Higashimura and Katashina Village, close to Minami-Aizu, they would put a small amount of rice into a bamboo tube at a patient’s final moments, shake it near their ear, and let them hear at least the sound of rice—or so it was said.

It was a metaphorical tale of a region where people had never been able to eat rice since birth.
In reality, it was probably not that extreme, but areas like Oikake along the Katashina River and Tokura near Oze had always been poor in rice fields, with only playing card-sized mountain paddies sparsely visible in the shadows of the ravines.

If you went to Nakasato Village, Ueno Village, and Manba in the depths of Tano District bordering Ura-Chichibu, it became even worse. Rice? What a ridiculous notion—there had been times when they hadn't even known sugar. Yet for three or four years now, they had received rice rations, sugar rations, beef and pork rations, fish rations—even dress shirts to wear beneath Western clothes and socks—and the mountain people's eyes went round with astonishment. At first, declaring that using sugar in daily life would corrupt their natural lifestyle, they refused the rations. They yelled that sea fish were terrifying and wouldn't lay a finger on them.

When it came to sea fish, even we who were born in the central plains of Jōshū—before we first saw the monster called electric lights in Maebashi, that great metropolis, crouching warily to gawk at them—had believed kamaboko swam glued to wooden boards, herring lived headless and dried, and salt-cured salmon hung from strings as sliced fillets. Given this, it was no wonder that people in the mountains near Minami-Aizu and those dwelling by Ura-Chichibu found sea fish unsettling.

Around a month and a half ago, I too received half a portion of raw herring through rations—though this was reportedly distributed not just to my village but nearly simultaneously across the entire prefecture.
Considering this, the amount of raw herring must have been enormous.
Whether it be rice or fish and shellfish, distributing them equally to all—regardless of whether they eat them or not, whether they have the habit of eating them or not—is a laborious task.

This was not limited to Gunma Prefecture alone.
In Hida, Shinano, Mutsu, and other mountain regions, it was all the same.
If they disregarded traditional local customs and wholesome practices while recklessly distributing supplies this way, shortages would only worsen further—and transportation systems would descend into chaos.
I couldn’t help worrying deeply—though it felt meddlesome—that across all Japan, we were pointlessly devouring wasteful provisions that served no real purpose.

Lately, perhaps due to my age, I’ve found myself worrying about all sorts of unnecessary things and meddling where I shouldn’t—it won’t do. If it doesn’t affect my family’s rations, then worrying oneself sick over what the authorities are doing is the height of folly. The authorities are likely managing things appropriately from their grand, elevated perspective on the nation’s food situation, so for a sudden farmer like me to get colicky over it is utterly presumptuous. I must restrain myself.

But I think that if they were to examine unnecessary rationing, useful rationing might actually contribute to national strength—or so I can’t help but wonder.
Old man, how full of complaints!

Given these circumstances, I could feel as secure as if aboard the mother ship now that summer was coming—for I’d secured the prospect of eating vegetables in abundance.
What I kept thinking of in connection with this was how I wanted city people to eat more vegetables.

Even so, even if I were to uproot every last vegetable from my hundred-tsubo field, it would amount to no more than a single hair from nine oxen.
If we wanted city people to eat even more vegetables, there was no other path than for all farmers to unite in purpose and devote themselves ever more diligently to vegetable cultivation.

However, when one stepped into the countryside, green onions, potatoes, leafy greens—all lush green and thriving—were bursting forth from the fields.
Yet I wondered—why were vegetables in such short supply in the cities?

Because of this，housewives in every household endured great hardships．If，in a situation where meat and fish were nearly nonexistent，even vegetables—indispensable day to day—were in short supply，people would be driven to mental collapse．It was clear to anyone that this wasn’t good for health．They couldn’t be bursting with health．

In the countryside, there were mountains of vegetables—so why couldn't people in the cities eat their fill?
The explanation was simple enough.

Let me examine the official price list for produce published by Gunma Prefecture Produce Shipping Control Association on December 20, 1944—Showa 19—that lay before me.
Produce truly was dirt cheap.

I extracted the principal items.
All were per kan, representing the purchase prices paid by the Produce Association to farmers during peak production periods.

Cucumbers at 64 sen, pumpkins at 45 sen, eggplants at 56 sen, tomatoes at 62 sen, radishes at 19 sen, taro at 58 sen, green onions at 52 sen, headed cabbage at 41 sen, spinach at 50 sen, podded peas at 88 sen, cabbage at 41 sen.

At these official prices, the Produce Association took them from the farmers' hands.

Next, let us note the prices of potatoes and other tubers—the items most favored by women and children.

During the peak season from June 16 to July 15, potatoes were priced at 3 yen 30 sen, and from January to May when supplies dwindled, they rose to 4 yen 40 sen.
This was not per kan.
It was per ten kan!
In other words, during peak season, farmers sold at 33 sen per kan.

Sweet potatoes were priced at 3 yen 20 sen for first-grade during the peak season in October, but dropped to 3 yen from November to January when they spoiled easily, with second-grade at 2 yen 90 sen and 2 yen 70 sen.
This too, like potatoes, was priced per ten kan.

Since the freight costs to the collection points designated by the government, prefecture, or cooperative were borne by the farmers, the amount paid to them was the price minus the freight costs. As for produce, the Produce Association deducted what they called a mediation fee from the official price and passed only that remaining amount to the farmers. Everyone, how astoundingly cheap this all was! Whether sweet potatoes or regular potatoes, you ought to have opened your mouths wide and eaten heartily. Don’t be so shocked by how cheap they were, ladies. While drooling, you mustn’t have rolled your eyes in disbelief.

But in reality, none of it reached city people’s mouths.
Upon hearing how truly cheap they were said to be, they ended up wasting their drool and rolling their eyes for nothing.

Suppose that farmers sold one kan of eggplants to the Produce Association during the peak production period.
The official price was fifty-six sen, but once they deducted a twenty-percent mediation fee of eleven sen and two rin, what ended up in the farmers’ hands was a mere forty-four sen and eight rin.

So I asked the farmers.

“On what standard was the official price for vegetables set?”

“Well, we don’t have a clue about that either, y’know.”

“Not a damn bit—we ain’t got even a speck o’ faith in that!”

“So you’re saying the Produce Association’s prices are too low?”

“It’s so damn ridiculous, it ain’t even worth talkin’ about.”

“But aren’t you all still doing your utmost to sell to the Produce Association?”

“Heh-heh,” they snickered meaningfully.

“Can’t say this too loud, but truth is—even if the Produce Association comes to buy, we ain’t exactly puttin’ on our welcome faces.”
“The fields’re already empty—that’s how it goes.”

“I see.”

“It’s a shame for the townsfolk, but it can’t be helped—that’s how it is.”

“That’s right—it’s a shame for city folks. But if that’s the case, then where on earth are you selling all those mountains of green onions and leafy greens growing in fields everywhere?”

“If you make us answer that, we’re in trouble.”

“But if farmers don’t send what’s left after they’ve eaten to the Produce Association, wouldn’t the vegetables just rot in the fields?”

“They don’t really rot there.”

“Hmm, is that so?”
This exchange provided little clarity.

Over ten years ago, I once grew vegetables here in Kamishinden. In the village, there was a produce market, and greengrocers came from Maebashi to make purchases. One morning, having about a hundred leftover eggplants, I took them to the market, where a greengrocer bought them for three sen and five rin.

A hundred of them, I tell you! That amounted to just three sen and five rin per eggplant. It was a time when the value of money was high, but seeing that a hundred eggplants fetched only three sen and five rin, I was utterly astounded.

I didn’t know how many eggplants made up one kan.
However, if one kan could be sold for forty-four sen and eight rin, even in these times when money’s value had fallen so much compared to the days when a hundred eggplants fetched three sen and five rin, it was still a far better deal, wasn’t it?
Even conservatively estimated, a hundred eggplants would amount to one kan four or five hundred momme.

One might expect farmers to eagerly send their produce to the Produce Association under these conditions, but in reality, they did not.
Because procurement squads came streaming in from the cities.

Groups of housewives from the cities came streaming in—carrying backpacks, large wrapping cloths, and ration baskets, trailing children behind them in group after group.
And standing before farmers’ doorsteps,

“Do you have anything?”
“There’s nothing at all.”
“If you have any, please share a little.”
“Anything will do.”
“What a hassle.”
“Don’t say such things—please, out of kindness, share a little with us.”

Thereupon, making a show of being inconvenienced, the farmers slowly entered the house.

The urban housewives smiled.

What the old farmer brought out from the earthen floor inside the house was a bundle of vegetables.

“This much’ll do for ya.”

The urban housewives were beaming with satisfaction.

“I’m sorry for the trouble—so how much should we pay you?”

“Nothin’ much—this little bit ain’t no nevermind to me what ya pay.”

“But please, you must tell us.”

“Me? I don’t know nothin’ ’bout prices.”
“Ah, never mind—just take it already.”

As a practical matter, saying “I don’t care how much you pay” was truly hard to deal with.
If they would just name a price—whether high or low—they’d pay it as stated, but this response left them flustered.
They had absolutely no idea.
Moreover, on the face of the old man who had said “I don’t care how much you pay,” expressions completely contrary to those words flickered.

For a brief moment, silence hung in the air, but the housewife turned sideways and pulled out a ten-yen bill from her purse,

“I’m sorry it’s not much, but please take this and keep it.”

“This’s all I got—ain’t no change here, y’see.”
“Right now, I ain’t got no small change on me—”

“We don’t need any change.”

“That ain’t right.”

It was only then that a smile flickered across the old farmer’s cheeks and the sides of his nostrils.
To the tactic of saying, “This’s all I got—ain’t no change here, y’see,” the urban housewives were well accustomed.
They were well-versed in everything.

“Mister, I’ll come again, so next time please sell me some potatoes or something.”

“Sure thing.”
“At this rate, I’ll get you whatever you need.”
“If my place doesn’t have it, I’ll arrange to get it from the neighbors for ya.”

The haggling exchanges over vegetables must have been something like this.

The other day, after finishing sowing the seeds of the Tokinashi radishes we’d need to eat this summer, I was sitting on the edge of the veranda taking a smoke from my kiseru pipe when a stranger around thirty years old approached along the garden path. And then abruptly, yet with a certain hesitance,

“Mister, do you have anything?”

...? he asked.
I thought this young man had come here under a misunderstanding.

“‘Do you have anything,’ you say—what exactly?”

“Either rice or potatoes would be fine—just a little…”

“So you’re here to buy something—but unfortunately, I don’t have anything here.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“No lie—if anything, I’m the one who could use some myself.”

“Don’t joke around—really, over there and here too, I’ve been eating scraps till I’m at my wit’s end.”

“That’s unfortunate, but I’ve only recently relocated here as an evacuee myself, and as foolish as it may seem, even rice and wheat—let alone fresh greens for soup—are in short supply, so I’m in a real bind right now.”

“I see. I misjudged you there.”

Just as I thought the young man would leave after saying this， he familiarly sat down next to me on the veranda where I was sitting.
And then， from an inner pocket of his old national uniform， he pulled out a half-smoked cigarette and lit it.

“Cigarettes are expensive too， aren’t they?” he said.

“It’s strange， isn’t it? Someone like you living right among fields yet not having enough to eat.”

“There’s nothing strange about it. Shortages aren’t just in the cities.”

“Well, truth is, I’ve been conscripted to work at a factory, but my real trade’s clog-making.”
“Since today’s an electricity conservation day, I came out scrounging for food.”
“Brought along some clogs I made myself—”

“Hmph.”

“Figured I’d have someone swap food for clogs—know anyone around here needing ’em?”

“If there were something at my place, I’d gladly exchange it with you—but it’s a shame there’s nothing. By the way, do you often go out on these buying trips?”

“Yes, whenever an electricity conservation day comes around, my wife always presses me to go out—”

“So at what rates do you all buy food from the countryside and take it away?”

“Depending on the item, the counterpart, and the location—there’s no fixed rate. It all depends on the day’s luck—completely haphazard. Well, since we’re offering some money as thanks for sharing their goods with us, you can’t really call it buying from farmers on the black market, right?”

“I see.”

“In other words, since we express gratitude through money for the farmers’ kindness, it doesn’t work like a regular transaction.”
“So when I go home and calculate, some foods turn out to be shockingly expensive while others are relatively cheap.”

“Hmph, you’ve got quite a smooth way of putting things.”
“But even if they’re expensive—though I’ve no idea how high these prices go—would buying from a greengrocer actually be cheaper or more expensive in the end—?”

“That’s obvious—getting rations from a greengrocer would be cheaper, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so. That’s unfortunate.—What sort of amount do you give as thanks?”

“First off, I’d say it amounts to about ten times the official prices.”

“Well, I’m surprised.”

“There’s no need to act so tactlessly surprised. Even the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce had acknowledged in the Diet once that you can’t maintain your health on greengrocer rations alone.”

“You remember things remarkably well.”

“So whether it’s the government or local authorities telling city folks to make one-tsubo or two-tsubo gardens—what can you even do with one or two tsubo?”
“First off—no farming tools.”
“No fertilizer either.”
“No land at all.”

“Now now—no complaining. There’s such a thing as creativity and ingenuity, you know.”

“I’m impressed—Oh, the sun’s about to set. I’ll get scolded by my wife.”
“I’ve got to find somewhere to make these clogs earn their keep.”

The man flusteredly headed out toward the village thoroughfare.

Looking back, greengrocer rations were indeed scarce in reality.
That man going out under his wife’s orders, eagerly awaiting electricity conservation days to scavenge for goods—whether you called it a buying trip or bartering—wasn’t unreasonable, I thought.

From last year’s end through around January and February of this year—a winter scarcity period—Tokyo’s rations had been truly meager.
For a family of four came one radish slice every four or five days—about one and a half sun in diameter and one-fifth sun thick—a round cut of radish.
I recall that two-sen copper coins from three or four years back had been larger.

However, I thought it was better than nothing.