Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Jinzai Kiyoshi

It was last summer.

There was an occasion when Mr. and Mrs. H invited two or three of us old friends to their first post-war opening of a villa in Karuizawa.
Among those present was G, who had reappeared before us after a long absence.
This came as a surprise.

The connection among our group had been merely that of sharing a room during our high school days, yet this vague youthful friendship had unexpectedly endured unbroken even after we each went our separate ways to university and later entered society.

The group consisted of about six people, most of whom were in humanities-oriented fields, but G was in engineering.
There was another—Mr.Wei, an international student from Shandong—who was in medicine.
He was a man so tall he could be called a beanpole, with an off-putting, unsociable demeanor, but in truth was a carefree optimist and unexpectedly, a refined man who couldn’t be easily dismissed.
The name Wei Yichun truly suited his stature.

We often acted spoiled toward him and teased him about harmless romantic rumors.
After graduating from university, he went to Nagasaki, where he first worked at a medical school and later opened his own practice.
There were rumors that he had taken a Japanese wife, but from around that time, details about him gradually grew hazy, and soon the war broke out.
Rumors spread that he had apparently returned to Shandong, but nothing certain was known.
If he had returned, what would have become of his fate?
Was he safe and sound, his premature white hair now even more frosted with age, still carefree as ever?
……We first began exchanging such rumors.

G was the sole mountaineering club member among our group.
That said, he wasn’t the type to take the lead and cheerfully direct others; rather, he preferred trekking through streams with small parties in quiet determination.
Once, he even ventured alone into Zan-za Cave after rainfall and lost consciousness from a failed traverse.
Since this occurred when stream trekking wasn’t as popular as now, had the woodcutter from the hut not chanced to come fetch water, G would have long been reduced to bones washed by the stream......Even we in his circle remained wholly unaware of this experience until much later, when he wove it into several of his poems.

Speaking of poetry, G was the only poet among us. Following the trends of the time in the Araragi style—and it seemed he particularly admired Senkashi—the works of his that occasionally appeared in alumni magazines were all nature poems, never once touching on human affairs. His poetic style, overly refined in diction and coldly composed, appeared oddly off-putting to members of the school's tanka society. Even there, he remained lonely. Through our mutual acquaintance S, G once sought criticism of his poetry from a senior poet at his school. This man was known as the most rational figure in the poetry world, yet with a first-rate smile that glinted sharply,

“Ah, this person is a mineral.”

...and then left after delivering his critique, it was said. S, finding it amusing, disclosed this critique to us, but it seems he had kept it concealed from G after all. Even if it wasn’t malicious criticism, he must have thought it struck too close to the mark. S was a man who liked to mediate others' affairs.

Now that it was mentioned, G did have a tendency to reduce humans to minerals in his thinking. To do so, he first reduced himself to a mineral. For people who finally filled their loneliness through dialogue with nature, this had never been rare since ancient times. Such people willingly transformed themselves into plants. G was the type who couldn’t do that. Perhaps he had passed through the age of plants in an era so distant he hadn’t yet been born. But in any case, it was thought that the Rational Poet had sarcastically remarked, "Such a person had better not compose poetry at all." The poet committed suicide by poison not long after that. And before long, G stopped writing poems as if he had forgotten them entirely.

G studied architecture at university. His graduation project was an elaborate plan for a general hospital. Just before it was finally completed and submitted, he showed us several large blueprints and explained them quite thoroughly, but now only vague memories remain—the complex floor plans split into an astonishing number of buildings, the soft roof colors and lines reminiscent of Dutch farmhouses—while the meticulous technical efforts and aspirations behind them were beyond our comprehension even at the time.

However, even such a dreamlike blueprint seemed to have something noteworthy in the eyes of experts.
After working at the T Engineering Firm in Tokyo for a while following his graduation, G was granted an unusually high-ranking position for the construction of a large new hospital planned in Keijo.
The only news that reached us was that he had settled on the continent and later crossed over to Manchuria; after that, all contact ceased completely.
In other words, G had vanished from our field of vision, following Mr.Wei.

It was with him that we reunited at H’s villa after nearly twenty years.
Rather than nostalgia, a certain awkwardness took precedence.
The blank of years creates an undeniable awkwardness, whether between men or women.
Between men and women, perhaps that gap could be bridged through a sort of pretense.
But between men, even that lifeline proves unreliable.

Diplomat S, using his ingrained social niceties, thoroughly questioned G about his subsequent life but obtained no satisfactory answers.
Even as G was growing flustered, since S himself was already embarrassed, the conversation went nowhere.
In the end, what became clear was that G was currently unmarried (from his tone, it seemed he had indeed been married once—), and another thing—that he had built about ten hospitals in Korea and Manchuria.
We, long accustomed to his taciturn nature from years past, were sufficiently satisfied with just that.
Before long, through the efforts of the sociable Mrs.H, it turned into an evening party inviting acquaintances' wives and young ladies.
As for Mrs.H, she may have already begun imagining G's remarriage.
At that gathering, G unexpectedly displayed skillful dancing, but whether it was the young ladies or the wives, there was not a single person whom he seemed to pay particular attention to.
Mrs.H, who had been secretly watching his every move with wide eyes, showed an almost undisguised look of disappointment.

The morning after the evening party, we came up with the idea of summer mountain climbing and forced G, who seemed less than enthusiastic, to agree to be our guide.
G pondered for a while but rejected someone’s proposal of Asama, then suggested that he would accompany us if it were a ridge walk from Ichimonjiyama via Amibariyama to Hanamagariyama.
He mentioned that in that case, depending on circumstances, there was also the option to stay at Kirizumi Onsen.

With about two of the young ladies from the previous evening joining us, our departure ended up being close to noon.
Moreover, as few people had yet taken that route that summer—with thickets overgrowing in unexpected places—the women's progress proved painfully slow.
By the time we reached Hanamagariyama's summit, the setting sun hung heavily over Onioshishi's slopes.

We had to abandon any thought of returning that day.
Forsaking descent along the eastern ridge where daylight waned toward Kirizumi, we instead made for Kose Onsen along the sunlit western slope.
When we reached the hot spring, darkness had already fallen.

That night, I ended up sleeping in the same small room as G.
I turned off the light and closed my eyes, but despite being exhausted, sleep wouldn’t come.
G seemed to be the same.
After nearly an hour of this, without either of us speaking up, we ended up going down to the bath together.

There was no moon, and the darkness of the mountain valleys pressed against the window with an unforeseen weight.
The sound of the hot spring stream's rapids drew near to our ears at times and receded into the distance at others.
We sat facing each other in the tub with eyes closed, listening to that sound without truly hearing it.
It felt as though it was not us two breathing, but rather nature itself.

It was a somehow oppressive silence.

Just then, from the nearby pine-covered mountain came a shrill, piercing cry.
Simultaneously, a sharp flapping sound rang out, tearing through the darkness into mid-air.
And it vanished.

"What could it be? A pheasant, perhaps?" I tried saying.

"Hmm, maybe a night heron?"

G kept his eyes closed and answered in a dull voice.
After that, it was the sound of the rapids again.

After getting out of the bath and crawling back into bed, we still couldn't fall asleep this time either.
It was G who lost patience first.
He lit his lighter and drank the water by his pillow with apparent relish.
I too lay prone and started smoking a cigarette in the dark.

“Can't sleep?” asked G.

“Mmm.
“The dream comes right up to the tip of my nose, but I just can’t manage it… Then I get this feeling that bird’s cry from earlier might sound again—and that dream thing just slips away to the other side.”

“Ah, that cry.
“...Yatsuko-san might’ve been attacked by a snake or something.”

“Maybe so. Anyway, once something like that lodges itself in your ears, you’re stuck with it for centuries.”

G chuckled lowly.
After some time had passed—in an offhand manner—he began speaking:

“Shall we talk about something?”
“Since you brought that up, now even I can’t get that sound out of my head...”
He paused. “Actually, that bird’s cry just made me suddenly recall something.
“It’s a dull story, but shall I tell it anyway?”

When I agreed, G began the following story: …

*

After leaving the mainland, I spent the first five years or so in Keijō.
I spent the next seven years in Manchuria.
During that time, I managed to build about ten hospitals of various sizes that I could reasonably call my own work.
As for the last three, I single-handedly handled everything from the design to overseeing construction.
“Among them, the Keimin Hospital in Shinkyō—though small in scale—is one I consider not half bad.”

When that work was completed, the Pacific War soon began.
Since it was no longer possible to focus on construction in Manchuria, I thought I should draw the line there and wash my hands of traveling to foreign lands.
“If you carelessly return home, they’ll draft you immediately—there were friends who threatened me with such words.”
To be sure, conscription was all well and good, but the thought of being pressed into some construction unit bound for the Marshall-Caroline Islands made me shudder.
“I still had this dream of building one or two more hospitals, you see.”
“It’s undoubtedly a foolish attachment.”
“But somehow I couldn’t shake the thought that if by some chance I were sent to a frontline base, I’d be the first one to get a bullet through my skull.”
“……Ah, my wife?”
(Responding to my interjected question) “I married her in Keijō, and she died in Keijō.”
“It was puerperal fever.”
“Since the child died along with her, well, in that regard it was a clean break—but anyway, I hesitated.”

While continuing my office routine and watching how things developed, eventually an offer came from North China Transportation asking if I wouldn’t come over. “The first project,” they said, “was to build something like a railway hospital on the outskirts of Beijing.” At that time, I had made a small discovery regarding lighting styles. Of course, it was just a theoretical plan, so I couldn’t help wanting to somehow test it in practice. That required certain specifications regarding materials. If the material were in North China, I imagined there might still be a possibility of using it.

So I took a leave and went to Dalian.
Since there was a senior colleague at Mantetsu headquarters well-versed in North China affairs, I intended to seek that person’s opinion.
Unfortunately, that person was on a business trip to Tianjin, and it was said that person wouldn't return for another four or five days.

It was my second time in Dalian, but I just couldn't come to like the town.
I decided to stay at Hoshigaura, but even there, the cheap bourgeois aesthetic wouldn’t let me settle.
To be honest, I might have been somewhat overwhelmed by nostalgia around that time.
After all, the ferry shuttling to the mainland was right there before my eyes, billowing smoke.

So I approached the hotel manager to ask if there was any quiet place to stay, and he told me about a hotel called Golden Terrace located on the outskirts of Lüshun.
"Of course, given the current state of affairs and the fact that the summer season had already passed..." he said it might be closed.
When I contacted them by phone, they said they would be closing in about ten days.
Indeed, it was already approaching mid-September.
I immediately set out with a single trunk in hand.

I also felt somewhat uneasy.
"When it came to Lüshun, I had preconceptions that had been ingrained in me since childhood."
I tended to imagine it as a bloody, parched land.
But when I actually went there, my imagination was thoroughly betrayed.
It was a town that seemed to quietly embrace a small blue bay.
The rows of acacia trees along Kaigan-dori were beautiful.

Golden Terrace was the name of a cape that commanded the bay entrance from the east.
The hotel was on the back side of the cape.
It stood as if forgotten in a pine grove that was probably no more than twenty minutes by rickshaw from the city.
I stood on the bungalow-style porch and called out loudly two or three times, but no one came out for some time.
That’s the kind of hotel it was.

There seemed to be no lodgers.
In fact, it was such that one couldn’t even tell whether there were any staff.
Not only was it the young manager himself who came out to the porch, but it was also he who showed me to the room on the second floor.
It transcended mere tranquility, being closer to utter desertion.
I felt somewhat as though I’d been tricked by a fox.

After drinking tea that the manager personally brought to the downstairs salon, I went out to the coast.
It was a desolate beach somewhat reminiscent of Shichirigahama.
Under a thinly clouded sky, the waves of the Yellow Sea undulated in leaden hues.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Faded-paint bathing huts stood here and there.
All of them were locked.
I peered into each one of them in turn.
I wondered if perhaps some fragment of human presence had been left behind.
There was nothing.
Only dry sand remained on the built-in bench.
When I finally found one torn pink slipper lying there, I felt an inexplicable sense of relief.

I turned back, passed by the front of the hotel, found what seemed to be a path leading up the mountain behind it, and wandered up. Pine, tobera, silverberry, aucuba—the glossy foliage of these trees truly stung my eyes after so long. After all, for over a decade I hadn't seen anything resembling true green. As I gradually climbed higher, scattered roof-like shapes began to come into view. The first one to appear was an old-fashioned Western-style building with a protruding circular room. The exterior plaster had turned bluish and was peeling off in places. The stone pillars supporting the porch had also been weathered by wind and rain, turning black. Peering through a tear in the window shutters, I saw chairs and tables haphazardly piled up in the dim interior, with old newspapers and empty cans scattered about as if rats had gnawed and strewn them. In addition to that, chapel-like structures and bungalow-style ones stood here and there in the woods, but no matter which one I looked at, both interiors and exteriors were uniformly severely dilapidated. Their architectural styles and layouts somehow had a distinctly Russian feel. I thought perhaps these might be relics from when this place was a Russian fortress long ago. Dusk was approaching. I felt slightly eerie and left the cluster of abandoned houses.

I ate dinner alone in the deserted dining hall. Afterwards, when the manager appeared, I asked about that cluster of abandoned houses, and just as I'd thought, they turned out to have been the staff quarters for Stessel's aides.

“They’ve become completely dilapidated.”
“After all, it’s been forty years now.”
“Even so, they kept repairing them time and again and used them as rental villas.”
“Yes, during summers Russians from places like Harbin used to come quite often.”
“But these past two or three years, they’ve suddenly stopped coming altogether.”
“No matter how much they repaired them, the roofs still leaked, and now they’re completely uninhabitable.”

The manager said such things.

I went up to my room and began reading the guidebook the manager had just given me.
And, like a proper tourist, I began mapping out tomorrow’s itinerary in my mind.
There was simply no other work for me to do.
It was profoundly quiet.
Not a single sound came from either downstairs or the second floor.
The sound of waves occasionally drifted in faintly.
Then, suddenly, the elevation of one of the vacant houses I had seen earlier floated into my mind.
There was a line there that I wanted to try using.
I took out my sketchbook and began sketching from memory.
The sound of water came from somewhere.
Somewhere deep around the L-shaped bend in the second-floor corridor, someone had apparently turned on a water faucet.
The sound soon stopped.
It might have been an auditory hallucination.

It bothered me a little, but I soon forgot.

While I had my pencil out, I tried sketching an impression of that chapel-like vacant house.
Before long, the figures of Russian officers in those gray military coats resembling overcoats began to flicker before my eyes.
Those figures went in and out of the abandoned houses.
The sound of a saber being dragged across the porch's paving stones could also be heard.
……It seemed closer to a dream than a hallucination.
I had dozed off before I knew it.

I woke with a start. There must have been a sound. I strained my ears for a while but heard nothing. Deciding to go back to bed, I thought to follow my usual habit of gargling before sleeping. I stepped into the corridor and entered the washroom directly ahead. As I reached for the faucet, I noticed the basin had its plug still inserted, murky water filling it four-fifths full. What's more, water had splashed everywhere around it. This clearly wasn't my doing. Feeling mildly irritated, I opened the small window and considered spitting out my gargled water through it.

The sky appeared completely overcast. It was a low, oppressive darkness. Into that void—the moment I spat out the water from my throat—there!—came that same shrill, rending cry and clamorous wingbeats from earlier. Both because it happened so abruptly and because it occurred just as my irritation was mounting, that jolting sensation lingered like a hardened lump within me, leaving me peculiarly vexed and unable to sleep for some time.

The next day was clear.
I headed out to the museum early in the morning, as planned the previous night.
I had gotten a general idea from the guidebook, but it was surprising that such a museum existed in this town at the tip of a peninsula, known only for its battle sites.
The first few rooms housed collections of Buddhist statues.
Of course, I didn't really understand Buddhist statues.
But I did enjoy gazing at them vacantly.
During my time in Korea it hadn't been like this, but in Manchuria I had never been blessed with such moments of mental respite.
Gradually drawn in, I began peering into each display case one by one.
Many pieces had come from places like Luoyang, Taiyuan, and Xi'an.
The Northern Wei stone Buddha head wore a Sphinx-like expression.
One of the Six Dynasties stone Buddha statues bore an entranced, seemingly drowsy smile.
From Gandhara's small stone head came the imagined sound of Greek seas.
While Song dynasty bronze Buddhis generally seemed vulgar, there were some fine works among the wood carvings.
Among them stood a Kannon statue holding a sake flask.
I recalled Horyuji Temple's Sake-Buying Kannon.
Ah, that Kudara Kannon.
Then I remembered the dim light of Nara's temples I'd occasionally visited on tours led by Professor Y during university days.
I remembered my own youth...

What a strange thing.
To find oneself reminiscing about youth while surrounded by relics from over a thousand years ago.
But when those artifacts were being carved and chiseled, humanity was still young after all.
One might say humanity's youthful breath lies richly fragrant within those chisel marks.
A vital force.
An abundant spirit.
And yet—what solidity they possess.
What endurance.
Gazing upon them warms my heart.
A faint trust in the act of shaping forms wells up within me...

If I say such things, I might be laughed at as having a retrospective bent or an ancient mania. But I don’t mind being laughed at. The true nature of those modern maniacs who mock antiquity is completely transparent, you see. Those people’s arrogant expressions are in fact nothing but inverted servility and impatience. Those people are none other than ourselves. Even if we were to do handstands, we probably can no longer attain that rich stability of ancient architecture and sculpture. Humanity has grown weary. The sun is setting.

Indeed, humanity's technology had made remarkable progress since entering the modern era.
Even in our field, both architectural materials and structural mechanics had been completely transformed over the past twenty or thirty years.
But glass was stronger than paper.
One couldn't just blithely claim steel frames were sturdier than wooden ones.
Because of that, life hadn't become any more certain.
Technological progress might be nothing but a stimulant humanity invented to conceal its own fatigue.
It might be thick makeup.
On the other hand, this insidious destructive power kept increasing at a geometric progression—no, at an even greater rate.
That was what modernity was.
If there were those in this modern age who prided themselves on such modernity, then unfortunately, they couldn't truly be called modern people.…

Such thoughts gradually surfaced as I peered at the Buddhist statues until before I knew it, I had grown agitated. At that time, I had been grappling with a certain problem regarding building materials and may have been somewhat neurasthenic. Eventually I entered the Western Regions Artifacts Room where I viewed fragments of murals said to be from the Murukku Grotto Temple and examined pieces of small statues and pots. The murals, both in coloration and brushwork, were exact duplicates of those in Horyuji Temple's Golden Hall. I was seized by intense nostalgia—though this nostalgia pulled me westward even more strongly than toward Nara. I had nearly resolved to accept the Beijing assignment I'd been hesitating over.

With the mummy room as my last stop, I left the museum. There lay mummies said to be of the Gaochang people—yes, about six or seven of them laid out. I did not know the country called Gaochang. You might not know either, perhaps. According to the guidebook, though considered part of the Western Regions, it was a country located much closer to China along the Southern Tianshan Road, which apparently existed from around the fifth century to around the seventh century. It was originally a Xiongnu stronghold that gradually suffered Han Chinese encroachment, eventually becoming their colony, or so it was said. In other words, it was a region where these three powers—Turkestan, the Huns, and the Han—had struggled and interacted since ancient times. Therefore, even if we speak of them collectively as the Gaochang people, arriving at a precise racial classification may be unexpectedly difficult. Indeed, even regarding the Xiongnu themselves, there exist theories positing Mongol lineage and those positing Turkic lineage—is it not said that no clear conclusion has been reached? But such academic debates were ultimately inconsequential. I saw the ancient people before my very eyes. I saw their living forms. If saying they are alive is problematic, I could rephrase it as "more than alive." After all, these mummies have been sleeping soundly for thirteen hundred years, exactly as they were, you see.……

They were not particularly tall. Having solidified into a darkened brownish hue, they appeared even smaller. Their faces were oblong in shape. Though their skeletal frames seemed robust, each one uniformly had sunken chests with pelvic bones that jutted out sharply. From their forms, I could vividly imagine their nomadic life—how I might make them rise up, grip long staffs in hand, and herd sheep across wilderness plains. There were two or three female mummies as well. More diminutive than the males, they seemed even more shriveled and spent. Perhaps because of this, the protrusions of their pubic bones stood out starkly. Beneath those—had their uteruses withered away yet still remained? The thought struck me suddenly. "They likely remain," I answered myself. It was a fresh, almost awe-inspiring sensation. I felt desire pulse through me—not just that, but a quiet swelling in part of my body.

They lay in silent stillness. If I were to call out in a low voice, I felt they might cast off thirteen centuries' veil and sit bolt upright to rise. It seemed utterly certain. When had that cluster of mummies shifted westward? A reflected light—crimson as the setting sun—quietly illuminated them. As shadows deepened, the mummies appeared starkly vivid. I looked at my watch. It was nearly three o'clock. I hurried outside as though shedding antiquity's weight. When I stepped onto the dazzling white expanse of street, I released a deep breath. The acacia trees swayed faintly.

Even after returning to the hotel, I still felt as though some phantom were haunting me.
That was likely due more to fatigue than any genuine emotion.
After all, I had forgotten lunch and spent nearly five hours peering into glass cases.
I hurriedly ordered toast and coffee, then began reading the Manchuria Daily in the empty salon.
I felt compelled to return to reality as quickly as possible.
Bold war articles sprawled across the pages in large type.
Yet no matter which I read, they rang hollow.
Yes—to Beijing at once—a voice whispered in some corner of my heart.
The sooner, the better.
With each day’s delay, what I sought seemed to slip further away.
The elixir that revived me felt rapidly diminishing.
I nearly reached for the telephone to call Dalian.
But clearly that senior colleague had not yet returned to his post.
Reluctantly, I abandoned the idea.

But what swiftly pulled me back to reality from such aimless drifting appeared unexpectedly close at hand. At first came small, rapid footsteps descending from the second floor. The thin carpet amplified every sound. Upon reaching the bottom, she hurried past the front desk toward me—a tall woman in a lilac qipao. Stopping mid-hallway, she abruptly turned sideways to peer toward the dining area through me. Her plump upper arms, bared nearly to shoulder level, glistened waxen with sweat that seemed to make her chest heave. She took a step or two toward the dining area before halting and whipping her gaze this way. Had I not been shielding myself with the newspaper, our eyes would have met—I must have made some sound then. That woman—the thought flashed through me—but she remained unaware. A vivid look of disappointment crossed her face before she vanished as if kicking her long hem aside. Through the qipao's characteristic slit flashed her taut calves once, twice. A glimpse of small crimson shoes followed—both features I recognized.

I listened intently.
The sound of footsteps echoed off the porch's stone pavement, and she seemed to have gone outside.
After a while, there was a faint creaking sound that seemed to be a rickshaw departing.

“By the way, you might be harboring some curiosity about who that woman really was to me.”
“If that is the case, I must apologize profusely.”
“Reality, unfortunately, isn’t as conveniently constructed as novels, you see.”
“To tell the truth, I know almost nothing about that woman.”
“As for who she really was—even now, I still find myself wondering about it from time to time.”

“That’s right—since I’ve come this far in telling this story, I might as well state it plainly.”
“I had only met that woman once before—three and a half days prior.”
“Though when I say ‘met,’ rest assured—it was merely on a train.”
“When I had mostly resolved to resign from the Ministry of Civil Affairs where I’d been working until then, I entrusted my resignation letter to a sympathetic superior and left Shinkyō for Fengtian.”
“There were about two friends I wanted to bid farewell to, you see.”
“Two days later, when I boarded the morning express bound for Dalian and found myself alone in the compartment I’d been assigned, I began dozing off even before the train had started moving.”
“After some time, I was shaken awake by a porter.”
“‘There’s a lady in distress over having no seat,’ he said.”
“‘Could you spare some space for her?’”
“‘The compartment can comfortably seat four people.’”
“I reluctantly agreed.”
“After all—having been forced into socializing with rowdy friends for two nights straight—I was dreadfully sleepy, you understand.”
“Eventually entering was the woman I just mentioned.”

At that time she wore not lilac but a black dress scattered thickly with small crimson flowers. Her belongings too were modest and refined to match it. In crisp Chinese she made her refusal and took her seat graciously. A faint scent of ambergris lingered. The young maid accompanying her likewise claimed a seat near the entrance. With one glance I knew she wasn't Manchu. "Even someone like me could tell that much after seven years there."

Her demeanor wasn’t affectedly mature. At first I simply thought her face beautiful, but viewing it closely from the side, it seemed to have reached at least the mid-thirties. She amiably initiated a few words of conversation, but my broken Manchu was too embarrassingly poor for your ears. Well, generally speaking, under the policy of having her regarded as a traveler from mainland Japan—as I responded sparingly with few words—she too must have reached some measure of reassurance, for she whispered something to her maid and had her nod in agreement, then took out a splendid small basket of Xuanhua grapes and first told me to take some as she offered it. I took as small a bunch as possible. I suddenly remembered and took out from under my arm a small Harbin chocolate box that a friend’s wife had given me the previous evening with instructions to “have this on your journey,” then reverently lifted its lid and offered it to Madame.

At that point, I excused myself and went to the dining room, so I didn't know what happened after that.
In the dining room, I drank about two bottles of beer—prohibited during daytime—as slowly as I could manage.
When I returned, Madame and the maid were leaning against each other in peaceful sleep.
Madame's head rested on the maid's rounded shoulder.
One foot in small crimson shoes lay carelessly stretched into the aisle's center.
The grape basket sat half-empty on the washstand.
Feeling relieved myself then, I quietly settled into the window seat and fell fast asleep.
Apparently awakened by a porter or someone, when I finally came to my senses the train was already passing through Dalian's western factory district, with Madame fully prepared and leaning against the corridor window.
Thus separated in the customs inspection commotion, one might call it all rather peacefully uneventful.

In such a place as Lüshun—out of season no less—and at such an unpopular hotel was where I happened to run into that woman again.
"You'd think someone would show at least some surprise—but that was all, and I didn't catch sight of her again that day."
Dinner remained just me alone.

That woman must not be staying here, I concluded.
She had probably come to visit an acquaintance or perhaps her husband, and when he wasn’t there, she must have left disappointed.
If that were the case, there must be someone else staying on the second floor besides me.
That person must have turned on the faucet late at night and splashed water in the washbasin.
But then again, the culprit didn’t necessarily have to be a lodger.
In preparation for second-floor guests, hotels generally keep a bellboys’ station somewhere in the back of that floor.
During off-season periods, it would make sense for the cook or someone else to be staying there... Such thoughts drifted vaguely through my mind.
The matter of who that woman had come to visit remained unclear, but there was no need to dwell on it excessively.

The next day, I was away from the hotel for nearly the entire day.
In the morning, I went to that empty house colony and spent a good long time walking around sketching.
Then, after returning once to the hotel, I went out to the old city district.
Noticing a battlefield tour bus with vacant seats, I casually boarded it.
The bus started from the Russian Army officers' club with its ceiling bearing a large bullet hole, climbed the mountain while moving up and down the even driveway, circling along the main defensive line.
At key battlefields, we would get off where the driver explained in his plain-spoken manner; fortresses and zigzag attack routes had each been meticulously restored, feeling less like ruins and more like something artificial—as though we were walking across an elaborate model.
In its own way, the strange term "human bullet" came sharply back to mind.
At Dongjiguan Mountain's North Fortress and Songshu Mountain's reserve battery—owing to my usual trade of handling cement and bricks—I ended up zealously inspecting them, but what ultimately became clear was nothing more than the stark distinction between these two terms: *chair à canon* and *human bullet*.
From that space between those two terms came a needle piercing sharply into my chest.

In the afternoon, I went to the museum again.
I gazed at yesterday's remaining craft collection with a peculiarly listless feeling.
Mostly Yongzheng period pieces, Joseon dynasty works, and blue-and-white porcelain—but among them was something curious.
A display case crammed full of snuff bottles.
Given they're called biyanhu—well—they must be snuff containers.
These charming pieces—no larger than perfume vials—stood arrayed in two or three hundred glittering rows: colored glass here, jade there, white porcelain elsewhere, with occasional layered lacquer surfaces catching the light.
This truly astonished me.
They were likely used by palace maids during the Qianlong and Kangxi reigns.
As I grew absorbed in admiring them, I suddenly remembered that Madame Lilac.
No—though it's but a trivial flight of fancy—in all honesty, having spent seven years in Manchuria, I don't believe I ever encountered a beauty of her caliber...

★

G cut himself off.
He remained silent for a while but soon lit his lighter.
As he lit his cigarette, G's profile floated in the darkness.
His profile seemed to hold a smile, but before its nature could be discerned, the lighter went out; I remained silent.

“Well, this concludes my story,” G presently said. “Though if you’re still not feeling drowsy, I could append one or two needless details.”

When I answered “Ah,” G—his profile dimly illuminated now and then by the glow of his cigarette—began to tell the following story.

“It was that midnight. I was awakened by the clamor of voices. When I listened intently, it seemed to be happening right below at the entrance. The number of people seemed to be two, arguing loudly about something without any restraint—in rough Chinese, of course incomprehensible to me. I endured it for a while before striking a match to check my watch: four o’clock. As I kept listening, it gradually became clear this wasn’t actually a quarrel. I must have lain there for perhaps fifteen minutes when suddenly a second-floor window clattered open somewhere and someone shrieked ‘Gigii!’—so like that night bird’s cry from two evenings prior that I bolted upright instinctively. Pushing open my window, I saw two rickshaws with four lamps glittering at their shafts’ bases quietly circling the carriage turnaround’s plantings as they departed. So that loud exchange had merely been the rickshaw pullers—arriving early—killing time with banter. Yet what truly made me doubt my eyes was seeing that Chinese woman unmistakably riding the front rickshaw. The rear one was obscured by tree placement—no time to discern clearly—but likely carried the maid from earlier. At any rate, both were women...”

“Where could she have gone so early in the morning?” I asked, as G had fallen silent for some time.

“When I later checked the timetable, there was a Dalian-bound first departure at five o’clock,” G said. “If I took that one, I realized I could transfer in Dalian and just make it onto the Fengtian-Beijing limited express...”

“So that woman had come from Beijing or Tianjin, then,” I said. “By the way, who was that person who shouted from the second-floor window in a voice just like a night bird’s after all?”

"I don't know."
"Judging by the voice, it somehow seemed like both a man and a woman."
"High-pitched screams are inherently difficult to distinguish between them."

“I see… So you didn’t even try to investigate?”

“Would there have been any need for that?” G retorted.
Perhaps it was my imagination, but his voice held a slight edge.

“Ah, my apologies— So did you end up encountering that woman somewhere again?”

“No, I didn’t meet her again.
“I don’t know where she was from or who she was, of course.”
“I only know the name.”
“That’s Wei Jolan.”
“…The following afternoon, I too departed from Port Arthur.
Just as I was about to leave, the manager asked me for a signature he’d forgotten.
The guest register was a large, flimsy thing that appeared freshly delivered with its first page open.
At the very bottom, written clearly in fluent Western script, was Wei Jolan.
The departure was properly dated that day.
The arrival was listed as the day before I came.
The address was indeed Tianjin.”

“Why on earth would she go out of her way to write it in Roman letters of all things?”

“I don’t know.”
“They probably have such customs in Tianjin or Beijing.”
“Her nationality was listed as Republic of China, you see.”

“Wei Jolan… That has a nice ring to it. How is that written in kanji?”

“Jolan would likely be the character for ‘young’ combined with ‘orchid.’ Wei is of course the character 魏.”

“What? Wei?... As in that Mr. Wei’s Wei?”

The reply ceased.

I sensed that G had nodded in the darkness.
It was then that I finally realized my own carelessness.

“Ah, so that’s how it was.”
“I hadn’t noticed at all…”

I had no other way to put it.
I remembered how among our group, G and Wei Yichun had been especially close.
There had even been rumors that Wei had fallen for G's immediate younger sister—that he'd gone so far as to propose marriage.
Back then, S and others would find it amusing and tease Wei Yichun to his face, but Mr.Wei of course would brush it off with his usual airy demeanor.
And G?... It was only now—now when my hair was thinning—that I first came to understand what lay within G's heart, guided by the night bird.