Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

A middle-aged woman’s beauty lies in her August skin.

Ah, on the path, withering flowers
They gave off their lingering fragrance.

“Very well, let’s talk. But first, I shall share a motto with you.”
“‘Harbor a cudgel’s resolve in your heart, affix a gentleman’s mask to your face, and walk with Chaplin’s gait—then life will rarely hit a dead end,’” she said.
“You see, it’s a motto meant for me.”
“…Now then, I shall proceed with my story.”
“You’ll listen to me, won’t you, young lady?”
“Oh! Before that, one more thing—of course you are a young lady, aren’t you?”
“…Now then, young lady, do listen—I don’t mind at all, I’ll tell you everything.”
“…In other words, it’s nothing serious—she, my wife, has run away from home, you see…”

×

“Two sen!”

“Yes.”

Handing over two sen, I passed through the amusement park’s ticket gate.
I seemed to have walked about six feet.
And there was a small wooden bridge.
Three feet wide, five feet long—no water flowed in the river beneath.
But still, I had to cross it.

To the left was the castle cliff.
Late spring grass swayed.
Bamboo grass rustled faintly.
Yellow flowers!
They were dandelions.

A short walk later, two pairs of swings!
The maid was settling a child onto them.
Young maples and young cherry trees basked their bark in the sunlight.

To the right lay the railway tracks of the Sotobori Line.
They were tracks for trains bound for XX.
Beyond the tracks rose a high cliff; atop this cliff stood a row of houses.
Beyond the row of houses ran a thoroughfare.
A thoroughfare lined with dust and people and colors, offices and printing shops and lawyers' houses—and then a butcher shop and the military police headquarters... all standing there.

The amusement park sat within the outer moat.
It lay at the base between cliffs.
What existed there was silence.
It was an assortment of various charming facilities.

The young man was ambling along.—I ambled along.

And there were two rocking horses.
But nobody was riding them.
Poor, poor neglected rocking horses!
There was one square box.
It was a box that spun round and round.
A wife would bring her little boy, have him ride on it—a box that spun when you spun it.
You might call it a spinning box, I suppose.
It must be one of the amusements, I suppose.
But this box too was pitiable.
Nobody, nobody was riding them.

Clumps of kerria half in bloom, clumps of azaleas two-thirds in bloom—they were scattered here and there.

There were swings again.
It was an amusement park exclusively for children.
It was nothing but swings.

A rectangular glass case—though of course only one side was glass-paneled—had been ostentatiously placed there.
Mounted specimens of copper pheasants and ducks sprawled imperiously within it.

“Indeed, even commonplace bird taxidermy must be considered a most precious facility in this amusement park.”

Roar!
A train!
An XX-bound train!
A green-bodied train, No. 27, with seven or eight passengers aboard.
May peace be upon their voyage—for voyage it truly was; the fresh greenery stretching to XX had no way to describe it but as waves... And so, may peace be upon their voyage.

Actually, they say the XX-bound train sometimes derails.
——
The young man—that is, me—sauntered off further ahead.
And a young maple.
And a young cherry tree.

And there was a hexagonal birdcage, tightly covered with wire mesh.
A height of one ken, a circumference of three ken—despite being such a large cage, it was occupied solely by pigeons.

They numbered ten.

O God, could it be that this amusement park is impoverished?

Coo, coo, coo—the sound of pigeons!
Toward me, standing and watching, they came flocking with their wings aligned.

They must have thought I would give them something.

It wasn’t because I begrudged the feed.
Nor was it because I lacked the money to buy any.
It was because the effort of taking my hand out of my pocket felt too burdensome.
No—and beyond that, it was because I was mired in gloom.
And so… I gave them nothing.

Young maples, young cherry trees, clumps of kerria half in bloom, clumps of azaleas a third in bloom—they were scattered here and there.

The young man walked on again.
I walked on sluggishly.

II

Swings again!
A pair of swings!

Next to them—a slide!

But nobody was sliding down it.

Roar, the XX-bound train!
It had gone.

And then, what remained was silence.
A gentle breeze was stirring.

There were many young cherry trees.
Pitifully, a bunch of flowers was blooming, wrapped in leaves.

The season’s festivals had passed—the flowers’ glory had passed—so why did they cling like rogue ideologues, guarding decrepit ideas as sacred relics? Why did they keep dreaming of the past—clinging with lion-like tenacity to that meager zenith of theirs?

There stood a disowned birdcage, and before it, the amusement park caretaker’s house—its shoji doors, quilted with patches and gnawed by eras, now bared their ribs to the light of a new age—to the early summer sun.

Around this time, I began to notice.

“The delinquent youth is following me,” I thought.

But to tell the truth, I had vaguely noticed being followed by a delinquent youth ever since passing through the amusement park’s ticket gate.

A Bohemian necktie, a matching overcoat (faded trendy pale brown), then a matching woolen cap (faded trendy pale brown), cane in hand, red boots on his feet, an ashen bluish-black face hinting at malnutrition, and lead-colored lips.
——Such an animal was following me.

What I soon learned was this: the delinquent youth following me wasn’t acting alone.
He had accomplices.

It was when I reached the caretaker’s house that I discovered evidence of this.
It was because the delinquent youth with lead-colored lips flicked up the cane he was holding and made a signal-like gesture toward a certain direction.

"Hmph," I snorted.
"I know, I know—I've noticed."

I made no move to engage.

I walked on sluggishly.

They followed sluggishly from behind.

“I know, I know, I’ve noticed.”

And I thought this as well.

“Given that I’m dressed like this and walking around such an amusement park, it’s only natural that those bastards would tail me, thinking to make me their prey.”
“This is only to be expected.”

——Let them have their way——I thought.

——Go ahead and make me your prey if you want.

——If that’s how you lot make your living.

Do you call that making a living!
Do you call that making a living!
……I also felt like letting out a derisive laugh.

In fact, it was a compact—and indeed, an extremely quiet—amusement park, so devoid of strollers that it verged on desolation.

Even if they committed misdeeds there, it would rarely cause a commotion.

I decided not to be cautious.

And so I remained a youth walking sluggishly on.

“Oh, there’s something strange standing there.”

But there was no need to look closely.
And it wasn’t particularly strange either.

It was nothing more than a waterfowl cage enclosed by wire mesh on all sides.
That said, the cage’s roof—standing about two ken high (though it offered no view of Nagoya; one and a half ken wide, two chō deep—a clichéd descriptor, but resembling an eel’s burrow—yet just the right height to survey the entire amusement park)—had become such an observation deck that calling it “something strange” was indeed justified.

A concrete gourd-shaped pond, its murky water inside, two mandarin ducks floating there, two geese honking there—speaking of what inhabited the waterfowl cage, it was not approximately but literally nothing more than four waterfowl.

“No use blaming them, no use blaming them—the admission fee was two sen after all.”
“When judged by the standard of two sen, this waterfowl cage and its four waterfowl had to be called splendid attractions.”

I stood before the waterfowl cage, thinking such thoughts.

“It’s when people demand more than something’s worth that civilization collapses,” I mused.

It seems I was thinking such things as well.

But at this cage, I in fact obtained a costly catch—one worth more than two sen, yet not splendid in the least.

There was a bench placed beside the waterfowl cage; when I tried to rest by sitting down, a young beautiful woman came from the opposite direction, lightly greeted me, sat down on the bench as well, started with talk about the weather, and thus became quite acquainted.

×

“She—my wife—has run away from home.”

三

And so I continued talking.—

“The fault seems to have been mine.”
“Because I’d revealed too much.”
“And a friend of mine said, ‘Writing “Wife Stories” is all well and good, but write too many and pests’ll come swarming—what’ll you do if a bunch of folks start saying “Let’s go see that guy’s ‘wife’”?’”
“Some no-good mistake’ll happen!”
“So he said, ‘You shouldn’t write too much.’”
“...I didn’t write that many, to be precise—about three, I suppose.”
“『××××』, 『△△』, and, um, 『□□□□』.”
“That’s right—it was three at most.”
“But really, looking back now, those three were a mistake—I should have stopped at two.”
“Why?”
“You’d ask that, I suppose.”
“Well, how should I put it—in any case, it was all my fault, so pests came swarming in.”
“And not only was that guy a delinquent youth, but he was also younger than my wife—and yet she, I must clarify, was the one who got tempted. … As for me, I did my utmost to stay vigilant, but in the end, it all came to naught.”
“He was this utterly brazen lout who’d bellow things like ‘Open up! Open up!’”
“I’d put up a ‘No Visitors’ sign and shut the front gate, you see?”
“‘You can’t come in—I won’t see you.’ Of course I refused, but then he pleaded, ‘Please open up! Please open up!’”
“‘What else am I supposed to do?’”
“‘So you’ve got no choice but to open up.’”
“‘And then, what do you know—the Delinquent Youth clings to your wife’s side and refuses to budge. What a—he wasn’t even a looker.’”

“I was a rather grimy sort of existence.”
“Did I have any qualities worth mentioning, I wonder?”
“Ah! Right—there was one.”
“A thoroughly repulsive quality, mind you—a buffoonish manner so intolerable it beggared belief!”
“This alone was my singular virtue!”
“But what proved most vexing was how such clownish antics could, depending on one’s perspective, seem guileless or even charming.”
“And she—your wife—appeared partial to that latter interpretation.”
“Dear me, dear me—what’s there to say?”
“…And so she was tempted, you see… Ah—and then another matter.”
“This was less a quality than an affliction, I should think—a peculiar compulsion I nursed.”
“To put it plainly, a deviant appetite—that is to say… Well… A fixation on the wife’s garments.”
“When she’d enter the bath, her cast-off robes—damn it all!”
“I’d grope at them with my fingertips.”
“And until she emerged, I simply couldn’t desist—it left me crimson with shame.”
“Couldn’t be helped—what else could I do?”

But depending on how you look at it, this guy could even be seen as showing 'profound affection.' And so my wife—what wife?!—had viewed it that way. In other words—a charitable interpretation, you see? It’s a ridiculous notion—what kind of goodwill could there be? Since then! That’s right—since then, I resolved to avoid all charitable interpretations altogether. It’s dangerous, you know—charitable interpretations! There are those who’d take advantage—of that very charitable interpretation, you see… The delinquent youth who tempted my wife—now there was a brazen one… “How about joining us as a couple for a meal?” he’d say. What right did that lout have to play host? To suggest eating my household’s food at my own dining table alongside us—it was a thoroughly vulgar way of dining! He’d clear his throat with guttural chuckles. He’d smack his lips wetly. He wasn’t much of an eater himself but insisted on three meals a day… Even my wife seemed exasperated by this.“Please eat more elegantly,” she had apparently said once.“I suppose putting up with eating together can’t be helped, but stop wolfing it down like that!” I finally told him once too. And what do you know—it wasn’t amusing at all! When I told him to stop, he wouldn’t listen; yet when my wife said the same thing, he complied.“Well fine—let’s endure that too! What truly became unbearable was how my wife took pride in it—‘See? Isn’t he adorable? He listens to what I say.’ In other words—it was from such sentiments that my wife was tempted.”…But then that lout—the delinquent youth—finally came out with it:“Let’s all sleep together—the three of us!” Of course even my wife had flatly refused this one.“That won’t do! Please leave!” —Since even I said,“Scram! Disappear!”…And bang!

Slam!
I thumped him out of the room and slammed the gate door shut.
Of course! Only natural under the circumstances!
Because he was trying to violate our marital bed, you see.
Wouldn’t that make anyone blush?
Oh dear, oh dear—I was mortified… Yet that lout persisted stubbornly, yes, for a good long while—planted at the gate and pleading, “Please open up! Please open up!” As if I’d ever oblige him!
Then he snapped furiously: “What’s the big idea?! What’s the big idea?!”
“Open up! Open up!” he bellowed like some thug.
“Not a chance!”
“Please open up! Please open up!” Now it was a whimper.
Infuriating enough on its own—but then the wife chimed in:
“How pitiful… Should we let him in?”
“That lout has his own boardinghouse! Leave him out there—it’s absurd!”
“But it’s so pitiful… So very pitiful.”
“That misplaced kindness of yours is precisely the problem!” Then I settled things once and for all:
“Get lost! Get lost!”
“Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!”—as though chasing off vermin.
…But in the end, I lost.
“Because my wife ran away from home.”

What I felt as we spoke was that the young lady at my side was pressing her body against me.
And then the young lady’s beautiful hand kept flitting against me.

――I know, I know, I know… I had known the truth all along.

And I did not turn east.

Because there were companions over there.

Hmph—conspirators!
I knew already!

But I didn’t dwell on it.

I calmly allowed her body to press against mine.
And I calmly let her take my hand as well.

Go ahead—indulge in your seductive act to your heart’s content!
If that’s how you and your companions can make a living.
…In other words, this had been my intention all along.

“Yes—it was today. Just earlier. Right after we finished lunch.”
“The reason my wife ran away is… you see.”

I had tried to go on speaking.
But I stood up from the bench.
Somehow—somehow—the young lady’s stray locks might they not become entangled near my cheek?
It was because I had felt something like this.

Let’s at least refrain from kissing—this was what I had decided.
No matter how you looked at it，there remained some dignity to preserve.
This too had factored into my reasoning.

And besides—first of all, it’s embarrassing to have that seen by the public.—It was because I thought this as well.

—That’s just horribly tasteless.—Needless to say, I thought this as well.

“Hey, young lady—you *are* a young lady, aren’t you?… Let’s take a walk.”

(Young lady, those dark circles really become you!) Was the venom I spat inwardly truly my own insolence?

Where I stopped, there was a cage.

A bear was there.
Lumbering, lumbering, lumbering, lumbering.…

Lined up next to it was another cage.

Six monkeys were playing.
Lumbering—no, no, that wasn’t it.
They were indeed playing nimbly.

Lined up with the monkey cage, several cages formed a sprawling row.
Although it was a rather leisurely pace, the young lady and I went on to peer into each and every cage.

In one cage was a parrot.
And only one at that.
In one cage was a rabbit.
And only one at that.
In another cage was a monkey—
a parent and child monkey, a single infant, and another that seemed like a dependent guest.
In another cage were red sparrows.
And only three at that.
In another cage was a kite.
And only one at that.
(Glaring at the sky, strutting about imperiously, as if declaring, "I'm great!") In another cage was a peacock.
(Though they resembled peacocks, they were somewhat shabby birds.) The three of them lay belly-down.
On sand untouched by sunlight.

And that was all there was to it.

No, no—opposite those rows of cages, on the facing side, there was yet another row of cages.

Though it was a rather unhurried affair, we two peered in.

IV

In one cage were two turkeys!
Well, well—this is quite the spectacle!

In one cage was a single guinea pig!
Well, well—I'll endure this one too!

Following that were tiny boxes—no—no, they were indeed cages—four of them lined up shoulder to shoulder, standing like soldiers.
The creatures inside were all rabbits without exception, so I ended up laughing spitefully.

“It seems the visitors to this amusement park are quite fond of rabbits.”

But I was startled.

When I saw—inside the last splendid cage… Well, even that was a birdcage—the vast number of birds kept within that birdcage.

“Chickens! Chickens!”
“Chickens! Chickens!”

God!
No—might as well call on the devil!
There were chickens kept there.
Ordinary domestic chickens—nothing rare at all!

“It seems even domestic chickens become attractions for the visitors of this amusement park.”
“Admittedly,” I answered myself.
“Still, domestic chickens are quite splendid birds… It’s just that they’re found everywhere in abundance, lay eggs to an irritating degree, crow their battle cry every single morning, and embody such mediocrity—that’s why they aren’t valued.”
“They’re mass-produced birds, not highbrow ones—that’s why they aren’t valued.”
“But… why is this so absurd, somehow, without reason?”

But I immediately regretted it.

Because a sign had been posted.

“Donor: 3-chome, Takehira-cho, Higashi Ward, Nagoya City,

15 chickens, Ms. Tonemura Kinuko”

It had been posted on the birdcage.

“Ah, right,” I realized.
“Either a beautiful young lady or a beautiful wife—in any case, it must have been a single kind-hearted woman who donated these chickens.”
The amusement park’s operators hadn’t bought and kept them.
“If they’re donations, there’s no room for complaint.”

At that point, I looked again at the cages holding rabbits and guinea pigs.

The rabbit cages and guinea pig cages alike had the donors’ names inscribed.

“So every last one of these is a donation?”
“Well, how marvelous—or rather, it seems Nagoya City has no shortage of kind-hearted women who adore animals and amusement parks.”

In stark contrast, my wife had abandoned me and run away from home!

“Hey, young lady,” I said.
“Clunk-clatter, ha ha ha... So she ran off saying this—she’s my wife, mind you.”
“Let me explain in detail.”

And I kept talking.

But being thoroughly cautious, I did not head eastward—for I knew full well they had me in their sights.

But I occasionally turned to look behind me.

because I knew that the delinquent youth with lead-colored lips was following me, holding a cane and occasionally signaling with it.

“How can she run away from home so effortlessly?”
“It’s utterly incomprehensible to me.”
“Is that what women are like?”
“If that’s their nature, I might shake my fist at womankind itself.”
“No—at least I’ll fasten my buttons.”
“The ones on my chest, naturally. …Still, women remain delightful creatures.”
“Particularly to my taste—middle-aged women are most delightful.”

There, I exclaimed poetically.

“The beauty of middle-aged women lies in August skin!”

I declared in an even more sing-song voice.

“Ah, along the path—the wilting flowers still give off their lingering fragrance.
“So you see—she was my wife—that’s the sort of woman she was.”
“A truly splendid and beautiful woman she was.”

But I thought.
“Haven’t I gone a bit too far?”
“Will my praising of my wife become as annoyingly persistent as usual?”
I dismissed the thought with a “Who cares?”
“Say it! Say it! Say it!”
There, as if hounded—as if possessed by some force that demanded speech—I launched into this tirade with a repulsively eloquent flourish.

“Eyes!
“Well—it was because of *the eyes*!
“To elaborate on those eyes’ beauty—I’d already described them in a certain yakuza-themed work titled *XXXX*, which was, I must say, a masterpiece. Since I covered it there, I’ll spare you the details here. To put it bluntly: ‘*She became not a mere female but a true woman because she possessed those eyes—and because she wielded them.*’…After all, a woman must maintain one singularly beautiful feature in her facial arsenal—and exploit it to beguile her lover or husband’s heart. No exceptions.”
“And so—to borrow an old metaphorical saying—women unfortunate enough to lack such beauty, or who fail to wield it, are not *true women* but *mere females*.…However, I must gratefully acknowledge that my wife possessed it.”
“And since she wielded them as well—though I know I’m repeating myself—the eyes!”
“The eyes, I tell you!”
…Even someone like me grew melancholy.
Or rather, ninety percent of my life had been steeped in melancholy, I must say.
If I were to complain that her tea was poorly brewed, that too would plunge me into melancholy.
But here was the thing about the wife—with just her eyes, she transformed that so-called poorly brewed tea into something delicious.
Clap, clap, clap—she clapped her hands repeatedly, those extraordinarily beautiful eyes of hers.
And then she said to me—
“This tea is delicious!” Then she clapped her hands once more—clap, clap, clap!
“And what do you know? Even terrible tea becomes drinkable, doesn’t it?”
“……But”

“And so,” I said with theatrical melancholy.

“Because she had such beautiful eyes—your *wife* was tempted.”
“That fellow—yes, the delinquent youth—would stare at your wife’s eyes until it turned one’s stomach.”
“Like livestock watching their master’s eyes and fawning over them.”
“…And one might also say this: your wife’s beautiful eyes tempted that delinquent youth, and having been tempted, he then made advances to your wife.”
“Oh dear me, oh dear me—no doubt about it.”
“Those who tempt shall be tempted in turn.”

V

I was fully conscious of it all—the way the young woman, exuding a sultry allure in her immaculate form, kept throwing her arms around mine as we walked and talked, resting her hand on my shoulder, pressing against my chest, bobbing her head in eager agreement with every word I said, furrowing her brows in performative sympathy—in short, deploying every last coquettish mannerism to worm her way into my affections.

“What on earth was this woman?”
The answer was terrifyingly simple.

“No mistake. She’s that breed of woman.”

“Why does she do such things?”
The answer to that was equally simple.
“What else could there be? To survive.”

“But in broad daylight like this?”
“It’s precisely because it’s broad daylight that this works as a business.”

In her face, her figure, even her fingers—she possessed vivid contours.
And her profile was particularly lovely.
*(This is what matters most of all!)*

She was a woman of stark contrasts.
(So her social standing was obvious!)

Still, I did not dwell on it.
She had been left to her freedom.

However, try as I might, I could not bring myself to turn my face toward the east.
Because their companions were there, and because that frightened me.

I came to a corner of the small playground equipped with a swaying log balance beam, mechanical gymnastics apparatuses, a rotating box, swings...

There was a wisteria trellis whose flowers had begun to bloom.

The young trees enveloped them, protectively cradling them.

No matter where I looked, there was no trace of human presence.

Ten days prior, it would have been pandemonium.
The place would have been teeming with crowds coming to view the cherry blossoms.
The aftermath of an ebbing tide leaves nothing but desolation.

I walked twenty paces from the small playground and turned back to the bench.
I came to the waterfowl cage that doubled as an observation deck.

“This seems like the best spot here.”
There was no mistake in this conclusion.
(For the young lady’s sake, for my sake, and for the sake of those targeting us)

The reason I leaned over the backrest of the bench where I sat and furtively glanced behind me was to discreetly ascertain the whereabouts of that delinquent youth with lead-colored lips.

He stood properly behind me.
Then he flicked up his cane.
Apparently he'd made another signal.
"Danger seems to be closing in," I thought.

I reached into my pocket.

When faced with such situations, whether one possessed a weapon for self-defense became a matter of life and death.
I had to prevent as much as I could.

“First, it’s safe enough—I have a weapon.”
“If I just wield this thing properly, it’ll be me who ends up victorious instead.”

“So ‘koten’ means something like this…”

I began speaking to the young lady.
“It means lowering one’s head—or rather, that’s an adjective, you see? When you lower your head like that, wouldn’t you say the sound of it dropping is ‘koten’?”
“And that’s what my wife says.”
“It’s an adjective my wife coined.”
“Now, as for what *saisai* means—it’s an abbreviation of *sayōnara* repeated twice. First, *sayōnara* gets shortened to *sainara*, then *sainara* gets abbreviated to *sai*. Put two of those together, and you get *saisai*.”
“This is another term my wife coined.”
“Now, as for the final *Ahh, Ahh, Ahh*… this one requires a rather lengthy explanation.”
“Back when we were in Nishikikui Town.”
“It was when we were living there—a very cute child came to visit.”
“She became so terribly attached that once she came over to play, she’d never want to go home—her mother would worry, you see—so my wife would say, ‘Come now, Yuki, time to go home.’ Then little Yuki—adorable as she was—would make this troubled face, but she knew she had to leave, so she’d press her forehead to the tatami—a proper bow—and then lift her head again.”
“And her face would flush, making her look even cuter, and she’d nod her head up and down like this—then say, ‘Ahh, Ahh, Ahh.’”
“Of course, its meaning isn’t understood—but at least we grasp that it’s meant as a farewell.”
“That ‘Ahh, Ahh, Ahh’ was utterly adorable and perfectly suited my wife’s tastes.”
“And so, she ended up using that, you see.”
“You see, young lady? If you string these three together, wouldn’t it become something like *‘Koten, saiai, Ahh-Ahh-Ahh’*?”
“Nah, it’s not just some meaningless phrase—it’s meant to announce a parting.”
“However, as for my wife—even when she goes out for a trivial errand—she does it, you see.”
“*Koten, saiai, Ahh-Ahh-Ahh*”… It’s innocent, gentle, and endearing, but—”
“But really… but really…”

There, I grew melancholy.

“In any case, it’s a running away from home.”
“Isn’t this a serious problem?”
“It’s no joking matter.”
“Yet even at such a time, my wife did that and left the house with a ‘Koten, saiai, Ahh-Ahh-Ahh’… I can’t help but think about it.”

The waterfowl remained indifferent.

They were the geese of the waterfowl cage.

Honk! Honk! Honk!
They were honking their damn heads off.

And then, one of them bent its long neck and thrust its beak into the water.
Shake, shake, shake!
It shook.
It shook its long neck.
Needless to say, the water splashed.
Then, it suddenly raised its neck—Honk! Honk!
It began to honk.

Then, another one unabashedly bent its long neck and thrust its beak into the water.
No sooner had it splashed the water in the same manner than it abruptly raised its neck high—Honk! Honk!
It began to honk.

There's no creature as thick-skinned as this.

Sunlight streamed in diagonally.
Heat haze rose from the pond.

We were watching that.
Both I and the young lady remained silent.
And there was a hushed stillness.
How long would this stillness last?
However, we both remained silent.

But what should I do?

The young woman’s slender, delicate arm—deceptively strong for its appearance—looped loosely around one of my shoulders, pulling my entire body closer, while her other hand pressed savagely against my cheek, trying to wrench my face toward hers.

The crisis seemed imminent at last.

“Should I pull it out? Should I pull it out?”

It was about to descend upon me—
the young lady’s so-called kiss.

My face was being twisted toward hers.
My face turned eastward.

Therefore, no matter what, by drawing out my weapon and thwarting her and her accomplices’ treacherous scheme, I had to win.

Safely and smoothly, my attempt succeeded.

The weapon—a book!
It was nothing at all.
It was simply a matter of taking out the collection of creative works I’d recently published—titled ○○—from my pocket, pressing it against my own face, deliberately turning eastward, and laughing explosively from behind the back cover of said collection.

Things turned out exactly as I had intended.

From the grove of Sotobori Inari, located to the nearby east,

“Hey, what the hell?!”

A voice rang out.

Then, a voice came from behind.

“Right at the critical moment!”
“It’s ruined!”

It was the voice of the delinquent youth with lead-colored lips.

Needless to say, the young woman’s hand that had been resting on my shoulder dropped limply.

“Hey, isn’t this enough already?”

So as not to hurt the young lady’s feelings—for even she had a business to run and a living to make—I spoke with utmost calm.

“The sun will be setting soon.
We can’t even get any work done now, can we?”

At that moment, a dog barked.

And I looked at the observation deck.

I calmly gazed at my wife and her lover, who were tightly embracing each other and standing on the observation deck, looking in my direction.

“I killed two birds with one stone—nothing to write home about.”

It was when I reached Sotobori Inari that I took off my hat and gave a greeting.

“Gentlemen of the Film Company, you must’ve been disappointed! Such a close-up!”

And I left the amusement park.

The streets of the city were bustling.
It was what they called rush hour.

“Mr. Lead-Lips here being the director—color me impressed… Typical Western trick, isn’t it? Get some pretentious youth to coax an actress into putting on an erotic show, secretly film it with your reels, then screen it for members-only entertainment.”
“Hmph! As if I’d swallow such bait!”
Well now—seems even Japan’s been infected by this shoddy imitation.
Baggy pants, wide-sleeved jacket, topped with a Turkish cap… Well now—my whole getup looked tailor-made for their farce.
…And that amusement park!
“All they managed was setting up their props.”

6

The Wife returned home from running away a little after nightfall that evening.
Her eyes were somewhat swollen from crying.

“I was watching, you know. How cruel you are.”
“I have a fever. Hold me, won’t you?”

“Cough, cough, cough… Cough, cough!”

When Nora came home with a cold, if Helmar had shown any kindness—and he was certainly kind enough—he would have undoubtedly tended to her. Moreover, my Nora hadn’t abandoned me because some new ideology had tempted her away. “Don”… Our pet dog—we’d taken him in as a tiny pup, raising him first in the tatami room. When October arrived and we moved him down to the yard, he began pining for the Wife who’d doted on him, pleading: “Let me up! Let me up!” With woofing pleas like this, once let back into the tatami room, he’d romp about with Wife—trying to share meals, trying to have all three of us sleep together—and though this sprang from loyalty, he’d also keep watch over Wife’s clothes. Such was “Don,” this so-called youth of a dog—or rather, truth be told, after ten months a dog might well be called a youth. And so, after some trifling spat with me, she’d left home with Don, gone to the amusement park to while away the time, seen my clownish antics there, taken umbrage and lingered until evening, gotten chilled by the night wind, and returned home with a cold—that was all there was to it.

So I suppose I have to take care of her.

“Take to bed now and drink aspirin.”

Having said this, I thought:
The Wife with August skin might be slightly feverish tonight—but she’ll likely perform twice the symphony for my sake.

×

Several days later, a letter arrived from the Chukyo Comedy Kinema Company.

“We had no prior acquaintance with Mr. K and committed a grave discourtesy.
However, the film has been produced to an exceptionally high standard.
While we deeply regret the inconvenience, we cannot bear to discard the expenses incurred and have therefore decided to release it.
We kindly ask for your understanding.
As we are indeed a small company, discarding such costs would truly be wasteful…”

The letter carried this meaning, but I read no further.
For it was a veiled extortion.

But with Goronbo’s unyielding spirit, I immediately fired back a sarcastic retort.
However, I adopted a gentlemanly tone.
I wrote it while wearing a mask.

“By all means, feel free to release it. You were supposed to have captured a close-up of that beautiful actress and myself in a kissing scene, but this must have been a failure on your part—for instead of my face appearing on film, it should have been my book that was captured. On the contrary, the release is something I desire. Since both my name and the title of my book appear prominently. Moreover, I took meticulous care and certainly never once turned my face toward the lens. And even if that is released, no one will likely realize that I am me. Not only that, but by being released, I stand to gain. Since my book will be advertised. It will likely sell quite well.”

Who’d waste their money buying such a film?
×

That the chaste Wife had become even more chaste since this incident was only natural.
She had been watching from the observation deck.
She must have seen every single movement between me and the young woman.
But she couldn’t have heard our conversation.
The distance had been slightly too great.

The Wife must have thought.
“Even now, our little master of the house—that’s my pet name for him—might still catch some beautiful young lady’s fancy.
I can’t let my guard down. I can’t let my guard down,” she thought.

“By the way, what ever happened to that actress?”

Afterward, he would occasionally recall it.

Nineteen, twenty—something like that.
Doesn’t suit my taste, that age—
…The beauty of full bloom slightly wilting, yet still filling the path with lingering fragrance—that kind of floral beauty, the kind that evokes such flowers—if it’s not a woman just past twenty-five, not a middle-aged one, it doesn’t suit my tastes! Season-wise, it’s August!
A woman at that age—the precise line between summer turning to autumn—is just right. …And if that actress from back then had been such a woman, even I might have been in danger.
I might not have been able to walk around so nonchalantly in that Chaplin-esque manner.

(Postscript.
I must confess I have almost no knowledge about cinema.
In that regard, there is likely a flaw in this work.)