Pathway to Japanese Literature

I believed that to make you all fully comprehend the inexplicable charm of this Asakusa Park, it would be far more expedient to use a single extraordinary story born from my imagination than to rely on a thousand facts I knew about Asakusa. Now, in order to tell such a story, two possible methods were available to me. That is, I had to either entrust all necessary backgrounds for developing the story—such as theaters, bars, inns—entirely to the whims of my imagination, or alternatively borrow only those settings from reality. And for me, rather, the latter seemed more convenient. Because I knew from experience that imagination grows more intense the more it is controlled up to a certain point.

Now, I would ask that you permit me to take this story—following recent trends—to the dancers of Casino Folies, which has lately been becoming the center of attention in the Sixth District. The truth is, I know nothing about them. And my fantasies about them—which I would daringly allow to become discourteous in order to make this story more story-like—would not anger them in the slightest; instead, they would merely make those innocent girls laugh. I do believe it.

Now, most of you were likely already aware, but that Casino Folies was located on the upper floor of the Aquarium—which stood slightly removed from Sixth District's movie theater district, adjacent to Mokubakan where a band perpetually played music that sounded somehow both mournful and cheerful. Though it was called an Aquarium, that was merely in name—perhaps because I only entered at night—I had hardly ever seen any fish swimming in the tanks. However, upon looking closely, I could find several fish in the shadows of rocks where the light did not fully reach—perhaps asleep—their bodies pressed flush against the stone in matching hues. And each one had been given a difficult name, but I couldn't remember any of them. Many people passed through this aquarium to come and go from the second-floor Casino Folies, but it would be fair to say that hardly anyone would deliberately stop there to look at the fish.

When climbing the dusty wooden stairs—mindful of the clatter of geta—suddenly, over the heads of the crowd (who stood watching the stage despite many empty chairs at their backs), music could be heard and dancers could be seen. First-time visitors would often try to sit in one of those empty seats at the back, but they would soon notice that the chair was dangerously wobbly, or that its covering had a large hole from which straw stuffing protruded—sticking immediately to kimono—and would rise from it again. As for the entire seating area, there was only the second floor that could hold about two hundred people and the third floor above that could accommodate around a hundred—that was all. I made a habit of always going up to the third floor to watch. Initially, when I first started frequenting there, I would often squeeze into the seats closest to the stage on the second floor and watch their dancing by looking up between their legs, but doing so meant I had no choice but to breathe in the terrible dust that would swirl up from the stage every time the dancers lifted their legs—something I found utterly unbearable—so this time, I resolved to watch their dancing from the seats closest to the stage on the third floor, almost directly above them.

The majority of the dancers were girls aged fourteen to around twenty. They wore blonde wigs, heavy makeup, and costumes—ostensibly hand-me-downs from a certain new theater troupe—that looked just respectable enough, but their origins must surely have been as factory girls, nursemaids, or something akin to back-alley shopgirls. And the majority of them may well have been singing such songs without clearly knowing their vulgar meanings, and dancing such dances without fully understanding their lewd implications. In the footlights that seemed to constrict their throats, they clasped their hands behind their heads while puffing out their chests as much as possible. However, their chests were still small.……And all such elements combined to create Casino Folies’ unique, indescribably alluring atmosphere.

I would occasionally take my eyes off the dancers and look around at the spectators who were intently watching them. They were almost all men. The majority of them seemed to be laborers, company employees, and students. Thanks to my coming here almost every night myself, I could easily pick out what you might call 'regulars' from among those people. For example: a certain vagrant who always leaned against a pillar in the corner downstairs, grinning slyly as he watched the stage; or a certain chauffeur stationed directly across from me on the third floor who invariably called out “Yoko-chan!” to one of the dancers named Komatsu Yoko; and so on…

Now, around this time, another such regular had suddenly joined their number. That was a handsome youth of slightly over twenty, with a dusky complexion, entirely different in kind from the other regulars I knew. He always wore stylish striped Western clothes, an overly large hunting cap pulled down deeply over his head, and while leaning against a pillar in the corner of the third floor, he would gaze intently down at the stage below. He would sometimes affect rough gestures, but their unnatural quality was such that one might imagine this was how a woman disguised as a man would behave.

It had become nearly nightly for me to catch sight of that youth at Casino Folies.

At times, I would bring up that youth as a topic in conversations with my friends. One of them mentioned having seen him standing alone by the stage door of the aquarium after it had closed. Another person also said they had seen him drinking sake while surrounded by waitresses at Café America. Another person also said they had encountered a woman in Western-style clothes who was the spitting image of him, and though they momentarily thought it might be him himself, she looked much older, so she must have been his sister. In any case, there was no longer any room for doubt that the youth seemed utterly infatuated with one of the Casino dancers.

2

One night, after wandering exhaustively through the park and growing utterly fatigued, I finally returned home—it was already nearing one o'clock. The moment I entered my room, I discovered a letter on my desk—no stamp affixed, no sender's name—lying there. I slit open the envelope. Then I read. It was a hastily scribbled note—like a police summons from someone unknown—demanding I come immediately to Komagata's "Sumireya," where he now waited. The writer had clearly been distraught: not only forgetting to sign their name but scrawling so chaotically that discerning their handwriting proved impossible. This letter appeared delivered by an employee of that inn(?). Yet I judged it hardly worth rousing sleeping household members to interrogate the messenger. Thus, though bone-weary to the point of immobility, compelled by fierce curiosity, I departed my house once more.

My house was in Mukojima. And from Mukojima to Komagata, I had no choice but to go on foot. And that was also the fastest way.

As I passed by the pitch-dark Sapporo Beer billboard along the deserted riverbank, it suddenly struck me—wasn't that anonymous letter I'd received actually a summons from the night itself? And wasn't it merely using an inn's name as pretext, when no such inn existed anywhere?……After combing through Komagata and finding no establishment by that name, I teetered on the brink of believing this fantasy. At the final moment, I finally discovered an exceedingly small inn wedged between two large shops—one nearly indistinguishable from an ordinary residence were it not for the tiny "Sumireya" sign above its gate. Feeling I must be making some mistake, I entered the inn. To get inside, I had to turn my body sideways—the entrance was that narrow.

Then an elderly woman welcomed me. With a smile like a withered bouquet. “Your friend is waiting for you.” “In room number five on the second floor.” “What’s their name?”

“I don’t know the name.” The woman made no move to show me to the room. I climbed the stairs alone. Though I’d never encountered a love hotel before, I supposed this must be what they meant by such places. After waiting pointlessly for a reply, I stepped into room five. There, to my surprise, I found my friend Hata alone.

Hata seemed to be crying for some reason. Hata was much younger than I was. And he had only just turned twenty. Despite this, he frequented Casino Folies with us, drank alcohol, and even casually joined in conversations about women. And he rarely reminded me of the age gap between us. Yet now, before me, he stood squarely within his true age. What reduced him to these shapeless tears before my eyes—the inexpressible anguish of first love, a pain I myself had long since lost—I understood this at a glance.

As expected, he confessed his love to me. The object of his affection was one of the dancers at Casino Folies. And that was none other than Komatsu Yoko, the very object of our admiration. He told me that the reason he had started wanting her was because he had realized that I wanted her. He said that he had first become aware of his own desire when it was illuminated by the lamp of my desire. And he apologized to me through tears for having tried to sneak off alone and obtain her without letting me know a single thing about such desires. So no matter how much I tried to tell him that I only admired the dancer and was by no means desiring her as he thought, he refused to believe it. And then he continued his story.

Past midnight that night, he wandered alone around the aquarium—an area now devoid of pedestrians and filled with cold shadows. From the tightly shuttered second-floor windows seeped a faint light-like glow, while something resembling music reached his ears; convinced the dancers must still be rehearsing, he found himself strangely reluctant to leave the spot. Hiding himself in the shadow of a corrugated iron fence near the aquarium’s back entrance, he noticed here and there the figures of men—sometimes solitary, sometimes in pairs or trios—lingering motionless. They appeared to be lying in wait for the dancers to finish their rehearsal and emerge. A chill current of air—as if announcing midnight’s passing—began ceaselessly drifting back and forth before him. Presently, the aquarium’s rear gate opened without a sound. From it emerged a single girl wrapped in a blue mantle, her hair hanging loose. Komatsu Yoko—though he couldn’t clearly see her face, the thought struck him instantly. Simultaneously, he observed several shadowy clusters concealed along the wall beginning to stir. At that moment, a man—quicker than all others—suddenly materialized from a tree’s shadow and advanced toward her. He seemed to exchange a few words with the girl. She offered some reply in turn. And though ravenous eyes watched them from the darkness, the two walked away side by side with perfect composure.

Hata chased after the two. And he wanted to ascertain where they would go from here. He believed the girl he secretly loved was merely having that man escort her home. Yet the misfortune of not being the one to walk her home tightened around his heart. He turned his attention toward the man as well. The man appeared to be a youth around his age, wearing a hunting cap so comically oversized it looked ridiculous, walking with deliberately exaggerated strides. That boy was unmistakably the same youth he and his friends had often whispered might be a woman in disguise. The curiosity toward this enigmatic figure—now surging back vivid and fresh in his heart—overcame his faintness of spirit, which had nearly made him abandon the pursuit altogether from the pain constricting his chest. And still he trailed after them.

They passed through the completely deserted Nakamise like the wind, then turned from Kaminarimon toward Azuma Bridge. However, they did not cross the bridge and instead headed along Zaimokuchō Street toward Umayabashi.

Where on earth were they trying to go? He didn't know the geography of that area well. And as he trailed after them, he could only feel as though passing through deep sleep itself—the unfamiliar town on both sides now completely slumbering. He felt his courage falter slightly. He involuntarily stopped and tried to turn back. But he immediately regretted that trivial resolve. He tried to resume his pursuit. However, he could no longer find them there. Where had they vanished? He searched frantically around that area. And finally, he managed to identify a house—likely where they had entered—by the fact that only its second-floor window suddenly had a light lit. He approached it. It was a small inn, almost indistinguishable from an ordinary house.

He did not hesitate there for very long. He resolved that he too would enter the inn. He bribed the inn’s proprietress and secured the adjacent room where the two had entered. And amidst the peculiar sounds coming from the next room, while being crushed by pain, he wrote a letter to me.—

However, I could not offer him any advice. After his story, we remained silent. From the adjacent room—whether everything had ended—no sound could be heard at all. Before long, even my friend's pain, which had worn me out completely, seemed to have finally exhausted itself. That allowed me to entrust my body to sleep.

The next morning, I found myself lying sprawled on the tatami in an odd state. Beside me, Hata too had his tear-stained face pressed against the tatami, but when noticing I had awakened, he suddenly turned toward me and smiled sweetly. That grimy face immediately made me recall our night together. Yet that seemingly cheerful expression on the soiled face remained unfamiliar to me. He spoke to me in a low voice—as if confiding a secret—while keeping his face pressed to the mat. To hear properly, I too had to lie there with my face pressed against the tatami beside his. This forced childlike posture of mine proved greatly helpful in swiftly comprehending his own childlike high spirits.

According to his account—last night, unable to sleep at all, his mind had likely become somewhat altered from sleep deprivation while I slept—he finally slipped out of this room and sneaked into the adjacent one. If caught, he thought he could claim to have been half-asleep and mistaken the room. ——And then he boldly twisted the electric switch in that room. The scene illuminated by electric light left him involuntarily dumbfounded. What do you imagine he saw there? There lay two female nudes in a grotesque tangle, their limbs entwined. The four equally white limbs were so entangled it became impossible to tell which body they belonged to.…

“She was a woman after all!” Hata said to me. “If she hadn’t been a woman, I don’t know what I would’ve done to her.” “But once I knew she was a woman…”

And he laughed in a manner that seemed thoroughly good-humored.

3

For about a week after that, I waited in vain for a report from Hata.

However, there was no word from him. One day, worried, I called him. “I still can’t obtain that dancer,” he answered listlessly. Then he immediately started talking about something else.

The days that followed passed like heavy, oppressive clouds. The entire park area, uncharacteristically dreary and out of keeping with its usual self, seemed to be holding back its drowsiness all day long. I was struck by an anxious premonition that those days might give rise to some abnormal event.

One night, I sat absentmindedly at one of Café America’s tables. Seeing my sullen expression, none of the women attempted to approach me. Alone, I half-listened to the commotion in the back—though my view was blocked by a screen—where the women chattered shrilly around a single customer. To me, it somehow seemed like nothing but the cause of my irritability. I finally caught hold of a woman and interrogated her about it.

That customer turned out to be a young woman dressed as a man. She sometimes came alone, but that night she appeared more intoxicated than ever. Not only did she wear men’s clothing, but she deliberately used masculine speech. What’s more, she seemed to be luring one of the waitresses here away somewhere. She would always summon only that particular waitress before abruptly dismissing her—behavior more than enough to arouse suspicion. Be that as it may, she had recently begun showing signs of mental instability. Rumor had it she’d become obsessed with one of the Aquarium dancers, showering the girl with whatever gifts she desired until suddenly—so they said—the girl started rejecting her. That might have been the cause.—Speaking of that Aquarium dancer, back when rumors about them first surfaced, she and this waitress (the one always summoned and dismissed) had quarreled over something—now that I think of it, perhaps out of jealousy.—

The waitress recounted all these matters to me in meticulous detail. However, since the waitress seemed rather sympathetic toward the mentally unstable woman, I found her story quite pleasant to listen to as well. I asked.

“What the hell is that woman anyway?” “They say she’s the daughter of a noble family.” “But nobody really believes it.” “By all accounts, they say she’s actually a female journalist.” The report that that woman was beginning to become mentally unstable felt to me like one of the harbingers of a storm.

I was lying in wait for that woman to come out of Café America.

At last she emerged. She was indeed wearing a large hunting cap and appeared to be terribly drunk. And every unconscious movement bestowed upon her by intoxication betrayed her disguise, one by one. She staggered unsteadily past Kaminarimon Gate and then made her way toward Azuma Bridge. I decided to follow her trail.

She crossed Azuma Bridge. Then along the Sumida River, she slipped into the shadow of a large building belonging to the Beer Association. She crossed Makura Bridge and proceeded further along Sumida Park's riverbank. A cold wind blew from over the river, constantly sweeping back and forth before us. We passed alongside Kototoi Bridge.

We continued walking along the embankment’s crest. The road grew increasingly uneven underfoot, making progress difficult. This roughness told us we were entering the outskirts. By this point, all signs of human activity had vanished completely. Stray dogs materialized from nowhere at intervals—sniffing around us before dissolving back into the darkness. We reached Shirahige Bridge. Yet she pressed onward along the embankment without faltering. I stopped and hesitated. I stood motionless, torn between pursuing her further or abandoning this chase altogether— When suddenly I saw her begin descending the embankment’s slope. I steeled myself to follow once more. But even as I descended, I remained utterly ignorant of where this path might lead. The trail beneath the embankment lay pitch-black, pockmarked with rain puddles. She made no effort to avoid them. Her feet splashed into the water at intervals—each impact releasing a muffled plop— And these became our silence’s sole interruptions.

Before long, I finally realized we had wandered into a strange, unfamiliar district. Before us loomed an abnormally large building entirely encased in glass. Moreover, almost all of that glass was shattered. And beyond that glass-covered building riddled with holes, the Sumida River seemed to flow blackly. And inside that building, which appeared to be the remains of some workplace, there was nothing but weeds growing unchecked.

She stood motionless before that strange building. Before long, I saw her bend down and pick up a single stone lying at her feet. Then she took aim and, with all her might, hurled the stone at the one last pane of glass that had remained unbroken. I heard the violent sound of shattering glass. I saw the fragments scattering down. And when I looked, she was already running at full speed and had reached a spot quite far from there.

I too ran a little to keep her in sight. She had at some point resumed her normal pace. I matched her stride. Yet I still couldn't fathom where she meant to go or what she planned to do. We slipped behind factories, cut across rice paddies, wound through graveyards. Before long we emerged again atop the embankment. But I realized this wasn't near Shirahige Bridge at all - we'd come much farther downstream, close by a spinning mill. Still she pressed onward along the riverside levee, passing that soot-blackened monolith of a factory building with its air of grim importance.

I had given up on following her trail any further. I had grown far too exhausted, and I had sufficiently confirmed that she was out of her mind—for if I were to devote all my attention to her any further, I would no doubt end up losing my own sanity as well. I came to a stop and, after watching her retreating figure until it disappeared from view atop the embankment, finally turned around and headed toward the steamboat landing at Kanezabuchi.

The cold wind from the river, announcing that night had ended, gently awakened me where I had collapsed and fallen asleep on the bench at the landing. Then, after about thirty minutes, I was finally able to catch a single steamboat that had come down from the direction of Senju Ohashi. Even though I thought no one had boarded yet, the steamboat had already taken on five or six passengers, unexpectedly. They were all fishmongers heading out to buy goods at the fish market. Their lively conversation and the engine noise that, as I listened to it, unwittingly made my own heart pound harder completely woke me up. And I, in the fresh air of early morning, felt as though I had been revived.

On the left-hand side of the river, I saw the tall glass-covered building from last night towering there.

I asked one of the fishmongers beside me. “What is that glass-covered building?” “That one?” He pointed at it. “That’s the remains of the old Nikkatsu Studio.” From within the steamboat, I gazed wonderingly at how every single one of those countless glass panes had been shattered without exception. While once again picturing the deranged woman’s grotesque posture as she tried to hurl pebbles to shatter even more.

4

A couple of days later, one afternoon, I was vacantly gazing from the second-floor window of the Bat Bar at the crowd coming and going in the film theater district below. Then suddenly, there was a group of people hurriedly pushing their way through the crowd and running off. It’s a fire, I thought in an instant. And a minute later, I too was running along with those people. The people turned the corner at Asakusa Theater (formerly the Opera House) and ran toward the Aquarium. Sure enough, there was an enormous crowd in front of the Aquarium. However, contrary to my expectation, it did not seem to be a fire. At first, I couldn’t make sense of it, but people were looking up at the Aquarium’s rooftop and shouting incessantly. I soon was able to make out a woman with disheveled hair pacing back and forth across that high rooftop of the Aquarium. And that was her. From time to time, she would let out a sharp, inhuman scream—a bizarre shriek that sliced through all the cries of the crowd below.

Around five o'clock that day, while the dancers were performing the Persian Lamp, a pistol shot suddenly rang out from a corner of the third floor. The bullet fortunately injured none of the dancers, bounced off the floorboards, and merely pierced a hole in the backdrop. It appeared to have been aimed at Komatsu Yoko, who stood dancing at the forefront. The shooter was a handsome youth. But as he struggled to break free from those trying to seize him, he lost the hunting cap he'd been wearing. Then it became clear he possessed thick feminine tresses. This was no boy, but a woman dressed as a man. In that moment of collective astonishment, she scrambled up to the aquarium rooftop. When one bold man tried climbing after her, she fired her pistol at him again. The bullet grazed his upper arm. Though unharmed, even this daring man lost courage and abandoned pursuit. Afterward, none dared climb to apprehend her. They merely formed a wide circle below, howling like beasts――

When I pieced together the stories of the people around me, it seemed to have been roughly that kind of incident. Since it was dinnertime, some people began leaving the area around me. There were also newcomers stopping. Amidst such people, as I listened to her screaming in some shrill, inhuman voice from the rooftop’s edge, I felt nausea within me as though confronting death. Even the police, who had finally managed to gather, were utterly unable to take any action since she was wildly brandishing her pistol. The police merely served to forcibly drag down the onlookers who had climbed onto the branches of the large trees surrounding the Aquarium—all just to get a better view of the madwoman on the rooftop. About an hour passed while this was going on. And night was drawing near. However, not only did the crowd show no sign of dispersing, but their ring continued to grow larger and larger.

Night finally came. And the rooftop grew dark, and her figure began fading from view. Only the blood-curdling screams characteristic of a madwoman could occasionally be heard.

Even so, not a single person attempted to leave the spot. And it was as though we were waiting for something. What on earth were we waiting for? Could this be what they call a tragedy? No—if this were a tragedy, there would be no need to wait. A tragedy within a tragedy was already unfolding before our very eyes. To satisfy our curiosity, this should already have been sufficient. Therefore, to me, it could only seem as though we were waiting for the final curtain to fall upon this tragedy.

And finally, as the conclusion to this tragedy, a somewhat gruesome incident occurred. It was that one person from the crowd—suddenly setting off a single firework, though no one knew where they'd gotten it. Oh, a firework? At first, it appeared that way to everyone, but that wasn't so. It was the magnesium that the newspaper's photography team had ignited to photograph her. The magnesium, for an instant, showed us in vivid detail the terrifying figure of the madwoman on the rooftop—her hair disheveled, a pistol in one hand, still flailing about there. We involuntarily tried to cheer upon seeing that.

But it was precisely at that moment. The sudden magnesium flash seemed to have startled her terribly on the rooftop. Because of this, she appeared to lose her physical balance. And then she plummeted headfirst from the rooftop down toward us.

I reflexively closed my eyes.

I could no longer remain here and endure the nausea of confronting death.

Because of that, with my eyes still closed, I had no choice but to leave that place, faintly hearing people’s shouts of “She’s still alive!”