Pathway to Japanese Literature

1

I believe that to enable you all to comprehend as fully as possible this ineffable allure of Asakusa Park, it would prove more expedient to do so through an extraordinary tale born from my imagination than through a thousand facts I know about Asakusa.

Now, to tell such a story, I have two possible methods at my disposal. That is, either to entrust all necessary backgrounds for developing that story—such as theaters, bars, inns—entirely to the whims of my imagination, or conversely, to borrow real ones for such backgrounds. And for me, rather, the latter seems more convenient. For I know from experience that imagination grows all the more intense the more it is controlled—up to a certain point.

Now, I must ask your indulgence as I bring this tale—following recent trends—to the Casino Folies dancers who are becoming the center of attention in the Sixth District. The truth is, I know nothing about them. And as I shape this story into proper form—even at the risk of impropriety—my fancies about them would not so much anger those very dancers as simply make their guileless selves laugh. I do believe that.

Most of you likely already knew this, but that Casino Folies stood on the upper floor of the Aquarium, situated slightly apart from Sixth District's movie theater district alongside the Carousel Hall—which perpetually resounded with orchestra music both sorrowful and cheerful in equal measure. Though it was called an aquarium, that was merely in name—or perhaps because I only ever entered there at night—for I had scarcely seen any fish swimming in its tanks. Yet upon closer inspection, I could discover several fish in the shadows of rocks where light barely reached—perhaps sleeping—their bodies pressed flat against the stone in perfect camouflage, colored identically to the rock itself. And each one had been given an elaborate name, but I could not recall a single one of them. Many people passed through this aquarium to reach the second-floor Casino Folies, but one could say almost none went out of their way to stop and look at the fish here.

When you climbed the dusty wooden stairs, conscious of the clatter of geta sandals, suddenly—over the heads of people (who stood watching the stage despite many empty chairs at their backs)—music reached your ears and dancers came into view. First-time visitors would often try to sit in those empty seats at the back, only to find the chairs wobbled precariously or discover large holes in their coverings from which straw scraps protruded—and upon noticing these scraps clinging immediately to their clothes, they would rise back up from their seats. As for the entire seating area, there was only the second floor accommodating about two hundred people and the third floor above it holding roughly one hundred—that was all. I always went up to the third floor to watch. When I first started frequenting this place, I would often squeeze into seats on the second floor closest to the stage and watch their dancing by looking up between their legs, but doing so meant I had no choice but to inhale the terrible dust that swirled up from the stage every time the dancers lifted their legs. Being thoroughly fed up with this, I now resolved to watch their dancing from seats on the third floor closest to the stage—almost directly above them—looking down instead.

The majority of the dancers were girls ranging from about fourteen to twenty years old. They wore blonde wigs, applied heavy makeup, and dressed in costumes—hand-me-downs from a certain new theater troupe that looked reasonably elegant—but their origins must surely have been as factory workers, nursemaids, or back-alley tenement girls of similar station. And most of them likely sang such songs without clearly knowing their obscene meanings, and danced such dances without fully understanding their lewd implications. In the throat-tightening footlights, they clasped their hands behind their heads while puffing out their chests as much as possible. But their chests were still small…… And all these elements combined to create the Casino’s unique, ineffably alluring atmosphere.

I would occasionally tear my eyes away from the dancers and look around at the spectators who were intently watching them. They were almost entirely men. The majority of them consisted of those who appeared to be laborers, office workers, and students. Thanks to my coming here nearly every night myself, I could easily identify what might be called 'regulars' among those people. For instance: a vagrant leaning against a pillar in the corner downstairs, always grinning while watching the stage; or a chauffeur stationed directly across from me on the third floor, who invariably called out “Yō-chan!” to one of the dancers named Komatsu Yōko; and so on...

Now, around this time, such regulars had suddenly increased by one more person. That was a beautiful youth with a dusky complexion, just past twenty and of an entirely different breed from the other regulars I knew. He always wore a stylish striped Western-style suit and a hunting cap too large for him pulled down deeply over his head, leaning against a pillar in the corner of the third floor while carefully watching the stage below. He would sometimes affect rough gestures, but their somehow unnatural quality was such that one might imagine this was how a woman dressed as a man would behave.

That I came to catch sight of that youth at the Casino had become a near-nightly occurrence.

Sometimes I would bring up that youth as a topic in conversations with friends. Someone claimed to have seen him standing motionless alone before the aquarium's stage door after closing. Also, someone else said they saw him drinking at Café America while surrounded by waitresses. Another person claimed to have encountered a woman in Western-style clothes who bore a spitting image of him; they momentarily thought it might be him himself, but since she appeared much older, they concluded it must have been his sister. In any case, there was no longer any room to doubt that the youth had become utterly infatuated with one of the Casino’s dancers.

2

One night, after wandering exhaustively through the park and growing terribly weary, I finally returned home—it was already nearing one o'clock. The moment I entered my room, I found on my desk a letter—no stamp affixed, no sender’s name—lying there. I opened the envelope. And I read. Though I couldn’t tell who it was from, it was a terse, hastily scrawled note that resembled a police summons, ordering me to come immediately to the Sumireya in Komagata where he was now. The person who wrote the letter seemed to be in a state of considerable agitation, for not only had they omitted their own name, but the chaotic scrawl made it utterly impossible for me to discern whose handwriting it was. It seemed the letter had been delivered to me by an employee of that inn. However, I thought there was likely no need to go so far as to rouse the household members who had already fallen asleep just to interrogate the messenger. And so, though I was utterly exhausted and loath to move another step, driven by fierce curiosity, I left my house once more.

My house was in Mukojima. From Mukojima to Komagata, walking was the only option. And indeed, it proved the fastest route. As I passed the pitch-dark Sapporo Beer Hall along the deserted riverbank, I couldn't help wondering—was that anonymous letter truly a summons from the night itself? Though using an inn's name as pretext, perhaps no such lodging existed anywhere at all?……After combing every corner of Komagata yet finding no establishment by that name, I verged on believing this fantasy. At the final moment, I finally discovered an exceedingly small inn wedged between two large shops—one that, lacking the tiny "Sumireya" sign above its gate, would have blended seamlessly into the row of ordinary residences. Thinking I might be mistaken, I entered the inn. To pass through its entrance, I had to turn sideways—so narrow was the doorway.

Then an elderly woman welcomed me. With a smile like a withered bouquet,

“Your friend is waiting,” “in Room 5 on the second floor.”

“What sort of person is it?” “I’m afraid I don’t know the name.” And the woman did not even attempt to guide me to that room. I went up the stairs alone. I had never known what a love hotel was until then, but I supposed this must be the sort of place they meant.

After waiting in vain for a response, I entered Room 5.

There, quite unexpectedly, I found my friend Hata sitting alone. Hata somehow seemed to be crying. Hata was much younger than I. And he had just barely turned twenty. Nevertheless, he would go with us to frequent the Casino, drink alcohol, and nonchalantly join in conversations about women. And he rarely made me aware of the age difference between us. However, now, before me, he was right there in the very midst of his true age. What now made him weep uncontrollably before me was none other than the indescribable pain of first love—something I had already lost—and I understood this in an instant.

Indeed, 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 Yōko—the very one who had been the focus of our admiration. He told me that he had come to desire her precisely because he had discovered my own longing for her. He said it was only when illuminated by the lamp of my desire that he first became aware of his own. Then, through tears, he apologized for having tried to secretly win her for himself without ever revealing such desires to me. Yet no matter how insistently I explained that while I did admire the dancer, I by no means desired her in the way he imagined, he refused to believe it. And so he pressed on with his account.

Past midnight that night, he was wandering alone near the aquarium—an area now nearly devoid of pedestrians, saturated with cold shadows. He noticed faint lamplight seeping through the tightly closed second-floor windows of the aquarium, accompanied by what resembled music—leading him to believe the dancers were still rehearsing as he lingered there with inexplicable reluctance. Concealing himself in the shadow of a corrugated iron fence near the aquarium's back entrance, he discerned male figures lurking here and there—sometimes solitary, sometimes in pairs or trios. They appeared to be lying in wait for the dancers to emerge after finishing their rehearsal. A chill current of air—as though heralding midnight's passing—began sweeping incessantly across his path. Presently, the aquarium's rear gate opened without a sound. From it emerged a single girl wrapped in a blue cloak, her unbound hair cascading down. Komatsu Yōko—though he couldn't clearly see the girl's face, he instinctively thought it must be her. Simultaneously, he observed several clusters of figures shifting within the fence's shadows. At that moment, a man materialized from a tree's shadow faster than anyone else and advanced toward her. He appeared to exchange brief words with the girl. She offered some response in turn. And though countless eyes devoured them from the darkness with ravenous intensity, the two walked away side by side in perfect composure.

Hata followed the two. He wanted to ascertain where they would go from there. He believed that the girl he secretly loved was simply having that man escort her home. Yet the misfortune of not being the one to escort her constricted his heart. He turned his attention toward the man. The man appeared to be a boy around his own age, wearing a ridiculously large hunting cap and walking with deliberately long strides as if taking exaggerated steps. That boy was undoubtedly the very same youth whom he and his friends had often speculated might be the woman who dressed as a man. And the curiosity toward that mysterious boy—freshly and vividly revived in his heart—overcame his cowardice, which had even made him consider abandoning the pursuit due to the pain constricting his heart. And he continued to follow their trail.

They passed through the utterly deserted Nakamise like the wind, then turned from Kaminarimon toward Azumabashi. However, they did not cross the bridge and instead headed toward Umaya Bridge via Zaimokuchō Street. Where on earth were they trying to go? He was not very familiar with the geography of that area. And while following their trail through this unfamiliar town—its streets on both sides now utterly stilled in slumber—he could only feel as though he were passing through deep sleep itself. He felt a slight wavering of courage. He stopped involuntarily and made to turn back. But he immediately regretted that trivial decision. He tried to resume his pursuit. However, he could no longer find them there. Where had they vanished? He frantically searched the area. Finally, he managed to identify a house where they had likely entered—recognized by the sudden light in its second-floor window. He approached it. It was a small inn, nearly indistinguishable from an ordinary house.

He did not linger there too long. He resolved to enter the inn himself. He bribed the inn’s proprietress and secured the adjacent room which the two had entered earlier. And amidst the peculiar noises coming from the adjacent room, crushed by pain, he wrote me a letter.—

However, I could not offer him any advice whatsoever. After his story, we remained silent. From the adjacent room—whether everything had ended already—no sound could be heard at all. In time, even I—worn down by my friend’s pain—saw that the pain itself seemed at last to begin collapsing. That permitted me to yield my body to sleep.

The next morning, I found myself lying sprawled out on the tatami in a strange manner. Beside me, Hata too had his tear-streaked face pressed against the tatami mat, but upon noticing I had awoken, he suddenly turned his face toward me and grinned. That soiled face immediately made me recall us from last night. However, that cheerful-looking expression on his soiled face was still unfamiliar to me.

With his face still pressed against the tatami mat, he spoke to me in a low voice that seemed poised to divulge a secret. To hear that clearly, I too had to remain lying down, pressing my face against the tatami mat—and near his face. Such a forced childlike position of mine, however, proved greatly useful in allowing me to swiftly comprehend his own childlike good cheer.

According to his account—last night, unable to sleep no matter what—he had likely grown somewhat deranged from sleep deprivation while I was asleep, finally slipping out of this room and stealing into the adjacent one. If discovered, he thought he could claim sleepwalking and mistaken room identity.—And then he audaciously twisted the electric switch in that room. The sight illuminated by electric light left him utterly dumbfounded. What had he seen there? There lay two female nude bodies in grotesque postures, limbs still entangled. The four equally white limbs were indistinguishable as to which body they belonged to……

“He was actually 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 with apparent good cheer.

3

For about a week after that, I had been waiting in vain for a report from Hata.

However, there was no word from him. One day, worried, I called him. He answered listlessly that he still couldn't get that dancer. And he immediately started talking about something else.

The days that followed passed by like heavy, oppressive clouds. The entire park area seemed uncharacteristically stifling, somehow suffocating, as if suppressing drowsiness all day long. I was struck by an uneasy premonition that those days might give rise to some abnormal event.

One night, I sat blankly at a table in Café America. Seeing my sullen demeanor, none of the women attempted to approach me. Alone, I half-listened to the commotion in the back—where women chattered noisily around some customer hidden from my view by a standing screen. To me, it all seemed like nothing more than the source of my own ill humor. I finally seized one of the women and pressed her for answers.

That customer turned out to be a young woman dressed as a man. She would sometimes come alone, but that night she appeared more intoxicated than ever before. Not only was she wearing men’s clothing, but she deliberately affected masculine speech patterns. What’s more, she seemed to be luring one particular waitress here out to unknown locations. She would always call over that waitress only to dismiss her abruptly—behavior sufficiently suspicious to cast doubt on everything. Regardless, she had apparently grown deranged around this time. Rumor held that she had become obsessed with one of the aquarium dancers, showering the girl with whatever gifts she desired—yet recently, they said, that very girl had begun rejecting her. This might well have been the cause.—Speaking of aquarium dancers: back when rumors about that dancer first surfaced, she and a waitress here (the one she habitually summoned and dismissed) had quarreled over something or other. In retrospect, it may have stemmed from jealousy.—

The waitress related all these matters to me in meticulous detail. However, since the waitress seemed rather sympathetic toward that cross-dressing woman, I found myself able to listen to her account with relative ease. I asked.

“What on earth is that woman?” “They say she’s the daughter of an aristocrat.” “But nobody truly believes it.” “They say she’s actually rumored to be a female reporter as well.”

The news that that woman was beginning to grow slightly deranged struck me like one of the precursors to a storm. I lay in wait for her to emerge from Café America.

Finally, she emerged. She was indeed wearing an oversized hunting cap and appeared terribly drunk. And every unconscious movement imparted by intoxication betrayed her disguise one by one. She staggered unsteadily past Kaminarimon Gate and then made her way toward Azuma Bridge. I resolved to follow her. She crossed Azuma Bridge. Then she slipped into the shadow of Bīru Kai Boku’s large building along the Sumida River. She crossed Makurabashi Bridge, then proceeded further along the riverbank of Sumida Park.

A cold wind blew down from the river and ceaselessly swept back and forth before us. We passed by Kototoi Bridge. We continued walking along the embankment. The road gradually became bumpy, making it difficult to walk. This told us we were entering the outskirts. By the time we had come this far, all human presence had completely vanished. Stray dogs would occasionally emerge from nowhere, sniff around us, then vanish back into thin air.

We had come to Shirahige Bridge. However, she still showed no intention of turning back and continued steadily onward along the embankment. I stood still and hesitated for a moment, wondering whether I should follow her trail further or give up on it altogether. At that moment, I noticed that she had abruptly begun descending the embankment. I resolved once more to follow her trail. However, even if I went down that embankment, I had no idea where that path led. The path beneath the embankment was pitch-dark, with puddles formed here and there. She did not even try to avoid them. From time to time, her feet stepped into those puddles, producing a dull, faint sound. And that was the only sound that broke our silence.

Before long, I realized we had wandered into a strange, unfamiliar district. Before us soared an uncannily large building entirely sheathed in glass. Moreover, nearly all of that glass lay shattered. And beyond that glass-sheathed building riddled with holes, the Sumida River appeared to flow blackly just on the other side. And inside that building that seemed the remains of some workshop, there was nothing but weeds growing unchecked.

She stood motionless before that uncanny building. Before long, I saw her hunch her body and pick up a single stone lying at her feet. Then she took aim and hurled the stone with all her might at the one remaining unbroken pane of glass. I heard the violent sound of shattering glass. Then I saw the fragments clatter down. And when I looked, she was already quite some distance away, running headlong.

I too ran a short distance, trying not to lose sight of her. She had at some point resumed an ordinary pace. I followed suit. Yet I still had no inkling where she meant to go or what she intended to do. We passed behind factories, cut across rice paddies, and wound through cemeteries. Before long we emerged again onto the embankment. But I realized this wasn't near Shirahige Bridge—we'd come some distance to a spinning mill's vicinity. Still she pressed steadily along the riverside levee, skirting that soot-blackened monolith of a building belonging to the spinning company.

I had already given up on following her trail any further. I was far too exhausted; moreover, I had sufficiently confirmed her madness, and if I were to devote all my attention to her any further, I would no doubt end up going mad myself.

I stopped and watched until her figure disappeared over the embankment, then finally turned on my heel and headed toward Kanezaki’s steamboat landing.

The cold wind from the river announcing dawn gently awakened me where I had slumped exhausted and fallen asleep on the bench at the landing. About thirty minutes later, I finally managed to catch a river steamer that had come down from the direction of Senju Great Bridge. Even though I thought no one had boarded yet, the river steamer, to my surprise, already carried five or six passengers. They were all fishmongers heading out to buy at Uogashi. Their lively conversation and the engine noise—which made my heart pound involuntarily upon hearing it—completely awakened me. And in the fresh morning air, I felt as though I was revived.

I saw last night's tall glass-sheathed building towering on the left side of the river.

I asked one of the fishmongers beside me.

“What is that glass-sheathed building?”

“That one?” He pointed at it. “That’s the remains of the old Nikkatsu film studio, you know.” From within the river steamer, I gazed wonderingly at how every last one of those countless glass panes had been shattered, while picturing once more in my mind the madwoman’s bizarre stance as she hurled pebbles to break even more of them.

4

Two or three days later, one afternoon, I was gazing absentmindedly from the second-floor window of the Batt Bar at the crowds coming and going in the movie theater district below. Then suddenly, a group of people pushing their way through that crowd hurriedly ran past. It's a fire, I thought instantly. And one minute later, I too was running along with those people. The crowd turned the corner at Asakusa Theater (formerly the Opera Hall) and ran toward the Aquarium. Sure enough, an enormous crowd had gathered in front of the Aquarium. However, contrary to my expectations, it did not appear to be a fire. At first I couldn't make sense of it at all, but people kept shouting as they looked up at the Aquarium's rooftop. I soon managed to discern a woman with disheveled hair pacing back and forth across that high rooftop. And it was that woman. She would occasionally let out a sharp, unearthly scream—so bizarre it seemed inhuman—that cut through all the shouting from the crowd below.

Around five o'clock that day, while the dancers were performing the Persian Lamp dance, a pistol shot suddenly rang out from a corner of the third floor. Fortunately injuring none of the dancers, the bullet ricocheted off the floorboards and merely pierced a hole in the backdrop. It appeared to have targeted Komatsu Yōko, who had been dancing at the forefront at that moment. The shooter turned out to be a beautiful boy. However, as he struggled to break free from those trying to seize him, he dropped his hunting cap - revealing thick feminine locks beneath. This was no boy but rather a woman dressed as a man. In that moment of collective astonishment, she swiftly scrambled up to the rooftop. When one bold man attempted to climb after her, she fired a second shot his way. The bullet grazed his upper arm. Though unharmed, even this daring man lost his nerve and abandoned pursuit. Thereafter none dared climb to apprehend her. They merely surrounded her from below, howling wildly.

From piecing together the accounts of those around me, the events seemed to have unfolded roughly in that manner. As it was dinnertime, people began leaving my vicinity. There were also those who had newly come to a stop. Amidst such shifting crowds, while listening to her screaming in that unnatural voice from the rooftop’s peak, I felt within myself a nausea akin to confronting death.

Even the police officers who had finally gathered could do nothing as she kept waving her pistol about. The officers merely ended up forcibly dragging down the onlookers who had climbed onto the branches of large trees surrounding the Aquarium to get a better view of the madwoman on the rooftop. About an hour passed in this manner. By then, night was drawing near. Yet not only did the crowd refuse to disperse, but their ring kept expanding ever wider.

Night had finally come. And the rooftop grew dark, her figure beginning to grow indistinct. Only the occasional hair-raising screams characteristic of a madwoman could be heard.

Even so, not a single person made any move to leave. And it was as if we were waiting for something. What on earth were we waiting for? Was it tragedy? No—if this were tragedy, there was no need to wait, for a tragedy within a tragedy was even now unfolding before our very eyes. To satisfy our curiosity, this should already have been more than enough. 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 tragic incident occurred. It was that someone from the crowd—though from where they had procured it remained unclear—suddenly launched a firework. Oh, a firework? At first, it appeared that way to everyone’s eyes—but that was not so. That was the magnesium set off by the newspaper’s photo team to photograph her. The magnesium, for an instant, vividly revealed to us her terrifying form—hair disheveled on the rooftop, pistol in one hand, still frantically lingering there—the madwoman. We involuntarily started to cheer at the sight.

But it was precisely at that moment. The sudden magnesium flash seemed to startle her terribly on the rooftop. She appeared to lose her balance from that. And she plunged headfirst down toward us from the rooftop.

I involuntarily shut my eyes.

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

And so, barely hearing the people’s shouts of "She’s still alive!" with my eyes tightly shut, I had no choice but to leave that place.