Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

“You do know who that is, Brother!”

“I don’t know!”

“If you go take a peek there, you’ll find out, you know.”

They were the brother and sister who had returned from elementary school.
Koichi, the brother, stealthily went to peek into the inner tatami room just one room away, with an air of dread.

“Figured it out?”

Clever eyes gleaming, Miyoko smiled.

“Mm-mm.”

Koichi shook his head.

With clever eyes gleaming, Miyoko smiled.

"Nuh-uh."

Koichi shook his head.

“Silly Brother, you’re just playing dumb,”

“………………”

The brother’s lovely drooping eyes clouded over; he didn’t respond.

“I was so surprised, my head’s spinning!”
“You look pale.”

Even she—his own younger sister—understood; how could her brother not? Miyoko continued to smile.
Through the restless state of the house these past four or five days, the brother and sister had both secretly sensed their father’s return home; however, no one had spoken to the children about it.

“That’s our Father, isn’t it? Strange Brother, you should go take another look.”

Looking up at her seemingly timid brother, Miyoko was showing her happiness to the fullest.

“Is that Father? Hmm… Is that so?”

Koichi grew steadily paler.

“That’s right, Brother—don’t you remember any of it? I do remember a little. But he’s become so much like an old man that it’s a bit hard to tell—his hair is so white…………”

“Hmm… I don’t wanna see ’im. No, I just don’t.”

Koichi's lips twitched sharply.

"But it’s definitely Father—Mother said so earlier. You should go see him properly."
"Then maybe you’ll remember a little."

"No! I don’t wanna! If Father’s come back home, then I don’t wanna! I can’t go to school from tomorrow! Aah, no way, no way!"

He pressed his forehead firmly against the desk.

"Why can’t you go to school? Hey, Brother!"
"Hey, Brother!"

"I’m so ashamed I can’t possibly go to school! It’d be way better if Father wasn’t even here! Go to school tomorrow and see—they’ll all be gawkin’ at me and whisperin’ stuff… Aah, no way, no way!"

The brother spoke as though he couldn’t bear it.

“But isn’t it better that Father’s here at home than not being here?”
“Since he’s already come back home for us, isn’t that fine?”

“I don’t wanna! If I go to school tomorrow, I’ll remember all the stuff I’d forgotten, and everyone’ll whisper about me—I can’t take that! I ain’t goin’ to school no more, won’t go!”

Holding his head, Koichi murmured sorrowfully.

“I’ve been crying too, Brother—made fun of by my friends just like you. But now that Father has come back home for us, I think it’s good.”

“Oh well, Miyoko’s still just a kid—so you don’t get it. I don’t wanna… Ah, what should I do?”

When she saw her brother quivering with chills, Miyoko too was overcome with sadness.

“Ei-chan’s still just a child, so it’s best he doesn’t understand anything at all.”

“Hmm, that guy doesn’t know a thing. When he grows up and learns about the old man’s past—he’ll have his soul scared right out…………”

From inside the room, the brother and sister gazed with childishly sentimental eyes at their six-year-old brother climbing the plum tree, plucking unripe fruits and eating them.

“If they come call us from the inner room now—Brother—what’ll you do?”

“I ain’t goin’.”
“But if they insist we come…………”

“I ain’t goin’.”

"That’s right—I don’t want to go either."

"Let’s both agree not to go."
"And then let’s hide somewhere!"

"That’s a good idea—why don’t we go into the storehouse and hide?"

"Yeah, that’s good—let’s hide quick!"

Stealthily, the siblings left the room.

From the path leading to the storehouse, the inner tatami room was not visible. A log for a swing stood in the garden; plum, peach, and apricot trees—several large fruit trees—grew thickly; moreover, the inner tatami room and the storehouse entrance faced different directions.

In the predawn hours of this early morning, when stars still twinkled faintly in the sky, Mother—who had prepared every article of men’s clothing since the previous evening, from shirts and loincloths to undergarments, sashes, haori coats, hats, tabi socks, geta sandals, hand towels, and even nose papers—wrapped them all in a large furoshiki cloth as if retrieving a naked person’s belongings. Then she and the elderly Grandmother stealthily slipped out of the house, avoiding prying eyes.
Night had completely given way to dawn, the children awoke, and soon the siblings went off to elementary school. When they returned in the early afternoon, Miyoko caught a fleeting glimpse of an unfamiliar man sitting formally in the dimly lit inner tatami room surrounded by evergreen trees—there he was, hands pressed to the floor in a bow before their stern grandfather, whose gaunt cheeks bore a look of pitiful emaciation.

“That’s your father now.”

Standing in the shadow of the sliding door, Mother—wiping her eyes with her sleeve—whispered desperately to Miyoko.
Miyoko shuddered.

That was Father… That was our father!
The Father I’d unconsciously yearned for all this time!
The Father whose childhood memory had faded, who now felt like a complete stranger!

Her heart pounded.
Ashamed, awkward—nostalgic yet detestable—he seemed like some unrelated man who had nothing to do with us. From such an unfamiliar, unwelcome guest, she wanted to stay as far away as possible........

"I hate that some white-haired old man is supposed to be Father."

The phantom of Father, long lost, had begun floating up faintly from memory's depths—bit by hazy bit. This longing to cling to him as Father—born from their never-understood reasons for his absence—had always spawned desperate revulsion toward something impure; this father who, precisely through being our father with sorrowful pity entwined, had haunted their hearts through these years.

Ah—after what long absence had Father returned to this house! Yet why hadn't Mother and the others told us children about today's matter long before now? Come to think of it—we'd never been told anything about "Father." From that day he abruptly vanished until today, any mention of Father had been completely forbidden.

And thus several years flowed by…………

II

The brother and sister stifled giggles as they climbed the stone steps of the storehouse.
The storehouse had been opened since this morning, and the screen door remained shut just like that.
Koichi hurriedly climbed the ladder steps.

"There’s no need to rush so much, you strange Brother."

"I just can't stand this disgusting feeling anymore! When I think that that's Father, it feels so strange—I really can't take it!"

"Even for me, I can’t quite call him Father yet—but if they say he’s undeniably Father, what should I do?"
"Brother!"

“Who’d ever call that man Father? No way! Some father who disappeared for so long we didn’t even know where he went! All that time—I walked through town shrinking into myself, went to school but couldn’t make proper friends, everyone just whispered behind my back! Ahh—I’m sick of being in this house! If that disgusting old man’s gonna live here from now on, I ain’t staying in this house no more!”

They had once seen on the road a prisoner wearing a deep sedge hat, handcuffed and trudging behind a police officer.
How could they possibly connect that wretched, pitiful figure to their own father!
Yet Father must indeed have been bound and taken away like that.
Ah, this was the Father they had even wished in childhood would never return home!
The Father who had dredged up and carried off all their youthful happiness!
For this very Father's sake—how miserable and withered had we siblings' lives become?

As for Miyoko, in her own way, past events and this family's scandals floated before her eyes like shadow puppets—vague and indistinct.
It had been during a piercingly cold winter when snow fell.
Suddenly, an official had come and dragged Father away.

Disliking the local fishing industry that had been his family's livelihood for generations, Father left for Tokyo immediately after finishing middle school, enrolled in a private university for about three years to study law, but upon returning to the countryside at twenty-five or twenty-six, became a clerk for a prominent town lawyer and naturally began assisting with dispute mediation.
Then his greed gradually swelled—deluded by get-rich-quick dreams—as he reached into one speculative venture after another, failing every time.
In the end, he inevitably returned to the path he'd studied most closely, driven by his innate chivalrous nature to overextend himself in penniless work—mediating between local peasant elders and landlords through sympathy for their grievances.
...Such stories had often reached their ears.

“What an eccentric man—I’ll be ruined unless he quits that business soon…”

The family all detested how he was constantly engaged in work that took him to courthouses and such places.
But Father showed no signs of stopping.

“In the end, our family fortune will likely be worn away for those old men’s sake.”

As she remained biased, worrying only about her own child, suspicious individuals with peculiar traits began frequenting the house while Father’s words and actions grew increasingly unclear—until eventually Grandmother and those around her became shackled by deep gloom.

How exactly the incident was connected remained unclear, but Father did not return even late that night.
In the hushed stillness of the house that had fallen silent, muffled sobs leaked out as Grandparents and Mother secluded themselves in an upstairs room for a secret discussion—a sight that gave the children an unmistakably ominous premonition.
Late into the night, the creak-creak of footsteps from Mother and the others descending from the second floor and walking along the veranda reached Miyoko and her siblings where they lay asleep.
The dim lantern light glimmered through the middle of the shoji screen like a giant firefly while three black shadows swayed faintly.
The three pushed open the plank door at the end, slipped smoothly through it, and descended into the inner corridor leading to the storehouse.

The three people who had entered the storehouse at midnight stood beneath the low ceiling, illuminated by the dim light of a paper lantern, and began searching through document chests' drawers and tied bundles' contents for any papers linked to suspicions.
And then, at dawnbreak, the three finally emerged from the storehouse with bloodshot eyes.
That day too, just like yesterday, snow continued falling endlessly, transforming the town into a silver world while this house alone became increasingly shut within a gloom-steeped atmosphere saturated with fathomless dread and unease.
Of course nobody spoke properly either, and just as they were enduring a breakfast as joyless as chewing gravel, thunderous voices boomed and several officials came barging in.

“Everyone, stay gathered in this room! Don’t you dare leave without permission!”

Arrogantly declaring this, the entire family—down to the maidservants—was confined to a single room, with one official standing guard at the entrance.
Then, guided by Mother, two or three officials filed toward the storehouse.
The short winter day soon gave way to afternoon, and as dusk fell, multiple lanterns were brought into the storehouse.

Trembling from hunger and cold, Miyoko and the others were finally released come evening.
At the storehouse’s stone steps, a lone official stood rigid under the snow while through the mesh door leaked lantern light that crawled across the floor—now high, now low—a scene Miyoko watched stealthily after creeping through the inner corridor.
The lantern’s glow passed through the snow, agate-like in its beauty, pulsing faintly as it shimmered.

III

“I wonder when exactly the person called Father stopped being around the house.”

Koichi sat perched on the chest containing bedding and other items while facing the window. With a sharp flick of his indigo-dotted kimono sleeves, he furrowed his delicate brows.

“I don’t know for sure either, but I think he’d been away for a very long time—since Father hasn’t been here for three New Years… I’ve already forgotten his face and everything…………”

“Hmm, I’ve forgotten too. In the first place, I haven’t even thought about Father lately.”

For children in their growth spurt, their memories of Father were entirely faint.

“That’s really true, but there’s just one thing I remember about Father—though it makes me feel rather uncomfortable…………”

“What do you mean?”

“When we were little, Father took us all to see water fireworks at the riverside during Obon—but Brother, don’t you remember anything about that time?”

“Hmm, I don’t recall... What was it about again... Did Father do something?”

“Well,
“It’s not exactly something I can explain simply, though.”

Miyoko’s face suddenly clouded.
It must have been when she was five or six—Father had taken Mother, the children, and even the maid to see water fireworks at the riverside on the sixteenth night of Obon.
At the entrance of a reed-screened temporary hut protruding into the riverside, a vulgar man wrenched out a metallic demon’s voice as he collected admission fees—five sen for adults, two sen for children—from the crowd shuffling in while pulling open their chests as if stifled by heat.

When admission fees were collected, several odd paper slips were handed back in exchange according to the number of heads.
Father received them.
The water fireworks sizzled with sharp hisses—shu, shu—as they launched blue and red fireballs into the dark night sky, scattering in a beautiful, spectacular burst.
Miyoko and the others saw water fireworks for the first time; amazed by the mysterious beauty of five-colored lights leaping through the air, they cried out in delight.
After watching for an hour, they had to switch places with the crowd jostling at the entrance; Miyoko and the others were unceremoniously pushed out toward the ticket gate.
At that moment,

“You’re one short, Mister. You—you’re one short.”

Suddenly, the vulgar man shouted.

“……………………”

“Hey, Mister. You’re one short.”

“What? That’s not true…”

The one who turned around angrily was Father.

“But it ain’t enough! See here—only six tickets… When ya got seven in your group…”

The man fanned out the filthy paper slips like a fan between his thick fingers, pursed his lips, bared his white teeth, and wore a demon-like expression.

“Don’t speak such nonsense…”

“You’re the damn liar here…”

“What?”

Father became extremely angry and strode over to the ticket collector.

“What in heaven’s name is this? My goodness, how disgraceful! If you don’t stop this mischief soon, everyone will be worn out…………”

As if she had long known of Father’s wrongdoing, Mother said in a tearful voice and immediately handed the missing fee for one person to the ticket collector man, attempting to quell his anger.
But Father had become completely obstinate and refused it.

“All of you, go home now!”

Father directed them with a hand gesture.
Mother, not wanting the children to see their shameful father, urged everyone standing dumbfounded and returned home weeping as they went.
After returning home, Mother wept and sobbed endlessly in the corner of the room.

“Did Father... swindle one person’s portion?”

The innocent minds of about six years old sensed this, and the suspicion lingered long, leaving a trailing tail. Mother did her utmost to speak about the ticket collector man's ill nature and tried to ward off the harmful influence he might exert on the children. Mother looked pitifully withered. Ever since that incident, Miyoko had come to detest her father in a strange way. She felt the paternal affection that had doted on her most among the three siblings—that very father's tenderness and longing—chillingly fading away like an ephemeral sensation against her skin.

Miyoko hesitated over whether she should tell her brother about these past impressions that had now surfaced so repulsively in her mind—these vague suspicions that she herself couldn’t fully grasp.

“What happened?”

Koichi asked in a tone as if probing something frightening.
Miyoko thought it would be better not to introduce such a sad and shameful father to her brother now, of all times.
That small suspicion toward Father—which should have been swiftly resolved—was nevertheless, upon later coming to know him as a prisoner, so greatly corroborated, plunging her into unspeakable despair... When she thought of this, even now a shuddering shame seeped into her very bones.

“There was something a bit odd that happened... but whenever I remember it, I don’t feel like talking about it anymore. Brother, it’s better you don’t hear such things—it’ll surely make you feel awful…………”

“Hmm.
“Then let’s just drop it…………”

Koichi turned away, as if to say it was probably nothing good anyway…

IV

“I wondered where you went and searched for you—well, are both of you there?”

Mother Omasa, who had entered the storehouse, stuck her head out from the middle of the ladder steps and called out to them.
Mother’s cheeks were flushed a cherry-blossom pink from her abnormal excitement.
She was thirty-three years old—the prime of a woman’s life.

The brother and sister exchanged glances in silence.

“There’s something we need to do—won’t you come quickly?”

Mother spoke even to her own children with reserve.
Please forgive me for having given you all such a disreputable father!
She carried herself as though apologizing in her heart.
Through long years of enduring societal shame, bearing humiliation, and weeping through lonely nights in an empty home during what should have been the prime of a woman's life—all that resentment, sorrow, and anger seemed to have been bound together by Father’s auspicious release from prison today, leaving Mother’s heart completely clear and bright.

“Oh? Who is it, Mother?”

Koichi turned deathly pale and glared at Mother as though she were an enemy.
Though he already knew full well without being told—what a spiteful child this was—Mother sharply raised the corners of her eyes in such a manner.

“It’s Father, isn’t it? Come quickly and greet him properly now.”

“I don’t wanna.”

When she saw the sulking child, her lips twisted tightly.

“Miyoko, why are you just sitting there? If you don’t come down quickly, Granny will scold you again!”

“If Brother isn’t going, then I don’t want to go either…”

“Koichi, if you don’t come quickly, your mother will be worn out! Please, I’m begging you—come here!”

“I don’t waaaant to………”

“What are you saying! When you were little, who knows how much Father doted on you! Now come on now, don’t speak so rudely and come here quickly!”

“I don’t wanna!”

“Well now, what’s all this about? Isn’t it you, the eldest son, who should be first to step forward? Now come here quickly, whatever the case!”

Mother choked back her voice as if stifling a sob.
The weak-hearted Koichi grew flustered when he saw Mother’s tear-filled eyes.

“Come on, quickly, quickly now!”

“Then, Brother, let’s go! If we have to go anyway…”

Miyoko stood up and took Koichi’s hand.
Brother’s hand was trembling.

“That’s right, that’s right—you can’t just not meet him… Come quickly now!”
“What’s all this ‘what’s wrong’ business? Father’s been waiting for you since earlier…………”

Mother wiped her tear-filled eyes as she descended the ladder steps.

“Come on, Brother, let’s go!”

“What do you say when you bow?”

Koichi shrugged his shoulders in unfathomable anger and reluctantly descended the steps.

"Just bow silently and run right back here, okay?"

"Hmm, let's do that. I don't wanna meet Father at all, no way."

When the two left the storehouse, they saw Grandmother bending forward and scurrying hurriedly toward them under the loquat tree.
It was Grandmother who, overjoyed at seeing her beloved son after so long, had been acting like a madwoman and making a commotion since morning.

“What are you dilly-dallying for? Father’s been waiting since earlier! Come along now, hurry up…”

Harshly scolding them, Grandmother suddenly yanked Miyoko’s hand.
Overwhelmed by her fierce demeanor, the siblings obediently followed after their grandmother.

Grandmother ushered her two grandchildren into the tatami room.
Younger brother Eiji sat there primly and turned toward them.
Father, who was around forty yet already quite gray-haired, fixed his shadowy, hole-like eyes intently on his two beloved children.

“Come here. You’ve grown so much.”

Father’s voice trembled.
The two didn’t crack a smile, performed a single formal bow, then uneasily edged closer to their father and sat down.
Father suddenly stroked Miyoko’s bobbed hair like a starving dog, then forgot about the presence of his elderly parents and wife watching him and wailed in a manly sob.
The theatrical lamentation was performed with seamless artifice.

“Miyoko does well at school, I hear. That’s splendid.”

Father rubbed his eyes repeatedly while offering flattery.
Fumbling to accept this praise somehow, Miyoko blushed crimson and smiled bashfully.

“Koichi has become very healthy indeed. Yes, he’s developed such a sturdy body.”

[He] gazed intently at his eldest son who had been fragile in childhood, then began stroking Koichi’s head just as he’d done with Miyoko—but Koichi stiffened and looked down with a sullen expression.
A flicker of resentment and hatred welled up in Koichi’s chest.

“Can I go over there now?”

Miyoko, sensing her brother’s feelings, signaled with her eyes toward Mother, who was making tea in the corner. Mother returned a wordless suggestion through her eyes to endure this a little longer. Then she served tea and distributed sweets before everyone. Eiji and Miyoko each picked up one of the crimson steamed sweets from Mori Hachi—ordered specially from Kaga for today’s celebration—but Koichi alone hunched his pipe-straight shoulders, lips tightly sealed, stubbornly refusing to reach out.

“Then, how about this one?”

Mother picked up another 'Ishigoromo' with her chopsticks and attempted to appease her eldest son.
Please, just take it!
Let’s keep things calm here!
Hadn’t it truly been ages since we parents and children—husband and wife—had gathered like this to share tea?
Please let’s celebrate this happy day together!
Let everything from the past be washed away—please just bear with this now!
From now on Father will become a proper father for you all and work diligently—you’ll see.

Mother’s teary eyes pleaded with the children like that.
But the eldest son remained stiff as a rod.

“Oh, that’s right—Koichi never did care much for sweets. I’d forgotten about that.”
“Then grapes later would be better!”

Striving not to disturb the suffocatingly heavy atmosphere, Mother alone performed her act; with a twisted expression caught between a sob and forced smile, she managed a bright grin.
The eyes of Grandfather watching this, and Father's eyes too, appeared gloomy as though having forgotten how to smile.

Suddenly Koichi shot upright—stomping out of the tatami room with thunderous footsteps as if fleeing.
Caught off guard, no one could stop him in time.
Everyone simply sat stunned, watching the retreating back of this little rebel.

“My, what could have come over that child?”

Pushing past Mother who was trying to stand up, Miyoko immediately chased after her brother.

V

“Acting so violently—you’re being downright awful to Father.”

Ignoring Miyoko’s words, Koichi lay pale-faced before the desk.

“No! No!”
“I hate everything! I hate it all!”

He kicked the tatami, cradling his head as he cried.

"Why must you throw such a violent fit, Brother?!"
"Brother!"

"Fine, fine, leave me alone! I can't go to school or anywhere else! I hate it! I hate it! Miyoko, did you see today's newspaper?"

"Hmm, did something come out in the newspaper?"

"Come on, you'd better look at this right away!"

Koichi took a newspaper from atop the bookshelf and flung it down before Miyoko with disgust.

“Look at the part below!”

He pointed to the corner of the advertisement section.

[...] I, in relation to the ×× Incident, having long been imprisoned, on this day have been duly released; hereby humbly announce this fact to my esteemed acquaintances. Matsushima Keikichi

“What’s this? Why does he need to flaunt something like that in the newspaper as if he’s done some great deed?”
“Isn’t he just flaunting his own shame to the whole world?”

The small town’s gossip bore down on him, and the boy’s eyes blazed with fury.

“Is it because something like this was in the newspaper that you’ve been making such an awful face since earlier, Brother?”

“Ah, that’s right—I’ve seen it all properly now. Ah, I hate it.”
“Ashamed… So ashamed…”

He bit down on the desk and sobbed.

“Even if you say that, there’s nowhere to go—or are you thinking of going to Aunt’s place in Tokyo?”

In Tokyo there was Mother’s sister; rather than endure the stifling shame of rural life, couldn’t there be a way to come live in Tokyo?—Aunt would occasionally send such suggestions to Mother.
Tokyo was, indeed, the very place Miyoko herself yearned for.

“Hmm, maybe it’d be better if we just went to Tokyo. But no matter where we go, there’s no mistake that we’re that father’s children. That’s what’s so painful… Ahhn… Ahhn…”

Koichi was crying incessantly.
A father devoid of any familiarity—a cold and desolate father!
Father—popping up now out of nowhere—who had once inflicted upon him such terrifying shock and sorrow, who had so deeply wounded his heart!
That hateful Father—the one who made them recall anew how they had envied friends with proper fathers and lived withered lives!
That eerie man—that detestable old geezer—was now going to take his seat upon the paternal throne and scold them?

A petty defiance was intensely agitating the boy’s nerves.

“Since Father has become so withered and weak, shouldn’t you just forgive him already?! Father must surely regret what he did wrong—come on, Brother, if you work yourself up like this you’ll make yourself sick! Let’s go play out in the fields for a bit!”

Miyoko shook her brother’s shoulder, but he did not try to stand up.

“No matter what kind of person Father is, if we just become splendid people ourselves, that should be enough! If both of us go to Tokyo—have someone send us there—study hard, become something great, and thoroughly prove wrong all those people who’ve looked down on us until now… Don’t you think that’s the way to go, Brother? Brother, don’t you think so?”

Miyoko herself no longer held any resentment toward Father; rather, her childlike heart was now filled with a desire to depend on him from this point onward. She wanted to somehow appease her brother; she wanted her kind, honest-hearted brother to return. Miyoko cried together with her brother, quietly and silently.

At that moment, the sliding door behind them quietly opened, and there emerged—after so long unable to be called father, unable to be called child—the face of a man who had suppressed an overflowing affection and now trembled with today’s joy… Yet it was the face of a pitiable man who had utterly lost all paternal authority before his own children!

“Ah.”

Instantly, Koichi sprang up; cradling head in both hands and bending at the waist, he darted outside with cat-like swiftness.

Father bent his knees stiffly, placed a strained and forlorn smile upon cheeks tormented by years of imprisonment, then sat dejectedly before Miyoko.

Miyoko, now grown old, while chasing distant dreams of the past, fondly and quietly recalls those girlhood days when everyone—each and every one—had been dear to her. But now, not a single one of those dear grandparents, parents, brother, or sister remained in this world.