Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Izumi Kyōka

The rainy season sky after the rain had cleared—though still overcast—hung oppressively humid. Given the fickle weather that might start drizzling again at any moment, both my guide and I carried umbrellas—though you couldn't really call them proper Western ones—these black things that blocked neither sun nor shame, furled tight as walking sticks while we clattered through the mud in our wooden geta……

When facing the battlefield, even a foot soldier dons a war hat. The mineiri yamabushi blows a conch shell. Given the season—when one speaks of spears and white horses—even so-called modern women carry pilgrim’s staffs as a matter of course… Yet here we were, having crossed Eitai Bridge into this fleeting life to be swept up in Tatsumi’s winds—what absurdity to clatter through in geta with these umbrellas!

For some reason, summer hats were dirt cheap this year, so I’d gotten a new one made of straw—but if it started pouring, I’d have to immediately stuff it into my pocket, and if the wind snatched it away, that’d be trouble… I just couldn’t muster the spirit to wear it.
“It’ll blow. Watch yourself.”
“Got it.” With that declaration, the Shite and Waki pair firmly pressed them against their ears.

Indigo or navy—a summer kimono patterned with countless stripes over which lay a sheer haori lightly padded with cotton.
In indigo and white tabi socks, clattering and splashing through the mud, he said “There’s another puddle for you.”
“Truly a swamp we have here,” he said while twisting his waist in a heron-like gait.
If that’s how it was then even our Fukagawa sightseeing had its predictable limits.
It wasn’t the season for hamaguri clams or green willows and loach soup was downright unappetizing—so either at a soba shop near Seisei-mon Gate or a dumpling stall in the temple precincts they were likely heating Masamune sake in the jar skipping the usual New Year’s soup.
Therefore since I wouldn’t insist on guiding you to places like Suzaki or Nakacho that incurred various expenses readers could rest assured.

Now stripped of its allure—what remained?
"(An excuse left behind with a summer haori)"—as an old haiku also goes.
I folded my haori and stuffed it into my pocket, thinking how much more practical this tucked-up hem of hakama would be—not that my wife had gone into labor and was dashing off to a midwife’s care.
Today I’d come out on business for the Nichi Nichi Newspaper Company.
Given my professional obligations—though one couldn’t call them grand—I’d at least kept the cord at my chest properly fastened… though in this heat, it kept coming undone…

“—Sir, where might you be headed?”
“I answered briefly.”

When I said this, my companion poked at a cuticle with the tip of his umbrella—
“'Straight ahead there’s Fukushima Bridge, and beyond that is Fudō-sama,' Maru the Rickshaw Man said, didn’t he?”

It had been just moments after crossing Eitai Bridge when they opened the carriage door with resolve and spilled out into that very scene—people and carriages and shuttles thrown like weft through warp into a loom’s chaos, right into the heart of some prosperous chronicle—standing there dumbstruck by how utterly transformed everything around them had become.
“Flathead fish and black sea bream splashing about, night stalls lining the streets… Where’s the fish market?”
"Over there—below the fire watchtower, Kuroecho…" my companion pointed. As he did, the watchtower seemed to set the street below swimming, stretching open until it grew distant—a stream of people flowed past where the bridge approach widened.

In truth, that day was the first time I crossed Eitai Bridge since the earthquake disaster.
Our disheveled appearances being as previously described… it was no wonder the driver worried about our journey ahead.
“Well, just out for a stroll,” we both seemed to say in unison as we adjusted our straw hats and turned left toward Sagacho.

Now, even as we stood there idly, freight cars roared past with a thunderous clamor—their wheels crushing the road beneath them.
Avoiding that danger, we heard the roaring sound approach again from behind.
Thudding impacts echoed through the burnt earth.

The burnt earth still seemed to retain some semblance of its form. Threading our way through the wretched road—yet despite this—there were few passersby; scattered structures stood sparsely, tucked into corners with an uncanny loneliness.

The windows of a certain bank—shuttered tight with closure notices plastered to its doors—slept in gray like they were blocking a metaphysical eye. A woman who appeared to be a local housewife, dressed in a white apron now slightly soiled, leaned against a gatepost whose blue paint had faded. Though it was still before 2:30, she gazed up at the overcast sky as if it were dusk—a scene steeped in pathos.
……In place of seagulls, crows now took flight.
Through the town's thoroughfares, visible beyond them, all the flowing water was black.……

Beside the bank, on one side facing the burnt field, stood a single hastily constructed Western-style building—rectangular like a solitary house in the wilderness—where under its eaves, the character for "river" (川) was boldly inscribed in a rough brush style.

At night, electric lights might have glittered on those shop signs arranged in the (river) character.
Though not overtly stated, this was a rice wholesaler I knew.
——(That’s quite a claim.)——In those days, there was no reason a rice wholesaler would have acquaintances among those debating third-class rice at around forty-three sen per shō.
...Through the girls’ school teacher who had overseen this Madam’s girlhood in Ningyocho, I had come to faintly know of her circumstances... In a minor work from before, I had borrowed just the architectural style of her residence.

As you know, the entire Sagacho district could well be called a row of wholesalers. Since I hear their layouts were mostly similar, as a memento for reminiscing about the past, let me briefly describe what those houses looked like back then.

Now, regarding this haphazardly constructed Western-style building—here lies a floor plan—needless to say, though the land was contiguous, it was absolutely not the Kira Residence. Rice prices had been high even then—not that this warranted staging a night raid—but facing the town stood a hinoki gate; to the right rose a spiked deterrent wall; across the way receded a finely latticed window into shadow; and amidst the greenery of planted shrubs, a stone lantern cast its azure shade. The storehouses stood aligned along the riverbank—since cargo could be swiftly loaded and unloaded via boats, even the shopfronts of tenant houses remained uncluttered, their tobacco trays dust-free… The entrance spanned six tatami mats; turning right along the veranda into the garden unfolded rooms displaying refined taste—a six-tatami space followed by ten, then an eight-tatami room extending over the river beneath its projecting railing where tea boats rowed grandly past and cargo barges floated expansively.

A mezzanine of six tatami mats sat sandwiched between floors, with a ladder-like staircase branching to two second-floor rooms—eight and ten mats each—roughly completing this layout. Most striking was how the pale blue glow of a Gifu lantern—its purple satin damply clinging—filtered through blue bamboo blinds on this mezzanine, casting reflections of a freshly donned bathrobe. Her figure might be elegant, but she was no mistress—not one to wave fans ordering maids about. “The wind grows insistent,” she remarked, lighting a candle herself. This visage—its wet-hued chignon glistening, comb’s sheen trailing—seemed to glide along willows, mingling with hydrangea dew as it flowed downstream in such fashion……

I had passed through this gate to observe the town's condition. In the front garden's shrubbery, azaleas bloomed faintly; beneath the midday sun glinting off anti-intruder spikes along the wall, a goldfish seller had set down his load and rested smoking tobacco where no passersby trod.

"There it comes!"

Could even a windchime shop exist here? Two freight cars roared past as if trying to shake apart the Western-style building we'd just left behind. The companion who moved to shield me stepped into a puddle.

“Oh, I’ve gone and splashed right into it!”

He looked down at the mud-streaked hem of his clothes, grimacing,

“But I’ll tell you this—back during the earthquake disaster, I gulped down muddy water just like this.”

Though he had resolved not to speak of the earthquake disaster, complaints spilled out all the same.

Taking the backstreets around here—Matsumura, Komatsu, Matsuga-cho (not that Matsuga need be conflated with Tsuruga)—the names of these towns were fitting indeed. The dwellings of the small-scale laborers stood aligned; there were clerks and apprentices from the wholesalers—those unruly ones—who would gather around Matsumura and Komatsu and perform *joruri* in Matsuga-cho. Warehouses stood lined up, and amidst them scurried those shouldering sacks like white rats and black rats—all reduced to ashes now.
Not a single shadow of a sacred lantern or pine needle crest could be seen; at the box-like storefront, a frail old woman sold tobacco.

“It’s changed so much.”

“True enough it’s changed… but isn’t this road a dead end?”

“Your guide’s right here.”
“Enough of your jests.”
“…Even if we hit the Suzaki embankment, just push off once in a boat and you’re at Kamiso Mio—then it’s clear sailing to Nagasaki or Hakodate.”
“Every hidden alley here has tidal flow—there’s no such thing as dead ends in Fukagawa.”

“Remarkable!”

We emerged onto a riverbank thick with mud.

“This is Sendai-bori.”

“That’s why I said that nonsense about a dead end—from Ōkawa through here where Shitano Bridge marks the inflow point, this very spot being Abura-bori...”

“Ah, right.”

“Between them lies Nakano Bridge, and upstream flows Sendai-bori River under Ueno Bridge, no? Let me be clear—along that waterway stand Matsunaga Bridge, Aioi Bridge, and Kaiben Bridge in succession.”
“With all proper houses cleared away now, you can see straight through to Sendai-bori.”
“Look ahead—in that murky sky of smoke or clouds or whatever brew’s up there—see that single patch of lush greenery? Iwasaki Park.”
“Toward Ōkawa’s edge, what looks like a bathhouse chimney? That’s actually the cement plant’s great smokestack—on misty nights it used to spook folks proper.”
“With Nakasu and Hakozaki yonder and the Sumida stretching wide before us, don’t go getting startled now.”

“I won’t be alarmed.”
“Understood.”

“No—just to be safe—Hahaha.
“A bit further up lies Mannen Bridge—that is, the Onagi River—where countless eels flow as if marshaled in formation.”
“In that *Tonegawa Zushi*... let me see—‘In October 1855, during the Ansei era, Edo remained unsettled by seismic disturbances; visitors grew scarce, leaving me with ample leisure...’ and so it goes—then, having left my collapsed house in Honjo behind, I took a boat onto the Onagi River from Saikachi in Kaiben Daikumachi, east of Fukagawa Takahashi...”

“Another earthquake?”

“Ah, hush now—they say the steamships leaving Takabashi get packed tighter than pickled plums! Over these past four-five years since Urayasu’s fishing boom took off—sharks swarming in, flounders pouring through—everyone goes jostling out like ants to honey.”

“Come first morning departure, they’d cram that steamship roof black with bodies. As she drifts downstream, folks at Ōtomi Bridge and Shintaka below dangle legs over railings—feet swinging above water—since regular boarding’s hopeless. They just cling there… or maybe don’t mind getting squashed! Stomping on shoulders, straddling heads—down they come tumbling onto that roof.”

“…And if this fellow here slips into the river? Starts hollering ‘To Urayasu! To Urayasu!’ like a broken phonograph.”

“This is no joking matter.”

“The O-Funagura ship warehouse is right nearby—it’s the historic site of the Atakemaru, you see. Ah, now that you mention it—with the air of holding a spyglass… Look there—a kappa child is causing mischief in Ekōin’s graveyard.”

“Careful now, Mr. Akutagawa might hear you.”

I reprimanded him sternly.

“The river mouth seems to reach all the way to Ryōgoku, but how are we supposed to get across? There’s not even a bridge here.”

“There isn’t.”

With that decisive motion, he crouched down with the umbrella,

“It was definitely here, but since it’s the neighborhood’s responsibility, they still haven’t rebuilt it.”
“Though clogged like this with mud, you can’t call it Oil Canal anymore—and Pomade Canal’s just black hair grease now.”
“You don’t say it’s all caked over?”

“I’m going back now.”

He tore off his straw hat to let in the wind, raging at his bald spot.

“How can I be cast aside now? Wait—I take it back! But you know, whether it’s Sendai-bori or here—every last one of them bears the name ‘river,’ yet they’ve all become so dreadful. It was long ago—though ‘long ago’ hardly does it justice… but I did once wander these waterways around this very season. I meant to reach the ferry landing behind Hachiman Shrine, but took a wrong turn somewhere—ended up wandering through back alleys here and there when the skies opened up in a downpour. So there I was, standing under the eaves of a latticed storefront to take shelter from the rain, when wouldn’t you know it—some woman in purple leans out from an upper window and tries calling out to me. Not exactly proper, that…”

“Of course.”

“Ah—leaning against the base of a storehouse along the back riverbank, I stood there dejectedly.”
“It was evening, but the surroundings had already grown dim, and the opposite bank lay faintly dark.”
“Just then, the high tide was at its peak.”
“…Nearby, willow branches hung submerged with sodden heaviness, yet there was no sign of a ferry boat.”
“After all, even Abura-bori—with its rows of storehouses there (some with crumbling walls overgrown with weeds mixed among them)—might not all be oil storehouses, but there was something uncanny about it, as if oil jars and bottles were piled up within, making it twice as eerie… I could almost imagine a wick poking out from one of those holes.”
“No sooner had something like a long-armed shrimp or a foot-long centipede splashed across the river’s surface than a sharp, black face emerged with a rustle from the murky water near the bank…”

In a small voice,

"A k-k-kappa?"

"Bold words from someone sporting that bald pate—no—just a mud turtle! When it came slithering up the bank, what with all that rain at once turning the ground beneath me into a river—I had to swim my way out alone."
It felt dreamlike.
"If sunlight hits this grease-trap of a ditch now, even water skippers won't thrive.—No different from any other canal these days."

"How true—your tale skirts that very edge... A friend of mine met not some turtle phantom, but a courtesan's ghost clutching a dark blue snake-eye umbrella."
"...Another rainy night it was—road and river blending into one."
"They say she took his hand—yet somehow he never fell in. Reached the bridge and lived to tell."

“That must be me you’re talking about… Even a ghost would do—won’t you lead me to the bridge?”

“Shall we retreat back to the mundane world?”

Having once more carefully traced our way along the riverbank, we soon came upon Kurokamebashi.
―This hilled district prided itself on its peculiar charm—(…crossing four bridges four times over)—yet returning to the mundane world from Enmadōbashi Bridge, famed through kōshaku storytelling and theater alike, meant becoming lost at Sanzu’s crossing—amusing… no—decidedly unamusing.

But we were safe.

――We left our umbrellas at the stairs――though this was the rainy season… For a locale that should naturally become a painting of slanting rain where one would get wet in a small boat, bringing out these satin-lined umbrellas every time made it seem we were employing some lizard-umbrella trick―truly disconcerting―and so henceforth we omitted this prop.
―When we ceased fanning ourselves and offered silent prayers, we learned that the Enma statue at Jōkō-in had been installed from Hasedera Temple, the head temple, following the earthquake disaster.
A face of wrath―yet commanding without ferocity―resembled less the Great Enma they call him than Guan Yu with tightly pursed lips and chili-pepper intensity.
Consequently, the ancient blue and red demon attendants flanking him could not be said to lack the imposing presence of serpent spears, long lances, Zhang Fei, or Zhao Yun.
Compared to that ghastly solitary building of Asura―where once, peering into the hall in Yotsuya, I saw Enma’s eyes gleaming in pitch darkness alongside the twisted legs of the Datsuifu hag dangling from the ceiling and was terrorized by her glaring upside-down white hair that evoked Honjo’s Ashiarai Yashiki―here instead blew a wind from Tang China’s Peach Garden.
Moreover, at the base of the Great King’s knee, the old woman crouched like a mummified procuress, while before the very seat of the attendant statues, Kannon stood resplendent.
Both the children and the young women may offer their prayers with ease.
However, should they be unfaithful or neglectful, that would indeed be truly terrifying.

The old men were docile and, above all, their conduct was upright… As stated, they were safe.
...Well then, when we reached the temporary gate of neighboring Shingyōji Temple, my companion said something odd during a lull between passing streetcars.

“Well, just a small confession…”

“What’s this, right now?”

“But before Lord Enma’s presence, my courage faltered.—Truth be told, there’s a Suzaki courtesan buried in this temple’s graveyard.”
“Heh, heh, heh.”
“In her days of wearing that long straight hairpin and light makeup—well—everything about her, from how she’d tilt her head as the Hour of the Sheep waned—though she’d undergone her coming-of-age ceremony—born in Tomikawachō, a true Fukagawa girl not that it signifies—she drifted away while still young, transient as roadside foam.”
“This is all hearsay mind you—they say after returning to water as field rain, mountain dew, snow and ice, she became a courtesan of status who kept house running an oden stall on the embankment… only to lose her wits and disappear. When I traveled as a performer in Annaka, Kōzuke—wasn’t that girl I took in on pretext, the one come to me unbeknownst… already marriageable age… Though contracted, she geisha’d among others—somehow I saw her through.”
“…Shingyōji Temple it was called, yes?”
“‘Visit me sometime,’ she’d said when chance brought us together—but I let correspondence lapse, then with that earthquake disaster… my adopted daughter’s whereabouts vanished entirely.”
“Just when I thought myself lost in Enma Hall—the lattice shadows flickered about the blue-red demons, and then—what was it?—a frail white woman materialized…”

He said something unpleasant.

"...And speaking of hell paintings—since they obstinately show women nude, I couldn't help noticing, hahaha."
"...Standing here on the tram thoroughfare telling such stories—it surpasses both pathos and eeriness, no different than clang-clang-clang-clang-clang—banging a gong at Lord Fudō's festival from some rickety stall."

When I suggested we pay our respects,

“It’s gotten rather gloomy.”
“At times like this, visiting the grave of that woman wrapped in a futon from long ago—I think you’d catch a cold.”

He shuddered as he spoke.
For some reason, I too began walking with damp steps.

“Yet isn’t that contradictory?”
“Every time I look at things like the Meisho Zue, that temple strangely weighs on my mind—so I know about it—but what of their treasure, the ‘Bunbuku Chagama’... also called the ‘Crying Teakettle’?”

With that, he removed his hat and wiped his face—whether from tears or sweat.
The bald plate of his head gleamed… When I inadvertently glanced at his face, my companion responded with a wry smile.

“Ah—dangerous!”

This was no laughing matter—the train, heaving like a hillock as it charged over Kaiben Bridge piled with construction tiles, suddenly lurched sideways until its belly scraped the railing. As it thundered past, nearly smashing into our faces where we stood at the bridge’s right end, the operator’s body in the cab bent black as a tilting channel marker.

We both leapt back toward the riverbank with a heavy thud in unison.
At the bend stood a sign reading (Caution: Danger).

“We’re the fools here—every time this happens, I’ve no excuse as your guide.”

On one side, sparse fences stood thinly; stone pagodas—some missing, some tilting, some collapsed—rose in jagged disarray, their sideburn-like edges marked with white gofun in haphazard symbols. It appeared to be preparations for relocating the graveyard... Even my companion's familiar grave, upon visiting, seemed not to be merely one among the disorderly throng—vividly marked with a white triangle on its forehead, it stood hazily beneath the shadow of mouse-gray clouds.

—Due to time constraints, it seemed he hadn't deigned to visit here today. But if one crossed this river to the far side and traversed one large lumber canal, there lay Jōshin-ji—Reigan-ji—grand temples renowned as famous mountains. To the east now, beyond the woods of Iwasaki Park, there were no other tree shadows; but to the west, continuing from the lower temples of the two monasteries, lay a field of nothing but graves. Rising and rising as if each of those countless stone pagodas nodded in assent, the giant Buddha statues—wet Buddhas—leaned their shoulders on staffs, bowed beneath lotus-leaf hats, gazed upward through halos; amidst silver grass and atop cockscomb flowers, vines clinging to their robes, alms bowls receiving moonlight porridge, palms gathering mist—they stood solemnly or sat cross-legged in meditation.

I knew not the seasons of cherry blossoms，kerria，or the temple’s lotus flowers.
There I listened to frogs，yet lacked the courage to await cuckoos.
Dark nights were frightening；moonlit nights were eerie.
……What I knew were autumn and early winter，but two or three times—no，far more than the number of times I passed through—scattered showers came and went，and clouds crossed more frequently than people.
The silver grass swayed obliquely，and the tree leaves fell in layers.
Having bundled those silver grasses，thoroughworts，knotweeds，and amaranths just as they were into one cluster，old men and old women—and when one looked again，young girls too—were selling incense here and there at shop huts where those leaves had been thatched onto roofs in various places.
The fox’s tofu shop，the raccoon dog’s sake shop，and the otter’s sardine seller also passed through them in the faint sunlight.

...When I thought back, even that felt nostalgic...

I saw and passed by.

Considering the current state of the cemetery, I imagined Amida—the Wet Buddha—and Jizo Bodhisattva, their large hats inscribed with "Traveling Together as Two" in white gofun, leading innumerable stone pagodas like legless crabs while wandering indistinctly—guided by unlit lanterns as their guideposts—toward Reigan-ji Temple’s great bell bearing its inscription: "Free from Three Torments, Reborn in Peace—All Sentient Beings Attain Enlightenment."

“Ah, the Pure Land!
“The courtesan has attained Buddhahood.”

Abruptly.……

“Please take a look at the quarter-inch plank leaning against the shed—the Pure La—” he began.

“What’s this—Tokusen? No—Matsuwari… I was thinking about something strange and carelessly mistook it.”
“Senpachi Matahekomi...”

One after another—Tokusen, Seisen, Kaizen, Betsugai, and even Mare…—there were.

“With a woman like this, you’d be overjoyed no doubt.”

Yet even as I grew heartened by the pine-and-cypress reek from the riverside lumber shack—more steadfast than any Pure Land lotus scent—a scarlet flag at the eaves snapped taut before my eyes.

I started.

“Hahaha! Even when I showed you how a large zelkova fork becomes a ship’s rudder, or demonstrated how a big cypress split makes a kamaboko shop’s cutting board—imparted my teachings—you showed no interest whatsoever. But what do you think? Had I failed to explain this flag, you’d have fled all the way to Kaiben Bridge.”

The guide was beaming with pride,

“Now, now—follow me without hesitation, keep moving straight ahead.”
“This red flag with white outlines marks a loading zone—you see, spectators, when they’re hauling long timbers being loaded or unloaded from the wharf, they have to warn passersby.—There it comes! That way—over there—go on—”

To the rear as well.
……Five or six planks flipped down; from boats moored tight against the riverbank, laborers in emblem-painted happi coats—strapping and vigorous—hefted split planks and squared logs, thudding across stepped gangways.…Evidently peak hours—all synchronized in unloading cargo—and as they stepped over each walkboard, their weight rebounding—the boatsides lining the river course, visible straight across like an incoming tide, swayed uniformly in rippling unison.
……Fukagawa’s water stirred for the first time.
……as if people had churned up waves.

——

“Ah… I see, ah…”

The guide showed his bald head without shame and bowed at the police box.
He hadn’t been reprimanded—he’d asked directions to Fuyuki Road without crossing the bridge.

“Even if they look alike, we must ask here in Fuyuki.
Calling this ‘Benten-sama of Suzaki’ grates on the ears... that’s how I figured it.
...Given my profession, I’ve got to be dead serious.”

When I glanced back, he’d puffed out his chest and was pointing straight ahead from before the police box.
We’d lost our way at a narrow bend.
After retreating from the bridge, we’d asked directions twice more.

The path we entered after being instructed to go "this way—straight ahead" was neither a proper alley nor one lined with eaves—a crisscross of ridges running every which way, too narrow for two to walk side by side. The grass had grown so thick we had to push through it with our feet, creating the atmosphere of a small summer meadow. What first appeared to be an abandoned vacant lot revealed a bamboo gate here, a lattice there; a half-open skylight peered through leaf tips, irises reflected in a small dressing mirror. One couldn't possibly imagine speaking of such extravagance there—a coiffure styled with morning glory hairpins and red-dappled silk. If anyone had been present, who would have let us pass?... Strangely, I felt as though we were tiptoeing through the very layout of a house. What lent charm was the evening primroses fluttering everywhere, their dewdrops poised as if awaiting the wind.

As we passed through here, I glimpsed a low-roofed house entirely covered by a thick cluster of tall-growing evening primroses. But when I turned back after walking some distance away, that cloud of leaves appeared to cradle a pale yellow full moon.

The mist hung hazily—clouds hung low as if drawn downward for no particular reason, the path sank deeper—40 to 50 tsubo (130-160 m²)—which I saw for the first time—reeds grew thick and wild in blue-green profusion, and the path threaded along their edge.
Whether from lingering rain or runoff water, the reed roots squelched sodden and shifted, and the wild rose blossoms were scattered white as if in disarray.

Just then, a spell of large raindrops began to fall.
Striking the reeds with a pattering sound.

“How grateful—kakitsubata irises and ayame flowers bloom here as well.”
“What’s that? Even without a single root or leaf, a bloom or two will surely sprout up.”
“In true guide fashion, I won’t let them go unbloomed.”
“The blue dayflowers bloom here too, dewy as morning dew.”
“You’ll find yomena asters enjoying autumn sunshine here too. And well… call it vigor or virtue—what with being behind villas and dormitories—this must’ve been someone’s garden pond.”
“That thing there among the reeds’ roots—the moss-covered one that looks like a crushed old hat… that’s a stone lantern, you know.”

Upon closer inspection, even the vegetable scraps lay scattered in disarray.
Indeed, what had seemed like a lantern’s shade split into three or four parts as if transforming into toads and began to move—but it was merely two or three chickens parting the reeds with a rustle, pecking as they burrowed through.
They weren’t surviving crucian carp or loaches—nor even earthworms… yet somehow, there lingered an air I couldn’t bring myself to dismiss.

I gazed for a while, but when a rooster sharply flapped its wings and the rain began to fall more heavily, we started walking—there among the reed roots rising increasingly high and the concealing leaves was a round window that seemed to belong to a small sitting room in a single-story house.
The path became ridged, and as we passed closely along its outer edge, there were two blue curtains—not rolled up but half-hanging from the eaves—where on the narrow, wet veranda, the softly flowing hem of a neatly tucked yukata came into view.
On the white fabric, where indigo koto-bridge motifs scattered like mist—before we could register them—a figure in an ibis-patterned obi suddenly rose to hide from our abrupt approach. As the hem of her garment fluttered open shallowly, what I took for pomegranate blossoms scattered, and a bare foot vanished like an evening glory.
Simultaneously, a faint black shadow flickered across the bamboo blind, and long black hair cascaded.

She must have been drying her washed hair.……Whether she sat on the veranda or leaned against it as her figure filtered through that bamboo blind—we had no time to register it.

“…Pomegranate flowers? N-no, couldn’t be.”
“That crimson flickering at the hem—firefly heads, those were.”
“Then didn’t it flare blue again? Glowing right through her skin!”
“…Tomozome dyed with fireflies, see.”
“When everything’s that blinding white, you only catch shadows—the black of firefly wings? Eyes get too dazzled to see straight.”
“Incredible… Absolutely incredible… Special selection! Handpicked! Exclusive! Improved! Rare—all here!”
“Shouldering all of Kiba!”
“Supreme selection! Paradise! Blessings divine!”
“No—demonic realm! Incredible!”

As he spoke, from the stone steps jutting into the path—carved like Dezaki’s crag—a horse-like face suddenly thrust itself against the guide’s cheek: a large Western dog. A long-beaked hunting breed—thud-thud went the thick-skinned nose as it collided with his nose,

“Oof!”

he exclaimed.
He apparently thought a python had emerged from the stone wall.

His aversion to dogs bordered on pathological; one ronin swordsman enlisted for that very reason had fled in such panic that it chilled him to the bone.

It was there again—what startled us this time was a triangular face turned upside down, sprawling directly before us.
It seemed to be a charred komainu statue.
But there were oxen with broken horns, boars with shattered snouts, and other misshapen stones resembling Sphinxes, all piled in heaps.

By the back gate next to the main hall, the white mound atop the repaired stone steps was the precincts of Fuyuki’s Benzaiten, encircled by moats on three sides.

“Would you care to view the face?”
“Oh no, I couldn’t possibly…”
“I’ll make my devotions here.”

And my companion said as well.

Though he had thoroughly purified his hands, the hem of his hakama—hiked up and twisted—hardly presented a visage fit to face a celestial maiden.
Moreover, that the one who handed over the candle was the temple guardian—there must have been other words to describe it.
The one stationed there was an apron-clad elderly man who claimed he’d been asked by a nearby resident to house-sit temporarily. “Her face—” —Even now, I believe it was only proper to decline this offer.
Moreover, even the woman near the edge of the scattered makeshift dwellings did not show her face to the sudden intruders who parted the reeds from the hillside residences—all at that very moment.

It seemed high tide.
The pond water had risen somewhat, but not enough to make the logs ripple.
In some places, the town had reverted to wild fields, yet along what had once been a reed-thick pond edge—now overgrown—to the right stood about ten small houses no taller than the reeds themselves, their reed-woven blinds sparsely hung, all uniformly exposed back doors where even wild grasses refused to grow.
Yet every house—every single one—had back areas, water inlets, kitchen corners all displaying a cultivated taste for flowers and plants, with favored bonsai artfully arranged among them.
...Pardon my saying so—there might be portulacas in chipped pots and cosmos in mandarin crates—but as summer deepens and autumn approaches, with morning glory vines draped over buckets, basins, cutting boards, and dipper handles, the backs of these houses will likely weave a band of wildflowers embroidered with white dew.

Even in drab houses, the forms of flowers and plants were each and every one a woman.
At every eaves, there seemed to be lovely maidens, all gentle.

Facing the row of houses beside us stood a single factory-like building at a right angle.
—That I perceived what looked like a small wooden bridge spanning the narrow gap was due to the light rain then falling and the mist hanging over everything; there was no need to wait for my companion’s observation.
Spanning horizontally across the waters from Aburabori to Iribori—where the view stretched unobstructed—the small bridge formed a T-shape with another that arched longitudinally ahead, its curve bowing under willow-thread rain: this was the bridge leading to Hachimangu Shrine and Fudo Hall, now replacing what had once been a ferry landing.

“You’re the one who fled to the mud turtle—then that would be over there, I suppose.”

“Well, since we got lost at that ferry landing, I can’t say for certain, but it must be around there.”
“Anyway, there used to be even more storehouses crammed together here.”

“Though it may sound odd coming from me,… a friend of mine had his hand taken by a prostitute’s ghost—might’ve been somewhere behind the factory.”
“Now that you mention it… what I just saw—those special selections, rare things—they seemed to vanish all at once. Strikes me as uncanny, I must say.”

“What are you saying before the temple hall?”

“Well now… I got so absorbed in the scenery that I ended up standing by the torii again.—Ah! The great ginkgo of Hachiman Shrine—right across from Tōmi Bridge—looks so vividly green you could almost reach out and touch it.”
“It looks refreshingly cool, glistening with moisture.”
“…It was burned in the earthquake disaster, but whether it’s Kanda Myojin’s or any other shrine’s—ginkgo trees are truly remarkable.”
“It must have endured such hardships. When we get there, let us pay our respects properly.”
“If there were no stone monuments, I’d stick them together as a married couple, but that yokozuna right in the middle is in the way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous—if sumo enthusiasts heard that, they’d thrash you senseless,” I chided. “Look—a horse crossing...”

Across the bridge lumbered a massive horse dragging an ox-cart behind it. With no distant sounds to anchor perception, those traversing the bridge atop its single squared timber might have fancied themselves sky-riders.

So sudden it stole one’s breath—a girl slid from the saddle where it brushed the horse’s flank. Clad in an unpatterned yukata with Yuzen-dyed obi, her hair coiled in a Shimada-like chignon, she fluttered into view sans umbrella—whereupon the horse dissolved from sight. Ah—emerging from some backdoor along the pond’s edge at precisely the instant hooves struck distant bridge planks, her form superimposed itself upon that metallic clang.

Finding the rain delightful, she moved along the dark factory’s rear eaves by the pond, white fabric fluttering like butterfly sleeves... Mellowed by this sight, a crimson fire at the factory’s edge cast a trumpet creeper’s shadow upon the water.

The girl turned away, and soon from the bank curving past the factory—where a moat stretched beyond—an old takasebune came swaying into view, its prow cutting diagonally like a toad’s head. As it emerged halfway around the pond’s bend, she leapt—light as drifting thistledown—onto the boat amidst lotus leaves.

Then, upon seeing the boatman pushing the oar, she turned around.
Whether she acted spoiled toward her father, welcomed an uncle, or teased her brother—that I did not know.
Turning around, her lips—smiling beautifully upon the water—were like a single tokiwa blossom unfurling in the cloud-dimmed pond.

Eiki Bridge—where the small bridge recently maintained by the town and the bridge built at the ferry landing formed a T-junction—after a while, we paused there again and looked back toward Fuyuki’s pond, but from here, we couldn’t see it clearly.
The area where the girl had leapt onto the back of the Takase’s toad-like prow was reedless—a mere millet-sown flat.

Needless to say, to reach this place from Benzaiten’s precincts meant passing through a one-block stretch where gleaming barbershops mingled with bustling greengrocers and hardware stores—we walked through an area where the shamisen strains of nagauta drifted down from two-story buildings.
But suddenly to our left opened a vast burnt plain—a space that seemed cleared all the way to Eitai.
Telegraph poles and bamboo radio masts stood like a palisade, sharply dividing the field’s edge with their glint.
“Utterly desolate,” remarked my companion.
Even our guide could no longer orient himself among these former landmarks.
We had likely passed through what remained of a large factory—no mystery here, for this place had once been a fish farm teeming with scalelike ripples until hellfire burned the very waters and turned fish to smoke.
They wove between the field’s undulating waves.
Alongshore stood fluttering thatch-roofed huts; beneath shallow eaves of seaside homes peeked new Buddhist altars. Where tattered mosquito nets hung loose, hairy shins showed through; below half-concealed water inlets screened by bamboo lattices, the pale hands gripping dippers lay exposed. Where sparse fences remained, where small windows peered out, where verandas came into view... And where these were absent—planks cobbled into shelves, reed screens erected—morning glories climbed as if by prior arrangement, while azuma chrysanthemums, powder-white blooms, courtesan plants, and miscanthus grew wild among deliberately planted bellflowers and bush clover. Here and there, someone had transformed charred pilings’ hollows into objects resembling moss-cloaked dugouts, or fashioned seashell scoops to draw water—their aquatic plants blooming ghostly white beside makeshift fountains that trickled softly, unexpectedly halting passersby with their charm.

From behind the hall and from before the torii all the way here, there was no other place even remotely where flowers and plants stood in such harmonious arrangement. The shadows of celestial maidens' sleeves would reflect in both sun and moon, their gentle dew would drip down.

――Now, I paid my respects anew――while expressing goodwill toward each house, when I thought further, the figure of that girl who leapt onto the boat now seemed more like a dream than the ancient mud turtle’s spectral metamorphosis.
...Even regarding what lay concealed of the pond.

After all, there was nothing so momentous to speak of.
I am certainly no Edo traditionalist who would debate matters like whether the left hem of one’s garment looks unsightly when crawling into a roofed boat, or whether diving in headfirst lacks spirit―as long as one doesn’t fall in, that is.
But just as the black-pennant dragonfly alights upon the channel, having Fuyuki’s daughter’s nimble feat be lightly overlooked left one somewhat unsatisfied.

Even reaching out to grab it from the shore was, in truth, a kind of adventure when boarding a rowing boat.

Now, Mr. Jun'ichirō Tanizaki of Hyogo Okamoto commuted from Yokohama and took care of a certain motion picture.
Having been invited to Fukagawa as the location they had chosen, I went out to see the actress—no, the filming.
It was the year’s end, a cold day with a north wind.
We met at a small café in front of Hachiman Shrine’s gate… I still remember—Mr. Tanizaki had ordered oyster fry with refills, arranged in that popular, crowded manner.
I had a stomachache.
Well, if it were local fool clams or hamaguri, we could have mustered the courage to tackle them in a pot—but such things have no place on a Western menu... I hooked the entire bottle of hot sake along with me, and when the time came, stashed the remaining approximately one and a half gō in my coat’s inner pocket.
With a Western-style cane tucked under my arm and my coat collar stiffly raised, we made our way to the back of the main street—and upon reaching Horai Bridge over the Ōshima River, which flows winding around Koshin Island, the tide, having been timed just right, had risen seven-tenths.
At the approach of the crossed bridge, three boats from the film crew were moored to the stone wall.
Having been so long absent, I gazed at both riverbanks—ah!—and recalled how Kazuba with her vivacious charm and Haruba with her gentle demeanor would vigorously endure frost and brave winter winds; how they would be seen off by women lost in thought at reed-covered windows under intensely moonlit nights when returning late; how they would row small boats all the way to Kawaguchi while being teased by old women eating crabs beneath thatch roofs—countless times over.
There, the pine behind Heisei could be seen.
...A small cultivated plot at the bridge approach must be the Kaga residence.... Soon it becomes a boundless reed-covered embankment....

I noticed someone on the boat raising a hand.
―Mr. Tanizaki was already aboard.
When I descended to stand on the stone embankment, about my own height below me lay two boats moored with their small gunwales aligned toward midstream, Mr. Tanizaki standing gallantly between them as the cold wind buffeted his figure.
I make no excuses―I wouldn't abandon companions to board some actress's vessel―but attempting that judge's leap onto the nearer boat proved beyond my reach.
..."Grab hold here!"
The red-faced boatman thrust out his burly shoulder, and without considering balance or propriety, I lunged to clutch it.
But as the boat rocked, my slipping hand seized his neck instead, sending us both crashing down in a heap.
What chaos―my makeshift pillow colliding with pillars as we men tangled like fighting dogs! Unused to such maneuvers myself and he equally startled―then came his sudden weight shift that sent the boatman thudding between hull ribs for an impromptu seawater bath: "You bastard!"
And rightly so―this rogue needed no further rebuke. With a splash into Ōshima River's fateful flow we flopped down together where shallows lapped hungrily at mudbanks.

“When you think about that... That young lady’s leap just now—it’s no human feat.”

“That’s rather exaggerated—such things as that... From here onward, should you go to Horai-chō and Hirano-chō’s riverbanks and observe tenement row houses by the docks—there’s an old woman at the gunwale—not handling crabs mind you—taking out a pot to polish rice at an angle, while a girl of that sort lets plump breasts peek from her sleeveless underrobe... yet still keeps feminine grace with red-patterned merino fabric wrapped long about her waist as she poles that mud-caked, dust-covered boat.”
“The true pity lies beyond sweaty clogs—through labor her skin grows taut, yet where her limbs stay slender, it’s like patrinia blossoms caught in a passing shower.”

“The rain’s falling just as ordered—steady and persistent—but can ordinary eyes truly see that?”

“You’d see all sorts of nonsense through ordinary folk’s eyes.—Ah, but here’s something even more commonplace: three acquaintances of mine boarded a round taxi bound for a factory that’s sprouted up near Hernia Inari-sama like mushrooms after rain. On their return trip, they crashed head-on into Suzaki Bridge’s front approach… Truly ordinary folk indeed.”
“Yet here you are—though it’s barely four o’clock—just sightseeing through this chaos of road repairs and hut frames tangled like a spinning top... How briskly they move!”
“Is it Hikite Chaya? Kenban? To the left?... To the right?”—amidst this deliberation—“As I’d previously informed you—you must realize we’ve reached Nakanomachi’s wave break.”
――In an instant, the azure sea stretched boundlessly.
Those who pointed declaring “That’s Bōshū Nokogiriyama!” while mistaking Fukuka Shinagawa for something else—a group utterly ignorant of geography—yet claimed it felt refreshing enough after leaping from a steam bath.
……They merely appreciated the breeze—commonplace folk through and through.
Having nothing to do but smoke my cigarette, I eventually descended to the waiting round taxi below—where three naked prostitutes appeared through my companion’s mischief (he refused to specify direction), materializing like demons in empty air as they lined up by a second-floor window behind swept blinds. Arms and shoulders, chests and bellies—all tightly wrapped in crimson rags—they wrestled in a Mei Jian Chi tangle of breasts. Had it stopped there—well, even prostitutes need cooling off.
They beckoned, slapped their cheeks demonstratively, waved their elbows—all this appearing so vivid that even geography-confused commoners saw it plain.
He resumed his explanation toward one celestial corner—“Far beyond,” he declared.
“Alas, I can’t discern the direction.”

“They seem adrift in the void—could that ghost who took your hand be among them?”

“Oh! Mud turtles! Mud turtles!”

“Ah, we mustn’t alarm ordinary folk.”
……The atmosphere had turned oppressive.
“Right here—this should be Aburakura—but it’s become a machine-run factory now. The one we saw in Fuyuki must be identical.”

Without thinking—ready to apologize if scolded—I stood on tiptoe to peer through the window. Inside, they were practicing with bamboo swords, so my companion withdrew from his spot and, like one startled by a dog, made to show off his skill in the Manna Nen-ryū style.

When visiting the shrine after so long, I somehow felt it improper to enter through the back gate. Having resolved to circle around Kiba first, we began walking while talking.

"...Just as a woman's fleshly form might manifest gu itself—to recall your earlier tale—since you're a friend, I'll be one too."
"In the past—much like this very spot—there was this particular prostitute."
"I remember hearing of her attire... Black ro-shibori silk at the hem, shimmering like Shiranui flames... with a pale blue hemp-leaf patterned collar on her vest."
"She wore a flesh-toned crepe underrobe and that white damask obi sash—you mustn't draw so near."
"Wouldn't that hinder passage across the bridge's center?"

Below, two drifting rafts glided by.

"What was it again—that vest hung on the folding screen, her white-collapsed Shimada-style bun... No—it’s fine. Alas, she neither committed love suicide, nor was she murdered or cut down."
"There’s no bloodshed at all."
“You must still be a student. Since this house’s discretion is assured, instead of a tray, do bring your lunchbox and come in.”
“If I have guests and you find yourself bored, do go out to the embankment behind during the day and fish.”
"...Kaizu comes into play."
"I’ve caught some too." [...] The season was hot, but a spring breeze blew.
Though it’s someone else’s affair, when compared to Mei Jian Chi, it seems like a lie.

“Mr. Fūha, Mr. Shunha—w-which one was it? The one being referred to—that very person?”

“Let’s leave that to imagination.”

Even the guide couldn’t tell.

The mysterious great forest of the water town was all thinly sliced open in pale red; Kiba had stacked forests upon forests into moats, now reduced to mere planks propped up in empty lots. Herons slept among the reeds, frogs croaked beneath the eaves—such a scene was like a dream.

—I saw Tsurubashi Bridge.
We crossed that bridge at length.
For those wishing to know the origin of its name, let them consult guidebooks and such.
Though I say this, I do not fixate on the characters "Tsurubashi"; yet when I first knew it, this bridge resembled a crane's neck—pale against calm waters beneath a moon veiled by thin clouds, its nape bright in slumber.—Late September, or October perhaps—what date might that have been?
Just then, I thought it must be the night of the town festival at the waterside Ebisu Shrine.
It was already late evening—no temple bell echoed through the lumber forest, no flute sounds drifted from alleyway depths—only a single red lantern at the shrine entrance sank fading into the mist... Not forced metaphor but truly resembling a stroke of red-crowned crane plumage, all four sides water.
As they walked on, pausing intermittently, the figures cast mottled black feathered shadows; I perceived the moat encircling the bridge as a great pair of wings.
At that moment, when a night storm suddenly gusted, the lantern darkened, and small waves raised white crests, scattering with the scaly clouds in the sky.

After the crane vanished, the scene was drearier than a procurer’s yawn.

But consider:
The phoenix that paid homage to Kashima became mere legend when dawn broke.
As for Tsurubashi Bridge's vestiges—ah, how I wished to gaze upon them again beneath a moonlit night.

Where there should have been eaves stood pines; where gardens should have been, lanterns peered through; even through narrow lattice gaps, what appeared as sparrow-like shadows from Yamanote—all were in fact ships spread flat. The deeply recessed accounting lattices of every household had long since become office chairs.

However, wheat straw in passing—

“Ah, something survived the flames…”

Being but an ordinary man, I merely thought with a sidelong glance, “Even the same chignon looks cool.”
Yet to dwell on such trifles—when it’s all Madams anyway—my companion’s antiquarian leanings struck me as rather improper.
He peered into the iron brazier thrust beneath a pushed-aside chair,

“In a hundred-thousand-tsubo crucible, burned till it split like a watermelon—yet never melted.
A treasure, I tell you.”

To this rudeness... that no rebuke came could only be attributed to a merchant's cultivated composure.

Still, desolation reigned.
Like skeletons bleaching in wilderness, bridges stood with pilings eroded to cavities and crossbeams stripped to bony frames.
Some retained mere fragments at either end while their central spans lay deeply sunken.
Finding passage perilous, we resumed our aimless wandering—crawling through mud-turtle holes in one place while elsewhere,

“Lead me by the hand… O Ghost.”
“How resentful you are!”

Squelchingly, we crossed.

Despite the sparse foot traffic, freight cars charged through and dashed past.
Those who now rode with bitter faces—I heard they were once spirited young lumber porters.

Only once during this time did I witness a log-riding competition.
Though there were no willows on the bank, the large log—over six ken in length—ridden by a single man passed beneath furrowed brows like leaves.
Manipulating the water’s surface—lighter than stepping on straw sandals—he glided sideways, slipped lengthwise, drifting buoyantly away.

To speak of crossing Tsurubashi Bridge on a moonlit night—it was ill-advised.
Having served as a retainer to King Kang of Song and practiced the arts of Juan and Peng, he roamed between Jizhou and Zhuo Commandery for two hundred years.
Yet there was no need to envy Koto Takashi, who rode a carp upon the Zhuo River.
The log-riding of our Fukagawa brothers surpassed even immortals—with their bamboo-handled hooks measuring some ten shaku and logs extending an additional six.

The road merely tilted slightly; the river course thrust out without relying on Yamanote's two and their long poles—compared to former times, I wanted to call it 'grand,' label it an iron bridge, and declare the trains double-tracked. It was a district that sloped gently down to the left from Hachiman Shrine toward Ōshiomi Bridge.

Though not hauling freight cars ourselves, entering this area—half a chō from Shiomi Bridge where wheels rumbled and footsteps echoed—we now picked our way through a ruined factory’s remains, stepping over stones and corrugated iron. Yet formerly, enveloped in water the color of bashō leaves, sages in marked hanten coats would perch on great logs like woodpeckers, leisurely tapping their saw-beaks—squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak—occasionally driving in clamps with a clang. I thought my mind’s ear had cleared naturally just from hearing oars at the lake’s heart. But my companion’s account differed. Since Shiomi Bridge was understood as the grand water-town gateway to pleasure quarters—its level lower—descending here apparently felt like taking a brothel’s back stairs into some secret lover’s hideaway.

Whether they returned late at night after closing time, or boarded [the boats] while drunk.

Depending on one's location in the town on this side of the Great River, they might have crossed Eitai Bridge from Tsukiji or Nihonbashi; but when it came to Ryōgoku Bridge or Shin-Ōhashi Bridge, rather than taking Tomioka Hachiman Shrine's main thoroughfare, they picked through back alleys and side streets, threading along the canal banks...... Even at noon, it was quiet.
The nights were lonely.
The reeds of the water's edge were cold even in summer.
The silver moonlight filtering through leaf undersides soon became frost on the reeds' slender stems; the roots turned to white bones and snapped. [...] The topknot that could have been tightly bound unraveled into loose hair, tangled into shed strands, and finally disappeared into dust along with the plume.

When those stood dried and fallen along riverbanks and inlets—particularly when the cold moon’s light spilled keenly as a razor’s edge—the vast sky froze crystalline, piercing through eighty thousand tsubo of reeds and weeds from Suzaki’s sea at Eitaiura to Shinagawa’s azure waves. The black shadows of frost-singing insects resembled eyes of women resentful of the world; each node on broken reed leaves stood out starkly, as if stupas had been tattooed with unascended posthumous names. ...That sensation—penetrating to the marrow, teeth roots trembling, flesh quivering—felt as though ice were splitting drunkenly flushed cheeks with a shudder... so it is said.

“Please do as you wish.”

This guide had me beat.—(To begin with, the heat on July 22 when writing this—with temperatures reaching ninety-six degrees by nightfall being a forty-year record per the Meteorological Agency’s announcement—the rented house must have surpassed one hundred degrees.)

Let’s hurry up to Shiomi Bridge.

They come, they keep coming.

Boats.

Rafts.

I gazed out—Hirakubashi Bridge.
Shigurebashi Bridge.
Two streams, three streams converged their flows across the roaring water surface—countless boats and currents gathered from left and right: fifty-bale boats, hundred-bale boats, Daruma barges, Takase skiffs, dredgers, mud boats, fishing craft all floating distantly.
Among them, the rafts sped.
The water formed rapids, its currents splitting into a thousand murmuring strands like ropes, ascending the river course as though adorned.
The rising tide was pristine.

The wind fluttered against sleeves.

I am not a scholar, so I do not know how far upstream this tide purified the canals.

However, when speaking of devastating floods that transformed all Fukagawa into a churning lake, such accounts had been recounted time and again. Through elevation differences and tidal forces, those canals we traced—Aburabori, Sendaibori, Onagigawa—must all have flowed with fresh, brimming water. Winter Tree Pond too would have been filled to capacity.

Drawn along by these currents, even Tokonatsu might have been drenched by the evening moon’s dewdrops.

“Truly, Shiomi Bridge lives up to its name as Shiomi Bridge.”

My companion voiced renewed admiration. One might think he had only now grasped the tidal ebb and flow after being so absorbed in the pleasure quarters—yet such was not the case.

From the grand railing (here too deserving its "grand" epithet), through gaps between train tracks stretching north and east—where coolness lingered—we watched the tidal flow when... one came, then two, then three before we knew it... Women light as battledore chants, some with ginkgo-leaf chignons, others in shimada coiffures or straight eave-cut bangs, emerged from nowhere to stand uniformly at the railings. They gazed down at the river surface awhile before vanishing abruptly.—Confidentially speaking, the sea wind gusting through had cinched their ibis-hued, pale indigo, and crimson kimonos diagonally, flipping their hems as though expressly painting women's fluttering skirts for the wind's sake. Yet none stopped to cool themselves. Having timed the tide's turn, they exchanged glances with boatmen and raftsmen approaching the bridge. "Indeed, this explains why it's called Shiomi Bridge," the guide remarked. The veracity remained unverifiable.

However, the sight of the great tide rising with its murmuring flow—to me... as an individual—was not akin to boatmen gazing up from below at the surging tide.

The sequence may differ—but I wish to digress here briefly—this concerned an event that would later occur before the Kansei Tsunami Memorial Stone at Benzaiten Shrine’s torii gate in Suzaki.—Now I shall speak of the surging waves.

From Shiomi Bridge facing the sea—at the inlet corner of Ōshima River, now part of Hiraku Town’s such-and-such block—stood another tsunami memorial at the edge of the sandbar.
――To preface: Before the earthquake, when Mr. Tanizaki and his film crew came by boat to survey that shore, the memorial stone―lonely and desolate, like a shadow walking alone through a century―had stood amidst the reed-covered sandbar, tall as a stone millstone. Laundry hung from a clothes-drying pole beside it, and though we weren’t caressing an elephant, plucky girls and stylish wives who seemed to belong to the pleasure quarters peeked from the small windows of single-sided tenements, sleeves tugging at one another as they watched us circle the stone.――Now, in that same place along the same riverbank, only a scar remains―not even deep enough to form an abyss―as though a rhino’s horn had snapped clean off, its body vanished without a trace.

A single stupa stood with its brick foundation before our eyes, burnt water piled in scaly wave patterns.—Divine Power Great Light Universally Illuminates Boundless Earth to Eliminate Perils.
The Three Defilements Darkly Vastly Relieve All Calamities.—Densely inscribed, it tilted obliquely toward the water.

Yet even our guide had not leapt over the water from Shiomi Bridge.
Once we went to Tomioka Hachiman Shrine’s entrance.
...then proceeding via Nakadōri to Etchūjima and crossing Hōrai Bridge—nearly retracing Mr. Tanizaki’s route when that visitor who’d once fallen into the river came seeking the tsunami memorial—we followed the riverbank through Furuishiba and Botan-chō. Along the way we counted five wooden steps and crossed high over Botan Bridge, passable only to people, not vehicles.—Without such circuitous detours, one could never reach the memorial’s site even if it seemed within arm’s reach from Shiomi Bridge.
Believing that matters like the boat tenements, water dwellings, and women in undergarments with ample bosoms found here would displease refined readers, we hastened onward.
Therefore we refrained from discussing Furuishiba’s stone tiles or coal dust.
In Botan-chō alone—if there were a village head—I wished to propose this:
Regardless of location, let them plant one peony—in garden or pot.
Crimson, white, scarlet—vivid and pastel—let a single bloom open; let them engrave golden town names upon its stem until every corner transformed into paradise where now lay unseen: Dangozaka’s chrysanthemums, Iriya’s morning glories.
Surpassing Hagidera’s bush clovers, it would become Tokyo’s great landmark.
What brings prominence to that town is not its residents’ wealth.
Not diamond rings—at times, it is a single flower.

Before long, we mourned at the site of the memorial stone without erecting a commemorative stupa.

Even when trying to ascertain whether it had sunk or burned—the fate of the memorial stone—those clustered in scattered groups on one side were no longer Fukagawa locals—neither wives nor daughters nor townsfolk. They were migrant laborers from across the hundred-ri strait beyond Tsushima in the neighboring land. I saw two Korean women in white garments—likely those who sold tobacco and poured ramune and cider—using brooms to sprinkle water across the road. To cleanse a pagoda is a monk’s virtuous act. To sweep a town is to cherish its soil. Whispering “Most commendable deeds” in our hearts while offering silent bows, we crossed what had once been a ship’s plank through reeds—now the iron Hirakubashi Bridge.

“It wasn’t during the earthquake disaster—just the other day, it was broken by a strong wind.”

O companion—forgive me—with your flushed face and balding crown—while using a flat fan at the stone-fenced memorial outside Benzaiten Shrine’s torii gate in Suzaki, that place where waves lap at reed roots and teahouses with reed screens line the embankment from which snow-capped Fuji was once visible, depicted in souvenir prints of this area’s past—just as we stood there, a sixty-year-old man happened by and spoke thus.

In the third year of Kansei (1791), when a great wave struck this place, many houses were swept away and lives lost. Thereafter, the unpredictability of high tides made drowning hazards inevitable. Thus, from Nishifune-chō in the west to Higashi-Kichijōji-mae in the east—a stretch measuring approximately 280 ken—dwellings were removed and the area left as open land.

The sixth year of Kansei [1794], Kinoe-Tora (Year of the Wood Tiger), December——(Once recorded among tenant farmers.
——Reprinted.)

Though it seemed to repeat itself, the characters were nearly illegible.
Half of the monument lay buried as if the ground had sunk three shaku.

——Incidentally, those seeking matters related to Bashō would do well to go toward Rokkenbori——the grave of Shikitei Sanba, Edo’s waterworks commissioner, lies at Jōshin-ji Chūunkōin.

Now, speaking of time, it was soon half past five.
Even the summer sun beneath this rainy season sky brought no respite——during brief lulls in the rain, steaming yet shadow-laden, houses sank into gloom and crossroads faded into twilight.

After the sixty-year-old man with an uchiwa fan departed, having swatted a mosquito at his nape, my companion announced he would buy two cuts of tobacco and hurried off toward Suzaki through the bow-shaped intersection.

It was when I stood solitary afterward and faced a human figure who had left the water standing rigidly and a buried monument.

In a hoarse, parched voice,

“Sir—”

“Ah.”

When I turned around involuntarily, there stood suddenly behind me—something blending into the twilight—ah, where had I seen this before… Was it an excessively large brothel overseer’s quarters? No. Yotsuya’s Enma Hall? No. The shadow of Enma’s knee from earlier? No.

It was the old woman who had been sitting deep inside the small shop—the one recently swept by Korean women in white aprons—her eyes darkly gleaming, her face carved with wrinkles like twisted wire mesh, her white hair disheveled as she wore a pale blue straight-sleeved kimono and black hakama trousers.

In Man-chan’s Asakusa, there is a house with a stone pillow.

In Adachigahara there is Kurozuka.

Here, by some fortune, there was no one holding a kitchen knife in wrinkled hands along with a fan resembling a betel palm leaf, nor anyone clutching a swaddled infant still in its afterbirth.

Readers need only imagine—terrifyingly, uncannily—an ancient shrine maiden possessing spiritual power, efficacy, and a karmic bond from a past life.

Moreover, along this same river course—from Ōgibashi Bridge to the outskirts of Honjo—it is said that even now, the shadows of spirit-summoning shrine maidens linger within ceiling recesses and behind walls.

“You can hear the water’s sound, can you not? It comes from nowhere in particular, can you not tell?”

…………

“Sir… Just now upon Shiomi Bridge, you were watching the rising water with such delight.”
“…Muddied and muddied—these ditches, moats, inlets—to cleanse them, the tide remains insufficient. Insufficient it is, so you must come at midnight to see.”
“To both moon and stars belong beautiful, noble princesses—ah!—engaged in base work unbefitting their station. In modern women’s fashion, unseen by mortal eyes—ah!—they float boats, ride rafts, and splash-splash pour the great sea’s waters upon this very ground, again and again… Ah, how grateful we are.”
“You must pay your respects… Ah, you had a companion with you.”
“Please go on ahead—yes, yes.”

And without passing through the torii gate, through the dark space beneath a single eave like a spider’s web—her thin garments and bodily wrinkles gradually catching on the wooden siding—she vanished deep into the shrine grounds.

“Ah, my apologies for keeping you waiting, sir.”
“I just... took a quick look at that place called Saezuri Shinmichi next... but that swallow—its head was white for a swallow.”
“Ahahaha! But I was surprised—three gisaeng-like figures at the alleyway entrance, all in fluttering white clothes.”

It wasn’t that I had forgotten.

We were, in fact, still standing on Shiomi Bridge, watching the tide—

Tomioka Hachiman Shrine

Naritasan Fudō Myōō

The shrine precincts were as if woven from white-spread earth, sparsely peopled and dustless.
The Shinto priests maintained solemnity, the Buddhist monks observed silence, and the purifying waters remained clear.

Only the blackened twisted votive hand towel flipped in gusting wind and slapped against a cheek.
It must have been because he had been recounting pleasure-quarter curses with a mouth still unrinsed of fishy stench.
Needless to say, I stood awed by its sacred might.
We had visited two or three other shrines and temples besides, so I now forget where exactly that thickly soiled votive towel had been.
Though they speak of harmonizing radiance with dust, this was divine ground—Buddha’s realm.—Lately they’ve ceased using them for hygiene’s sake; but as mere ornaments, these grievously soiled towels—who precisely should take charge of them? I wished to inquire.
The sooner those who offered them would attend to it.
……They ought to be purified.

We paid our respects with reverence.

It was exactly half past three.
We had not yet eaten lunch.
The places we stopped by during our short breaks were… Miyagawa in front of the gate? No—Kiba’s Kintō? No—Tori no Hatsune? No—
Where the hell!
Ah—if I raised my voice that loudly, my empty stomach protested—there was no need to shout 'Where is it?'—it was just that area’s so...ba...ya...
Ah, ah.

“Please come in.”

However, the soba shop was lively.
The one taking orders in the earthen-floored area differed from the young maid with loosened front thongs on her flat geta and soles blackened to the core.
A muscular, well-built man wearing a headband bore bold-lined tattoos across his upper arms—flutes, drums, Okame masks, and Hyottoko faces.
In rubber-soled tabi socks clomp-clomping across the earthen floor—"Ehh, sorry to keep ya waitin’"—he earnestly took orders while gripping a hot sake jug like an eagle’s talon, chest slanted against the doorframe, hips lowered, thrusting out his tattooed arm with a downward glare—such was the scene that left customers huddled in a corner of worn tatami mats with twisted hems, their presence thoroughly diminished.

“Do you think they’d scold us for ordering udon?”

“What—you? Since they’ve posted the menu, they’ll serve whatever—tsukimi, toji, anything.”

“I see.”

In the narrow shop.

A robust man in his late thirties—having tucked the hem of his flowing black ro-sha silk haori into his waist with a flourish against the doorframe near his nose—sat heavily in a cross-legged position, exposing his plump, greasy thighs nearly to the groin. With a square cut that made him look like a playboy, he had nonetheless left a Panama hat on. Stout yet with prominent cheekbones, he had pushed aside half a yam, stacked two steamers, set aside toppings, and lined up four sake bottles. When we lifted the bamboo blind—the one who had been loudly arguing with that burly man ceased abruptly because his opponent moved... For a while he sipped by himself, glaring around aimlessly, yet his gaze naturally turned toward us. I counted the number of sake bottles—it wasn’t envy; it was to gauge the degree of drunkenness. Leaning his back against the counter, he drew strength from the sight of the plump wife’s round, white hands—sleeves tied back with a sash—working on the ledger through the window. Because he was startled into spilling his sake cup, my companion—ever prepared—had already arranged to produce a folded sheet of paper from his pocket.

“Hey… listen up.”
“Oi, there’s more to it.”
“But damn, it’s busy here.”

After our order had been relayed once or twice, they immediately set out for delivery—flinging a happi coat over their shoulder with the vigor of the Hachiman Festival’s portable shrine.
(Here they don’t carry it—they say a hundred people leap up in unison to catch it as it descends from heavens where phoenixes shine resplendent)—they dashed out with the vigor of those rushing to meet the portable shrine.
Unable to wait for that burly man’s return, he began arguing again.

“Thanks to your kindness...”

“The soba here’s hand-pounded—they serve it up in a way that’ll really impress you.”

“I hear your residence is in Kabutochō, yet you frequent this area so often.”

“It’s no different from neighborhood dealings—after all, you see, it’s a place where women live.”
“Ahahaha!”

“Oh my, you certainly seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Since the opponent’s a raw beginner, that part’s actually tough.”
“They go looking for hardship through sentiment.”
“There are plenty of stylish places—but since it’s hand-pounded, the moisture balance is unbearable.”

[He] slurped up the tempura broth,

“You see, when I show my face, there’s this woman—she’s got a white neck with stray hairs from her Shimada chignon—and the moment she looks down, a single spot appears all the way up to her earlobes as she’s sewing these tiny crests for dolls, I tell you.”
“Ain’t that pitiful? Heh heh.”
“It’s for doll’s clothing, I tell ya.”
“You’re the one who’s got a fine habit of toying with things, ain’t ya?”

“Well, sir, you’ve made another outrageous discovery.”
“If you go just a block further, there’s mountains of clams and corbicula piled up at wholesalers and retailers alike.… And what’s more, even amateurs have never laid eyes on such a gleaming thing.”

“You say it’s shiny, but it ain’t glass. ...A pearl with a lustrous base, faintly misted over. Turn it downward in your palm, flip it upward—say one and one appears, say five and five appears. It’s a die-like pearl bestowed by the Dragon Palace, heh heh heh.”

“Ah, sir, your sake cup!”

“As if its allure drips forth... I know that look.”
“Bad omen—we can’t properly begin with that.”
“What say you? The finder wasn’t some procurer or birthing-woman.”
“Blind—being blind, it must count among Fukagawa’s Seven Mysteries.”
“These parts see things wash ashore too.”
“The famed bald one from Nakachō and Suzaki—he dwells in Matsuga-chō’s back alleys.”
“Having nibbled at Tsuruga arts as a lark, I can play the monk—so sometimes I go practice for sport, or so I fancy.”

(“Being just a parent and child, sir, we don’t want our limbs torn apart by the multitude,” they pleaded, so you showed mercy.) —Having long known Kumai, Hiraku, Hirano, Shindō, and the hyakunin-giri, (“Special dispensation.”)—“Right then—quickly now.”
“And anyway, whether you scrub off the astringency or parboil it, you can’t use it as substitute otherwise… It’s exactly like those Benzaiten over there—”

“Oh no, sir mustn’t! For someone like me—how improper—you mustn’t spread careless rumors.”
“At times your figure gets seen about, yet here you are.”
“……They even say you wash your hair on occasion.”
“…And discussing it…it’s like having your bare armpits tickled.”

“That’s it exactly! Makes it all the better, don’t it?”
“We ain’t seen Honjo’s One-Eyed…Since a blind man found it, Benten’ll show soon.”
I meant to say—
—Back when I needed to trick the group, killing time with a temple exhibition—never thought those Benzaiten faces’d mirror my plaything’s so close.
I started slightly…Then while peering hard, my lids drooped sudden.
“…Ugh.”

The pomegranate flower petals scattered with a snap.

“Ah, a nosebleed.”

“Ugh.”

The playboy sir groaned on his back.
The nosebleed was copious.
As blood flowed into the bowl he’d just managed to grab, he frantically spilled it onto the dirt floor—but the soba and tempura had already turned crimson.
Blood still spurting from the bridge of his nose dripped onto the steamer and splattered against the sake cup; a pungent odor of fish mint arose.

“Let me bring you some cold water...”

The wife lowered one knee onto the dirt floor.
The companion too kindly took out a sheet of kaishi paper and began to rise, but since the strapping lad was obstinate, no help was needed.
When he slung an arm over his shoulder, the lad went limp, and they made their way through the dim dirt floor toward the kitchen entrance.
The angular face hung slackly forward, deathly pale.

We exchanged silent glances.

While listening to the tap water roaring noisily, we left our sake unfinished and exited the soba shop.
The sequence had become jumbled again.

Our visit to the Benzaiten Shrine in Suzaki occurred after we had left this place.

So profoundly had the mysterious old woman’s words seeped into our very beings that both collar and body stiffened in unison; even when my companion peered down Saezuri Shindo—considering both hour and locale—we spoke not a word as we paid our respects at the heavenly maiden’s hall, its doors still steeped in twilight shadows.

Then crossing that new road… The boat rowed by Oguri Yanagawa had once struck this shore and climbed the embankment; passing through the riverbank, we boarded the streetcar.

Passing through Kiba’s environs—turning right at Irifunechō—crossing Funakibashi Bridge and Shiomibashi Bridge twice—though daylight still lingered over the town—we moved through a gatefront district where each shop and house blazed with dazzling electric lights. Unable to sit side by side, my companion and I faced each other and exchanged glances once more; yet amid the main street’s thousand lights—indistinguishable from a narrowed Ginza—the noren curtain of what I thought was that soba shop showed no trace of its blood-stained lamp.

The reason we alighted at Monzen Nakachō—before the evening’s feast…—was that our guide intended to show us live sea breams swimming in the fish wholesalers’ tanks across Hamaguri-chō and Ōshima-chō.

The backstreets grew gradually darker; rain fell.…… Whether we had misjudged the location somehow, we encountered only yukata-clad figures draped like seaweed, crimson-sashed figures resembling red snappers, and among them, bug-eyed creatures with protruding foreheads.
This was no place for sea bream or bass.
Not even the briny scent of salted bonito lingered.
The trouble lay with our guide—who’d even memorized a 1:50,000 scale map in his sleeve—growing flustered as roads worsened and dusk approached in his haste to find live fish tanks. His words tumbled out incoherently: “What about the fish market?… No—I know that one’s there! But this here’s a wholesaler.”
“I’m not buying anything.”
“Just want to see live ones—well, dead ones too… sounds daft I know—but it’s that wholesaler where they flip ’em about.” Such was our muddled exchange.
The flipping wholesaler still seemed plausible enough.
“A place where they spritz water up in little splashes then let it plop back down.”
“Master…”—first at Kurofune Bridge’s foot when we asked the barber’s apprentice watching rain through his window—he pulled suspicious faces and called for his master, but nothing came of it.
“Brother! Brother! Got a question for ya!”
Our second attempt at Hamaguri-chō Second District’s riverbank left us mortified—asking an artisan scraping coal with his shovel.
“Splish-splash water then plop…?” he retorted through soot-blackened features, eyes rolling white. “Ain’t got a clue.” This defied all comprehension.…

“Hey, you… Even their little splish-splash is embarrassing enough—how could they possibly manage a proper splash?”
“Every time I hear that, I can’t help but step back, you know.”
“That’s cowardly of you.… Mere splish-splash doesn’t amount to anything—it’s neither a deluge nor a torrent—just a splash.”

Even as [he] spoke… “Pardon the intrusion, but… that splish-splash… splash…”

A passing boatman—apparently returning from the baths—kowtowed.

Having tightened her hair wrap—plump yet with a trimly cinched waist and obi—the sake shop’s wife declared, “We don’t do retail at the wholesaler.”
“What do you mean? That’s not the place.”
“We wish to observe discreetly.”
“Oh, sightseers,” she smiled with golden front teeth, emerging in tall clogs—explaining how roadworks and construction made these back alleys as disorienting as post-quake rooftops—her plump arms bared and gleaming white under electric lights as she gestured directions: skirting trash heaps, rounding fences, crossing drainage planks (“Mind your step—it’s unsteady”), past a bathhouse still shuttered…… Reaching the dead end, she meticulously guided them before laughing derisively: “Do take care now—ohohoho.”

Truly, Tatsumi is a delightful place.

The wholesalers—Dairoku, Daikyō, Ogawaku, Tsukudakatsu, Nishitatsu, Chikusen—there were several such establishments, we later heard.
We simply followed the sake shop’s wife’s guidance—neither retreading the drainage planks nor stepping over the mound-like vacant lots piled high with oyster and clam shells—past rows of splashing droplets (drip-drip) from the eaves, all while musing on seaside wanderings until reaching the wholesaler at the dead end she had indicated……

There was nothing at the storefront. Across the broad earthen floor of the compound, a dark cellar loomed with moisture rising, the river visible straight through.—That’s the place. That’s it.

The guide who had lumbered in offered a deep bow toward the side residence.

“The water’s splish-splashing.”

[He] must be handling…
Cowardly though I was, I stepped back into the very center of the town.

“Come along—permission’s been granted.”

The live fish tanks—or what might have been called “waterfall boxes”—gradually appeared in five tiers, sixteen or seventeen containers in total. The water columns rose six feet high before cascading down with a gurgling splash, creating ripples that overflowed their edges.—Ah, I should have simply called them water columns from the start.—This was the place where water columns towered above live fish tanks.

Peering through a tank near my slipping feet on the wet wooden floor, I saw small fish forming an inky-black current.

“They’re swimming—these are horse mackerel.”

“It’s whiting.”

And then, from among the fifteen or sixteen youths—mostly naked and working on their feet—the young one spoke.

My companion was quite dexterous—he could even handle a kitchen knife with ease.
Thinking of this, I realized it was only a recent occurrence.
My most intimate wife, who once worked in Yanagibashi’s pleasure quarters, had recently established a household in this neighborhood of Banchō.
Knowing cooking but unfamiliar with washing—today—she peered into the countertop from the kitchen entrance,

"Oh, what lovely sweetfish," she said, but it was whiting.

The next morning, she started to say, “Oh, a live carp,” but… having learned her lesson from yesterday, she bit her tongue and adjusted her appearance slightly—though it was a black sea bream.
“This one’s tender…”

The barber from Kamahara District in Shinano Province—affecting airs—declared, “Sushi should only be had at stalls,” as he picked up a piece of conger eel. “Mmm, this loach’s tasty.”
When someone carelessly struck up a conversation with the companion, over thirty legs swayed wildly in the water column—and they burst into uproarious laughter.
A stray small octopus went skittering across the wooden floor.

The group set to work.
To the water window of the lower shed, from the boat moored alongside at that moment, they scooped up conger eels, silver baskets, flounders, and rockfish octopus trays; lifting them, embracing them—then a great sea bream, splashing vigorously, leapt up from (the large tray).

Taking advantage of this momentum, this time... it’s not... so...ba...ya...
By the stratagem of Mr. Takayoshi from the company, a band of sharp soldiers lies hidden in reserve.……When someone declares, "We choose no enemy—push them out!," the companion adjusts his helmet, his head appearing black.

The corner of the town that had swum through the rain was also Kuroechō.
The fire watchtower glistened like a crystal tower, endlessly dripping; at the night market stalls, crab legs built white embankments, a great flatfish—as startling as any pufferfish—arched its back, and roughly hacked shrimp pieces washed away blood.

Seeking opponents from the Kaga clan, Kin Inada, and Ise Taira, my companion—urgently pressing forward as he recalled having once sparred with a kindred spirit in Miyagawa—tried to get himself killed, but...
“Begging your pardon... Though I’d made a promise, with it pouring like this we couldn’t press on—what with these umbrellas—so we took shelter at the nearby Hatsune precinct.”

“I leave it to you.”

“Understood.”

Upon reaching this point—in truth, my companion, who had established a stylish household with a Suzaki middle-aged woman sold through a second-floor shamisen performance, glared at the hood and transformed into a cormorant with its face wrapped in mustard-seed-patterned cloth.
Upon reflection, even the splish-splash of water seemed but a playful diversion to mask exhaustion.

“...Sis, I’ve got a small matter to discuss—but first, why don’t you tell me your name? I’d like to hear it.”

The amusing one was a stout, good-natured, considerate maid who only giggled softly and absolutely refused to give her name—which made perfect sense when we later learned... Miss Oito.

And so, having gotten the stout Miss Oito to go along with it, anything became permissible—she being a true local raised in Fukagawa.

——

A fresh-faced young woman appeared.

First came auspiciousness.

Having received the cup and holding it aloft, the cormorant—now grown thoroughly black—pushed his old-man act to extremes.

“Sis, where’d you hatch from?”

Beneath his voice stood a seventeen-year-old in Akashi-white kasuri hemp: no rouge, her half-collar crisp hydrangea-blue against the humidity, eyes wide above a jawline shaped for receiving words.

“Hamatōri…”

“Hamatōri?……”

Clearly and succinctly,

“Hamaguri-chō.”

Showa 2, July–August