Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Kamitsuka Koken

I

Witnessing what they called Father's wedding was by no means an experience unique to me alone.
This was something well known to people who had had what they called a stepmother.

I remember that when I once read Kropotkin’s autobiography, there was a passage about witnessing his father’s wedding written before he had even reached twenty pages into the book.

...After Mother died, Father gradually began casting his eyes upon the young beautiful women of the world.
Such things, I believe, were written in the early pages of that yellow faux-leather-bound book.
The loneliness and sorrow of a child during Father’s second wedding must have been recorded there as well.
No—it was indeed certainly written there.

When I read that, with a jolt I felt as though it had collided with my own circumstances, and for a while I stared at that page.
As I did so, those tiny letters printed across the entire page began to appear like countless millet-sized sores, and my whole body grew unbearably itchy.
Since then, I have never opened that part of that book.

The death of my mother occurred on June 7th, a season perfectly suited for the village youths to make their rounds from house to house where daughters lived, pretending to browse shop displays.

Without regard for his former status as ruler of these lands—if one did not consider it—nor any shame toward his age nearing fifty or the smooth, receding hairline he claimed had been his since his twenties, Father mingled nightly with the young men to visit houses where daughters lived.

“One must not remain ignorant of one’s parents’ age.”

Such words existed in a difficult book I had forced myself to study during that time, so I would sometimes ask Father,

“Father—how old are you?” I would ask.
Each time, Father would let out an exaggeratedly loud laugh and,

“I’m eighteen!” was his standard reply.
Why did Father so persistently avoid stating his age? I couldn’t help but wonder at the time.

As Father’s only child, I was like a charm tied to his waistband, following him wherever he went.
From around age nine until twelve or thirteen—especially in my twelfth year when Mother died—I slept in the same futon as Father even at night.
Yet when going out at night, Father never attempted to take me along.
I too had come to think that one shouldn’t go out at night.

Whenever there were guests, I would always sit by Father’s side and listen to their conversations. Depending on how the conversation unfolded, I too would occasionally interject. The guests must have thought me a disagreeable child. Now when I think back on it, I break out in a cold sweat. When mealtime came and sake was served to the guests or they were urged to eat, I did not move from beside Father and the guests. Father would serve appetizers to them, portion some out onto a small dish for me, and permit me to wolf them down. When nabemono was served, I would unhesitatingly plunge my chopsticks into the pot.

“I’ve had quite the feast.
“Well now—your son—how old might he be?”

“He’s twelve—all size and no steadiness.
“His dead mother wanted him to become a doctor, but he himself says he wants to be a soldier—so we’re thinking of making him one.
“Even if he takes over his parents’ position and becomes a priest here—it won’t do any good.”

The guest and Father would exchange such words, using young me as a drinking companion to liven up their sake once more.
I had the maid Otsume bring chopsticks, a rice bowl, and a rice tub, then ate a self-served meal in the sake-reeking tatami room.

“By the way now, how old might you be? Always so hale and hearty—quite splendid.”
“...Really now, how old might you be, I wonder.”

When a guest brought up such matters, Father would suddenly pretend to choke on his sake, coughing repeatedly before—

“Just the other day, I acquired Toyohiko’s Snowy Mountain and Water—do have a look.”
With such remarks, he would stand up and deftly evade the matter of his age—this being his usual practice.
With three or four guests present, whenever the gathering’s atmosphere began veering toward talk of age, he would discern the critical moment and deftly excuse himself from the company—Father proved remarkably skilled at this.
At such times, the guests would stare fixedly at the pattern on Father’s zabuton cushion,

“How old on earth is the master of this house?”
“His head’s been shiny as a teapot since way back when.”

“Michio-san here—that man’s age is anyone’s guess.”
“...They say he shaved years off in the family registry or whatnot to look younger, but who really knows... Hey kid, how old’s your old man anyway?”
Father had already returned as far as the sliding door yet wouldn’t properly enter the room—I understood all too well how he stood there straining his ears.

When people asked me, “How old are you, Takemaru?” I would immediately reply “Twelve,” but unlike me, Father detested stating his age—I often wondered why that was during those days.

Father designated a single four-and-a-half-mat room within the large, spacious house as his living quarters—there he took his meals, slept, and received guests as was his custom.
The four-and-a-half-mat room was built in tea-room style, with a hearth cut into its center.
In the hearth hung sukumi charcoal with an octagonal handle, and the kettle’s water remained always hot; even when the water cooled at times, one would surely find fire beneath the kettle.
There might be only an ember as faint as a firefly’s glow at times, but once Father skillfully added hard Ikeda charcoal to it, blue flames promptly flickered to life from the coals, and a vigorous fire blazed up.

“You lot pile charcoal backward—that’s why the fire won’t catch,” Father would often say with a chuckle.
But try as I might, I simply couldn’t grasp the proper way to handle the cut charcoal.
When charcoal of about two shaku and five sun in length arrived in an extravagant box too fine for mere charcoal, Father would put on a pleased expression and, using a saw with a string attached to measure each piece, cut them to uniform length before placing them into a charcoal container fashioned from a large gourd by hollowing out its side.
A box contained about twenty pieces of charcoal, all uniformly thick, but Father would spend half a day cutting them down.
When even slightly peeled ones appeared, he would send them down to the kitchen for miscellaneous use.

I remember that when the hearth ashes accumulated, the town’s ash dealer would come and buy them at one yen per shō.
To my childhood self, one yen seemed an unimaginably vast sum, so looking back now, I suppose I must have believed the ashes in that hearth held a sanctity comparable to Émile Zola’s remains when they were reburied in the Panthéon.

Father would often say that from our great-grandfather’s time—the one who had left on a tanzaku poem card a work in our family’s distinctive calligraphic style titled “Waiting Love’s Vow,” bearing the verse “Though my heart harbors no doubt, deep into the night I wait—yet never did I pledge myself to another”—the hearth’s fire had been passed down through generations.
The commotion when Otsume, the newly arrived maid on trial, heaped a shovel full of furnace-bottom ashes into the hearth containing that precious fire and valuable ashes remains vividly etched in my eyes even now.
Father, raging like fire, became so engrossed in discarding the gritty, clay-like ashes from the upper layer of fine ash—soft as if sifted through silk—that he forgot breakfast had turned to lunch.
At first glance, the differing colors made separating them seem simple enough, but avoiding even a speck of good ash clinging to the bad must have required considerable effort.

Otsume pressed both hands beside the hearth, her neck flushing crimson as she prostrated herself. No matter how much she tried to make it look mature, the Shimada hairstyle—adorned with a white sash on her fifteen-year-old head—still looked heavy. Father’s angry expression gradually softened, and his eyes grew busier gazing at Otsume’s neck than at the ashes. From this time onward, it was said among the villagers that Miss Otsume was no longer a mere maid but had become one of the honored attendants.

“Those without tea ceremony etiquette are hopeless,” Father would habitually say, frowning when young me or Otsume would catch our short hems or long sleeves on the fire tongs stuck in the brazier and send ashes flying, or trip over the charcoal container and scatter black powder across the tatami—yet despite this, he made no particular effort to seize upon us youngsters and teach us the tea ceremony. Also declaring that the villagers who came and went were ill-mannered, he would sharpen the brass fire tongs attached to the guest brazier to a drill-like point, then plant them upright in the ashes so that one couldn’t rest their palms over them to warm themselves. When villagers carelessly failed to notice and painfully pressed their palms against the sharply pointed fire tongs, Father would clap his hands in delight.

In such a state, he enjoyed chatting with the villagers about trivial matters.
Guests from the capital who made even half-hearted efforts in tea ceremony, flower arrangement, and etiquette—he found them stifling and disliked them.
In the four-and-a-half-mat living room, he would gather peasants who didn’t know how to hold a tea bowl, serve them thin tea prepared in large quantities, and take pleasure in watching them make bitter faces while fumbling to pick up sweets.
Without even teaching them something as basic as how matcha should be preceded by eating sweets, Father simply laughed.

After tea came sake, and both the master and the guests boasted loudly as they reveled.
I wondered if this was what they called the licentious gatherings of old.
The things they spoke of rang as nothing but base and obscene even to my young ears.

II

Among the villagers who often visited was a man named Heishichi.
In his youth, he had apparently steeped his guts in teahouse liquor, and would recount stories about Kyoto's Gion district and Osaka's Shinmachi with evident relish.
He particularly excelled at tales of Kyoto's Shimabara quarter—how a high-ranking courtesan once produced an exquisite inkstone case and gilded poetry paper, demanding he compose something on the spot; how he'd floundered desperately before finally scrawling in clumsy script: *"Autumn fields—the hut's ragged roof / My sleeves grow damp with dew,"* though this had transpired at spring's zenith when Omuro's cherry blossoms stood in full glory—or so he maintained.

“The courtesan’s response poem went ‘Was it dream or waking—the face I saw…,’ though I’ve forgotten the closing lines,” said Heishichi through his gap-toothed smile missing two front teeth. “But I think it was something like ‘Yet this heart’s secret cannot stay hidden,’ or maybe not—who knows.”

“I’ll show you how it’s done when you take your first woman.”
“...And if you’re buying courtesans—no matter what anyone says—stick to Shimabara.”
“Their parlors ain’t like others—right down to every candlestick,” he said with nostalgic longing, puffing through his pipe with its golden mouthpiece—the sole relic of his past glories.

“Son, how old’re ya anyway?” Heishichi asked after he and Father had emptied three sake decanters between them.

“Twelve,” I answered, squinting my eyes as if dazzled. Heishichi pressed his lips into the shape of a “he” character and fell silent awhile in thought.

“Startin’ next year, eh?”
“...Thirteen exact, fourteen quick—ain’t there that sayin’ ’bout startin’ from spring o’ fifteen?”
“...Stand firm now—don’t let yer old man beat ya.”
“If yer old man’s takin’ himself a bride... then ya better let me have one too,” he said with a slurred tongue, ignoring Father’s displeased face in a tone that wasn’t all jest.

“How about we try some rare delicacy?” Father attempted to divert the conversation using his usual tactic when questioned about his age.

“Ain’t that right, kid? …Your old man’s bride’s a looker alright, but what I really like’s seein’ some fresh-faced pretty bride hitched to a fine young chap like you—watchin’ the little lovebirds go about their daily business.”
“Ain’t that right, kid?...” Heishichi persisted doggedly, refusing to relinquish the conversational thread he’d unraveled.

“How’s this now, eh?” said Father, acting as though retrieving some hidden treasure from the depths of the tea cabinet as he produced a small jar.

“What in tarnation’s this now? Looks just like an urn, don’t it?” Heishichi exclaimed, his drink-reddened eyes widening as he stared fixedly at the jar.

“What’s this now—don’t tell me you’ve never seen it? Still a novice drinker—I see,” said Father as he meticulously peeled off the jar’s paper seal, then used chopsticks to extract something slimy and foul-looking—the sort of muck that comes from cleaning an ash container—before clicking his tongue in apparent relish.

“Got it—sea cucumber guts.”
“...It’s from Goto, right? ...And you call yourself a drinker and gourmet with that signboard when you didn’t even know that?”

After slapping his knee resoundingly, Heishichi said this and made a face as if to declare he wouldn’t be keeping company with the villagers—though feeling awkward about it.

“Splendid! Then let’s have one hot pour for this snack!” Father clapped his hands twice with a drum-like resonance.

As Father reached to take the warmed sake decanter Otsume had brought, Heishichi—with hurried movements—snatched the cup before his knees whose contents had gone utterly cold, and gulped it down in one go,

“C’mon, Master—better have Otsume-chan pour one for ya instead!” he said, shaking his head side to side as he thrust the cup toward Otsume’s nose.

“Hey there, Otsume-chan—the master’s doin’ just fine.… Whether ya roast me or boil me up, that’s your call to make.”
“Lay one finger on the kid though, and I won’t have it.”
“No matter what anyone says ’bout the kid’s first time—I’ll be handlin’ it…… I’ll set him up proper and stand as his guardian.”
“Now kid—Otsume here’ll sort you out soon enough. Just you wait.”

With Otsume pouring and sea cucumber guts as his snack, Heishichi kept gulping down three-four cups of hot sake one after another before launching back into such talk.
Right then, I kept staring at Father’s face while pulling the jar closer and nibbling at the portion I’d scooped onto my plate—but Father made a disgusted look and flicked his eyes to signal Otsume should scram.

“Hey kid, your bride’d be around eleven or twelve, eh?”
“Or maybe around fourteen?”
“...Someone who’s already sixteen like Otsume-chan here would be more like an elder sister—that won’t do.”

Heishichi stared at me with bloodshot eyes and said,

“You and I being the same age—if we’d just been born a year apart, that’d be even better!” he bellowed.

“Mr. Heishichi, there’s still another rare delicacy here,” Father said as Heishichi kept staring intently at me, and when it seemed he might launch into another round of “Hey kid, your bride...” Father attempted to redirect his attention by bringing up this new topic.

“Master… splendid rare item… give it here.”
“...Give it here,” Heishichi slurred, swaying his upper body unsteadily as he held out both hands in entreaty.
Father promptly stood up and reverently brought from the back a small paulownia wood box fastened with a light green braided cord.
Ah, that thing! I immediately thought, but Father remained silent and slowly began to untie the braided cord.
Heishichi, as if peering into the depths of a well, fixed his drunken eyes and stared intently at Father’s hands.
Even though I knew full well what lay inside the box, Father’s ceremonious manner with it made my heart skip a beat as I waited for the lid to be lifted.

“Whoa—a real head-scratcher!”
“Hmm…” Heishichi said in a strange voice, gesturing as he spoke.

The lid of the small paulownia wood box was removed.
What appeared from within was a single shabby-looking bentwood container.
A face that seemed to say, “What’s this? Worthless,” appeared on Heishichi.

Father, with even greater ceremony in his movements, opened the lid of the bentwood container, piled a hand salt dish full of something black resembling simmered preserves onto clamshells, and pushed it toward Heishichi while—

“A gift from Lord △△. …This summer when I was summoned to the palace in Nara, I received it directly from his hands.”
“Well now, you try having some too.”
“If you can figure it out, that’d be impressive,” he declared proudly.

“Hearin’ where it’s from, can’t even sit cross-legged like some old monk anymore,” said Heishichi, straightening his posture. He picked up a chopstickful of the black substance from the small dish—a dainty portion—tilting his head with each bite only to tilt it again.

“Figured it out yet?” said Father in a coaxing tone before laughing coldly.

“Hold on now,” said Heishichi, adopting the pose of a deep thinker. He took two then three more bites of the black matter, as if focusing every bit of his taste buds into his tongue’s tip. Clicking his tongue rhythmically, he sank into profound contemplation—yet ultimately failed to identify it.

“Can’t figure it out? No wonder,” said Father, adopting the look of an examining official as he stared intently at Heishichi’s mouth.

“Regrettably can’t figure it out. I surrender! ...What even is this? Hey now, just tell me already!” said Heishichi, prostrating himself in exaggerated deference—head bowed and hands pressed together—as he performed a comical pantomime.

“It’s horsetail tsukudani,” Father declared offhandedly.

“Horsetail? What’s that even mean?”
“What the... That’s weird.”
“...And I don’t have a clue about that stuff either.”

Heishichi, with a puzzled look on his face, pretended to search for the pipe with the golden mouthpiece concealed beneath his knee, groping around the seat cushion while staring straight at Father’s face.

“What’s called horsetail is the elder sibling of field horsetail sprouts,” Father declared in an even more offhand manner.

“Ah, that thing growing on the ridges.”
“What a waste,” Heishichi said with a bitter smile, glancing down at the small black lump in the hand salt dish.

“What nonsense are you spouting?”

Father adopted a somewhat imposing demeanor and said,
“That horsetail too, just like field horsetail sprouts, wears hakama-like sheaths, right?
Moreover, unlike field horsetail sprouts, it has sheaths on its slender stems every inch or half-inch.
Peeling off each of those sheaths by hand, chopping them fine, and simmering them into tsukudani—the effort involved is no ordinary matter.”
“...To prepare just one bentwood container’s worth of this tsukudani—Miyasan and Nunsan here had three people working on it for over a month,” he continued in a gently instructive tone.

“Haaah... Hmm...” Heishichi could only utter sounds of admiration.

“Receiving even one of these bentwood containers is more precious than getting a hundred yen!” Father declared vehemently, but Heishichi grinned slyly, his face clearly saying, “That’s a load of hogwash.”

“Today I get to hog all the fancy treats to myself!...What with getting Lord’s own handmade horsetail *tsukudani* and all, I could die tomorrow content as can be, I tell ya,” he said in an oddly dejected voice.

“Now, don’t say such things—have another drink. …And about that matter I asked of you—it’s settled, yes?” Father’s tone abruptly adopted a formal quality.

“You mean the O-Toki matter? …Do you think I’d forget that, no matter how drunk I got?”
“...Everything’s right here—” Heishichi said, pounding his chest repeatedly.
I, startled at hearing O-Toki’s name, unconsciously looked at Father’s face.
Father had also looked at mine—our gazes collided midway—but it was Father who first averted his eyes.

“Shinnyo-ta, yootaa…”

Heishichi began chanting in a low voice but, finally finding the pipe beneath his knee, took a puff.

“Master, I’ll get that matter settled right away, so you oughta come over to my place at least once. …No horsetail tsukudani there, but got a whole barrel of sake.”
“Son—you come along with Father too,” he said repeatedly, preparing to take his leave.

III

After that, Heishichi came two or three times, but each time he would have secret conversations with Father in the four-and-a-half-mat room before leaving.
Young I wasn’t particularly trying to listen to adult conversation; intending as usual to cling to Father’s side—when I entered the living room—Father uncharacteristically met me with a frightening expression and raised voice,

“Go away.…” he glared.
Heishichi, my close ally who possessed a different kind of nostalgic charm from Father, for some reason wore a troubled expression, turned sideways while letting the conversation lapse, and exhaled tobacco smoke.

I came to the kitchen and played with the maid Otsume on the section of thick plank floor that had a black sheen.

“O-Toki will become your mother—your new mother’s barely nine years older than you,” said Otsume with an unpleasant smile.

“If Otsume became my mother instead, that’d be great.…… Didn’t Heishichi’s wife say it’s all the same whether Otsume or someone else becomes your mother?……”

When I carelessly blurted this out, Otsume’s round face—like red ink dripping into a hand-water basin—turned hazy,

“I hate you.
...Hasn’t O-Toki been your mother since the year before last?
From the time she went on the Konpira Pilgrimage with your father—...” she said, her eyes narrowing like a Japanese white-eye’s as she stared at me.

“But my real mother was still alive the year before last, wasn’t she?”

With a look of incomprehension, I too found myself gazing at Otsume’s face.

“Hohoho. Who knows how many mothers Son here has?” said Otsume, affecting airs unbefitting a maid as she fluttered her long sleeves and pressed the edge of one to her mouth in a smile.

“Nah, let’s save that talk for today—I’ll drink my fill at the proper celebratory occasion!” boomed Heishichi’s voice from Father’s room, their secret discussion dissolving without even becoming a proper drinking session.

After Heishichi left, Father carried in the large tobacco tray with drawers, swaying unsteadily as he came to sit beside the round brazier in the kitchen.
In that brazier, they perpetually broke and burned firewood, leaving both it and its surroundings soot-blackened and smoldering.
Inside the medicine canister—aged like some relic dug from the earth’s depths—lay coarse tea brewed thick to an amber hue, filling half its capacity.

“Takemaru.”

Using the same tone he’d used when calling my name back when I was seven or eight, Father gently turned toward me,

“I’ll take you to Heishichi’s place tomorrow—he says he’ll treat us proper,” he said, clamping the mouthpiece of his prized Murata-bari brass pipe—a Tokyo souvenir—deep between his lips and puffing out smoke with full-cheeked vigor.

“Father, that’s a pimple...” I said, pointing at the small swollen lump with white pus at the corner of his swollen mouth.

“Hmm.” Father made the same face as when asked about his age.

“I wonder if there’s any more of that roasted bancha left,” he said abruptly, turning toward Otsume.

“But didn’t Master himself roast a whole heap of it just yesterday?” said Otsume with a suspicious look.

“The other day, when I squeezed Otsume’s pimple with my finger for her, the white core popped right out.
...Squeezing pimples is fun.”

Still talking about the pimple, I stared at Father’s mouth and seemed to want to squeeze his large, splendid pimple. Father turned his face away and forced a dry cough: “Ahem, ahem.” “Son, I wonder why you never get pimples,” said Otsume, joining in on the pimple talk as she stroked her pale, perfectly round face, her sparkling eyes like tautened bells peering into my childlike face with its fine-textured skin resembling freshly pounded mochi.

“I still haven’t gotten a single pimple. Why is that?” I too stroked my face and peered intently at Father’s rugged, uneven complexion that looked as hard as gnarled bark.

“Takemaru… It’s already eleven o’clock. Today, you go make the daily offerings at Myojin-sama.”

Father said this with an air of having forgotten something crucial, so I immediately stood up—yet ever since Mother’s death, he had neglected even the monthly ritual offerings on the first and fifteenth days, let alone daily ones, to the point where villagers whispered behind his back: “Useless priest,” “Stubborn priest,” “That singer or whatever.” Why today of all days had he suddenly gone mad about daily offerings? Wondering this in my childish mind, I cleaned the offering pail where Otsume had stored wheat paste, prepared washed rice, retrieved the earthenware vessel caked with rat droppings and the sanbō trays, took a leftover dried fish from the side dishes, transferred Father’s unfinished sake into a flask, and—still wearing my indigo-splashed cotton padding and Goromaru-style hakama—carried everything to Myojin-sama’s worship hall, its eaves thick with sparrow nests.

IV

The following day was a warm Indian summer day.

Father took me to Heishichi’s house around two in the afternoon.
To go from Myojin’s forest at the southern edge of the village to Heishichi’s house at the northern end, one had to go straight through the very center of the village.

The maiden with the red tasuki sash—who had been drawing water from the shadoof and washing rice at the moss-covered stone-paved wellside—panicked upon seeing Father and me stumbling over the mat for drying rice husks as she fled into the space between the white-walled storehouse and armor-plated shed.
Father stood still gazing insatiably at where her red obi had vanished.

When we exited the newly laid path of coarse, pebbly gravel, we emerged beside the house of O-Toki, who was likely to become my second mother.
On the ridge of an old, large thatched house, crows that had brought something from somewhere were pecking incessantly.
Here too, in the square before the cow shed where rice husks were drying, no human figures could be seen—a Western dog with drooping ears faced this way and let out a large yawn.

As we approached Heishichi’s house, a manservant from O-Toki’s household came from the opposite direction carrying empty manure buckets, offered a slight bow, and passed by.
By the fence there, a single spindly sansho tree stood among the hedge, so Father reached out his hand, plucked one of its aged, hardened leaves, and walked on while gradually putting bits of it into his mouth and chewing with his front teeth.

“Hey there, Master! What took ya so long?”

As I led the way with Father following behind into the corner of Heishichi’s house, Heishichi’s wife—infamous throughout the village for her crude way of speaking—called out in her characteristic manner.

“Well now, Master! Been waitin’ ages for ya!” Heishichi too appeared on the engawa that served as their entryway, his face creasing into a gentle smile.

“So the kid’s here! C’mon now—Auntie’ll strip you bare for a proper inspection!” With this declaration, Heishichi’s wife lunged at my young self. Her padded hakama-like garment around the waist—meant to combat poor circulation—flapped awkwardly as her plump frame lumbered after me in pursuit.

Using Father’s body as a shield, I darted around him until he promptly retreated to the tatami room. Left defenseless, I fled around the large persimmon tree at the corner. A putridly overripe fruit fell onto my shoulder with a plop, its pus-like liquid splattering from cheek to neck like the bursting of a festering sore.

I froze in tearful shock—a momentary lapse that let Heishichi’s wife swiftly close in. With surprising strength, she seized and hoisted me sideways into her arms.

“See? This is what you get for running away.”

As she said this, Heishichi’s wife—digging her hand into her bosom to tickle me even as I kicked and thrashed my legs and wailed without restraint—carried me all the way to the engawa, then took a rag with that same tickling hand and wiped the spot on my shoulder soiled by the rotten persimmon.

“This ripe persimmon’s tasty, ain’t it?
“Crows’ leavings!”
"...It's medicine for apoplexy," said Heishichi’s wife as she stuck out her tongue and lapped at the persimmon juice clinging to my neck.

“That tickles!” I cried out loudly and thrashed about, but couldn’t free myself from Heishichi’s Wife’s grasp.
A scent wholly unlike my late mother’s skin—the fierce aroma of a woman in her mid-thirties—struck my nose like strong liquor. Her large, pale, roundly plump face; brows blue-shadowed from shaving; upturned eyes; prominent nose; wide mouth; venomously red lips and tongue—all these features loomed before me as abruptly as if I had climbed to inspect up close the distant crags and pines I had only ever viewed from afar.

Heishichi’s Wife tightened her grip around young me, licked from my nape down to my throat, then slurped her way up to my cheeks.
The tongue felt soft and tepid—an unsettling sensation that made me—
“Gross!” I shouted in a voice strained thin.

“Hey now, that’s enough of that.… Go heat some sake.” As Heishichi appeared on the engawa, his wife loosened her grip slightly.
I shook free from the thick, greasy hands during that moment’s respite and dashed into the tatami room.
There, Father was sitting on a thick zabuton cushion, drinking gyokuro with konpeitō.

“You’re someone who can handle both rain and wind—impressive.”
“…Just lookin’ at all that sweet stuff makes my stomach turn,” she said, as Heishichi shuffled in carrying a large serving tray, cups clinking inside the rinser with every step.

The brazier was placed at the center of the tatami room alongside flames that popped softly, surrounded by large plates beautifully arranged with chicken, bowls heaped with nori-wrapped sushi in pyramidal shapes, green onions, white tofu, and various other items—until the crude aroma of food meant solely for consumption filled and overflowed the spacious eight-tatami Kyōma-style room.
Into the pot placed over the brazier, Heishichi skillfully added yellow fatty meat with practiced hands, then mixed in sugar once it melted, poured soy sauce—and with a sizzling sound, steam swirled and billowed upward, obscuring the Great Shrine’s sword-tip talisman pasted at the center of the soot-darkened ceiling like a mountain temple’s pagoda veiled by white clouds, rendering it invisible for a time.

“Go on and help yourself, Master,” said Heishichi, urging Father with his chopsticks before taking a sip himself and offering the cup.
Young me also received chopsticks from Heishichi and immediately dove into the pot.

“Kid, that won’t do… Losing to me like this… You’ll never land a wife that way.”

In a shrill voice that drilled into his skull, Heishichi’s Wife brought over soup and plopped down right beside him, pressing herself against his side.
The same cloying musk of a middle-aged woman from before assaulted his nostrils, potent enough to strip flesh from bone.
That this woman often took lovers—such scandalous behavior—had even reached my childish ears.
Wondering if she performed those wicked acts using the same methods she’d just employed on me, I inched my knees toward Father bit by bit, putting space between myself and Heishichi’s Wife’s corpulent form.

“Master, congratulations are in order.… Though I say ‘congratulations,’ that betrothal payment was settled three whole years back now.”
“…O-Toki’s old man’s a toxic one too, ain’t he? Just took the betrothal payment and turned into a sanctimonious lecher.”
“Still, at least the matter got settled proper-like,” said Heishichi’s Wife in a mock-serious tone.

“What’s this now? There’s no need to keep harping on that.”
“The matter’s been settled proper-like.”
“…O-Toki’s old man too, well… Hate to say it in front of Master here, but… Y'know, with the age difference and all, he had second thoughts at the last minute—can’t swallow spit once you’ve spat it out.”
“A promise is a promise, and… well… that betrothal payment was settled three years back now.…” So saying, Heishichi admonished his wife, then grinned slyly while looking at Father’s face.

“True enough, even O-Toki can’t pass as a sheltered maiden anymore,” laughed Heishichi’s wife.
The contents of the pot bubbled thickly, cups passing back and forth between Father and Heishichi.

“Master here goes on about thin tea and thick tea and flower arranging, putting on airs of refinement, but when it comes down to it, ain’t nothin’ but rough stuff in the end.”

As always quick to get drink-flushed, Heishichi—now slurring his words heavier—said this while clutching an overfilled cup in his right hand and thrusting his left fist shaped into some peculiar form before Father’s eyes.

“You fool!”
“Ain’t like I need ya to tell me that—I already know.”
“No matter how great a man or scholar ya are, once ya fall, you’re all just the same river water.”

“Hey Kid, even you must want a wife, right?” said Heishichi’s Wife as she slid closer to him again.

“Kid this, Kid that—how long’s this ‘Kid’ gonna last?”
“Kid’s… Ah.”
“I’ll get you the finest bride in all three lands soon enough, kid.”
“We made a proper promise,” said Heishichi as he gulped down in one go the sake in his right hand’s cup that looked ready to overflow.

“Rather than finding brides for you, kid—if only I could be the bride of a young child like you myself, even for just a day…” Heishichi’s Wife said, her pale face faintly flushed, watching my every childish movement through eyes brimming like pooled water.

“What the hell’re you on about, you old hag? You shitty hag, brazen hag—you think the kid’d bother with the likes of you?” said Heishichi, glaring hatefully at his wife.

“That’s not so, kid.… If we turn O-Hanchōemon inside out, it’d be me and you,” said Heishichi’s Wife, grinning slyly with composure.

“O-Toki’s old man’s late, ain’t he.… ’Cause we told him so much, he’s bound to come—ain’t no mistake there—but how ’bout we try sendin’ someone again?”

With a look of someone who had forgotten the most important thing, Heishichi said in a formal tone.

“Speak of the devil,” declared Chiyo-han—O-Toki’s father—in a weighty manner, his round, jowly face resembling a Toba-e caricature of Tokugawa Ieyasu displaying forbearance as he slipped in from the veranda. Now the sole remaining chonmage topknot in the entire village appeared even bulkier from its elaborate tying, the traces of his shaved beard showing a bluish cast.

“The tardy Yuranosuke...”

Slightly drunk, Father shouted this and offered the shared cup.

Five

The wedding took place on Inoko day of the tenth lunar month.
The yuzu in the garden ripened to a deep yellow, and within Myojin’s precincts, ginkgo leaves lay piled in drifts.

In the village households, they prepared ohagi mochi, while the children struck the ground with Inoko straw—bundles of straw tightly wrapped around thin sticks with rope—thumping them rhythmically.

“Inoko mochi! Let’s celebrate!” they shouted.
At Myojin, the hundred lanterns were being lit, so even in daylight, the place bustled with activity.

Heishichi, serving as both matchmaker and cook, had come with his wife from early morning and, paying no heed to the Inoko festival, busied themselves preparing drinks and feasts.
The Wajima-style formal dining sets—twenty place settings that had not left the storehouse since my late mother’s funeral—were carried out still in their boxes and given a dry wipe by Otsume and the helpers from the neighborhood who had come to assist.

“Otsume! Hurry up now!...”
Some mocked her with such remarks, but Otsume worked unperturbed, her sleeves tied back with a sash.
Even with many hands available, since none knew their way around the kitchen, everyone still had to rely on young Otsume.
“Kitchen Magistrate!”
Some called out to her with taunts until finally voices could be heard shouting from every direction: “Hey Kitchen Magistrate!”

“The master of this house—who can even tell how old he is? Can’t tell if he’s young or old,” said someone chopping daikon for the namasu.

“He’s supposed to be young, but who knows how many seventy-five-day stretches he’s been tacking on?”
“Otsume-chan... O-Toki... ain’t she the new Mrs. now?”
“That’s a hundred fifty days right there.”
“Otsume-chan here—still a bud at fifteen last November—why, she’s good for three hundred days all by herself.”
“Ain’t that right, Otsume-chan?” came a voice half-singing as someone scraped taro roots, their jeers keeping time with the work.

My household was no place for ohagi mochi. Even amidst his busyness, Heishichi had prepared an Inoko straw bundle for me, so I took it and went outside the gate.

“Kid, that’s no good—playing around with that thing means you’ll never get a wife,” said Heishichi’s Wife with her sleeves tied back by a sash, watching from the lattice window.

Even when I joined the group of friends holding Inoko straw bundles just like mine, everyone excluded me and wouldn’t play along. “O-Toki’s kid,” or “Ain’t no such young mother,” they said, taunting me. Among them was O-Toki’s younger brother as well.

When I returned home again, the fish seller had just arrived and was stacking steamer baskets filled with sea bream, shrimp, and kamaboko as high as an adult’s height.
Thinking they were just some awkwardly arranged fish, I stood watching with a bewildered expression when before I knew it, Father appeared at my side wearing a cheerful face,

“When your mother came after dying, there was three times as much fish as this,” he said in a hushed voice.

As night drew near, the thumping of Inoko straw bundles grew increasingly vigorous from all directions.
Even into rooms whose shutters had never been opened in ordinary times, lamps were lit brightly throughout my house.

“Kid, hurry up and change your clothes.” Hearing Heishichi’s Wife’s voice—treating me with that annoyingly babying tone—I entered the storeroom where everyone had gathered.
This was my dead mother’s room, where her large mirror stand and chest—preserving the grime of her touch—sat rooted into the tatami as if devouring the mats.

Father had shaved his beard without my noticing and was wearing a yellow kimono with blue hakama.
Heishichi and his wife had transformed into different people altogether, their large family crests projected distinctly by the bright lamp.

Before long, the bridal party, guided by Heishichi and his wife who had gone to meet them, approached outside the gate.
A group of children holding Inoko straw bundles surrounded the bridal party,

“Inoko mochi! Let’s celebrate!” they shouted in unison, thumping their straw bundles so vigorously against the bride’s white tabi socks that they nearly knocked them loose.

“Ah, celebrate! Celebrate!” he repeated, as Heishichi, leading the way, swung the oak-crested box lantern to light their path and clear the way.
The bride, walking timidly forward in her black kimono with its starkly white collar—I simply couldn’t accept that she was my new mother.
During the time when my late mother was alive, O-Toki would come to learn sewing only to have me make unreasonable demands and bully her until she returned home in tears—I couldn’t possibly associate that person with this bride.

As the procession approached the entrance, when I tried to go out holding the candlestick with its flickering flame, Father—

“You’ve no business being there,” he scolded with uncharacteristic spite, so I flusteredly ducked into the adjoining six-tatami room.
There stood Otsume with a flushed face, and when our eyes met, she stuck out her red tongue with a taunting flick.

“Cushions are unnecessary at the ceremonial seating.”

When Heishichi tried to bring cushions into the formal room, Father stopped him with a scolding remark like this. Heishichi then rolled up his crested sleeves, scratched his head repeatedly, and carried the ten chintz cushions back to where they had been.

I entered the storeroom alone and stood dazedly before the tools my late mother had touched.
For some reason, a surprisingly soft new futon had been laid out there at length, so I lay down on top of it still wearing my hakama.
When I looked up, a framed half-portrait of my late mother gazed down from the wall.
A naginata with a black shaft inlaid with mother-of-pearl was also hanging there.
I pressed my cheek against the futon, smearing my tears into it, overwhelmed by a loneliness and sorrow I had never known since the day I was born.

When Otsume came to call me there, I tried to hide my tears and went out to the sitting room. In front of the tokonoma, Father and O-Toki sat side by side, and Heishichi had me take the empty spot next to them. Next to me sat Chiyo-han with a face resembling Tokugawa Ieyasu's, smiling while occasionally glancing my way. Heishichi’s wife carried a three-tiered stand laden with earthenware as Otsume advanced alongside it holding a tin sake decanter.

“Starting with the right foot, carefully…”

Muttering jokes and riddles, I recalled how Heishichi’s Wife had mocked Otsume earlier, summoning a smile onto my tear-stained face.

When the three-tiered stand and earthenware reached the bride, the similarly styled fluttering hairpins of O-Toki and Otsume—who had just exchanged bows—became entangled and both fell off, capturing the attention of all present.
Otsume quietly picked up the hairpins, respectfully handed one to O-Toki, and tucked the other into her own hair.

That night, I kept wondering who I would sleep with.

"Sleeping with Takemaru keeps us warm enough without a kotatsu," Father had always said, but even my childish self had resolved since morning that after last night, I could no longer share a futon with him.

In the 4.5-tatami living quarters—where they'd taken the guest futon from the long chest and claimed the side with what looked like warm, spacious bedding—my cracker-thin futon lay especially pitiful tonight. So while the sitting room revelries still showed no sign of ending, I crawled into it and went to sleep.

When I suddenly opened my eyes, there beneath the dim glow of the low lamp moved O-Toki’s figure—clad solely in a beautiful yuzen-patterned underkimono—like images in a peep box, neither dream nor illusion.

(January 1915)