Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

My wife developed breast cancer and underwent a left chest resection surgery at the Tsukiji Cancer Institute Hospital.
To undergo further cobalt irradiation, she was to be transferred to the radiology department of the same hospital in Otsuka.
As our car turned left along the grounds of Otsuka Hospital, my eyes caught sight of daphne flowers planted atop the stone wall facing the road—each heavy with abundant blossoms.
For an instant, I hallucinated the suffocating fragrance of daphne flowers.

My wife's hospital room was on the third floor, Room 38.
My wife’s postoperative progress was favorable; she had no pain and was in excellent spirits.
Of course, there was likely an aspect where she was putting up a front to herself.
Just as in Tsukiji, my wife was organizing her belongings, going to greet the office and nurses' station, and not staying still for even a moment.
But when the nurse entered, my wife finally climbed back into bed.
The nurse took my wife's pulse, handed her the thermometer, and left.

“It was you after all, Mrs.”
“I had been wondering who you might be.”

The woman in the neighboring bed said.
She was a refined woman of about fifty.

“Making her act like a patient is quite a task,” I said with a wry smile.

“And where is yours?”

“Breast,” my wife said.

“I see.
“I also had breast cancer twelve years ago, you know.
“I’m missing one side.
“This time, fluid has accumulated in the pleura.”

Twelve years—suddenly that number felt glued to my mind.
I added twelve to my wife’s age.
I added twelve to my own age.
However，in my wife’s case，the discovery of her illness had been delayed，and it had metastasized to her armpit.
Furthermore，it wasn’t as though everything had been completely removed in Tsukiji either.
I supposed I had to admit that contemplating a span like twelve years represented a dangerously naive perspective.
Conversely，even if twelve years were to pass，should it still be termed a recurrence?
In other words，even after twelve years had passed，did the fear of recurrence still exist?

Three years ago, I was hospitalized at a certain hospital and received deep radiation therapy.
The diagnosis was "maxillary tumor."
Given that my wife’s diagnosis was "mammary tumor," mine might perhaps be termed "maxillary cancer."
Once a week, I still go to the hospital.
However, I do not feel the slightest anxiety.
It has only been a full two and a half years since I was discharged.
I am fully aware of the risk of recurrence.
But if I were to speak my true feelings, they are what people would call carefree.
I just try to think of it as something trivial.

However, this woman was always coughing lightly.
She was constantly wiping phlegm with paper.

A slightly overweight doctor with a gentle-looking appearance entered, accompanied by a nurse.

“I will be in charge of your care, Mrs.”

My wife sat on the bed and undressed.
Of course, since the left breast had been removed and healed over, my wife’s left chest was flat.
However, since about one-third of the epithelium from the severed breast had been excised and sutured together, there was no particular sense of abnormality.
The flesh around the armpit wound was only slightly swollen.

If anything, it was the right breast that appeared abnormal.
My wife was my second wife; we had no biological children.
Therefore there were no signs of atrophy in her breasts—she had never nursed children.
Yet that had been the symmetrical beauty created by both breasts.
The solitary plump protrusion now stood uncanny.
I felt uneasy.
Viewed across her entire chest area, it formed a distinctly deformed impression—grotesque.

The doctor pressed near the nape of my wife’s neck, turned toward me, and spoke.

“Oh, this wasn’t removed here.”

“That matter was supposed to be left to Radiology.”

“I see.”
“In that case, we’ll go ahead and remove it.”
“Though it’s called surgery, it’s a very simple procedure, really.”

The doctor left, accompanied by a nurse.
I followed after them.

“That area is straightforward. We’ll remove as much as possible.”
“Afterwards, we’ll either burn it with cobalt or use the seeds.”
“Since arranging the seeds takes time, the surgery will likely be three days from now.”

I bowed politely and returned to the hospital room.
The woman in the neighboring bed was speaking to my wife.

“That’s Deputy Director Kano.”
“He’s the deputy director.”

My wife was lying on her back on the bed.
Staring fixedly at a single point, she said:

“How did it go?”

“Because they need to procure something called seeds, it seems the surgery will be in three days.”

“I’ll have them cut me as many times as needed.
I’ll have them do it thoroughly.”

“That’s right.
If they say to cut it, have them cut it.
Everything about this illness—just leave it all to the doctors.”

Beyond the station square stretched a single road running diagonally straight.
I walked down that road without hesitation.
Stores stood tightly packed along both sides, their eaves nearly touching.
Every shopfront displayed heaps of assorted goods piled abundantly.
Yet these were just small-to-medium retailers found in any shopping district.
The town—apparently rebuilt postwar—lacked all depth of character, utterly devoid of nuance.
This daily commute could hardly be called a pleasant journey.

However, lately I had been making an effort to walk as much as possible. Because I wanted to strengthen my legs even a little. I might be laughed at as an old man’s folly. However, for my wife’s sake, I wanted to become as healthy as possible. The day was terribly warm. After walking just a little, my skin was already damp with sweat.

Passing through this single straight street led you to the northeastern corner of the hospital grounds. I had secretly been anticipating the intense fragrance of the daphne flowers. But in today’s warmth, there was no fragrance of flowers. Perhaps this flower’s fragrance was indeed meant to drift and scent the cold air of early spring. I entered through the hospital’s main gate and headed toward the daphne flower beds. The purple of the daphne petals had completely faded. The fragrance of flowers past their peak was utterly fleeting.

When I entered my wife’s hospital room, she sat up wearing a smile and spoke abruptly.

“This is Professor Hanai’s wife,” she said.
“I was surprised.”

Mr. Hanai was a professor at a university in Kansai.
My wife had been acquainted with her for some time.
Moreover, Tsujimoto, a friend of mine, was also a professor in the same department at that university.
Therefore, I had often heard about Mr. Hanai.

“I see,” I said.
“That was truly a coincidence.”
“Tsujimoto and I have been close friends since high school.”

“So I’ve heard.”
“However, for us to meet in a place like this… well.”

Mrs. Hanai remained lying on her back and smiled wistfully.

Two days later at 1:05 PM, my wife entered the operating room.
I sat on a chair in the hallway.
As afternoon arrived, the number of outpatients decreased and the hallway grew suddenly quiet.
Beside the chair where I sat sat a patient transport cart bearing a stretcher.
Upon it lay my wife's nightgown spread out inside-up.
The garments people wear have an uncanny way of absorbing their essence.
My gaze kept involuntarily turning toward it.

At Tsukiji Hospital, when my wife underwent her first surgery, I had been sitting in a chair like this. However, I don't believe my current emotions are as agitated as they were then. This might be a lazy way of putting it, but thinking it would help pass the time too, I try to recall my wife's peculiar state of mind from earlier.

Earlier, my wife was accompanied by a nurse and entered the operating room’s waiting area. Prompted immediately by the nurse, she took off her clothes and was now naked from the waist up. At that moment, she reached for her white flannel waistcloth of her own accord and spoke.

“Should this be removed too?”

Holding her clothes and standing behind the nurse, I was considerably startled in that instant. Why had she said such a thing? At Tsukiji Hospital, she had apparently been placed completely naked on the operating table. But there was no way they would have made her walk fully nude from the waiting room to that table. My wife has an extremely resolute disposition. Yet even she must have been agitated facing surgery. To take it further—precisely because of her strong-willed nature—I couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t slipped into some masochistic state of excitement. I found her utterly pitiful.

“No, that’s not necessary.”

The nurse had indeed said that.
My wife entered the operating room, shaking her sole remaining breast as she turned her back at once.

I was wearing my wife’s wristwatch on my left hand. When I looked at it, nearly an hour had already passed. Recalling Deputy Director Kano’s words—he had stated the surgery would be extremely straightforward—I began to feel somewhat uneasy.

A male patient walked down the hallway. Countless small bandages covered his face. His complexion looked ghastly. At the end of the hallway, the left side became stairs descending to the basement. Bright sunlight streamed through the window at the far end. In stark contrast to this radiance, a dark space seemed to open beneath the stairs. The male patient stepped into the bright light but immediately turned left and went down the steps.

As they passed each other, stretcher-bearers carrying an empty stretcher came up the stairs.
After placing the stretcher on the patient transport cart, one of them pushed it while the other walked alongside, chatting and laughing as they passed in front of me.
After a while, an old woman supported by a girl resembling her granddaughter came up the stairs with heavily dragging steps.
Around the time the old woman passed in front of me, a middle-aged woman in Western clothes approached from the opposite direction and descended the stairs with a rather light step.
After that, the same stretcher-bearers from before came pushing a patient transport cart carrying a male patient.
A tube could be seen inserted into the patient’s nasal cavity.
The two stretcher-bearers lifted the stretcher from the patient transport cart and began descending the stairs with painstakingly careful steps.
The male patient from earlier came up.

At first, I thought it was utterly deserted, but as I sat there observing, I realized this hallway actually saw considerable foot traffic. The radiation therapy room must have been downstairs as well. But what about my wife? I looked at the watch. It was past 2:30. This did not seem to be a simple surgery anymore. But suddenly, Deputy Director Kano’s words from that time—“Let’s just remove as much as we can”—flashed through my mind. In other words, that the surgery was taking longer must indicate there were more possibilities for removal. Unbidden joy began to well up. However, ever since I fell ill, I had resolved in my mind to entrust my illness to the doctors and my fate to heaven. And shouldn’t I have strictly reprimanded myself for every fluctuation between hope and despair? I quietly closed my eyes to regain my mental composure.

Some time passed.

Finally, I opened my eyes.
Just then, a transport cart was being pushed right past me.
On the cart lay a female patient.
But in that instant, I shuddered in horror.
One of her eyes had been gouged out.
And there, peeking out from that hollowed-out eye socket, was the edge of packed gauze.
I hurriedly closed my eyes again.
But the livid face of that male patient, covered with many small bandages, floated into my mind.
I hurriedly opened my eyes again.
In the bright light at the far end, the two stretcher-bearers were lifting the stretcher and about to descend the stairs.

The clock showed past three o'clock.
It had already been two hours.
I remembered that even during the Tsukiji surgery, it hadn’t taken two hours.
But there was nothing to unsettle my composure.
3:10, 3:20.
The waiting area grew slightly noisier.
At 3:30, from the far end of the hallway, the two stretcher-bearers from earlier came walking into view.
But then, unexpectedly, Deputy Director Kano stood before me.
When Deputy Director Kano had appeared, when I had risen from my chair—I had no memory of any of it.

“Let me show you what we removed from your wife.”

I followed behind the deputy director.
I entered a room.
Three or four young doctors were there.

Deputy Director Kano said while picking up your wife’s excised muscle from the aforementioned tray.

“There was still this much remaining.”
“It had formed quite extensively.”
“However, we removed all but one.”

I bowed my head, my words of gratitude failing to take form.

“As for that remaining one—if we were to forcibly remove it, there was a risk of severe hemorrhage given its location—we’ve applied seeds there.”
“In other words, we coiled eight gold wires around it.”
“So I believe it can be safely removed.”

Were the young doctors the ones who had participated in my wife’s surgery?
On the desk was drawn the upper half of a woman’s body.
They had spread out several cards and appeared to be reviewing the surgical outcome.

“Furthermore, we’ll target the surgical wound site and administer cobalt irradiation.”

“Thank you for everything.”

I bowed once and left the room. A surge of joy welled up within me. Yet this differed slightly from the Tsukiji diagnosis. As Deputy Director Kano had said, even if they could remove everything entirely, the possibility of recurrence remained very much present. There was naturally no way to know how my wife’s fate would unfold. Still, I felt we had done everything humanly possible. For the doctors’ two-and-a-half-hour effort, I could do nothing but feel grateful. Even to myself, it all seemed utterly trivial. Yet as I finally managed to suppress the smile threatening to form on my face, I climbed the stairs to my wife’s hospital room.

II

Lately I had to admit that my health was remarkably good.
It might have been precisely because of my wife’s illness that my spirits were paradoxically uplifted.
My appetite too had grown considerably stronger.
There had been more than one occasion when I’d startled her during hospital lunches.

What made it even more ironic was that my sexual desire recently returned.
Three years ago, since being hospitalized and undergoing deep radiation therapy—whether due to the radiation or not—I had become sexually impotent.
However one morning when bush warblers were singing incessantly, I woke to discover my genitals had regained their function.
For a moment I was terribly happy.
I even fell into the delusion that life itself had come back to me.
But my joy immediately turned into a bitter smile.
At my age—to still harbor such unrelenting carnal urges—it felt utterly absurd.
I was appalled by the depth of this obsession.
Yet I resolved to set this matter aside for now.
At least it must have been true that I'd grown healthier.

However, it was when my wife was still at Tsukiji Hospital that I realized my mental state had grown quite abnormal.

On a street corner along the way to the hospital stood an information center for a certain hot spring. Inside its grimy display window hung photographs of a grand banquet hall and a thousand-person bath. The instant I saw two large breasts dangling from the chest of a woman in one of those photos—striking a hair-washing pose—I was seized by such violent shock that I nearly cried out.

Ever since then, I had been unable to stop being preoccupied with women’s chests.
Needless to say, this applied when the area beneath a jacket swelled symmetrically on both sides.
Even when facing a woman with her kimono collar tightly fastened, I couldn’t help but imagine two breasts swelling forth the moment her obi was undone—leaving me unbearably anxious.
Perhaps sensing my anxiety—or so I imagined—whenever I recounted my wife’s condition in response to their questions, most women would press both hands to their chests and exclaim “Oh my.”
Then this time conversely, a new fear came rebounding back toward me.

My fear had ceased to be limited to women’s breasts. All paired objects—that is to say, everything consisting of two elements forming a pair—began to preoccupy me. Compared to women’s breasts, men’s nipples might as well not exist. But a man’s chest missing one would appear grotesque. Two eyes, two ears, two arms and legs—these went without saying.

Birds’ paired wings, cows’ twin horns, a car’s dual wheels, a pair of shoes, a set of scissors, an airplane’s propeller, a vehicle’s headlights—imagine any of them missing one. Upon seeing two large strawberries placed atop a Western-style confection served at a banquet table, I involuntarily shuddered.

When observing carefully at beckoning cats' paws there are cases where they're on the right.
There are also cases where they're on the left.
At the soba shop near my house stood two beckoning cats side by side—one raising its right paw and another its left.
However in all cases of course they were limited to raising just one paw.
Even among humans someone beckoning with both hands would appear utterly absurd.
After all for cats this isn't done with hands but feet.
Were a cat to raise both legs it would become unstable verging on grotesque.
Yet I found myself unable to stop fixating on these single-pawed feline figures.
Moreover my unease persisted regarding teakettles having their spouts attached only on one side.
I had never encountered any kettle possessing dual spouts.
Yet perhaps what truly unsettled me was that smooth featureless expanse of metal comprising its body.
I ultimately had no choice but to acknowledge my nerves existed in an undeniably abnormal state.

However, I am by no means constantly threatened by paired objects.
Of course, most of the time, I forget about such things.

Every morning I left home to visit my wife at the hospital.
On the street, people hurried to work.
However, since nearly everyone was walking in the same direction, as long as I didn’t turn around, I only needed to look at people’s backs.
Sometimes I would look up at the sky and take pleasure in the color of the early spring sky.

When I arrived at the station, I bought a ticket, passed through the ticket gate, and stood on the platform.
The train entered, stopped, and the doors opened.
But the moment I stepped into the train, I screamed inwardly.
Pairs of eyes were turned toward me—to the right and left, front and back—shining slightly higher and lower.
I hurriedly unfolded the newspaper and had no choice but to lower my eyes to it.

The hospital waiting room already held a crowd of patients.
This was the radiology department hospital where many had advanced conditions.
I kept seeing people who'd had their eyes removed—far more than two or three.
Yet strangely, my composure remained completely undisturbed.
I climbed the stairs wearing my accustomed expression.
The second floor contained a large ward.
Beds lined both walls, separated by curtains.
I slipped through these curtains, climbed to the third floor, and slid open my wife's hospital room door.

My wife smiled and sat up.
I bowed politely to Mrs. Hanai as well and sat down on the chair in front of my wife.

"How are you?"

“Finally, the pain is gone now.”
“I see, that’s good.”
“Everything’s fine at home. The bush warblers have come again this year.”

“Bush warblers, huh,” I said, though inwardly I couldn’t suppress a bitter smile.

“They’d been coming until just the other day, but haven’t shown up for a while now.”

“But last year they’d kept coming until around early April.”

“That’s right.
This year’s been a mild winter—maybe the mountain snow melted early.”

“Do bush warblers come to your house?”

Mrs. Hanai said in a quiet voice.
Her face showed a faint flush of color.
Today, her mood also seemed quite pleasant.

“That’s right.”
“They come every year without fail and sing in our garden trees.”

“Well, isn’t that nice.”

My wife and Mrs. Hanai seemed to have grown quite close.

I said to my wife.

"Mrs.Hanai's complexion looks very good today."

"Yes," Mrs.Hanai replied. "They're having a special injection drug sent from America for me - I receive those treatments now."

"They say that injection only lasts four days," my wife added. "But since it takes two days by plane from America anyway, it's medicine with an incredibly hectic schedule."

It was probably an injection drug with radioactive properties. I imagined an airplane loaded with that medicine taking off from an American airport and flying across the Pacific Ocean. Then I pictured a motorcycle waiting at Haneda Airport - for some reason I was sure it had to be a motorcycle - transferring the drug and immediately roaring off at full throttle.

This might have been a slightly sentimental fantasy. Yet why was it that I - someone who felt such abnormal anxiety in the healthy world - engaged in these wholesome imaginings within a cancer ward's hospital room? Was my mind somehow warped?

“When I get these injections, my appetite vanishes and I become dreadfully tired—I simply have no choice but to stay hospitalized.”

“But looking at how you were when I first got admitted here, you’ve recovered so much vigor.”

“This injection is terribly expensive.”
“It’s been twelve years since I was given this life, so really, it shouldn’t matter anymore though.”

“That’s not true.”
“Absolutely.”
“But is it really that expensive?”

“It costs 10,000 yen per dose.”

“Ten thousand yen!”
“That’s hardly cheap!”
“I mean, it has to cross the Pacific Ocean, after all.”
“It’s no longer a matter of money, you know.”
“Besides, first and foremost, your complexion has improved this much.”

I wasn't giving Mrs. Hanai hollow reassurance.
The reason my words came out with such unintended force might have been that I was trying to convince my wife—or perhaps myself.

The loudspeaker in the hospital room called my wife’s name.
After responding, my wife got down from the bed and went downstairs with me.
My wife handed me the bandages and entered the examination room.
I found an empty seat and sat down on a chair.
Due to the nature of Mrs. Hanai’s illness, I had refrained from smoking in my wife’s hospital room.
Promptly, I took out cigarettes.
Before my eyes, patients and attendants moved about as nurses threaded through them.
There were some who huddled motionless in one spot, and a group that did not move at all.
Now was also the most crowded time.

“What part of you is affected?”

When I turned around, a petite woman was sitting there.
But in that instant, I was struck by a powerful shock.
Just as the word "shudder" suggests, every hair on my body stood on end.
It wasn’t only because one of the woman’s dark eyes had begun to cloud over.
Suddenly, because—strangely enough—her facial features seemed strikingly similar to those of my deceased wife.
I averted my gaze and said.

“Breast cancer.”

“I see. Your wife looks so healthy though.”

I quietly glanced at the woman’s profile again.
My unease was certainly not due to nerves.
The resemblance was indeed uncanny.
Or rather, gazing at this woman’s face seemed to resurrect my late wife’s visage.
Yet when I tried to fully reconstruct her features in my mind, that single clouded eye became an insurmountable obstruction.
Instead, I found myself overwhelmed by pity for this woman.

“What part of your wife is affected?”

“Somehow，they say something like a tumor has formed in the jaw.”

Once again，my emotions were thrown into turmoil.

“Oh，does your wife also have a maxillary tumor?”

“Oh, that’s right. You’re quite knowledgeable.”

“I had mine done three years ago too.”

“I see. So that’s why you’ve recovered so nicely.”

The woman smiled with a slight upward glance at my face.

“Though I still go to the hospital once a week.”

“So tumors aren’t cancer then?”
“But this time, my eyes have deteriorated slightly.”

I couldn’t immediately find words to respond. In the radiology department’s examination room at my hospital, I remembered how they always shone a flashlight into my eyes during checkups. So could maxillary tumors metastasize to the eyes? Those patients I often saw in the corridors—the ones missing an eye—was that why? But then the loudspeaker spoke.

“Ms. Koike Ito, Ms. Koike Ito, please proceed to Examination Room Two.”

The woman stood up.
This must have been the woman’s name being called.

“Well then, I must excuse myself.”

The woman bowed and walked toward Examination Room Two.
Her retreating figure was also strangely similar to that of my deceased wife.
I found myself falling into the illusion that I was trapped in a nightmare.
The short coat of my wife that remained in my hands alone seemed to barely keep me anchored in this reality.

Finally, my wife emerged from the examination room.
I stood up and placed the bandages over her shoulders.
As we walked, I said to her:

“By chance, there was a woman with a maxillary tumor sitting next to me.”

“Yes, there are many people with maxillary tumors here.”

“Her eyes also seemed slightly impaired.”

“That’s right. Apparently those metastasize to the retina immediately.”
“There’s an old woman in the room across from mine too.”

“Hey now, don’t go scaring me like that. But these amateur ‘seems like’ stories—in other words, layman’s diagnoses—are better not dwelled on too much.”

“But it’s clearly written in the cancer books too.”

“Hmm, is that so? By the way, maybe I'll have the hospital meal again today. It’s oddly delicious.”

“You’ve had such an appetite lately. I’m glad. Well then, I’ll have tempura udon today.”

“You’re quite vigorous yourself too.”

Even after finishing lunch, though she didn't say it out loud, my wife didn't want me to leave.
I thought I should go home early and get to work.
But I, too, found it hard to leave my wife's bedside.
At that very moment, a visitor arrived.
I couldn't very well leave the guest behind.

“Mr./Ms. Taguchi, please open the pineapple can.”

As soon as the visitor left, my wife immediately said such things.
I would again lose my chance to leave.
In such a manner, it was always nearing evening by the time I finally got up to leave.

That day too, by the time I alighted at Asagaya, an evening haze had settled over the town. However, even when evening came, the chill that had persisted until earlier was no longer felt. The sky held many white clouds, but the western sky had cleared beautifully. I crossed the station square as usual and walked toward my house.

Suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. Against the clear blue sky, a willow tree hung its branches. It was because I noticed the willow branches had already taken on a pale yellow hue. I turned left at the road and took a slightly longer route toward my house.

This road was slightly unusual.
A short walk ahead stood a cemetery—not particularly spacious.
Further on, one side lined with towering zelkova trees faced a hot spring-marked ryokan across the way.
The ryokan's glass window displayed a price list beneath rows of male and female kokeshi dolls.
Beyond that stood an obstetrics-gynecology and orthopedics clinic.
But I had no business with such places.
I turned right at the ryokan's corner.
Thus I resumed walking westward as before.

A short distance ahead stood a dilapidated two-story house atop a low stone embankment.
Previously, a famous female singer had lived there.
A few years ago, she died of something like liver cancer.
The giant kobus magnolia tree in that garden was precisely my objective.
Sure enough, scattered white buds had already begun to bloom on the kobus magnolia’s branches.
Yet one more bloom opened its pure white boat-shaped petals within the clear, cold hues of the evening sky, and above those treetops, a single star emitted its fresh, new light.

III

The Higan cherry tree in the garden had already passed its peak bloom. Delicate petals scattered profusely through the radiant sunlight. On those branch tips, the red calyxes remaining after the petals had scattered were already becoming conspicuously prominent.

The camellias bore branches full of red flowers. This camellia had been a seedling that grew beneath a white camellia in my hometown garden before being transplanted here. I suspected the white camellia might have been cross-pollinated with red camellia pollen. Their color lacked the simple crimson of wild camellias. Their shape stood large and open, unlike the deep tubular form of wild varieties. Yet these blossoms held an unnatural voluptuousness—perhaps a hybrid’s trait. Fallen camellias littered the ground below. Some lay face down already browning, while fresh drops rested on their backs still clutching yellow stamens. Still the tree’s flowering persisted long; its lower branches remained heavy with swelling buds.

The maple tree extended red stems and spread green young leaves tinged with red. They appeared utterly youthful and ethereal.

The Yoshino cherry tree at the gate had also begun to bloom.
Yesterday, I asked my youngest child to cut as large a branch as could be brought into the car.
I placed it in a bucket in the bathroom.
I wanted to let my wife know that spring had come to our home again this year.
Her hospital room was on the third floor, so the view should have been quite good.
But perhaps because this entire area had suffered wartime destruction, not a single tree came into view.
Much less could one hope to glimpse the poetic beauty of cherry blossoms blooming fragrantly on a spring day.

I left home later than usual, carrying a large cherry branch.
When I got off at Otsuka Station, I resolutely pressed the cherry branch against my shoulder as if hoisting it.
Though my appearance might have seemed slightly too showy, I opened the hospital’s front door just like that.

I felt all the patients' eyes turn toward me at once.
But I no longer harbored that unnatural feeling—the fixation on "paired eyes."
Even if among them there had been an eye with one side crushed, I would not have felt the slightest fear.

“Spring has come. Spring has come,” I thought while suppressing the urge to wander about declaring it aloud with the cherry branch on my shoulder, and climbed the stairs.

I entered my wife’s hospital room.

“My, how splendid!”

Mrs. Hanai said this and sat up.
My wife too seemed quite pleased and told the nurse in an airy tone to decorate her bedside with the cherry branch.
The branch bore numerous pale pink buds, several of which had already begun to bloom.

“However did you manage to bring such a large one!”

“I suppose you’ll have to make do with this for our cherry blossom viewing this year.”

“Even I never imagined I’d get to enjoy cherry blossom viewing here.”

Last summer, my wife and I went to Yubiso Hot Spring in Joetsu Highland.
In the ryokan room where cool breezes swept through, we decided while pouring each other beer that we would visit my wife's hometown during the next flower season.
My wife's hometown lies in the foothills of Mount Zaō in Yamagata.
They say spring comes late in mountain villages, with plum, cherry, and peach blossoms all blooming at once.
For some reason, I found myself unable to stop yearning for that mountain village's spring.

But now was not the time for that.

“It feels unsettling—like we’re being hurried along by this ‘Open up! Open up!’”

“That’s right.
“In other words, it’s like saying, ‘Still not here? Still not here?’ right?”
“It gets so tiresome, doesn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The old woman in the room across the hall has passed away.”

“I see. The old woman with the maxillary tumor who had surgery on one eye?”

“That’s correct,” she said. “Though I understand the direct cause was pneumonia.”

“I see.”

“It must have been last night while I slept—I remember hearing quite a commotion in the hallway. But when I woke at dawn, everything had gone quiet again. Then this morning, the hospital resumed its routine with perfect efficiency.” Her voice lowered. “As if nothing at all had happened—”

A pause hung before she concluded: “But sure enough, the old woman’s name had already been taken off the doorplate.”

“Truly, those footsteps are so dreadful.”
“No matter how deeply I’m sleeping, I always recognize those footsteps, you know.”

“But when I returned from the examination room, there were already futons and luggage placed in front of the room across the hall, wouldn’t you know?”

“I see, so the replacement has already arrived.”

“That’s right.”
“They say there’s one bed for every thirty applicants.”
“It’s a complete crush—utterly overwhelming.”

“Speaking of which, that president doesn’t seem to be doing well either.”

“That’s right.”
“The president’s room faces east, doesn’t it?”
“Before, they’d throw the curtains wide open every morning so the sunrise came streaming in, but lately they’ve kept them tightly drawn and pushed the bed into a corner.”

“Truly, I too have experienced this—when weakness becomes severe, the vibrant, energetic things of the outside world grow unbearable.”

My wife explained to me.

"I don't know if he's actually the president, but he's a distinguished gentleman staying in the private room diagonally across."
"It seems to be laryngeal cancer."

"So we can say both of you are out of danger now."
"After I went through the trouble of bringing this vibrant cherry branch, you all showed such delight in it."

“Then let’s settle it that way for now.”
“Well then, ma’am.”

Mrs. Hanai said this and formed a rather bright smile.

My wife was called over the loudspeaker and went for cobalt treatment.
I followed after her.
It was also because I could smoke leisurely while waiting for my wife.

“This morning in the examination room, I was waiting my turn,” she said. “There was a man in his fifties being examined ahead of me with a tube through his nose.”

“Probably esophageal issues,” I remarked.

“Most likely,” she continued. “The doctor said something to him, then suddenly looked shocked and told the nurse, ‘Water—bring water!’ When she brought a cup, he made the man hold it and said, ‘Gently now, gently—try sipping slowly.’”

In that instant, they say the patient blinked rapidly for some inexplicable reason.
Then, tentatively lifting the cup, he took water into his mouth.
The moment he did, they say his face turned bright red.
However, no abnormalities occurred.

“You did it.
“You did it.”
“Once more, a little, just a little,” the doctor said, and they say the patient drank water again.
But still, there were no abnormalities.
It is said that expressions of relief swept across the faces of the doctors, nurses, and patients all at once.

“I was completely moved. But the doctor said, ‘Still, you mustn’t get carried away. Even when drinking, do it little by little—just tiny sips,’ you know.”

The cobalt irradiation room was in the basement.
Passing by the first-floor operating room, going down that corridor and turning left at the end, my wife and I descended the stairs.
My wife handed me her hospital gown, entered the irradiation room, bared one shoulder, and lay supine on the treatment bed.
On her shoulder and nape were several small adhesive bandages.
They appeared to mark the areas targeted for cobalt irradiation.
When the attending physician finished adjusting the device, he hurried out and closed the door.
I finally sat down in the chair, took out a cigarette, and lit it.

The door to the irradiation room where my wife was had a sign that read, "No Opening During Irradiation." In my case, I held a zinc plate in my mouth and wore a plaster mask. The attending physician similarly hurried out and closed the door. Before long, I heard the faint click of the handle. Yet the radiation itself caused no sensation whatsoever. On the contrary, I found myself overwhelmed by a sense of intense loneliness.

Bright spring sunlight streamed down from the staircase above. When a person’s figure appeared within it, it immediately became a black shadow and descended the stairs. The basement had four irradiation rooms. Patients on stretchers were also carried in. An old woman descended the stairs, supported by a girl in a sailor uniform. Her steps were terribly unsteady. After descending the stairs, the old woman ended up crouching before a chair.

“Grandma, what’s wrong?” the girl said.
However, the old woman’s voice was hoarse and barely formed words.

At the top of the stairs appeared a nurse's figure. For an instant, bright light struck the hem of her white uniform and cast shadows of two legs—clean and even sensual. I seemed to recall something long forgotten and felt intensely happy. But she descended vigorously down the stairs and swept past me with unmistakable vitality.

The doctor emerged and opened my wife's irradiation room door. We returned to our third-floor hospital room.

Then, summoned by the loudspeaker, my wife went to the first-floor radiology department.
This was to receive deep radiation therapy on the left chest area where her breast had been removed.

“Even though I’m a patient, this keeps me quite busy, you know,” my wife said with a wry smile.
In my case, I received irradiation to my upper jaw for eight minutes each from four directions.
However, my wife’s deep therapy lasted only three minutes, likely due to the location of her affected area.
My wife emerged from the radiology room immediately.
By this time of day, there were almost no people left in the waiting area.
The spring evening sun was shining on the garden.
My wife and I stepped out to the entrance.
Suddenly, my wife tugged at my sleeve and said.

“That person. Look—it’s them. The one who finally got water down their throat this morning.”

“I see.”

A small-statured man was walking with quiet steps among the garden’s azalea bushes.

“But somehow, I think I understand that feeling.”

“That’s right—clasping his hands behind his back like that. He must have found some peace of mind now.”

“That must be it. He must have been overjoyed, after all.”

“Even someone like me was so preoccupied with that for a time—no matter what I looked at, nothing registered.”

That man walked slowly with his hands clasped behind his back and his chin slightly raised. On his profile, the setting sun was shining brightly.

IV

Due to work, I did not visit my wife for a few days.
During that time, the Somei Yoshino cherry trees at the gate had already passed their peak bloom.
I left my house, looking up at those cherry blossoms while stepping on fallen petals.
In the neighboring garden, red magnolias bore a profusion of flowers, while on the kerria branches with newly unfurled leaves, clusters of yellow double-petaled blossoms bloomed.

I went to the hospital in Ochanomizu.
I was told that after radiation had been administered to my upper jaw, a hole had formed there.
Once a week, I had it cleansed.
Then by bus, I headed to my wife’s hospital.

I entered my wife’s hospital room.
Mrs. Hanai had changed into a kimono and was sitting on the bed.
She was wearing light makeup, which was unusual for her.
By her pillow stood a scholarly-looking gentleman.
My wife introduced the two.
It was Mr. Hanai.

“Mrs. Hanai, are you being discharged today?”

“I see… That’s good news.”
“Though admittedly, you’ve been in excellent health lately.”

“However, I hear you’ll have to come back next month to be hospitalized again and receive one or two more of those injections.”

“Those injections seem remarkably effective from what I’ve observed,” Mr. Hanai remarked.

“Well, it’s hard to say,” my wife replied. “But if you can manage like this for a year or two, who knows what new medicines might be developed? That’s my only hope now.”

Mrs. Hanai offered a melancholy smile as she said this—perhaps demonstrating her refusal to sugarcoat things as someone further along this path. Yet one couldn’t help suspecting she might also be indulging in a touch of coquetry now that her husband had returned after so long.

In the hallway, heavy footsteps came to a halt, and a strange noise could be heard.
Mrs. Hanai and my wife exchanged glances and said.

“Oh, have they arrived already?”

“It seems so.”
“Ms. Taguchi, could you take a look here for a moment?”

The attendant nurse stuck her head out from the door and said.

“Just as I thought,”
“The bedding’s been placed here.”

“You know, their replacements have already arrived.”

“It’s absolutely packed—bursting at the seams here.”

“The number of patients with this illness really does feel bottomless, doesn’t it?”

“But in your case, Mrs. Hanai—since it’s such a happy discharge—you can’t possibly mind how rushed they make you feel, can you?”

“Though it doesn’t seem all that happy, does it?”

Mr. Hanai, like me, was by no means dexterous.
But he somehow managed to pack up the luggage.
Mrs. Hanai exchanged repeated farewells with my wife and was discharged accompanied by Mr. Hanai.

Entrusting the rest to the attendant nurse, my wife left the room to undergo cobalt irradiation.

“Mrs. Hanai hadn’t been very optimistic about them, but those American injections seem quite effective.”
“You’ve become unrecognizably healthier now, haven’t you?”

“But from their own perspective—no matter what they truly feel inside—they can’t just come out and say they’re fine.”

“That’s true.”

“Oh right—that woman with the maxillary tumor you mentioned before? I ran into her in the examination room this morning.”

“I see.”

It concerned a woman who closely resembled my deceased first wife.
Since that time, she had lingered strangely in my mind.
In waiting areas and such places, I casually looked around but never caught sight of her.

“Is she hospitalized?”

“Yes, she’s on the second floor.”
“She seems like a quiet, pleasant sort.”

“Yes, that’s how she struck me too.”

“They’re irradiating her jaw.”
“And for her eyes—apparently using drops sent from America.”
“So she was relieved to avoid surgery there, though…”

“Oh, eye drops.”
“I suppose they come by plane after all.”

“That’s likely.”
“But how dreadful—her eyes were still clouded, and her complexion had this bluish-black tinge. However you looked at it, it didn’t seem promising at all.”

My wife and I descended the stairs to the basement.
As we passed each other, a middle-aged gentleman came up the stairs.
His face too was covered with several small bandages.

“Those small bandages—if they mark where the radiation goes—then that man must also have a maxillary tumor.”

“That’s probably right.”
“Anyway, there seem to be quite a few people with maxillary tumors in this hospital.”

When my wife finished her cobalt treatment and we returned to the hospital room, a woman around sixty already lay in the neighboring bed.
Her condition didn't seem particularly good—her complexion was poor and she was quite thin.
Around the bed stood older people who appeared to be her sons.
When my wife got onto her bed, one of them,

“My mother here—please look after her,” one of them said.

“Likewise,” my wife replied.

My wife's deep radiation therapy reportedly concluded the day before yesterday.
My wife's tasks for the day were done.
Deputy Director Kano entered.
I stepped out of the hospital room out of consideration, went to my usual balcony, and lit a cigarette.

The weather was fine today，and the temperature was high enough to make one’s skin glisten with sweat.
But the wind was strong，and dust swirled up into the sky.
On the road as well，there were people walking while shielding their faces with their hands，and others who had stopped，turning their backs to avoid the dust.
With this wind，most of this year’s cherry blossoms were likely to scatter.

I returned to the hospital room.
My wife said in a low voice:
“Her stomach seems to be bad.”
“They say she’ll have surgery the day after tomorrow.”
I nodded silently.
“Let’s make tea.”
“Taguchi-san, please go boil some water.”
Our children had all grown up, leaving nothing more that needed saying between us.
Yet even after drinking tea, as always, I found it hard to leave my wife’s side.
Exchanging aimless chatter, I finally left her hospital room as evening drew near that day too.

For a moment, I stopped without thinking.
The entrance door was open, and the setting sun shone through the window.
Caught in backlighting, the scene inside appeared as black silhouettes.

It was a large hospital room. About ten beds were lined up in two rows. On them lay patients reduced to black outlines, lying supine. Of course, their features remained indistinct. Strangely, all the patients had tube-like things emerging from hospital gowns. However, the locations where those tubes emerged differed from one another. Some had them emerging from their throats. Some had them emerging from their chests or abdomens. And then each attendant, holding a thick syringe, was injecting solution into their respective tubes. Could that solution be soup? Or perhaps juice? In other words, wasn’t this the esophageal cancer patients’ dinner beginning?

For an instant, I shuddered. However, since my wife’s diagnosis, since my own diagnosis, and even further back since my deceased wife’s death, my nerves had endured one shock after another. But as long as I lived—and moreover, as long as I lived as a writer—I could not afford to turn my eyes away from any of my fates. My nerves were being crushed, yet with each blow, they seemed to grow tougher.

Both I and my wife were veterans of this disease that carried a significant risk of recurrence lurking within. There was no telling when the same fate as these people might be awaiting us. However, I no longer felt the same terror as before.

To tell the truth, I had secretly conceived a most wicked scheme.

For the past few days, I was unable to shake a slight fever and underwent a detailed internal medicine examination at Ochanomizu Hospital.
As a result, they determined my digestive tract was healthy.
In particular, my liver—quite unlike that of a drinker—was said to be remarkably robust.

Therefore, even in the worst-case scenario, I could request—or compel—the attendant to inject about one liter of alcohol or an equivalent amount of spirits into me each evening.
Even if the alcohol entered my stomach through the tube, I would gradually become intoxicated.
If that were to happen, there would no longer be anything dreadful.
Rather, I was happy.
And what’s more, wasn’t the setting sun blazing resplendently across the entire window?
Taking advantage of this pleasant intoxication, it was not impossible for me to soar through the golden evening sky.

However, I was not standing in the hallway forever.
At the very moment I was about to hurry away, through a section of the window I caught sight of an immense setting sun.
And so I walked on, as if intoxicated by the radiance of the setting sun, absorbed in wayward thoughts.