Pathway to Japanese Literature

But for some time after that, those distant morning and evening sirens still rang like air raid alerts—it was unbearable. It even felt as though those sounding them aimed to create such illusions, half-mocking in their execution. Even the sight of Occupation Forces soldiers arriving in dozens of winding trucks around the U.S. Embassy—leaping down all at once to noisily relieve themselves by the roadside—instilled a peculiar sort of melancholy. Then came the surrender signing aboard the Missouri—those sorrowful memories from that time cannot be spoken of now. But when looking back on those two or three years of relentless hardship that followed, anyone would think… how did we endure it all? We ate weeds and plucked pumpkins no larger than balls when impatience overcame us. Even for someone like me with a weak stomach, when food grew scarce my appetite turned murderous—a truly bottomless hunger. Even now it makes me want to laugh—one twilight evening as I walked along deserted Tameike-dori Avenue, there lay a single sweet potato. Quite a large one. And another lay two or three meters ahead. They had likely tumbled from a bicycle’s rear carrier. Thanks to that find my dinner gained substance, but ever since—when walking through town at dusk—horse dung would look like sweet potatoes to me, and I couldn’t resist nudging them lightly with my sandal tip.

One day, while descending the gradual slope from the U.S. Embassy toward Shiba Akabune-cho, I found what appeared to be a neatly newspaper-wrapped box tucked behind a utility pole near where Okura Commercial School once stood. Swallowing my shame, I opened it—only to discover pristine white rice balls packed like sushi inside that immaculate container. Even I paused to think for a moment. Unable to determine whether someone had left this here as alms or..., I rewrapped it in newspaper as before and walked away with lingering reluctance—only to find it already gone when I looked back on my return.

Nowadays Akasaka's pleasure quarter has nearly restored its teahouses and establishments to their former state, but immediately after the war's end, that entire area was nothing but burned fields as far as the eye could see. Here and there stood isolated remnants of half-destroyed storehouses, their forms exposed like shogi pieces placed upright on a gameboard, while rusted corrugated iron huts dotted the landscape—their faded laundry and tattered futons left drying outside forming a pitifully conspicuous scene of war's devastation. Even after nightfall, the streetlights remained unlit, and through the evening gloom, Jeeps darted weasel-like through the twilight; beyond their swift passage, human figures were scarce. The occasional sight of a streetcar crawling past like funeral lanterns—its desolation—.

One day, on my way to the Food Coupon Cafeteria in Omotecho (my family of three had switched to eating out because our staple food rations were often delayed and the neighborhood association’s rotating duty system had become too bothersome), I was approached by a middle-aged woman who asked me this.

“Excuse me, I was wondering… might you know if there’s a seal engraver’s shop around here?” “A seal engraver’s shop? There’s one a bit further ahead near Tameike Stop.” “At the three-way intersection by the next stop, there’s a signboard for a place called Bunko-do…”

“Thank you very much.”

This woman seemed utterly unfamiliar with the area. I walked a few paces past her before turning back.

“Excuse me—are you looking to have a seal made?” “Well… I was hoping to have a personal seal engraved.” “Ah, I see.” “Wouldn’t the seal engravers around here be able to carve it right away?”

“Well, if they’re available they’d carve it right away, but you might have to wait a day or two. Are you in a hurry?” “Well... you see... I’m a repatriate...”

“Ah, I see…” “The truth is, as long as I have a personal seal, I can receive the rehabilitation funds from the ward office today.” “In the chaos of repatriation, I ended up losing mine…” “That must be troubling.” “If they have a pre-made one, it should serve your needs immediately—but why don’t you go and see?” I thought she resembled a woman I’d seen at the Omotecho Food Coupon Cafeteria around yesterday—and in that impulsive moment, I let the words slip out. To be honest, though an amateur, I’d been confident I could carve a simple personal seal like that.

“Well, if it’s just a personal seal, I could carve one for you right now… I’m not skilled, but it should suffice for your needs.”

“Well, thank you so much.” “You’re the seal engraver from that shop, aren’t you, sir?” “No, no—I’m not a seal engraver, but I can handle simple jobs.”

“My, how skilled you are…” “Shall we proceed like this?” “If you could wait until around noon, I’ll deliver it to you at that cafeteria.” “That would be perfectly acceptable.”

“I’ll have it ready without fail by 1 PM at the latest…”

After saying that, I found myself feeling something akin to regret. Seals for simple surnames like Tanaka, Yamada, Doi, or Uchida I could carve without any trouble, but names like Saito, Goto, or Endo—those with their jumble of complex strokes—became increasingly difficult the finer the characters got, and though my resolve wavered slightly, there was no backing out now.

“Excuse me, but may I ask what your surname is?” “I’m Ueda, you see…” “So I should engrave ‘Ueda,’ then?” I was relieved. That was because I thought such a personal seal wouldn’t even take thirty minutes to carve.

Repatriates must surely be people in even greater straits than we disaster victims. In short, their only lifeline must be the rehabilitation funds. She appeared to be nearing forty, and from her faded attire, her circumstances could generally be surmised.

After parting with her, I finished my breakfast at the cafeteria, returned to my dugout, and immediately began engraving the seal. As for seal materials, having none at hand, I sawed off a piece from a broken inkstone with a handsaw, rubbed it against a stone to shape it into a small koban form (what seal engravers call *nibu koban*), and smoothed its shape—but the engraving itself proved no trouble. At its root, these sideline skills of mine traced back to the mischievous antics of my boyhood.

Once it was done, wanting to hand it over to her and make her happy as soon as possible, I went to the cafeteria earlier than the appointed time—only to find that she, perhaps growing impatient herself, had arrived before me and was already waiting.

“I’ve kept you waiting. I believe this should suffice.” I showed her the slip of paper with the copied personal seal and the seal itself. “My, how skilled you are! Thank you very much. You’ve been such a help by engraving it so quickly!” With a face filled with joy and gratitude, she took out a paper case from the fold of her obi. “Um, how much should I offer you?” “No, no—I’ll offer that to you as a gift. I’m not a seal engraver. I’m just someone who wants to try carving seals mischievously…”

“Oh, please don’t say that… Here… It’s just a small amount, but… perhaps for some cigarettes…”

She pressed three ten-yen bills into my hands, added two food coupons separately, and insisted I accept them. “No, there’s no need for that.”

I tentatively refused, but given my current circumstances—which left me unable to forcefully decline—I ultimately decided to accept.

From having carved that woman's personal seal, I suddenly remembered my own forgotten side job—"Why don't I try becoming a seal engraver to earn cash..." that's what I thought. It all traced back to my boyhood days spent loitering daily at a neighborhood seal engraver's shop, mimicking their craft—this served as my crude introduction. During the Sino-Japanese Incident, while roaming Central and South China on newspaper assignments, I often encountered Chinese seal carvers at street corners in provincial towns, tapping away at seals from their makeshift stalls. In Tokyo immediately after the war's end, I saw seal engravers whose homes had burned down carving cheap seals by the roadside in the scorched ruins—bent over, tapping away as they took orders from passersby—and came to recognize this, like shoeshining, as a common sight in a defeated nation. But never once could I have imagined that I myself would become a seal engraver.

However, in these times when even our meager savings were frozen, and to withdraw our limited monthly living expenses, we had to submit what was called a bankbook with a certificate from the neighborhood association chief each time. No matter how tightly one cinched their belt, the rationed living expenses would never stretch far enough; savings aside, there remained no alternative but to scramble for quick cash. A time was coming when I could no longer keep up the charade of being any sort of man of letters. Had I possessed an ounce of business sense, such chaos would have been ripe with opportunities—cracks in society’s façade through which to wring profit—but for my kind, becoming a seal engraver stood as the pinnacle of ingenuity.

First, I sent out promotional letters to influential seniors and acquaintances who seemed kindly disposed toward me, stating I could quickly handle any seal request—address stamps, bookplates, anything they might order. This brought in about five or six commissions. But when I engraved bookplates unsolicited—counting on our usual rapport—they were taken as gifts, which ended up costing me seal materials. Such side projects should serve as social offerings—or so I reasoned. Given this outcome, rather than passively waiting for orders while leaning on my seniors' goodwill, wouldn't it be better to become a proper roadside seal engraver taking commissions from strangers? After pondering locations, I settled on a narrow street along the western fence of the former Navy Ministry. On one side ran the wire-mesh fence of a motor pool, through whose twelve-foot-wide passage occupation troops streamed incessantly. Two or three shoe shiners sat spaced apart like monkeys. Among them were women peddling mufflers and silk embroideries; a fortune-teller in a faded suit—his unsteady legs propped by a cane as if palsied—calling out to passing GIs with an armband labeled FORTUNE TELLER; and an elderly portrait artist. After paying my respects to these veterans of the trade, I somehow carved out my own spot there. Notably, both the fortune-teller and portrait artist displayed remarkable conversational flair, so I first offered them due deference. “Fate is your invisible companion.” “At times it takes root in your mind.” “At times it lodges in your heart.” “At times it lies in wait ahead.” “At others, it comes chasing stubbornly from behind.” “Thus to foresee it constantly is to conquer fate—to breach and transcend it.” “Which is to say: to shield yourself...”

The fortune-teller had pasted a sign written in both English and Japanese onto the fence to catch the attention of U.S. soldiers. Even scientific-minded American soldiers seemed drawn to fortune-telling, and the fortune-teller was doing brisk business. What they sought through divination were mostly trifling concerns—"When will I get home?" or "How’s my sweetheart back stateside?" At times, I caught snatches of his pronouncements—*Long Life*, *Very Happy*—floating through the air.

I wrote “STAMP SHOP” in English and “Seals Engraved Promptly” in Japanese on a cardboard sign, hung it from the fence, and spent time beneath the quietly shining Indian summer sun with the patience of an angler waiting for fish to bite—but on that first day, there was not a single response.

However, on the second day, a U.S. soldier stopped, approached me, and asked. “Can, you, make, stamp?” “Yeeeah…” I imitated the fortune-teller and portrait painter, answering “Yeeeah” where I should have said “Yes.” As if I were quite proficient in conversation… but since I couldn’t understand what came next, I immediately sought help from the elderly portrait painter. “Can you make a number stamp like this… How long would it take? And what’s the cost? he’s asking,” said the old portrait painter, who had kindly taken on the role of interpreter. With that, I accepted my first commission as a fledgling seal engraver.

The numbered stamp I received an order for was labeled M-3194, and it seemed these numbered stamps were needed by them for imprinting on clothing and other items. I carved each one for fifty yen. That day ended with just one order, but whether that single order served as advertising or not, the next day five or six orders came flooding in. Then starting the day after that, they came in a deluge. It may sound like an exaggeration, but I carved away like a wheel in full motion, chipping and gouging nonstop. The work of carving seals was no easy task under these circumstances. I had to pour my entire strength into my arm, then carefully control that force by restraining it, which proved unexpectedly exhausting. This was likely why people said it was bad for chest ailments. Yet there was comfort in those crisp Indian summer days that stretched on and on, my pockets swelling with banknotes. On such comfortable days, records would blare from loudspeakers on the pool’s rooftop, echoing across the entire area. They were extremely lyrical American popular songs. I couldn’t understand the lyrics myself, but the fortune-teller explained them to me. “A worker’s joy comes with dusk—”, he explained. The other song was apparently called “Don’t Forget, Please,” which in Japanese would be “Don’t forget me…” so it was. “The title is *Port Town Maiden*,” the fortune-teller explained. He knew quite well about everything—.

My daily earnings were sometimes as low as four to five hundred yen. Not only number stamps but also various intricate Western-letter stamps I managed to produce; had this boom continued, I might soon have established a seal engraving shop in town, employing several subcontractors to become the proprietor of a splendid display window. In my fantasies, an image of a stylish seal engraving shop would surface. Somewhere in the city of Tokyo, I seem to recall having seen such a trim little seal engraving shop before. On one side of the glass-doored storefront was arranged a small thicket of bamboo grass; beneath a moss-covered stone lantern sat a basin, from which a cool cascade of water fell through a bamboo pipe… Through the glass doors, what appeared to be the proprietor could be seen silently carving seals under an electric lamp… That was me. Tilling fields in fair weather and reading in the rain… Responding to seal orders while leisurely immersing myself in my true creative work… Therein lay unshakable stability—this was my fantasy—.

However, my stamp shop too had reached its peak prosperity around Christmas. From then on, it declined rapidly. What had happened... I reflected deeply to ascertain the cause. According to the old portrait painter, Americans were by nature fickle, it seemed. That very fickleness, he said, was what made them progressive. Even portrait drawings had been quite popular initially—so much so that at one point he couldn't keep up with demand—but these days customers had completely stopped coming around.

“Lately it’s been reversed—instead of portrait commissions, they point their cameras at me saying ‘Japanese Santa Claus’ and use my face as a model.” “Then they go sending those photos back home.” “When I tell them to pay the modeling fee, they just laugh ‘Okay’ and run off,” said the old portrait painter. Indeed, his face was buried in a long white beard, and with that grinning countenance topped by a beret, he looked for all the world like a Japanese Santa Claus.

By the way, I had finally managed to determine why my stamp shop had increasingly fallen out of favor. One day, happening to pass by a seal engraving shop in town, I casually peered into its show window—and there they were: samples of rubber number stamps made for U.S. soldiers already on display. Inwardly raising a hand to my nose, I sighed, “I’m done for…” I slumped in defeat. The stamps I’d made until then hadn’t been rubber ones but ro-seki stone. Ro-seki seals take clear impressions with red ink paste, but stamp them with regular ink and they’re useless. Yet the GIs didn’t know about ink pads—they’d just dab stamp ink on the ro-seki blocks and slam them down like rubber stamps. They kept repeating “Label! Label!” to me, and at first I couldn’t grasp their meaning. Then they started pointing at the rubber soles of their boots. Can’t make rubber stamps?—that’s what they’d been asking. I might’ve been first to meet the soldiers’ demand with number stamps, but now that was nothing to boast about.

Very well. It wasn't too late to start now. I tried to rally myself with a mental shout about making a fresh start with rubber stamps, but the real problem lay in figuring out how to obtain the rubber material. Rubber materials were controlled goods; you couldn't get rations without joining the Rubber Stamp Guild. What's more, when it came to rubber stamps, I was a complete novice. But assembling metal type numbers according to orders, transferring them to paper molds, and pouring melted rubber into them—such tasks didn't seem entirely beyond my capabilities. The remaining issue was how to procure black-market rubber material.

I am a man who appears to possess entrepreneurial drive but in reality does not. The street stall seal engraving business had also been a mere spur-of-the-moment idea. Had I possessed any entrepreneurial drive back then, I might have expanded into a full-fledged shop offering typewriting, mimeographs, rush business card printing, and every other kind of print service. However, I was someone who had never intended to delve deeper into this path beyond enjoying seal engraving as a mere hobby.

However, after considering various options, I concluded that it would be wiser to persist as a seal engraver for a while longer, and one day, posing as a seal engraver, I visited each seal material wholesaler throughout Asakusa Toriigawa-cho. There were various sizes and types of pre-made rubber number stamps available there, so I bought two or three boxes of first-type rubber stamps that came complete from 1 to 0 in their packaging as a trial. After returning home, I racked my brains trying every possible approach, but the results were far from satisfactory. If I were to extract only the needed numbers from a complete set of rubber stamps ranging from 1 to 0, I should have anticipated that the majority would become useless. Then the abacus wouldn’t balance…

One day, in front of Kasumigaseki Hall at Toranomon, I encountered Mr. K from the cultural department of A News Agency.

“Long time no see...” we exchanged an absurd greeting born of excessive familiarity. Since it was our first meeting in a long time after the war’s end, I wanted to duck into one of the nearby cafés together, but wearing trousers with torn knees, carrying a tool box containing carving knives, and looking like a shoeshine boy, I couldn’t help feeling ashamed.

“Since we’ve met, let me make this request—could you write five or six pages of essays and send them in?” “Any topic will do.” “The sooner you can manage it, the better.” “We’ll pay a hundred yen per page at minimum.” “Please send about five or six pages’ worth twice monthly.” “Understood.” “Then I’ll begin right away…”

We parted ways just like that, without ceremony—but at a time when my stamp shop catering to U.S. soldiers had also become utterly desolate, I felt profoundly encouraged. When I heard it was a hundred yen per page for manuscripts, I was secretly astonished and wondered if I had misheard. It was something I could never have dreamed of before the war. But when I later found out, a hundred yen per page was already the lowest rate at that time. After the war’s end, having kept my distance from the steady manuscript market for so long, I had been that naive. I could no longer keep up this charade of being a seal engraver. To confess the truth, it could be said that I conceived of becoming a seal engraver out of escapist tendencies—unable to endure both the harshness of the literary path and postwar hardships. But once you’ve eaten a meal with that thing called an occupation, it’s like a leech that’s latched on—not so easily peeled off. Even if someone were to casually request just five or six pages of essay manuscripts, it would still take days for me to grasp the necessary hints to write them. Even if I were to send off the completed manuscript to the client, the manuscript fee wouldn’t come through right away. Thus, to tide myself over during that period, I absolutely needed to earn cash. That said, even if I were to continue running the stamp shop as it was, dealing with U.S. soldiers was no longer favorable; so this time, I resolved to switch direction and aim solely for personal seal orders from Japanese clients. And resolved to make a fresh start, I decided to relocate to a sunny spot near the Family Court. Another motive for relocating was that one Sunday afternoon, I had been suddenly grabbed by the throat by a tipsy U.S. soldier. Mr. Fortune-Teller saved me by skillfully intervening in English, but there was no real reason for it—they had simply mistaken me for a former army officer and half-mockingly grabbed me by the throat. What a ridiculous misjudgment that was. But it seemed to be a common occurrence. If this had happened during the glorious days of military prestige, it might have been considered an honor—but as things stood now, it was an absolute nuisance. I had thought most U.S. soldiers were gentlemen, but there were some odd ones among them. There were also soldiers who would make strange gestures and persistently pester me with requests like "Set us up with some girls," and in those moments, I found myself at a loss for how to respond. However, I myself was not entirely without some culpability in receiving such misjudgments.

The reason was that young women in Western attire would often come to my stamp shop, saying, “Mr. Seal Engraver, let me stay by your side for a little while…,” and then cling to me for thirty minutes or even an hour without leaving. That was to meet U.S. soldiers at the appointed time. Or perhaps it was also to extort money from familiar soldiers. This area had strict patrols, so if young women were seen loitering, they would immediately be questioned, have their details noted in notebooks, and if unlucky, be taken away. Thus, they would stay by my side, pretending to be having personal seals engraved. The U.S. soldiers who often saw such young women by my side must have perceived me as someone using the stamp shop as a front while secretly acting as a procurer for pan-pan girls. And so, I finally resolved to change locations.

After relocating my shop next to the Family Court, interactions with U.S. soldiers nearly ceased. Orders for personal seals from Japanese clients trickled in sporadically.

One day, a vagrant-like man approached and suddenly— “Uncle, carve a seal for me,” he said. When I looked, it was a customer around thirty years old—a man with a glossy black face caked in grime.

“How much for engraving a personal seal?”

“Let me see… I’ll make it thirty yen for you.” When I looked closely, I recognized him—the man who lived inside that chicken coop-like shelter made by propping up old plywood boards in triangular formations amid Toranomon’s burned-out buildings. On rainy days, he would huddle his body to sleep within that crude little shack. This was the same man I’d often seen queuing at the Food Coupon Cafeteria. “What’s your surname?” “Saotome,” he said. “A bit distinguished, wouldn’t you say?”

“How do you write ‘Saotome’?” “It’s written as Saotome.” “Saotome… What a splendid name.” “And your given name?” “My given name is Yoshio.” “It’s written as Saotome Yoshio—the characters mean ‘fifth month woman’ and ‘handsome man.’” He was the bearer of a name utterly unsuited to his character. Based on his physiognomy and the impression of his character, I often found myself anticipating things like, “This man would probably be called Tanaka…” or “Tsumura…” And occasionally, those hunches would prove correct. However, Mr. Saotome Yoshio alone had completely outmaneuvered my expectations.

From his speech, he seemed to be from Kansai.

“Are you from Kansai?” “I’m from Osaka.”

“Over there, life must be decent enough for those who work... I suppose.” “Well, sure, it’s fine and all—but since it’s my hometown, makes things awkward-like. Can’t go back lookin’ like some vagrant, see.” “I see... That’s how it is.” During the war, he’d been drafted and sent south; when he returned after the surrender, his parents, siblings, wife—all had vanished without a trace. With no leads to follow, he’d naturally sunk into his current circumstances. It was one of those postwar tragedies you heard everywhere.

“Excuse me for asking—how much does a scavenger make in a day?” “Well now… ’bout two hundred yen on average.” “On good days maybe three hundred yen or so—but what with rainy days an’ windy days—it all evens out t’hundred fifty yen.”

Mondays and Wednesdays were days when the Occupation Forces held drills; starting at 1:00 p.m., soldiers would assemble in various squares by company. Until the captain arrived, the soldiers would smoke cigarettes and chat. When the captain came into view, the soldiers would immediately discard the cigarettes they were holding and fall into formation. The scavengers would lie in wait for those discarded cigarettes and pounce on them to collect. Though partially smoked, they were all quite long. The scavengers called them ‘okahiko’. The long, partially smoked cigarettes—with one end charred black and their bodies white—resembled silkworms in appearance because of this.

With "Advance!", each unit marched toward the plaza before the Imperial Palace. At that signal, the scavengers gave chase—Mr. Saotome Yoshio was among their number. At the plaza before the Imperial Palace too, the harvest proceeded as previously described. Where Australian soldiers (濠洲兵) had passed, not a blade of grass would grow, but where American soldiers had passed, violets would bloom—or so those scavengers often said. (They rejoiced in calling the discarded cigarette butts with lipstick stains left by female soldiers "violets"). Among the scavengers were former transport corps lieutenant colonels and the remnants of decrepit officials. Around the General Headquarters (the former Ministry of Finance building, GHQ), silver lighters, cigarette cases, fountain pens, and the like lay scattered in the shrubbery, caked in mud. The soldiers, laden with possessions, would dump them out of the windows with heavy thuds. For the scavengers, it was their sole paradise.

“Hey, if you’re averaging two hundred yen a day, you don’t have to stay in those Toranomon burned-out ruins—you could afford a cheap inn, right?” “Well, the Simple Hotel in Senju would put me up for thirty yen a night, y’see, but I’ve got this habit of snorin’ something fierce. So when I go there, they turn me away polite-like—say I’d be botherin’ the other guests.” “When it comes to my snoring, it’s special bad—downright famous.” “Don’t know about myself, but they say I talk in my sleep nights, have war dreams where I jump up bangin’ on walls.”

“Huh, that does sound like trouble.” I laughed. “Well, in summer at least, sleepin’ outdoors ain’t half bad, y’know… Got used to campin’ out in the South during the war.”

He claimed it was better to drink a cup of cheap distilled liquor and sleep rough in the burned-out ruins of a building than to stay at a simple hotel in Minami-Senju for thirty yen a night. However, I could feel sympathy and understanding for his fondness for drink. “You really like it that much, huh?” “I don’t drink more’n two go a day—but without takin’ little nips all day long, I just can’t keep my spirits up… How ’bout you, Uncle—?” “Well, a little, I suppose.”

“I’ve had my share of struggles with drink, y’know.” “In times like these, if y’don’t make some dirty money quick, drink’ll ruin you.” “First off, your dignity crumbles.” “Look at me—like some beggar…” I felt personally implicated, as if pricked by his words. Even when I thought about getting a haircut and going to the bathhouse, the money for the barber and bath would vanish into a cup of rotgut. The more I got used to that cycle, the clearer it became how my life was rotting away.

“Alright then, starting tomorrow, I think I’ll become a rickshaw puller,” he says. “For that, y’see, they don’t need no seal on the rickshaw rental contract—so I was thinkin’ to have you carve a personal seal for me, Uncle.”

If one became a rickshaw puller, it was said they could earn at least a thousand yen a day. “In the end, humans gotta live by burnin’ through their own physical strength. We’re just livin’ off our own energy, see—no different from an octopus gnawin’ off its own legs to survive…” Thus went Mr. Saotome’s octopus philosophy. “If you fall into the sea—plunge straight down to the very bottom without hesitation—and when your feet touch that seabed, kick up hard with all your might—that’s how I reckon you float back up… With that spirit starting tomorrow—I’ll stomp down on every rickshaw pedal like I’m kickin’ up from rock bottom.”

He had attended commercial school and, until just before being drafted, had handled accounting affairs at a certain company. Given this background, he explained that once he passed the certified public accountant examination under the revised law and obtained his qualification, he planned to join a company. He too had ordinary hopes——.

The next day, the man pedaling laboriously down Kasumigaseki Avenue in a two-passenger rickshaw with two hulking American soldiers aboard—that was him.

Just like Mr. Saotome Yoshio, I too endured extraordinary hardships for alcohol's sake. I could remain indifferent to tobacco, but for liquor I ran all over town. Every month, the consequence of overeating at cafeterias meant frantically rushing about buying black-market food coupons at exorbitant prices and scrambling for substitute provisions. Even now when I recall them, the lines outside gruel kitchens and National Liquor Bars remain as nightmarishly unpleasant. These National Liquor Bars—where neighborhood bosses, fixers, and beverage union leaders mimicked bureaucrats while putting on officious airs—profoundly insulted the city's earnest drinkers. All while feeling this deep humiliation, even when losing the lottery draw yet remaining unrepentant, I chased each day's National Liquor Bars east and west like some accursed wretch possessed by vengeful spirits.

One day, when a National Liquor Bar suddenly opened in the burned-out ruins of a building in Shibatamura-cho and I joined the queue, the day turned particularly murderous with cut-in disturbances; one young man in the line—who appeared to be an ill-natured ruffian—slammed the mouth of an empty beer bottle (whose contents had been drunk down to the neck) against something, then jabbed it into the other man’s neck and fled on the spot. The stabbed man became a bloody mess and was taken to the nearest hospital, but after witnessing that, even I became reluctant to frequent that particular bar. In general, the Shinbashi district had a notorious air about it.

For me, the lottery system at National Liquor Bars was truly my weakness, so whenever I found a place where I could drink without such lotteries, I would embark on expeditions without begrudging the high travel costs. To the west, I made long expeditions as far as Hanno and Hachioji; to the east, even to Mitsukaido in Ibaraki.

Because my lottery luck was so abysmal, with a prayerful heart to the gods, I began preparing pristine, unsoiled bills specifically for liquor money before joining the bar queues. When there were no bills, I purified silver coins by washing them with water from the washroom. Even then, there were times when I failed the lottery and couldn't even obtain a single drink. The lottery method at the National Liquor Bar behind the Imperial Theater involved a deep tube resembling a brush holder filled with numerous disposable chopsticks—if you pulled out one with a red-dyed tip, it was a winning lot. But since I kept losing far too often, I devised a method: during the draw, I would slyly grasp about three chopsticks together from the tube, lift them halfway up, quickly discern which ones lacked red tips, and skillfully release those. Once my technique had grown sufficiently cunning, I never missed again. I came to understand firsthand how even those meant to be righteous gradually grow adept in cunning and scheming. There were times I rushed from Akasaka Tameike to Nakano Miyazono-cho's National Liquor Bar only to draw a losing lot, then trudged back through autumn-chilled ruins at dusk... My eldest son—bless him—appeared determined to get his luckless father at least one drink, dutifully accompanying me all the way to Gotanda to stand in line together. Thanks to him, I managed two cups that time, and I thought with profound tenderness what a filial child he was...

Having heard that the small shack-like café called *Yukari* in Akasaka Fukuyoshi-cho served cheap liquor inside, I entered one evening—whereupon the proprietress greeted me with an exclamation of “Oh my, what a rare visitor…”. Upon closer inspection, I realized this was the same woman who had once asked me about a seal engraver’s whereabouts when we passed each other on the burned-out streets of Sanno-shita.

“Ah, you’re the one from before…” I blurted out without thinking. “Oh, thank you ever so much for that time.” “Thanks to your help, I finally managed to open this little café after all.” “How kind of you to visit…” “What a lovely place you’ve made. Today I came rushing in after hearing one could get a drink here—never imagining you were the proprietress…” “You’re too kind—please, though it’s such a cramped little spot—do make yourself at home…”

In the shop, there were only black tea and meager cakes. When she curtly told me to come up—since indeed serving drinks inside would be awkward at the front of the shop—I took the hint and slipped through the curtain into the sole tatami room, where a master craftsman-type artisan in his fifties sat cross-legged by the tea table, drinking. I promptly had a glass of cheap distilled liquor poured for me. A sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl was preparing dinner in the cramped kitchen. A twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy came in through the back door but left again immediately. For some reason, there was no sign of anyone who looked like the master.

“You mentioned where that residence of yours was located, didn’t you?” “Yes, yes—it was Nagatacho, wasn’t it?” “It’s near Tameike Station.” “I reside at the base of the cliff below the Prime Minister’s Official Residence in Nagatacho.” “It’s been quite some time since then. “You’d said your trade wasn’t as a seal engraver—but I’ve been carefully keeping the Personal Seal you carved for me.” “With you, I suppose it’s what you’d call a ‘seal connection’…” she quipped with a laugh.

“From carving your Personal Seal, it suddenly came to me—now I’ve ended up becoming something of a seal engraver.” “I’ll carve anything—Personal Seals, address stamps, whatever you need.”

“Oh, is that so?” she said, turning to the master craftsman-type customer. “This gentleman here is quite skilled—he carves seals, you know.” “Mr. Inoue, why don’t you have him carve something for you?” “It’s cheaper and more advantageous than commissioning a town seal engraver, you know.” “Is that so.” “Well then, I’ll have you carve it,” said the boss, taking out a notebook from his shirt pocket and starting to write something with a pencil. “I want you to carve this for me,” he said, tearing out a page from his notebook and thrusting it at me.

When I looked, it read: “Tokyo-to Minato-ku Azabu Naka-no-cho 2-358, Copper and Iron Sheet Metal Contracting, Inoue Tokuhei.” He wanted it engraved six-tenths of an inch wide and approximately one and a half inches long. When he asked the price, I explained I carved them about twenty percent cheaper than town engravers. He grabbed a wad from his inner pocket, pulled out two hundred-yen notes, and thrust them forward saying to take this as a deposit. When I declined—insisting payment after completion was fine—the proprietress interjected from the side: “This gentleman here is quite principled, you know.”

“I’ve taken a liking to that strictness of his.” “Proprietress, pour the seal engraver here another cup,” the boss said.

I was overwhelmed by the prosperity of construction craftsmen. Though I did enjoy it, I couldn’t drink more than two cups; moreover, by disposition I wasn’t one to settle down and drink leisurely in a place like this. Just then, two regular-looking customers came in through the back door, so I took their arrival as my cue to bid farewell. Then the proprietress came chasing after me.

“I’d like to visit your place once…” she said. “You’re welcome to come, but it’s just a terrible corrugated iron shack.”

She carried herself differently from when we'd first met at Sanno-shita. Her café-proprietress poise in handling people left me thoroughly disarmed. What business could she possibly have wanting to visit my place? The question nagged at me—this deliberate chase across the street felt unnervingly peculiar. When a woman with a husband spoke of paying visits, only a fool would take it at face value. Yet truth be told, I found myself shackled to that wretched shack, terrified she might appear during some imagined absence.

However, just when I had dismissed it as unlikely, two days later she suddenly showed up. Upon seeing the shack clad in scorched corrugated iron, she must have been startled by how much worse the house was than she’d imagined—wearing a short-hemmed, tattered monpe work coat draped like a haori. “Well now, it’s not much, but please…” He had just started engraving the tinplate contractor’s seal—the order he’d received through her mediation—and showed it to her. “I’ll arrange as many seal orders as you need from now on,” she said.

“I’ll recommend you to the people who come to my shop.” “You can make rubber stamps too.” “Well, about those rubber stamps…” “That tinplate contractor gentleman’s actually a roofer, you know.” “There’s so much work in tinplate roofing these days—business is booming.” “They don’t bat an eye at five or six hundred yen for seals, so don’t go soft by undercutting town engravers twenty percent—charge proper rates.” “I’ll take about five hundred for myself.” “Shall I have them pay six hundred?”

“We have to consider what comes after.” “If we price it too high, we won’t get future orders.”

“Oh, and I have a favor to ask,” she said. “Could you carve ‘Yukari’ in small hiragana for me?” “That’s simple enough…” ‘However, there are some rather particular requests,’ she added with a laugh, explaining how she intended to use the hiragana ‘Yukari’ seal. She had been selling homemade hand-rolled cigarettes to customers in the back room of her shop and had hit upon the idea of stamping each one with ‘Yukari’ to pass them off as the Monopoly Bureau’s ‘Hikari’ brand. “This way, ‘Yukari’ will look like ‘Hikari’—and double as shop promotion,” she explained. I couldn’t help but laugh at the scheme.

“Could you make ‘Yukari’ small-sized in the same font as ‘Hikari’?”

“Let’s get started on it right away.” She operated a café outwardly, sold cheap distilled liquor privately, and on top of that, even manufactured hand-rolled cigarettes. “Otherwise I couldn’t keep feeding myself and my two children,” she said.

“Your husband…” “There’s no such thing as a husband here.” “I did have one, but we’ve separated, you know.” Hearing this, something suddenly occurred to me. I wondered—when was it?—if what the regulars had been talking about in the queue at the Roppongi National Liquor Hall had been this proprietress… I hadn’t grasped the full context of the story, but it concerned a repatriate couple—the husband worked at an Occupation Forces-affiliated automobile factory in Yokohama, took a mistress, and stopped caring for his wife and children until finally the wife herself broached separation. Now she was living apart and running a café…… Such fragments of gossip had reached my ears, and I secretly wondered if this proprietress might not be that very woman.

“Um, this is unrelated, but… I heard at the Sanno-shita cafeteria that you used to work at the courthouse…” I felt somewhat taken aback but imagined it must have been someone who—back when I worked seven or eight years ago as a contract writer for courtroom reports in *Hōritsu Shinpō* weekly magazine’s editorial department—had occasionally glimpsed my profile from the public gallery during what seemed like major trials I’d transcribed daily from the press seats, then spoken of it at the Sanno-shita cafeteria. The world seems vast yet narrow…

“Understood.” “I’ve never worked at a courthouse, but I spent over two years frequenting courtrooms.”

“So you’re quite familiar with court matters, aren’t you? Actually, I wanted to learn about court matters from you—that’s why I came to visit today. If I were to hire a lawyer, I hear it would cost a considerable amount of money, so I’d like to ask for your wisdom instead.” “Well… I don’t know anything particularly significant, but if you’d like, I could ask a lawyer I know.” “My husband and I have effectively separated, but we haven’t yet formally resolved it legally. And regarding that matter, I’ve been thinking about what I should do.”

“If it’s that sort of issue, you can have Family Court resolve it at no cost these days.” “If you go to the Family Court’s reception desk and disclose the matter, a judge will meet with you. After explaining the circumstances fully, if you state your claims—divorce request, compensation for emotional distress, child support expenses, and such—they’ll summon your spouse. Once both parties discuss it, the judge will issue a ruling.”

“That’s valuable information to have learned.” When I heard her confession, it roughly matched what the regulars had been saying in the queue at the Roppongi National Liquor Hall some time ago—so it was indeed true after all…

She was the daughter of an inn in Fengtian who had entered into a consensual marriage without matchmakers some seventeen or eighteen years prior. Her husband was originally a machinist raised on the continent with a propensity for heavy drinking. Even after their postwar repatriation to Japan proper, he never missed a day of expensive black-market liquor—a habit that tormented her endlessly, as she recounted. In Dalian they had enjoyed ample income with no trouble affording drink, but their return to defeated Japan left them destitute—she wept at how he insisted on drinking despite their poverty. Upon entering Aoyama Repatriate Dormitory, she noticed vacant land out front and conceived a food stall selling imagawayaki pancakes that unexpectedly thrived. This allowed her to barely manage winter clothes for the children and procure some bedding, but as business prospered her husband began pilfering store earnings for drinking sprees until matters grew irreparable—just as the lot was abruptly sold off, forcing eviction. By fortune he then found work at an Occupation Forces-affiliated auto repair shop in Yokohama, but no sooner had relief come than he took a mistress, neglecting proper support from his ten-thousand-yen salary until he stopped visiting altogether. Borrowing capital from her prospering brother in Nagoya, she took over Fukuyoshi-cho’s barrack-style café to barely sustain them—all while bearing two children alone and decrying her husband’s cruelty in withholding even a single penny.

“In that case, if you take it to Family Court, your argument will surely be accepted.”

Upon hearing that they would handle it at court without cost, she seemed relieved.

“It was truly fortunate that I came today.” “Just keep this in mind for now… Regarding your husband’s side.” “There’s no guarantee someone won’t tell the judge you’ve taken a lover.” “Courtrooms often turn into mudslinging contests where both sides solemnly trot out truths and fabrications alike…” “When that happens, there’ll be no shortage of kind souls willing to stand witness for me.”

“When people stray from the path or overstep their bounds, they must later reflect on it… That much is certain.” “Even if he puts on a face that shows no sign of reflection, deep down he’s aware of his own faults.” “In time, your husband will return to your side.” “Even now, when things turn sour with his mistress, he still slinks back to my place, you know.” “But I don’t let him through the door.” “I shoo him straight out, you know.”

“There’s still potential there.” “So he truly has no intention of cutting ties with you completely, does he?”

She, thus addressed, let uncontainable joy drift like a faint evening glow around the edges of her beautiful brows. "But they’ve even had a child together with that mistress." "The mere fact that a child was born doesn’t constitute an absolute condition requiring you to lose your husband, you see. I’m not just saying this to flatter or console you—well, it’s better not to dwell on it too much."

After she had finished disclosing her own circumstances, she now turned to inquire about mine. Things like asking after my spouse or family—she must have been inquiring out of pity upon seeing my lonely, solitary state. So I told her how my wife had left me over those circumstances some twenty years prior, and how our two children had been placed in a disaster relief shelter. “Oh, you must be so lonely, all by yourself.” “Perhaps I could find you a suitable companion to talk to?”

“Thank you.” “Once my vitality has been completely sapped like this, there’s simply nothing to be done about it.” “Everything has passed.” “Excuse me for asking, but how old are you?” “I’ll be seventy soon.” “Oh my, you look quite young for your age!”

She decided to file her circumstances with the Family Court and left that day.

Three days later, on Monday morning, I met her in front of the Family Court as promised. On this day, she seemed to harbor unresolved intentions—merely wanting to survey the Family Court’s general workings. It was only natural for a woman visiting such a place alone for the first time to feel trepidation. Incidentally, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays had been reserved for continuing hearings of prior petitioners. New petitioners were assigned to Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, making this day one when they could not be received regardless.

Thinking it heartless to have her make this trip in vain after she had gone to the trouble of coming all the way here today, I invited her to accompany me immediately to the neighboring local district court’s Civil Division Courtroom No. 9.

While all public attendance was prohibited in Family Court, even divorce cases could be observed in the local district court’s Civil Division. The cases handled here were all main suits, and as always, many complex divorce cases were conducted on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

“It should be informative, so let’s observe for a while.” At that very moment, a divorce lawsuit involving an alimony dispute was under review there—a bride had married into a household with a mother-in-law and sisters-in-law but found no joy in it… Then one of the mother-in-law’s garments went missing… When they consulted a fortune-teller, they were told that someone within the household had stolen it. Since they concluded it must be the bride, the young bride was falsely accused. Resentful over this, she returned to her hometown and never came back. However, it was discovered through a gynecologist’s examination that she was pregnant. Then the husband insisted she must have conceived through an affair while staying at her parents’ home, refusing to acknowledge any responsibility. The bride’s side—increasingly indignant—attached medical certification and filed suit seeking divorce along with compensation for violation of chastity and defamation. The court decided to summon the fortune-teller as a witness at the next hearing before adjourning for the day.

She teared up throughout the observation. After leaving the courtroom, they took the elevator down and walked through the criminal division corridor when they found that another trial had already begun in the adjacent courtroom—this time for a female murder defendant—so he invited her in once more to observe for about thirty minutes. The case went like this: A husband who worked as a company employee had taken a mistress and came home late every night, which irritated his wife. One dusk, she wandered out toward the station and saw her husband emerge from the ticket gate with his mistress. The wife hid as her husband entered a public phone booth while the mistress waited outside. Though not a complete stranger to the woman, the wife approached and spoke to her. Then while the husband was making his call, she cleverly lured the mistress to a nearby dark vacant lot; with seething jealousy welling up in her chest, she undid her sash cord and threw its thin string at the mistress's neck from behind—the cord coiled around her throat like a snake—and as the mistress cried out in shock, the wife lunged at her, pinned her down, and using the twisted cord still wrapped tight, strangled her to death on the spot... thus went the incident.

Even there, she listened intently, teared up, and blew her nose into a handkerchief.

“Shall we leave now?” she said. “Today, thanks to you showing me such an instructive scene… I can well understand how that wife came to want to kill her husband’s mistress, you know,” she said.

Winter arrived as the third year-end since the war's conclusion approached. As always happens when year's end comes, it forced one to reflect on time's passage. The harshness of winter in these burned-out ruins - where withered pampas grass surrendered to every passing breeze - sank deep into my bones.

Even this place had once been a bourgeois lane lined with rows of serene and elegant residences, where nameplates of notables had dotted here and there before the war’s devastation. Looking back even further through memory’s lens, this entire quarter had been part of Lord N’s estate—the Marquis of Saga Domain—where what now stood as the Prime Minister’s Official Residence atop the cliff had once been the Western-style mansion called Goten that served as his main residence. After the Great Kantō Earthquake in Taishō 12 [1923], the feudal lord’s main residence was relocated to Shibuya. Through a tenuous connection—my maternal relatives having served among Marquis N’s retainers—I lodged in one of the row houses encircling the main estate and briefly attended a school in Kanda. And now fifty years had already— No—now I wanted no part of recollection. For my remembrances were naught but that which rouses fury toward self-loathing and remorse, toward society’s malice and fate’s mockery.

“Good day…” On one such day as the year drew to a close, a man clad in a coarse workman’s jacket appeared at my doorway. “I’m from the Chin Mochi Shop in Fukuyoshi-cho, you see…”

“In my house, we have no business with the Chin Mochi Shop…” I answered curtly. “No, actually, I was wondering if you might let me have that pine log lying around behind your place. How about it?” “Pine log... Oh, that one? Hmm, right...” “To tell you the truth, I came to ask if you’d let me have them—I want to use them for firewood.” “If you just leave them lying around like that, it’d be such a waste, sir.” “If mushrooms start sprouting on them now, they won’t even be fit for firewood anymore, sir.” “How about it, sir…”

When told, I too realized—thinking he wasn’t such a bad customer—I couldn’t bring myself to respond too coldly.

The so-called pine logs were sections of an ancient pine that had prided itself on a century of verdure along the cliffside of the Prime Minister’s Official Residence—burned dead during the May 25, 1945 night air raid, then after war’s end completely felled by laborers who discarded part of them behind my dugout shelter. There lay about seven cut logs of red pine and black pine—each seven or eight *sun* in diameter and just under one *ken* in length—scattered across the ground. Ever since I had received them, I had in truth been at a loss over how to handle those pine logs. One day, I borrowed a coarse-toothed saw and attempted to play at being a sawyer—but even if I fashioned them into firewood, there would be no one wanting them. Deeming it foolish to just exhaust myself for nothing, I left them as they were.

“At what price might you part with them?” the Mochi Seller inquired, peering intently at my face with a knowing smile. “Pardon my boldness, but I hear you’re rather fond of this sort of thing… How about it—I’ve got two bottles of ration whiskey on hand. Not much use to me, so how about swapping those logs? If that suits, I’ll even throw in two flat mochi cakes to sweeten the deal.” Though I found it irritating how he pretended to know—from who knows where he’d heard about it—even my drinking habits, when I considered that two bottles of whiskey at year’s end were as treasured as gold, I found myself wavering.

“Just take them away.” It wasn’t something that required much consideration. “Well, in that case…” said the Mochi Seller, who promptly went off to fetch his cart and returned with two bottles of whiskey and two flat mochi cakes. He was a relatively honest man—the whole affair was like a duck arriving laden with onions.

That such a coincidence would come entwined—I had not anticipated it until just moments ago. I placed that whiskey atop the apple crate serving as my desk and—to tell the truth—clapped my hands together in prayer. This was truly a miracle, I thought. As for the existence of God, I remain half-believing and half-doubting even now, but I came to understand that wanting to believe in God shouldn’t be forbidden. To me, such coincidences come from time to time…….

Encountering such things, I felt compelled to declare that life was utterly water—a thing of shifting currents. It was all an interplay of good coincidences and bad. No matter how meticulous the plan, whether it would succeed or fail remained unknowable until one lifted the lid. This difference in outcome arose from whether that rascal called coincidence chose to aid your conditions or not. With this transaction settled, I found myself at last prepared to greet New Year's Eve—or so the reasoning went.

At the inn, a cold lamp; alone, I lie awake. The traveler’s heart—what has turned it so desolate? In my hometown tonight, thoughts span a thousand miles. Frosted temples greet another year at dawn.

Indeed, this New Year's Eve poem struck straight to the heart whenever I chanted it quietly on any year's end. By the hearth, I quietly recited this poem while drinking whiskey. A single glass of whiskey unfolded an illusion unique to that single glass. When one lives in solitude for a long time, one naturally develops the habit of talking to oneself. With drunkenness, various recollections and fantasies began to unfold in my mind. To conjure up the past, there was nothing like singing the popular songs of that era—When the Sino-Japanese negotiations broke down... Chanting this softly brought back winters of my childhood, when chilblains itched unbearably. When I hummed Beneath the red sunset's glow... My friend lies under a stone at the field's edge..., the melancholy of the Russo-Japanese War and my life in the field hospital blurred into recollection... Bold declarations of We'll return victorious!—Oh no... Behold the eastern sea's skies opening... No... No... I can't bear it anymore... Chanting Spring has come, spring has come—but where? softly brought back the image of myself struggling to raise a four-year-old and three-year-old, a surge of sorrow welling in my chest—Hand in hand we walk the country path... The mountain temple's bell tolls; let's return home with the crows... Singing this, I saw my past self—a widower clutching both children through winter nights—so pitiful it choked me... Their songs, four winters steeped in memory....

With the drunkenness of whiskey, fantasies and recollections began to unfold more and more unrestrainedly.

The candle flame atop the apple crate serving as a desk swayed quietly up and down. As I gazed at it, I found myself envisioning the scene of my own wake, which would surely come before long. It was an ominous association, but I thought that since this decisive event was bound to come anyway, it might be good to preemptively familiarize myself with such scenes from now on. “Death, I pray you come at any time… Whether by cerebral hemorrhage or heart failure, I pray you come…”—such were the feelings that came over me. Well then, let’s have a eulogy for the farewell ceremony… A mock farewell ceremony….

“—You were no genius, but you lived a long sixty-five years. You conducted an experiment through your own body to see how much poverty you could endure. You were also a man who conducted an experiment to see how far you could continue living through isolation and loneliness. Had you died in your twenties, you would have ended up a mere laborer. Had you died around thirty, you would have ended up a pitiful literary youth. Had you died around forty, you might have been called a promising new writer worth mourning. Had you died around fifty, you would have been said to have died in anguish, abandoned by your wife while left with two children. Had you died around the end of the war, you would have been said to have collapsed from malnutrition. And yet you endured coarse meals and food shortages to survive until today. Your life was truly an unblessed one, but now your two children have come of age. Can it be said that your mission has been fulfilled? With this, may you close your eyes in peace. The eulogy concludes——”

Bong... came the distant toll of the New Year's Eve bell——bong... and again, bong.... Oh, I was still alive… Shivering alone through this New Year’s Eve night, I spent it gulping down solitary drinks—though in truth, it was to smother the urge to wail over a lifetime of regrets…….

(Showa 27 [March 1952])