Pathway to Japanese Literature

Spring's Wild Geese

On clear, sunny days, the pleasure district would grow all the more listless and quiet.
In Fukagawa, where one never saw such things at night, it was said that during the day, foxes with cubs could sometimes be seen playing in the sunlit grassy field behind Otabi Shrine.

——The young mistress of Tsūsenrō teahouse,

“What’s this? You’ve started wrapping up already. …Planning to stubbornly take it all back home, are you?”

Being a sharp-tongued woman, even her mocking laughter carried a cruel beauty.

Kiyokichi scratched his head.

“But Madam, no matter how you look at it, seventeen ryō for this Chinese striped cotton is just...”

“Too expensive for you, eh?”

“You must be joking.
“It isn’t a new import.
“Even in Nagasaki, you won’t find old imports like this anymore.”

On the frame of the shōji in the secret room, the shadow of waves swayed ceaselessly.
Immediately behind it lay a narrow river that welcomed evening guests aboard narrow riverboats.

“So what’ll you do?”

To Kiyokichi, the young mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse appeared to be a customer he found difficult to handle. If she were to offer at least twenty ryō, since it was meant for her husband to wear, she claimed she couldn’t purchase it at such a high price solely on her own authority.

“Well then, I’ll leave it here for now. Once you’ve shown it to your husband as well...”

After neatly bundling up the other scattered items around them—tortoiseshell goods, striped fabrics, coral pieces, incense materials, celadon wares, and small Chinese literati paintings—into a compact package that could be carried in one hand,

“This should do.”

Taking out the money, the mistress of Tsūsenrō rolled the bolt of Chinese striped cotton behind her back.

When he counted it, there were twenty ryō, making Kiyokichi’s eyes widen in surprise.
Though she couldn’t have been much past twenty, this mistress with indigo-darkened eyebrows and teeth lined up like black soybeans

“Ho ho ho ho ho.
I was just teasing you.”

And she laughed alone at her own jest.

"Oh! How cruel!"

"Of course.
If my husband heard I'd haggled in such a vulgar way or stinted when trying to dress him properly, he'd say it's too distasteful to wear—then he wouldn't put it on at all, and my chivalrous spirit would go utterly unrecognized, wouldn't it?"

"Well now, this is quite the unreserved approach..."

"I did specify the flirtation fee's paid upfront, you know."

If he thought it was a three-ryō listening fee, then naturally he could listen with all due meekness. Of course, Kiyokichi was still young himself, and no greenhorn either—such sudden affection from a woman hardly left him feeling at ease.

Moreover, Kiyokichi spent two out of every three years living as a traveler. His home was in Nagasaki. Carrying Nagasaki antiques—fabrics, accessories, Chinese paintings—he would make his rounds from Kansai to entertain patrons in Edo's pleasure districts until converting most wares into coin, then journey back to his distant homeland like spring wild geese.

This world

Kiyokichi’s clientele, whether in Kamigata or Edo, were mostly from the pleasure districts.
When it came to truly wealthy patrons, they were difficult to approach; even if he went through the trouble of cultivating their business, when making purchases—for all their arrogant airs—they proved more penny-pinching than paupers. As he would say—

(Stingy, flashy-but-empty cheapskates.)

That’s how it was.

First off, they had no eye for true appreciation—many would just slap gold lacquerwork on clogs or stitch coral into their hems, putting on pretentious displays of luxury.
If one couldn’t distinguish between new and old imports of Chinese striped cotton, they could never become the sort of eccentric who’d pay twenty ryō for a single bolt of striped fabric.
When it came to such eccentrics, even among all the pleasure districts under heaven, none seemed to surpass this Fukagawa.

Having seen numerous flower-lit and willow-shaded pleasure quarters across the provinces, Kiyokichi had never encountered another place like Fukagawa—where guests and courtesans alike, down to the teahouse keepers and boatmen, competed to refine such things as chivalrous spirit, gallantry, inscrutable feminine wiles, and the luminous arts of play as though engaged in some master artisan’s grand artistic enterprise.

——And so, while he managed good business there, during his first two or three years in this land, Kiyokichi had done nothing but stand dumbfounded, unable to grasp the disposition of the locals. ——Speaking of what he couldn’t grasp, even after becoming a regular, he still frequently encountered problems that remained beyond his understanding.

Just yesterday as well.

It was a story he had heard during casual conversation over tea when he went to conduct business at Ōsumi-ya beneath the lookout tower—

At that establishment, there was a regular customer known by the nicknames "Kuro-san" and "Noh mask".
His funds were running low, and his face truly lived up to his nickname.

(They also say he’s got a Noh mask’s mouth.)

When they heard this, courtesans from every house feigned avoidance—not due to payment disputes—and refused to attend the parlors.

Then came Otaka—a courtesan who—

(I'll show them I can make him a proper customer)

Having declared this and willingly taken up the challenge, simultaneously, a courtesan named Ochō from a different house,

(If that customer's so impossible to handle, I'll turn him into one I can manage.)

and Ochō herself volunteered to enter the parlor.

After the two courtesans clashed four or five times, they naturally ended up in a standoff with Kuro-san caught between them.
Otaka knew that Ochō had a lover, so

(I don't know if this counts as your chivalrous spirit, but is sticking your nose in like this really good for Mr. Tadashi?)

Otaka exposed her weak point right before Kuro-san. Immediately, Ochō sent for her lover and had no choice but to break things off right before Kuro-san's eyes—or so the story went.—No matter how he thought about it, Kiyokichi simply couldn't grasp the psychology of such courtesans. That too became admiring gossip—(That courtesan's got true chivalrous spirit!)—leaving him all the more baffled by the local men and women who praised such things. There were even more stories that made him tilt his head in bewilderment.

There was a courtesan called O-ryoku of Momen.
When O-ryoku came before the bird shop in front of Hachiman Shrine, a crowd had gathered.
When she peered inside, the young geisha from Obana House was being harshly berated by the bird shop owner over something.

(What’s happened here?)

When [O-ryoku] asked the sniffling young geisha, the bird shop owner—brushing aside the girl—indicated the splendid cage at his shopfront and shouted, spraying spittle, that this was a Korean-imported bunting destined for delivery to a certain daimyo once the ordered maki-e lacquered cage arrived, a prized bird worth thirty ryō at minimum, yet he was furious because this young geisha had gone and fed it sweets.

Then O-ryoku,

(Oh, so that's how it was. Being a young geisha herself, she must have thought even the bird would crave sweets compared to her own circumstances and fed it. I too, measuring against my lot as a working woman, felt compelled to do the same.)

In that instant, she threw open the cage door and released the bunting into the open sky.

(No sense making a scene over this. If I just pay thirty ryō, that should suffice.)

On top of debts she already couldn't manage, O-ryoku had gone and added more—only to settle it all, or so the tale went.

Having traveled through pleasure districts across the China region, Osaka, Shimabara, and other provinces, Kiyokichi had never encountered another place with so many foolish women as this.
The young mistress of Tsūsenrō teahouse with whom he had just conducted a transaction seemed relatively free of such quirks when measured against past eccentrics like Ochō and O-ryoku.

Men's lined kimono

"Oh, Madam, you've purchased something you fancy, haven't you? Isn't this an old import?"

As Kiyokichi began to rise, a courtesan who had uttered these words peered into the inner room and stood gazing intently at the fabric Madam had acquired.

She epitomized Tatsumi refinement in its purest form. The faint weariness about her only heightened her allure to men. She appeared to be twenty-three or four years old. Her slender frame and nape—so pale it seemed almost translucent—called to mind snow heaped upon winter-blooming plum blossoms.

“If that person were still safe… I’d move heaven and earth to have a bolt of this made into this year’s lined kimono for them to wear…”

Letting out a light sigh and muttering—the young mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse—

“What’s this? A courtesan of your standing, Miss Shūhachi, grumbling so pettily—”

“Truly, I must be starting to show my age.”

“Got a banquet to attend?”

“Oh? How rare.”
“…Lately, if it’s not a daytime customer… seems I’m not being invited anywhere anymore.”

“And don’t go drowning your sorrows in drink again.”

It was there that Kiyokichi committed the name Shūhachi to memory.
Before long, he watched in silence—as if swallowing his saliva—the retreating figure who, having been encouraged by the mistress and exchanged banter with her, now departed.

"She's a fine geisha, isn't she? With all that going for her—she's not popular?"

After that, when he brought up this topic,

“Well, in all of Tatsumi there’d never been a geisha so popular—until some strange rumor suddenly took flight.”

“Huh? What’s the reason behind that?”

“What’s there to say?”

“Even though she was such a popular courtesan, to suddenly lose her customers like that—”

“Don’t go prying into needless matters.”
“You should just stick to fiddling with your Nagasaki antiques.”

She wouldn't even engage with him anymore.
The Young Mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse promptly stood and peered at the back river while exchanging cheerful banter with resident boatmen preparing for evening operations there.

Blackened coquettish teeth.

The goods had mostly sold out.

Normally by this time he would have kept only travel expenses in his pocket, remitted all remaining money to Nagasaki through exchange, and left Edo unburdened—yet even when May came, Kiyokichi still spent his days in Fukagawa.

Because he moved exclusively among the world of women catering to pleasure district clientele across various provinces, he often made substantial profits—

“Just you wait—the mummy hunter becomes a mummy himself, tripped up by some woman.”

He had often been told this by his older colleagues, but deep down, Kiyokichi—

(Hmph, you think I’m that naive?)

—had in turn been sneering at those who laughed.

But—this time alone—even he couldn’t help acknowledging the slight wavering in his own resolve.

Dressed in a freshly basted lined kimono wafting with the intense fragrance of indigo, he set out once more—as lamps were being lit—for Kane-ya in Shin-Ishiba, a deliberately secluded corner on the outskirts.

“Oh, Kiyo.”

In Yawata Yokochō, he suddenly encountered the young mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse.

“Well, where to?”

When Kiyokichi said bashfully,

“Where to? That’s what I should be asking you.”
“You kept saying last month you were returning to Nagasaki, yet here you still are in Fukagawa?”

“Well... The truth is, there are some clients whose payments haven’t come through yet.”

“Don’t spout lies.”
“Isn’t it true you’ve been diligently trotting off to Kane-ya lately to meet with Shūhachi?”

“Who told you such a thing?”

“Even if you don’t say it, I know perfectly well. That jade bead Shūhachi’s wearing—isn’t that the same one you once tried pushing on me for either a hairpin or my husband’s netsuke? Well? Cat got your tongue now, hm?”

“……This is brutal.”

“If you want meetings arranged, my place is a teahouse too—I could properly introduce you. These back-alley rendezvous aren’t fitting behavior, hm?”

“My apologies… It’s just that, at flower district clients’ residences—”

“Can’t ease that shoulder stiffness, hmm?”
“The savor’s in what won’t come undone though.”

“I’ll pay my respects soon.”

“Too late now, eh?……What’s done can’t be undone, so mark this—like I said before, that geisha’s got troublesome rumors clinging to her these days.
“You being a traveler who knows nothing—best watch you don’t get hurt.”

The young mistress’s coquettish teeth—aligned like black soybeans—seemed to Kiyokichi once more to mock him, this provincial outsider.
She must have come for evening prayers.
No sooner had she uttered this with a half-smile than her figure dissolved into the twilight crowd beneath the torii gate.

Cold fingers.

“I’ve brought the promised item, but...”

As soon as he saw Shūhachi’s face, Kiyokichi placed three sealed packets of fifty ryō each between them.
And he took a cup in his hand.

“Then I won’t ask anything about how you use it…”

“It was our original agreement from the start.
“Whether you offer it to your lover or spend it on whatever debts, I won’t ask a thing—so take it with peace of mind.”

Shin-Ishiba was a newly developed area in Fukagawa.

From the second floor of Kane-ya, the light of Ishikawajima Penitentiary was visible as a speck in the vast darkness.

Shūhachi faced the dark sea and sank deep into thought.
She didn’t even make a show of delight.
—a single word—

(Thank you)

She didn't even say it.

Moreover, from the start there had been the promise that he wouldn't ask how the money would be used. As for 150 ryō—to Kiyokichi, who knew his way around an abacus—it was undeniably a colossal sum. An amount that would stand as one of the most recklessly generous acts of his entire life.

“You should put that away. It’ll be trouble if someone comes.”

He produced a cup.

At the threaded base of the cup, Kiyokichi's fingers brushed against Shūhachi's cold ones.

“Then I’ll take it.”

Into the thick sash of her obi, Shūhachi stored the money.
Kiyokichi, fearing he might betray regret through his eyes, was looking at the Kaigetsudō hanging scroll in the alcove.

That chivalrous spirit—that gallantry—dissolving into the various bravados and sensibilities unique to these Tatsumi women, Kiyokichi had cast aside his abacus, intent on creating a memory to last a lifetime.

That said, he was certainly no austere aesthete who engaged in such acts merely as "play." Rather, it had been Shūhachi’s striking features—her chivalrous Tatsumi spirit and that glistening beauty born of emaciation within them—that had exerted such a powerful allure on him from the moment he first saw her at Tsūsenrō.

Since then, deliberately avoiding this outskirts area, they met seven or eight times.
Shūhachi’s eyes always held a look of preoccupation.
As for the money—her ready acceptance of it led to tonight’s arrangement.

However, both before and after that moment, Shūhachi sighed over the cup,

(I might as well go away to another province.)

She muttered this two or three times.

Kiyokichi too, within his heart,

(If it's with this woman—)

It wasn't that he didn't think so.
If he were to suggest going to Nagasaki, there was a sense she might run away with him.

But to offer money on such terms would amount to what they called tactlessness in Tatsumi play—and yet, remaining silent while thinking this hard-won money would go to waste—he sought to observe the movements of her heart.

After drinking quietly for half a watch, Shūhachi suddenly wore an unsettled expression—

“After all, I should settle this matter tonight.”
“Mr. Kiyokichi—when this money has fulfilled its purpose, will you take me away from Edo immediately?”

Her tone suggested she had already resolved everything within her own heart. Kiyokichi’s expectations were rather being met. The calculation that 150 ryō would be a bargain price if it became her ransom was—unconsciously at work in his heart.

“Huh? With me?”
“With me?”

When he grasped her hand and gazed at her,

“Please meet me beneath the Otabi no Shiomimatsu pine around the ninth hour.—I’ll make my own travel preparations and be there.”

After saying this, Shūhachi steadily gripped Kiyokichi's hand in return, then took her leave from the Kane-ya parlor and departed first.

Water Rhythm

The ninth hour—midnight—still left quite a wait, Kiyokichi thought to himself as he gazed at his cup.

Even calling them preparations was an overstatement—with no merchandise left and being a seasoned traveler, all he needed was to fasten his gaiters and straw sandals. Yet—what suddenly unsettled him was,

(Is she really going to come?)

It was the depths of Shūhachi’s heart.

The woman who had said not to ask about the use of the very money she had begged for—that if he asked, she wouldn’t need it.
The more he thought about it, the more perilous it seemed—he simply couldn’t shake the feeling.

The desire not to be laughed at by the young mistress of Tsūsenrō grew increasingly strong within him.
The sum of 150 ryō now also began to feel like an exorbitant amount of money that was beyond his means, and he found himself regretting it.
Yet when he considered that this was Fukagawa—where some courtesans would casually release thrushes from bird sellers' cages worth thirty ryō, shouldering lifelong debts without complaint—he felt the blackened teeth of that young Tsūsenrō teahouse mistress laughing somewhere at him again, thinking such paltry concerns made him unworthy to be a patron of Tatsumi's pleasure culture.

Thinking to kill as much time as possible in this house, Kiyokichi changed sake flasks, but pouring for himself made him drunk in no time.

He plopped down onto his side.

Somewhere, cherry trees in leaf were rustling in the wind.
The wind here held a clinging dampness.
As he stretched out his young limbs freely, letting the wind blow over them,

Being deceived is the game

Truly,

The skillful hands that deceive you

*In the night when water rails cry*

The taste of sake...

The secret ballad drifting from a nearby window flowed coolly into his feverish ears.

"Is this what they call the flavor of Tatsumi play?"

But Kiyokichi—as if he had wagered on some grand gamble—awaited the outcome. Though he thought the suspense before knowing whether the die would land black or white held its own value, enduring Shūhachi's abandonment now would mean both ridicule and total loss, whereas keeping their promise would let the money serve its purpose, uphold his chivalrous spirit, and secure a companion worth future efforts—making it quite a bargain... Still, his mind remained tethered to mercantile calculations.

“Oh, if you were sleeping, I would have brought a coverlet for you. …You might catch a cold.”

The maid from Kane-ya came up and sat down beside him, looking like she had business to attend to.

“Nah, I ain’t sleepin’. Just been lost in that ballad... What’s the hour now?”

“Around the eighth hour, I’d reckon.”

“Hearin’ some stranger pluckin’ strings like that—gets me all homesick-like. Can’t shake this gloom. Say, why don’t we rustle up three folks casual-like? Have another round, laugh proper, then call it night.”

“...But there’s someone come for you now.”

“Huh? Who’s that?”

“The messenger from Tsūsenrō.”

*Miozukushi*

After paying the Kane-ya bill, Kiyokichi strolled along the riverbank with the messenger from Tsūsenrō.

“What business could this possibly be about?”

Feeling concerned, he kept asking, but the messenger appeared to know nothing,

"Well, I haven't been told anything specific—only that the mistress went ahead to wait on a camp stool at Umishōken near Tsuchibashi and instructed me to fetch you. Since I've brought along that Chinese striped cotton you purchased before all wrapped up here—could this matter concern that very bolt of cloth?"

“Hmm. That’s a genuine old import—I didn’t sell any new counterfeit goods. …And this ‘Umishōken’ place—is it a sweet red bean soup shop or something?”

“No, it’s a fortune-teller set up at Tsuchibashi.”

“Huh, even a Madam with such a gallant spirit goes to have her fortune told?”

When they came near Tsuchibashi, the messenger gave his greetings and returned to the shop.

Bamboo pillars supporting a cloth enclosure painted with the Qian and Kun of the Eight Trigrams swayed in the dark river wind. Before the divination sticks, the fortune-teller’s figure was nowhere to be seen. Peering inside, Kiyokichi was momentarily dazed when—

“This way. Since it’s visible from the street, come round to the back.”

From behind the curtain facing the river, the voice of Tsūsenrō's mistress came.

After circling around the roots of a large willow tree and going around to the back side, he found the young mistress sitting on a camp stool there, perfectly still as though listening to the sound of oars on the river.
As the messenger had said, she had wrapped what appeared to be that Chinese striped cotton from before into a round bundle with a wrapping cloth and placed it on her lap.

“What business could this be, Madam?”

As for that Chinese striped cotton, it wasn’t an item likely to be rejected, and if any complaints were raised, he was prepared to argue the opposite—Kiyokichi bent slightly at the waist.

“Kiyo… You gave Shūhachi money tonight, didn’t you?”

“Huh...?”

“That courtesan is at my place right now.”

“Huh—she went to talk to you, Madam?”

“It’s not me she’s meeting.
...The ones she’s seeing are magistrate’s retainers and constables from Denma Prison.”

“With prison officials...?
Huh?
...What possible reason could there be for that?”

“That’s why I warned you, didn’t I? That courtesan’s lover is a notorious thief named Mio no Denbei.”

“Gah, there was such a lover?”

“Even if there were black icefish, there’s no such thing as a geisha without a lover.”
“You’re surprisingly ignorant about the pleasure quarter after all, aren’t you?”

“And why are magistrate’s retainers and prison officials meeting at your establishment?”

“That Mio no Denbei was arrested just this past early spring.”
“The reason that courtesan suddenly became gossip and lost her popularity was because it came out in the shogunal court that her lover was that notorious thief Mio no Denbei. His punishment was apparently set as public execution, but she’s dead set on saving him. Since the authorities’ verdicts depend entirely on money, she’d been trying to secretly gather bribe funds for those officials... Then a sucker like you came along, so they promptly pulled strings through their magistrate contacts—right before I came out here, they closed the deal in the back room.”

“Heh, so with that money, you’re saying it’ll save that thief Mio no Denbei’s neck?”

“He certainly won’t get exile, but reducing a public execution to distant island banishment is standard procedure. —The fool here is you.”
“Write off the money as lost. But keep tangling with that marked courtesan, and who knows what’ll befall you? Out of friendship, I’ll give you this warning.”
“I’d hate having people say till my dying day that spotting you at my place started your downfall—it’d plague my sleep.”

“Thank you for your kindness.”

“If I’d known it would come to this, I would’ve told you sooner—but who could’ve imagined you’d turn out to be such a sweet bean of a man…”

“Ahahahaha, now that’s some greeting.” “I may indulge women, but let me remind you—I’ve served my time in the pleasure quarter. I don’t take myself for such a fool as to toss coins into sewers.”

“Oh, is that so.
“Well now—here I was worrying myself needlessly over money you’ve scraped together under wandering skies these past six months or even a full year…”

“No—it’s not like this Kiyokichi here was completely in the dark about such matters from the very start.”

“Oh.
“You knew all along, eh?”

“Out of that woman’s chivalrous spirit—yes, I gave her a hundred and fifty ryō.”

“Out of chivalrous spirit?”

The mistress of Tsūsenrō laughed mockingly.
Even in the darkness, her blackened teeth gleamed.

“...So, chivalrous spirit, eh?... Then you don’t need any meddling from others.”
“After coming to Tatsumi for business these past two or three years, you’ve become quite the connoisseur steeped in Fukagawa’s ways, haven’t you.”
“Well then, do come again next year.”

By invoking “chivalrous spirit,” he thought he could conceal his blunder and maybe even earn praise later, but unexpectedly—as if the phrase disgusted her—the young mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse briskly abandoned Kiyokichi and hurried into the dark alleyway.

A light burned in the rear.

A gurgling cough sounded.
Baishōken the fortune-teller, who had stepped out to the udon shop, returned and was already rattling his divination sticks.

“Even though I had the Chinese striped cotton… I didn’t say anything about that.”

Into the alley where the young mistress had turned, Kiyokichi also turned and went.

As though unaware he was following her, the Young Mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse opened the lattice shutter attached to the dimly lit pawnshop storehouse and hid her figure there—a place where one would hardly expect to slip through.

“Ah… The pawnshop?”

In lined garment season, the newly bought bolt of lined fabric.

The sharp-tongued young mistress’s words from when she’d purchased that fabric now resounded in Kiyokichi’s ears, laced with unintended irony.

"Now I know all the secrets of that teahouse too..."

The Hachiman Bell tolled through the alleyway.

Ah—the ninth hour.

Kiyokichi began to hurry.
The Young Mistress of Tsūsenrō Teahouse laughed, but upon hearing how Shūhachi had used the money, Kiyokichi felt that woman had indeed accepted his chivalrous spirit.
On the contrary, he felt increasingly convinced she was a woman of remarkable mettle.

A lusterless sea resembling fish skin came into view.
A red glow seeped from a fisherman’s house.
Otabi no Magarimatsu stood in the middle of Isohara.

(...Is she here?)

Contrary to his true feelings, Kiyokichi slackened his pace as he approached.

Shūhachi had come.

She had changed into parlor attire, folded the hem of her darkish kimono, let her hair down, and held the corner of a hand towel between her teeth.

“...Oh.”

In spite of himself, Kiyokichi let out a voice tinged with surprise.

“You were here?”

“But we had a promise, didn’t we?”

“No—it’s just that I was the one running late.”

“What about your preparations?”

“Still working on it.”
“…Don’t need any grand preparations.”
“Anyway—you’re really set like that?”

“Having dwelled in Fukagawa’s waters these six years… when I think tonight might be my final glimpse of them, it feels unbearably poignant…”

“Don’t speak of ‘final glimpses’—ill-omened words.”
“You could always return to Edo whenever you wished.”

“But if I journey all the way to distant Nagasaki only for you to cast me aside, I’d be utterly adrift.”

“Enough talk for now.”
“I’ll explain properly once we’re settled at an inn—I’m damned impressed by your chivalrous spirit.”
“If I meant to abandon you, I’d never have handed over that money without even asking its purpose.”

While gazing at the slumbering fishing village, the two of them began walking along the wave-lit path.
Kiyokichi no longer thought about being stingy with the money.
In this chivalrous atmosphere alone, the scent of Fukagawa—steeped in deep human compassion and passionate love—alluringly enveloped him as if in a painting, and even the sound of waves seemed to harmonize with pleasure.

“Um...”

Hesitatingly, Shūhachi suddenly came to a halt.

“What is it?”

“Um… I’d like to stop by my place once more to get something I forgot.”
“Would you wait here for me?”

“Is it close?”

“Yes, it’s not that far. If I run—”

“I see. Then go get it.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

Somehow, her words had been uttered with an air of detached finality.

He had said he would wait, but Kiyokichi followed behind Shūhachi.
Into the briny alley of the fishing town, she hurried at a half-run.

Tap tap tap—she stealthily knocked on one of the houses there,

“Auntie, Auntie….”
“It’s Shūhachi. Please open up again.”

The old woman’s voice was heard, and she hurriedly hid inside.
It was a squalid fisherman’s hut.
It seemed someone had lit a fish-oil lamp—the pungent smell of burning oil spread, casting a yellowish light inside the house.

“My boy... Auntie... Let me see his face!”

Her entire body and voice trembled with visceral intensity.
As he watched, she threw herself trembling into the thin, soiled futon laid out on the straw mat there.

And when she bared her white breast herself, she pressed her nipple into the lips of the sleeping infant as if forcing it,

“...My boy, my boy.”
“...It’s me. Do you understand?”
“...We’ll be apart for some time now—that’s why I came back one last time.”
“Here now—drink your fill.”
“Drink all you can...”

The sound of infant lips sucking fervently—and the sound of her tears falling where she pressed her face against his—seemed to carry all the way to the door.

“......?”

Standing frozen outside, peering through the shutter's knothole at this scene, Kiyokichi turned rigid—as though the depths of Fukagawa's waters, the very core of Tatsumi women's allure, were now being laid bare before his eyes with crystalline clarity.

"Ah... even I—"

Suddenly, he recalled his wife and child in his distant Nagasaki home.

The sea lay still as oil.

The night skies over Yagashita and Hachiman and Fukagawa's lantern-lit expanse were now tinged with the turning tide.

The man who that night had kicked up sand and dashed along the beach as though fleeing alone never came back to this land for business from the following year onward.