Pathway to Japanese Literature

He overturned the sake flask and met his wife’s gaze.

“Not yet!”
Shūko exaggeratedly widened her eyes.

“Hurry up!
“And then it’s already over.”

Because he found it unbearable that someone might perceive he was drinking more due to special circumstances, he deliberately put on a bold front and said, “It’s ridiculously cold tonight.
“Doesn’t help at all,” he added.

But in fact, he was already quite drunk, so when he tried uttering such words—even if they were lies—his heart followed suit, making him want to say something even more pointless.
But even though Mother and Shūko skillfully maintained composed expressions—this manner of sympathy was all the more unbearable for him—ordinarily, it would already be about the time Mother would refuse,

"It's truly cold tonight; might even snow," Mother muttered while heating sake.

"I wonder if today makes it about five days now—your father?" Shūko said to him.
Between him and Mother, even something like this couldn't be voiced.

“Based on how that phone call went earlier, wouldn’t Mr. Kurokawa and his lot have returned last night?”
Merely answering this way made him feel awkward before Mother.
“Or perhaps some other business has come up again?!”

“Exactly five days have now passed,” Mother said, turning her face away.

Both Mother and he knew what Father was up to.
But between them, criticizing Father required using "work" as a pretext—they had no alternative.
They would employ phrases like "You might incur terrible losses," or "What if you're being deceived after taking up with some man of unknown origins?" but at times even he found it irritating how Mother kept dodging direct language at such crucial points.
"In my position, even I find this shameful... It's too mortifying."
There were moments when he thought it would feel more honest and refreshing to simply say things outright like this.
But Shūko's way of speaking often made Mother's and his faces flush.

“It’s true he’s been busy lately.
But abandoning the house like this isn’t right.”
He said this with an air of pretended reasonableness.

“Even you went off to Tokyo saying it was a day trip and didn’t come back for five days just recently, didn’t you?”

"It's a different matter with me," he said bitterly.

"There's no difference."
"It's precisely the same thing."

"I... That sort of..."
He bit his lip, unable to endure his mother's presence.
"I'm... such a fool..." he glared at Shūko.

When everyone fell silent for a moment, he turned crimson,

"You damn old man!" he shouted.
Everyone stared at his face in shock.
"Fine then! I'll go pick him up now. Guests or whatever—I don't give a damn!"

"You can't go fetch him!"
He would've preferred Mother to say it, but Shūko cut in: "Since I want us all to have fun together—no way, no way!"

"What an absolute fool this guy is... Who could stay so carefree? A real blockhead." Though he seethed with listless anger, he couldn't help sensing Shūko's underlying concern.

“He’s so drunk,” Shūko said.
However, he had never shown such drunkenness in front of his mother before.

“I’ll go pick him up then.”
He said to Mother, somewhat defiantly, half-intending to pressure Shūko.

“To go through this trouble now…” Mother muttered downward, her words barely escaping her lips.
He shuddered for no reason.
“Ha ha ha... It’s nothin’ worth callin’ hardship... Nothin’... No hardship at all...”
He brought the cup to his mouth again and again with a lordly gesture.
And when he stealthily glanced at his mother—though the bright electric light made his own eyes sting unpleasantly with its flickering glare—he distinctly caught sight of something glistening on her eyelashes.
He frantically tilted the cup again, this time in wild abandon.

His drunken state became the trigger, and the others' emotions seemed to start unraveling.
But he didn't think so; he merely observed their gestures with a cold gaze.
"This is unbearable—crying's too cruel. Like this, there's no real difference from Shūko."
While thinking this, he absently compared his mother and Shūko.

"Mother, won't you have another drink?"
He feigned nonchalance.
Mother pressed her eyes and nose lightly with her sleeve before offering the cup with both hands.
He thought she was putting on an act, yet felt oddly at ease.—If things had come to this... Such thoughts crossed his mind.

"You're already drunk. You should really stop now—"
Even Shūko seemed to feel the awkwardness.
From your perspective, this must look like a truly ridiculous scene—but it no longer matters. Laugh without restraint. Observe this dissolute mother and child with thoroughly sarcastic eyes. I'll show you an even more outrageous performance from here on out——While feeling his own head growing increasingly intoxicated, he sat alone with an intensely stern expression, adopting a pose as if overwhelmed by emotion—though in truth, his mind was lost in such idiotic musings.

“I’ll definitely go fetch him.”
He said this partly to conceal his own embarrassment, adopting the manner of one deftly attuned to his mother’s feelings.

“You can’t go—you’re too drunk.”
Shūko said.
Mother remained silent, but from his perspective, she clearly showed signs of affirmation.

He became utterly tearful.
He stirred himself up and indulged in self-righteous indignation—he felt an exhilaration so intense it paradoxically brought him ease.

"I'm fed up with Father's lack of discipline. And you too, lately—" Mother began, then noticing Shūko beside them, restrained herself from adding "have finally been behaving" and instead said: "You're just like Father in temperament, so you must pull yourself together—"

This hollow vanity of his—setting aside her own issues while fawning exclusively on Mother, akin to how one might viciously criticize a disliked friend before others to purchase sweet sympathy and feel cowardly satisfaction—she might have perceived this in him; at this moment he felt the stinging pain and shame of being sharply whipped.

Even so, he bitterly entertained such perverse thoughts—that perhaps Mother had made him the outlet for her own frustrations through admonishing him here.

“Was it really that terrible?”
Shūko immediately glistened her eyes with a lewd look and pressed Mother.
Mother merely forced a bitter smile.
To what extent must Shūko have conjured up imaginings from that bitter smile—he found himself slightly troubled by such thoughts.

At that moment, the old gramophone in the back room suddenly blared out in a shrill voice, and in the instant when everyone found their words and emotions stifled en masse, its parched sound—"Hirumo yorumo daite nete—" echoed through the house with an eerily sharp resonance.
It was the mischief of children who had come to play for New Year's.

“They’re playing that sort of thing!” Shūko said.

“Who bought such a thing?!”
Mother tilted her head.

Shūko pointed at him, his face red.
As if bearing some resentment toward him yet speaking breezily, Shūko continued in a hysterical tone that mirrored the gramophone’s shrill sound—

"When I opened the locked drawer of your bookcase recently," she said, "it was filled with nothing but vulgar things like those songs and what you'd call Naniwa-bushi."
"Since he was storing them so preciously," she continued, "I thought they must be something like important foreign music—"

"What the hell are you saying, you idiot?"
He shouted harshly.
Not limited to Shūko, he had never once succeeded in asserting his authority through anger—yet this time Shūko remained even more unperturbed.

“What is this manner of speaking—”
Mother, who prided herself on strictness, immediately scolded him.
―Strictness is all well and good, but it must cause a lot of trouble in situations like this― he thought as he staggered off to the lavatory.

“One time when he’d gone to that house claiming to study—well, I happened to have some business there myself.
“When I went to check, the gramophone was playing, so I peeked through a gap in the shoji screen—and what do you think I saw...?!” Shūko continued.
“There he was, all alone, sipping sake little by little while playing some strange song—playing it over and over again—and what’s more, oddly nodding his head as he quietly mouthed along to the song himself.”
“No doubt he had been practicing it intending to sing when he went out carousing.”

“Well!” Mother scowled.
“And then?”

There he slouched in, chest carelessly exposed and breathing in rough huffs.
From the back room came the blare of “Warship March.”
Whether because Mother remained preoccupied with Father’s affairs, she showed little reaction to Shūko’s tattling.

“Anyway, I’m going out.”

“You should stop,” Mother said.

“There’s no need to hold back."
“Nah, if I go—”
This time he pointedly used “I”.
“I’m fine—really hate that sort of place."
“There’s nothing with Shūko either."
“I truly hate it.”
“That’s absurd… Tch!”
“As if I’ve time for that!”

As he began spouting incoherencies, Mother and Shūko fixed him with intense stares.

“With all that leisure on his hands,” said Shūko, “what’s he blathering about?”
He sprang up energetically, grumbling under his breath as he sprawled cross-legged—fragmented phrases escaping his lips: “Quit messing,” “Hmph! Ridiculous,” and “If everything’s going to ruin anyway, then ruin’s fine by me too.”

“That’s right. Let everything go to ruin—it’s better if everyone just does whatever amusing things they please.” What reached his ears was unmistakably Mother’s voice.

“Ha ha ha…”
He laughed exaggeratedly in the same way as he had a moment before.
“It’s no good if everything’s a mess—I can’t take it anymore.
“First of all, Mother—when you say ‘doing whatever amusing things you please’—what exactly does that mean?
“Just saying ‘amusing things’ isn’t enough—I want you to explain it concretely.”

“What are you on about?!”
Shūko flew into a rage and struck his back hard.

“No getting drunk!” Mother said.

“No—it’s not like I can’t handle myself.
“I’ll never say anything nonsensical—I won’t get strangely agitated either.”

Mother and Shūko leaned close together and began a private conversation.
He was still muttering something persistently when he suddenly moved to the telephone; Shūko, who tried to stop him, was shoved aside and slammed against the shoji with a thud.

“What? He’s there! If he's there, fine—what's with this 'wait a moment' crap, you damn fox?! I’m coming over right now to drink a ton of sake, so tell the old man that.”

“What nonsense are you saying? How disgraceful—the phone’s been disconnected for ages.”

“Hurry and call a rickshaw—and you go along too.”
Mother said hurriedly to Shūko.

The next morning, he woke around ten o'clock.

“It’s seven-herb porridge this morning,” said Shūko.

Amber sunlight streamed deeply onto the veranda.
There, with two floor cushions laid out and one folded in half as a pillow, Father lay sleeping with his mouth open, snoring soundly.

As he detoured around that spot and passed by, Shūko said, “My, Father, sunbathing in a place like this?” while spreading a blanket over him.
“Poor thing, last night must’ve been exhausting!”

As he was washing his face, Shūko came to his side,
“No headache?” she asked.

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re really alright?”

“What’s that doing there?”
Because his haori and kimono were hung on the clothesline in the corner of the garden, he asked.

“Puke!” said Shūko, grimacing.

“Huh!”
He looked bored, yet slightly widened his eyes.

“Father too—” said Shūko.
When told to look a bit more closely, he stuck his head out the window and saw his haori lined up alongside Father’s haori, kimono, hakama, meriyasu underwear, and white tabi, all hung out to dry in a row.

“It’s your fault.”
Shūko forced a bitter smile.
“Until you went over, Father hadn’t gotten too drunk.”
“Well, you—you practically forced him to drink! I’m amazed Father hasn’t gotten angry.”

He had almost no memory of it, but when told this, he gradually felt his face grow hot.

“Whether Father takes a mistress or not, for you to go meddling in it—it’s utterly revolting. I couldn’t stand it.”

“Enough, enough.”

He brushed his teeth with brisk strokes while gazing into the mirror.

“Mother went to Atami early this morning with Matsu, you know.”

“Huh!”

“That goes for Mother too,”
“It’s your fault—you always have to say such strange things about Father.”

“Mother’s being hasty.”

“Liar!
“You’re the one who provoked him.”

“You could just stop—Atami’s so tedious.”

“You made it explicit.”
Shūko flung these words aside and walked off.
He had completely forgotten what he’d said the previous night—

He muttered, “What a weirdo!”

When he entered the tearoom, Father sat stiffly before the brazier, lips pursed with an air of resentment.

He silently took his place before the meal tray.
Between Father and him, it had been customary to hardly exchange words except when drunk.
Even when needing to discuss the slightest matter, they would handle it through Mother or Shūko.
When face to face, he had never once called him "Father."
They kept angry expressions and never met each other's gaze.
—Yet when drunk, they would suddenly chatter away like the closest of friends.
Then when morning came, they would completely switch gears and put on faces of perfect ignorance.
"What an unusual parent and child you are—I wonder if such a pair exists anywhere else?"
Shūko said to him in surprise.

Seeing him silently sipping his tea, Shūko—

“Will the meal be ready soon?”

In Grandfather’s time, on the morning of Seven Herbs Day, everyone would rise together at dawn and offer formal greetings as they did on New Year’s Day.
Then they took turns sitting beneath the household altar, pounding the seven herbs on the board with a wooden pestle while reciting ceremonial words.—Shortly after he was born, Father went abroad, returning when he was thirteen.

Grandfather died when he was ten.

"How about Father? Seven-herb rice porridge."
While he remained silent, Shūko spoke again.

"I'll pass."

“You must give at least a little – Mother said so before leaving.”

“Ah, it’s fine,” said Father, crossing his arms.

“And they say if you don’t put the seven herbs on your nails, you’ll injure your fingers.”

“Bring the sake,” said Father.

“What about you?”
Shūko asked him.

“I don’t want any this morning.”
He said while still looking at the newspaper.

“A drink might actually make you feel better.”
Father too, while still looking at the newspaper, hurriedly said as if soliloquizing.
He pretended not to hear.

By the time Shūko brought the third sake flask, Father and he had somehow ended up sitting cross-legged around the brazier, laughing uproariously.

“Father, are you all right?” Shūko asked.

“If the old lady isn’t here, it’s a relief,” Father said with a laugh.

He certainly felt that way too.

“Disagreeable Father! But you’ve been drinking nonstop since yesterday—your health will…”

“Don’t bother with stupid worries. You’d prefer it better if the old lady weren’t here too, right?! Hey?”

“I prefer Mother.”

“Ha ha... Don't lie! What manners? What decorum?”

“I wonder if I got that drunk last night...” Carelessly, he asked Shūko. In any situation, Father and he had never before exchanged such reminiscent words, so Father made an extremely awkward face,

“Such a thing probably didn’t happen,” he said.

“Both of you were quite undisciplined, I mean...” Shūko tried to continue,

“Enough, stop it already,” he said with a slightly earnest face, waving his hand.
Whenever he thought about how his attitude had flipped as carelessly as a revolving stage, becoming completely opposite to what it had been just moments before, he would always feel a twinge of shame—and then drink again to distract himself.

“I hate when people think I’m just fooling around.”
“That old woman—first of all, she’s utterly disgraceful.”
“Yeah, hey, ain’t that right?”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” he said.

“Exactly right.”
“A geezer like me—I’m fifty-one.”
“Sure, it ain’t good me leavin’ the house, but when it’s work, what can ya do? Right?”

“Still, your work’s been hellishly busy lately, hasn’t it?”
“Playin’ the old man at fifty-one—that’s downright crafty of you.”

“Ha ha….”
“Ah, it’s fine.”
“But it’s true work’s been busy lately—you know that yourself.”

“Of course I know.”

“I’d like to be shown a bit of leniency.”

“I don’t particularly mind anything—there are times when it’s a bit troublesome, but nah, even that’s not really—”

Shūko glared at him resentfully.

“The old lady’s a bit hysterical, huh?”

“A little…” he said.

“There’s no such foolishness.
“It’s Father and you who are in the wrong.
“Above all, that’s cowardly of you!”

“No need to get all worked up.”
“But Shūko, you actually came last night.”
“So? What about Father cozying up to those geishas? ...Surprised?”

“Father kept his composure.”
“The one who went to fetch him was the problem.”
“I felt unbearably sorry for those geisha girls there.”
“I mean—the moment you stormed in, rolling up your sleeves and shouting ‘Hey you worthless geisha!’”
“Yelling things like that!”

“Did I really say that?” he said.

“And then it got worse. I couldn’t possibly imitate such vulgarity...hiking up your rear to plop down cross-legged like that—‘Hey, I’m being filial here! If you geishas keep dawdling I’ll smack you!’—you said.”

He shuddered and involuntarily pulled his head in.

Father looked down and continued drinking steadily with a bitter smile.

“Well，if you had a decent physique it might be one thing，but being such a scrawny runt—on top of that，those baggy stretched-out leggings of yours kept slipping down disgustingly．You really shouldn’t have gone out wearing something like that.”

“Regardless of how I looked，doing such things would—”
He said in a small voice.

“Of course—the more you acted high and mighty，the more ridiculous it became.”

“Of course,” he said.

“I’ll touch your face now, Father,” Shūko said, turning toward him.

“There’s no face to speak of—who gives a damn?” Father said.

“And besides, aren’t you a bit of a crybaby when drunk? Last night you ended up crying there too.”

“That’s a lie! Who’d do something like cry?” If possible, he wished he could snuff himself out like blowing away a candle’s flame. “I was just too drunk and don’t remember a thing.”

“How about we invite those geishas from last night over right now?” Father suddenly said.

“That’s no joke!”
He blurted out in a panic.

“When the old lady ain’t here, who gives a damn what we do? Make noise throughout the house!”

“I hate geishas.”
“I hate Father’s vulgar tastes too!”

“There’s no such thing as taste or crap.”
“―Of course I hate geishas too, but―”

“It’s not that I entirely hate them, but—”

“You’re drunk already! What are you even saying?”

“Hey Shūko, get a grip. This guy may spout nonsense, but you can’t afford to let your guard down around him.”

“More importantly, I want some money—I’ve been penniless for about a month now.”

“Yeah, I’ll give it to ya… Quit worrying so much.”

“I want it right now.”
Even if Father consented, once they sobered up, an awkwardness would arise in their monetary exchanges, causing them to often fizzle out as they were. Anticipating this, he spoke thus.

“You’ve gone and exploited my weakness—tsk. Well, can’t be helped.” While saying this, Father pulled his briefcase closer and—suddenly cold and composed—stamped just his seal on the check before handing it to Shūko with a “You fill this out.”

“Buy Shūko a kimono.”
Father said with a touch of haughtiness.

He was concerned about how much money he had been given, but as he deliberately maintained an affected attitude, he gradually began to feel an unpleasantness as if his heart were being worn down.

“Why don’t you take Shūko out somewhere for a meal?”

"I'd rather stay home," he said.

"Drinking at home's fine. Shūko, why don't I treat you to something?"

"I don't want a thing."

“Hey, Jun’ichi! Call some geishas! Let’s have them dance through the whole house!”

“Stop that at once.” When he made a slight movement, Shūko sharply cut in. “Father, the whole house is such a mess, and everyone’s in such disarray—not to mention the neighbors…”

Because it was cold, Father had layered two woolen shirts and, for some reason, was wearing his cotton-padded kimono without a haori over it,

“Who cares if it’s a mess?” When he energetically raised his arm, he seemed to notice it wasn’t his own kimono.

“Father, is the University of Chicago prestigious?” Shūko suddenly asked this, perhaps trying to change the subject.

“How do you know that?” he said when Father made a troubled face.

“I saw your resume the other day. But Father, why aren’t you more modern?”

“Old ways won’t do.”
Father laughed as he said this.

"But Father, you're awful—they say you left him alone when he was three."
"I heard it from Mother."
"That's why I still can't face Mother."
"Truth is, I never meant to come back to Japan at all…"

He felt a lonely, unpleasant sensation.
A grotesque discomfort washed over him.
Only recently had he begun contemplating matters like that mixed-race sister he'd never seen—knowledge that belonged solely to him now.

"Hahn and Passano sent me a Christmas card again this year," he said.

Father, seeming embarrassed, went off to the toilet.
He coldly looked at Father's retreating figure.
He had always believed that in no sense did anything resembling novelistic events exist around him, yet there seemed to be various—indeed grotesquely comical—unpleasant matters in abundance. He hazily thought such things.
Before long, as he sat there thinking about various things, he began to feel his own existence as something extremely eerie, until finally he was overcome by a peculiar sense of shame.

“I don’t want you getting drunk today,” Shūko said to him.

Father returned sliding open the shoji while singing some clumsy song, and as he sat down said, “Since it’s New Year’s, no matter how drunk I get, the neighbors won’t care.”

“I’ll get good and drunk,” he said in a resentful tone.

“Even the old lady would be fine with it.
“If she’d gone to Atami and soaked in the hot springs—”

“It can’t be that great anyway—staying alone in a place like that couldn’t possibly be interesting,” he said.

Father seemed to have drunk too much and began to lie down.
“Fetching them one by one is a hassle! Gather five or six bottles and bring the sake all at once!” he shouted.
“Get going! All of you, rush out there! Hey, Shūko! Call Mr. Yamazaki no Tamekichi too!” Father sat up and said.

“No, that drunkard is out of the question.”

“What the hell are you saying? Don’t go spouting things like the old lady—Ha ha…”

“No—Father really ought to stop now. It’s bad for you.—I’ll drink alone. I want to get drunk alone.” “What the hell—what the hell?” He suddenly raised his voice and began straining. When he did so, the area around his cheeks grew irritatingly itchy, tears threatening to spill.

“Here we go again.” Shūko bit her lip.—Then in forcibly calm tones: “You can drink as much as you like, but keep quiet. I can’t handle this alone,” she said tearfully. Regaining composure: “No matter how much you drink, it’s not impressive at all. You know? If you keep replaying last night’s encore, Father will be troubled—and so will I.” “When one drinks sake, one might play the biwa like Mr. Nagashima, or sing like Mr. Saburō’s group, or even dance—though pitifully you can’t do anything—but raging gets you nowhere, nowhere!”

Shūko, five years his junior, became quite articulate when she put her mind to it, earnestly admonishing him.
He kept looking down like a child, anxious that tears might fall if he raised his face.

“Shūko, it’s fiiine—it doesn’t signify,”
“Once you’re drunk, everyone’s the same,”
“What anyone says makes no difference,”
“For drinkers, that’s the whole point.”
Father’s voice uttering such things faintly reached him.

"It's not like I enjoy it either."

He said while looking down—when Father leaves the house, the whole place becomes unbearably gloomy. He himself found it truly unbearable—this unpleasantness—and in any case, if Father didn't at least return home, there would be various problematic consequences—this was the meaning he had been trying to convey (just as he had the previous night), but somehow the right words refused to come. His chest was just overwhelmingly tightening.

“Let’s go out somewhere. There’s no point just sitting around the house. I’ll spend the whole day going along with you all today. Starting tomorrow, we’re supposed to have guests coming again anyway.”

“In that case, Father, shall we go to the moving pictures?”

“The moving pictures? We can go.”

“I refuse,” he said firmly.

“The moving pictures are idiotic too.”

“But there's nowhere else to go.”
“By the way, I want to fetch those Parlow records since they’ve been prepared.”

“Let’s go to Atami.”

He said as if it had suddenly occurred to him.

“To Mother’s place?”

Shūko widened her eyes in apparent surprise.

“Yeah, that’s right.”

“What about Father?”

“Of course he’s coming.”
He said insistently before Father could respond.
“If there’s business, Father can just return alone tomorrow. But it’s fine to neglect his guests once in a while—it’s New Year’s after all.”
He knew that in situations like this, Father’s nature was such that he could never say he disliked anything.

“Come on, let’s go! Let’s get ready!” He stood up with forced vigor as he spoke—the raw ache from his earlier agitation now sat lodged even more firmly in the center of his chest.—Just like Shūko said—maybe this guy really does have that crying-drunkard disease or something—he thought.
(Taishō 12, May)