Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The woman was sitting alone in the room, working. A lamp resembling a red festering eye was hanging from a thin wire that looked ready to snap. Around the house, there was a forest. Night gradually assailed this solitary house.

Black birds lived in the forest. They were often seen perching on dead tree branches. Small white-furred beasts were also seen running into thickets. The dead tree was one that had been struck by lightning several years prior and had withered. Its crown had split into two forks; all bark had peeled away, and it gleamed white under sunlight. Around this dead tree stood a deep green-green grove. Yet because this single tree had died, a gap formed in the forest—through it one could glimpse blue sky.

The woman saw the white-furred beast when it flew out from a rounded thicket and was moving to the next one. When she approached, the grass that had lain flattened on the ground sprang back and rose up. A vivid, dazzling morning sun flowed over the fresh green leaves of the thicket, over the flat ground, over the green grass.

The sun that emerged from the forest descended back into its depths. Just like a heavy iron sphere, glowing red-hot, sank into the abyss. Separated by a single wall, the forest remained silent. Terrifying dark wings of night rotted away all colors, destroyed them, hung down wearily, and seemed to kiss the forest’s crown. The woman was still looking down, working.

“Good evening!”… The woman stopped her hands and raised her head.

Three sides were walls. Only the eastern side’s torn shoji screen remained closed. Exactly as if a chisel had stripped away the earth’s surface, the color of night lay exposed. The woman looked down again and resumed her work. The lamp resembling a red festering eye creaked and groaned as it sucked up oil—creak-groan, creak-groan.

II On a dust-covered shelf in the corner sat a white pottery vessel. It was unclear when it had been placed there. The white pottery, in silence, was telling that it had been placed outside the flow of Time. The faded white color carried the scent of a previous era—of something humans had once handled. The woman—her hair appearing reddish-brown—was working facing the torn eastern shoji screen.

“Good evening.”... came a feeble, pleading voice.

The woman pushed aside her previous work and listened intently. She looked toward the wall and stared vacantly. One wall was yellow; two walls were painted gray.

The woman stood up and opened the torn shoji screen. The night stretched out like a black curtain studded with gold-paper flowers, only a handful of stars visible. Not even wind stirred in the dark forest.

“Good evening. Please let me stay tonight.”

And then, a man stood before the woman. The flame's shadow resembling a red festering eye danced across the woman's thick pale-purple lips and the man's caterpillar-like bushy eyebrows. The woman was facing east again, working. The three yellow and gray walls watched with their dazed gaze because an unfamiliar man had entered. The lamp seemed to raise its voice even higher, groaning creakily as if hurrying to exhaust its oil. If that happened, night would break into day.

In the house that had never known change, tonight—for the first time—the firelight flickered several times as if striving to remain unchanged. Alone, the white pottery pondered by itself when it had been placed there—an eternal question.

Other than that, there were no changes in the house or the forest. As always, the light of dawn came through the hole in the torn shoji screen as if welcoming it. The forest’s crown was beautifully dyed crimson.

III

The following night, the woman was working as usual facing the eastern shoji screen. Faint moonlight came streaming in. The faint sound of wind blowing through the forest could be heard. The sound of small birds’ nighttime nest-seeking cries could be heard. The woman had always kept her head down and never noticed these things. That night, for the first time, she stopped her hands and listened intently.

The rustling of leaves—there was a softness in it that she had never heard before. Why does the tree produce such a marvelous sound? The moon parted the deep, deep thicket of leaves and pressed inward; chasing after it came a second wind. Those winds chased around, raced through, and went wild within this lush bed of fresh leaves; then, emerging once more from the depths of the thicket, some veered left, others right—some burst straight through the forest, grazed across the moon’s pale-lit fields, and vanished to who knows where. The sound of that wind seems to her like a cry begging for a kiss.

The woman looked at the moon and became absorbed in fantasy. Bluish moonlight shone through the torn shoji screen, laying bare the white pottery on the shelf. Who had placed it there, and when? The mute pottery, tinged pale blue, kept its silence.

The woman frantically clung to her work. The sound of the wind, the forest’s whispers, the small birds’ nest-seeking calls—the moon gradually brightened. The woman detected the sound of flowing water in the distance. That flow was a spring gushing forth. It was water running under moonlight, shattering silver into white as it parted green grass. She had never encountered such a stream within this forest. For a while she listened to its murmur, her work remaining halted. Her heart connected with the water’s sound, rode its current through the forest’s dark underside—past red flowers and white flowers in their shadows—until at last emerging from the woods. With a distant dreamlike sensation, it flowed onward—a tall tower, a red brick house, a shining sea… She could see them…

The woman, unable to remain seated, stood up and opened the torn shoji screen. A sickle-shaped moon hung from the branch of a dead tree. Before long, the blue moonlight threaded through the green leaves and cast itself against the horizon.

The woman had not yet completed even half a weekday’s work. The lamp resembling a red festering eye once again reclaimed the dark room as the moon vanished. As she had the night before, the woman faced eastward, looked down, and set to work.

All was quiet. The dark night hung over the forest, and the small birds seemed to have hidden beneath night’s wings to sleep.

“Good evening.” —The woman stopped her hands and raised her head. A room like a black curtain hung draped. Stars as sparse as gold-paper flowers pasted on. The forest loomed in silence. There was no longed-for figure there.

IV

The following day, the woman entered the forest and walked about searching for the spring she had heard the previous night. The lush green leaves dyed the grass below an even deeper shade of green.

The woman’s face and the color of her kimono were tinged blue from the reflection of the green leaves above.

The woman sat on the softly dreaming grass and listened intently. The faint sound of the wind. The fluttering light of green leaves. Leaves rustled against each other, singing a pleasant song.

Since the man’s arrival, the woman had experienced many strange things. She heard the sound of a spring she had never heard before. She could see the color of the wind she had never understood.

At that moment, an unfamiliar flapping sound of bird wings could be heard. When she turned around, two large birds with red feathers tinged purple were building a nest high in a tree. The nest hung black between branches, parts of it tinged with a grayish glow. From it dangled strands of black, tangled hair resembling a woman’s, swaying in midair—like seaweed debris adrift on the sea. Seeing the black hair, the woman wondered where these birds had carried it from.

Could it be that deep within this forest lay the discarded corpse of another woman? The flesh rotted; face, eyes, and nose decayed and crumbled as they emitted a foul stench. Wasn’t this red-and-purple feathered bird going there to pluck these strands of hair from that putrid head? Could it be a woman lay dead somewhere in these woods?

The woman remembered the thief who had come to visit. That man must have terrified women elsewhere, humiliated them, killed them, and abandoned their bodies. When she thought this, she noticed a devil’s thistle blooming garishly nearby—its hue, she realized, closely resembled the color of that man’s cheeks and lips. But the lips of the woman who plucked the devil’s thistle and pressed a fervent kiss to it were an even deeper purple. They were the color of ripe almonds. The woman stared fixedly at the devil’s thistle and laughed brightly.

At that moment, the bird building its nest cried out with an eerie voice. Its tail hung long, nearly reaching above its head. The crimson of the bird’s spread wings was reflected in the soft, glossy light of the green leaves. The bird’s long neck curved into an S-shape as it craned toward the sky, crying out with a resolute, strained voice. When the woman heard this cry, there was a voice within her own belly that eerily echoed it.

V “Good evening.”… She wanted to hear that voice once more. The woman was overwhelmed with longing. The woman saw the birds building their nest again the next day. And she heard that eerie cry. In her belly, she heard an eerie cry echoing it. Blue scraped against blue, green seethed with green, and over it all hung the violent fragrance of purple flowers. They all craved water. They thirsted for clear water that sparkled in sunlight and flowed singing mysterious songs. The purple-lipped woman too thirsted for water. The woman could no longer bear pushing deeper into the forest. Fierce sunlight burned upon green leaves. When she trod on grass, her body swelled stiflingly as if steamed. When she saw sunlight and wind gleaming on verdant leaves, her vision began to blur. White flowers, purple flowers—all glared equally piercing in sunlight.

One day, the woman came to the forest and watched as those uncanny birds—their large, glossy, soft wings seeming almost too cumbersome—entwined with each other, two of them building their nest with visible weariness. Their long, curved necks coiled around one another; their lengthy tails fluttered in the wind like banners. There alone gleamed two distinct eyes—one fierce, one gentle. The bird below now—clutching the branch as if spent, eyes tender and body slack—she deemed must be the female. The male bird lay supine beneath the nest, shoving something into its depths. Something fluttering—seaweed-like, reminiscent of a woman’s tresses—hung half-torn from a lower branch. For reasons unknown, the birds left it untouched. The remaining half swayed faintly in the breeze as it once had.

The sky hung round and majestic. It was unclear how deep it extended. Pale green and blue varied between the south and the north. Light, white clouds, like a seabird’s breast feathers, flew. The bird building the nest let out a shrill cry. The cry from the woman’s belly answered shrilly in turn.

The woman felt a stabbing pain and a shudder.

Plucking a green bud from a branch, gazing fixedly at it, the woman teared up.

VI

Autumn came to the forest. The bird with eerie cries and feathers of mingled purple and red—where had it gone? The fledglings of this bird had flown off with their parents, longing for warm southern lands where red flowers bloomed. The leaves turned yellow. A bird’s nest with black strands hanging like human hair fluttered beneath a clear blue sky. Every time rain fell, yellow leaves fluttered down. Among them slid long-stemmed blackened rotten ones—slithering like pulled-out hair—before falling from the branches.

The tree split by lightning stood dyed red by the evening sun. The wind wailed mournfully, and time and again the rain drew forth the woman’s tears. Before one knew it, white snow began to fall. The sound of a white beast crying at midnight could be heard. Black birds could be seen flying about beneath the gloomy sky, moving from grove to grove, perching on the white snow and tree branches.

Eventually, winter passed.

The woman was still facing east, looking down as she worked. The shoji screen looked as pitiful as if its thin surface layer had been peeled off with a chisel, exposing the night’s black flesh from within.

The forest had before one knew it been colored once more in heavy blues and greens. The dark wings of night descended gradually lower and lower. Before one knew it, they kissed the summit of the black forest. The small birds that had been singing hid beneath night's black wings and fell asleep.

The woman sitting beneath the lamp resembling a red festering eye was not alone. On her back, she carried a small nursing infant. The child was sleeping soundly. The feeble lamplight did not reach this far.

The child was emaciated. His mouth was pointed. With each breath, his ribcage twitched—protruding and then retracting. His eyes were large, protruding as if inlaid with saucers. His hair had only a countable number of clumps—perhaps several dozen strands—growing in patches. His mouth was large and open. The air of this world was stiff, and inhaling it appeared difficult. A head disproportionately large compared to his torso was lolling on the woman’s back.

VII

It was as though this frail body was bound with a black, sturdy rope. The thin cord was tied around the mother’s body. With each breath, the frail ribcage seemed to twitch spasmodically, dimly rising.

The woman worked silently with her head bowed. Viewed from behind, her russet hair caught the lamplight and reflected its waning glow. The lamp’s light also reached her violet lips. They had lost their former fullness. Her eyes hung listless, her cheeks gaunt. Only the male of some strange bird ever bore such a piercing gaze. Her purple lips resembled a shriveled blossom. The hollows of her cheeks recalled autumn’s sallow tones. Now only her eyes showed any movement. Only her eyes remained alive.

The night deepened. The wind blew again as it always had, indifferent to the woman. The spring’s sound offered her no reply. She listened intently to the wind’s voice. And sneered at nature’s workings.

The leaves of the Chinese parasol tree clattered noisily before the window where the woman sat, like large black palms clapping together in praise of the night’s darkness. Toward the direction of those resounding palms, newly hatched mosquitoes swarmed forth from the forest’s decay by the tens of thousands. A cluster of them gathered midway up the Chinese parasol tree and sang: “Bloodthirsty, bloodthirsty—we smell beastly hide.” “We’ll cling to flesh and suck fresh blood until our bellies swell red like paper lanterns!”…Another swarm gathered on the tree’s lower branches. Each time the wind stirred and leaves quivered, they froze. One group veered away like a ball tossed yonder; another rolled back this way. And they sang.

“A tepid night, the color of night tinged with red and purple. This entire world connects to the hue of blood. A night world like a flat iron plate crusted with red rust—its color resembles bloodstained iron rusted on a guillotine. We prepare a cruel feast…… We praise the color of night.”

When the sky had been painted entirely dark, they parted ways of their own accord. Some slipped beneath fresh leaves to enter the forest and suck the blood of wild beasts. Others wriggled through each tear in the shoji screens to drain the emaciated child and woman. The lamp resembling a red festering eye could not surveil these tiny invaders. The exhausted yellow-gray walls, vague and formless, became resting places for the intruders. Mosquitoes pressed against the gray walls, their abdomens swollen with blood nearly dripping. These walls no longer held any power to threaten. They surrendered themselves to be defiled by the blood the mosquitoes had stolen.

The small invaders surrounded the woman’s body. The woman had to work. The mosquitoes bit through the woman’s thin clothing. They swarmed over the child’s emaciated legs so densely they turned black. Competing with one another, they tried to drain every last drop of blood from this emaciated child.

The woman awoke from a weary, listless sleep, and the child wailed like fire. However, the black rope was tightly binding the child’s body, and he couldn’t even move his legs. The starving mosquitoes did not cease sucking blood for a single instant. The child tried to writhe but couldn’t move. Before one’s eyes, his emaciated legs swelled thick, heavy, and pale purple from the poisonous needles stored by the invaders bred in the thicket. But their sharp mouths parted flesh from flesh, burrowing ever deeper. The child was wailing like fire. The voice, because of its weakness, because of the hunger in its belly, because of the sickness of its body, gradually began to fade.

The woman was still looking down. Her eyes grew increasingly fierce and bright from the child’s wailing and the mosquitoes’ assault. Anger, resentment, malice—these coalesced into a single point of fire and blazed. She swung her hand and struck the child’s sickly head.

VIII

The child’s soft, dry, wide-open eyes avoided the dazzling light of the rising morning sun. Even the midday light—this weak child’s eyes feared the reflection in their pupils. After the terror of daytime came the terror of night.

This child did not grow in either day or night. If it were not an even deeper night, an even darker world, this child’s weak eyes would have been unable to withstand the glare of outside light. However, as long as he was alive, he could not help but feel hunger. The child begged the woman for milk.

“Be quiet. Do you think I have time for you?”

The woman said this and remained looking down. Around the child’s body, there had never been a moment when the black, thin, strong rope was removed. The child, unable to speak, could only cry out his hunger. It was a futile effort. The more he cried, the more hunger he felt. And gradually his voice grew hoarse. His large head—morbidly heavy and disproportionate to his torso—lolled limply downward, his soft, feeble eyes staring vacantly without blinking. By chance, after crying himself into utter exhaustion like this, the child saw the white pottery resting on the shelf. And he gave a faint laugh.

While firmly strapped to the woman’s back, the child stretched out his hand toward the white pottery. One time, she struck his outstretched hand, deeming it a hindrance.

Finally, the child died without ever holding the white pottery that had been on the shelf. He had left this world before even a year had passed since his birth.

The day the woman buried this dead child in the forest, a wind blew. The moisture-laden air plunged the surroundings into gloom. The branches of towering trees swayed in the wind, bowing down only to rise again, then being beaten back once more. The branches of other low trees drifted to the right before sweeping back to the left. The clouds hung white, layered in countless folds.

The tall trees swayed, their crowns parting the blue sky. The old trunk of the dead tree—its bark peeled away, once dyed crimson by the evening sun and gleaming as it reflected the morning light—turned white, jutting out from the midst of the lush green forest.

The woman dug a hole under a tree she did not recognize, a tree blooming with white flowers. There lay upon the grass the dead child wrapped in black cloth. The woman started digging, then cast aside the hoe and rested. A damp wind blew, plucking at her lusterless reddish-brown hair. The leaves of the trees rustled mockingly. The woman’s cheeks had sunken away; her lips had hardened into blackened withered lines. The upturned soil lay wet. Not even daylight peered into that hole. Within this damp earth would this child be buried. And so this moist soil—never exposed to sunlight—was concealed once more as before. The dead child would never see daylight through the earth. Entombed in dampness, it would naturally rot away. When dug up again, soil clinging to green leaves scattered down their surfaces and returned to the hole.

This was the child who had sought milk when hungry. This was the woman who had scolded him instead of feeding him. This was the child who had laughed and reached out wanting the white pottery. This was the woman who had struck that hand. The child had finally fallen asleep. He would not cry again. He would enter the earth and sleep quietly like this. The woman watched the leaves stir without shedding tears. The woman took up the hoe. She strained to dig a three-foot hole and placed inside it the child wrapped in black cloth. The child’s wasted legs protruded from beneath the cloth. On his legs, mosquito bite marks had reddened. They were swollen crimson like strawberries. The woman pulled the child back out of the hole. She tried laying him with his head pillowed southward. The hole proved too narrow to stretch his legs straight. Once more she extracted the corpse, curled its legs tight with head westward, and forced it into the hole. Then she shoveled soil down over its head.

The dead child was finally buried. The woman left the forest and returned home.

IX

Under the lamp resembling a red festering eye, the woman faced east and worked. The lamp began to groan—ji, jii, ji, jii—. Night deepened gradually. The gray wall, like widened eyes devoid of strength, loomed hazily. The white pottery, as an eternal question of when it had been placed there, silently transcended time itself.

The forest, pressed beneath night’s large wings—gradually sagging, thick, seamless, black, heavy—strained upward to kiss. The wind, at times stealing past the window, caused the torn shoji paper to flutter. The woman rubbed her tired eyes. At that moment, a faint weeping voice could be heard coming from far, far away.

That crying voice was a crying voice that clung to the ear. It was the dead child’s crying voice. It indeed arose from beyond the forest, under the tree blooming with white flowers, passed between tree and tree, pushed through thickets, and reached here to be heard.

Abruptly, she thought the crying voice had ceased. When she listened intently into the far, far distance, small footsteps came pattering toward her. The footsteps came immediately near the window and stopped. The wind blew intermittently, like the forest’s sigh. After a while, once again from the far, far distance, the familiar crying voice of a child could be heard. The crying voice arose from under the tree blooming with white flowers, avoided passing between tree and tree, threaded through thicket after thicket, and reached here. It was a pitiful crying voice, as if it had searched for this house with great effort. Moreover, that voice was one that had exerted all its strength to make its way here. If it made its way this far and reached her ear, it would be snuffed out abruptly. Next came a speechless soul walking.

The woman threw down the work she had first needed to do there. Her hands trembled with a peculiar fear. Her body hair stood on end at an unfathomable mystery beyond comprehension. She kept straining her ears. When the wind’s intermittent gusts ceased and the world fell utterly silent, small footsteps approached from afar. Trudgingly wandering there and here, they abruptly stopped upon nearing the window. It seemed someone was peering into the house. They seemed to be eavesdropping. The woman was tormented all night by the crying voice and footsteps.

When the rose-colored light of the morning sun streamed through the torn shoji, the woman—her face pale—felt for the first time as though she had been revived. She promptly went to the forest to see. Approaching the tree blooming with white flowers as her landmark, she found claw marks in the earth where some unknown beast had tried to dig out the corpse from underground during the night. Overhead, a black bird had perched on a tree and was looking down at the woman’s actions.

The woman returned home and brought the white pottery. She buried it in the soil, poured water into it, broke off a branch from the white flowers above and inserted it, crouched down, and prayed to god for the dead child’s repose.

It was early summer. White clouds welled up above the forest.