Pathway to Japanese Literature

Part I

“Sister—”

The younger brother had settled onto the stone steps by the riverbank unnoticed and called out to his sister, who was scooping up medaka fish.

“When did you get here? It’s dangerous here—I’ll dry my feet and be right there.”

Sister hurriedly dried her feet—which had been soaking in the current until now—and while still wiping them looked at her brother who shared her features. After confirming no one was nearby, she climbed the stone steps. She went to her brother’s side at the warm sunlit spot on the second step down from the road where he sat dangling his legs like a swing, and placed her hand on his shoulder.

“I caught a lot.”
“No—alone won’t do. If two people hold both ends of a handkerchief together you can catch plenty… You managed to come all this way again.”

The younger brother merely smiled and did not offer any reply to that.
His pallor was no different from when they had last met.

“Everyone’s well—”

“Yes… everyone…”

Sister sat down beside her brother on the stone steps.

Catkin plumes grew thick upon the stone steps, and at the lowest tier, beautiful water flowed merrily.
The medaka fish lined up in the gentle stretch of the current were deeply unsettled, startled as their voices fell upon the water’s surface.
The two of them sat in silence, almost like adults.

“You look thinner than last time.”
“Your shoulders are so bony now.”

“Do I?”

“Look how slender your hands have become—they’re trembling.”
“Are you cold?”

“No, I’m not cold.”
“If anything, I feel slightly warm—”

“If you say so…”

The younger brother gazed at the desolate cliff across the river for some time, then suddenly spoke in a tone even he hadn’t expected.

“I met Mother today—at the gate, you know. The greengrocer had come, and she was buying something. I don’t know if it’s just my imagination, but I think Mother has grown thin too. Sister… don’t you think…?”

“Well, she has grown a bit thinner, but not nearly as much as Father. When it comes to Father—he’s become completely emaciated. It’s truly pitiful.”

Sister said to her younger brother in a voice tinged with restraint.
“Did you say something to Mother?”

“No, I ended up coming here in silence as usual.”
“I slipped out from the shadow of a car.”
“But when I went to these steps, she caught a glimpse of me over here—but she didn’t realize it.”

The younger brother smiled with a gloomy countenance after saying this.
Sister gazed at his face as she always did—with that look of wonder—and felt something like a cold sweat pass through her.
Yet it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation.
It closely resembled that quiet loneliness one feels when stillness grows too profound.

“At that moment, I thought Mother’s shoulders looked slightly pointed.”

Sister laughed and tightened her grip on his shoulder as she spoke.

“You’re speaking just like an adult.”
“When someone becomes like you, do their thoughts really turn so grown-up? I wonder.”
“Don’t you think so yourself?——”

“Not at all. I just felt Mother seemed so pitiful.”

“Then why don’t you meet her?——”

Sister had spoken sharply, but seeing her younger brother immediately sink into gloom, she regretted having spoken so harshly. Her brother must have wanted to see Mother too—that’s why he had been passing by the gate. When Sister considered this, she realized she had gone too far. “I spoke too harshly just now—please don’t take it to heart,” she gently soothed.

The younger brother began to sob quietly, his face filled with subdued joy. “Though I pass by the house nearly every day,” he said in a low voice, “there are times when I find myself peering inside.”

“Lately in the evenings she’s been lighting the lantern in the entranceway—it’s clearly visible from the street.”

“Yes—with no electric light being there，that lantern ends up giving one such a strangely lonely feeling.”

“But I like—”

“You have a taste for peculiar things.”
“I find its whitish，dim glow unbearably lonely.”
“I understand why you like it，but……”

The younger brother wore a lonely face as if he had been scolded.
“And，look—from that cliff on the opposite bank across the river，you can always see that lantern’s light…” he said.
Sister gazed toward the cliff.
The stones bleached white，the withered grasses of desolate shoals dyed madder red at their tips，and those with seed heads especially had their plumes blown away—it was a scene of utter desolation.
A listless，chilling posture—as though winter had reared up—pervaded every corner of dry riverbed.

“You… can still come to visit like this even when winter arrives……”

“Yes, anytime—”

“Even when it snows—look at the mountains. See how white streaks already gleam in the distance? Each day they multiply until finally the mountaintops’ very earth disappears from sight. Even so... you can come.........”

“I can still come.........”

“That’s truly strange, isn’t it.”

Sister turned her gaze from the mountains toward her younger brother, then shifted it back to the mountains again. Before the distant peaks stood nearer mountains. Snow coiled like pale ropes around the distant ranges' jagged teeth, while the closer slopes stayed stained a deep madder red, clinging to their autumn guise. She knew these landscapes held some connection to her brother, though how they intertwined eluded her comprehension. Stranger still was why this frail sibling came to meet only her—a mystery that prickled at her awareness with peculiar intensity. Whenever she sat upon these stone steps, he would materialize unfailingly on the second tier from the top, arriving from some unseen quarter to settle with quiet smiles. His feet remained perpetually aligned, lips slightly parted in that wistful expression she found both endearing and unsettling.

“There’s a path through the dry riverbed—curving gradually until it meets the road atop that cliff over there. When I stare at that spot, I can’t help thinking it’s exactly where you’ll come from.”
“Somehow I can’t shake the feeling you’re always walking that stony white riverbed path—isn’t where you come from just like such a path?——”

The younger brother smiled silently.
Within that expression, an adult-like stiff, leather-like smile appeared frozen.
Sister stared fixedly at it as though observing some rare specimen.
And to such an extent did she find herself wondering just how old his face might appear that his differences from an ordinary child stood out conspicuously.

“Sister, you’re always watching the dry riverbed thinking that way.”
“Or do you not pass through a place like that?”

“Yeah, I don’t pass through there.”

Younger Brother gave this brief reply and made a face that seemed to beg no further questions.
Sister understood it well, yet the more she thought about it conversely, the less clear it became.
And suddenly, from the opposite direction, a woman-like figure coming to do laundry appeared—one carrying a heavy basket—and Younger Brother stared at her as if to avoid her.
Sister stared into her younger brother’s eyes, where a timidity bordering on fear—so faint it might not even exist—quivered.

“Sister, ——”

The younger brother called out to get her attention; the older sister took his hand and walked along the embankment by the riverbank.
From sunlit crevices in the gaps of the embankment’s stone walls emerged late-blooming winter flowers.
They were white flowers about the size of millet grains.
When the snow came, they froze solid while still in bloom, like pressed flowers.
The two of them peered into those crevices in the stone walls as they walked.
And as for the rest, the stiff-veined withered grasses were battered by nightly winds until they became parched, rattling like a flute’s hollow note.
It seemed all the surviving locusts would soon die, dragging their crippled legs.

“While I’m walking with you, it’s fine, but after you’ve gone, my spirits always sink—it’s unbearable.”

The younger brother walked in silence, his hand brushing against the grass atop the embankment as he pondered his sister’s words.
“Moreover, on mornings when you’re about to come, I grow restless and unsettled—and immediately know that you’ll arrive.”
“They say when a bird’s shadow falls somewhere on the house, someone unusual will come.”
“Just like that time—for me, when you’re about to come, by morning I end up understanding absolutely everything.”
“At such times I’m so unbearably happy that Mother even says, ‘What’s gotten into this child?’”
“So I’ll say there’s something good happening today.”
“Truly strange, isn’t it.”
“On such days without fail, you’re always sitting properly at the stone steps waiting, you know.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Being so silent—you must be happy then too, right?”
“Well, that’s because it’s the same as me, right?”

Younger Brother was merely walking without saying anything.

He had nearly reached the base of the grayish wooden bridge about two blocks upstream from the stone steps.
The long wooden bridge lay gray and desolate across the withered grasses of the dry riverbed.
Upstream of that bridge stretched a dry riverbed and embankment covered entirely in white stones as far as the eye could see, beyond the thicket.
The siblings stood vacantly at the base of the bridge.

Before long, Younger Brother alone moved away from his sister’s side.
At times like these he always appeared abrupt in his usual way, but Sister showed no particular surprise.

“Are you leaving already?——”

“Yes.”

Sister stepped a few paces closer and, taking his hand affectionately, said.
“When will you come next time?”
“Whenever——”

With that, Younger Brother started walking briskly, his sandals clattering.
Sister had made it a rule never to watch her younger brother’s retreating figure, so she too began walking downstream while keeping her back turned.
The thinning sunlight then shifted completely into winter-approaching sunset colors.

Two

Oshun woke with a start and hurried out to the riverside to look.
On the cliff of the opposite bank tonight, only three lights were burning.
The sound of the great river flowing through the dark night’s thicket assaulted her ears all at once.
Oshun had always noted the times when four lights appeared on the opposite bank, when two were lit, and instances like tonight when three could be seen.
She could not understand why the number of lights increased or decreased from evening to evening.
Oshun immediately entered the living room, gazed at Kiyoko’s sleeping face, and quietly stroked that serene countenance.
She wondered if this child was meeting that one in such a manner—though such a thing could not be possible—Oshun tried to straighten her thoughts thus, yet the image of two small children sitting with arms linked at the stone steps remained freshly imprinted in her mind, appearing as though they wanted to turn toward Oshun together and say something.
When Oshun extended her thoughts further, it did not seem entirely impossible that the two children were whispering something in a world of their own—a realm beyond adult comprehension.

And strangely enough, Kiyoko was always playing at the stone steps.
While it’s true that children generally like such dangerous spots, Kiyoko would invariably sit down there.
Even though Younger Brother had also been crouching there playing, Oshun would occasionally feel struck by something within her heart, aghast, and look at Kiyoko’s figure.

“Why do you like that place?”
“The steps are dangerous, aren’t they?”
“Go up to the embankment instead.”

Oshun would say this and bring Kiyoko up to the embankment, but Kiyoko would obediently follow her mother without resistance and play on the embankment.
But before long, she would be sitting on the stone steps again without anyone noticing.
Fixedly on the second step, she looked as lonely as someone left behind—at times rather cold in appearance.

“Yes, I do like that place.”
“The seat there is well-made.”
“And it’s warm there too.”

“You’re a strange child—it’s not like any friends come there, is it?”
“Mother dislikes that place because it’s dangerous.”

“But it can’t be helped—I like it.”

That day, for some reason unlike usual, she stubbornly retorted and glanced sideways.
Oshun felt a sudden unease.
Abruptly shifting approach, as if groping through her heart’s shadows, she began probing like this.
Though knowing such matters lay beyond this child’s grasp, she found herself compelled to pose riddles to her own mind—a peculiar loneliness taking hold.

“Aren’t you waiting for someone there? A friend or someone—that’s why you’re there, right?”

“No, that’s not the case—I’m just playing there.”
“If it’s so terrible, I’ll simply stop going there…”

Kiyoko turned away once more.

Oshun thought it would be unwise to press further and remained silent.
She wondered whether something akin to the dream she had seen was ceaselessly moving within this child’s mind too, drawing her toward that motion.
Since Oshun was troubled by Kiyoko’s peculiar tendency to voice oddly adult-like thoughts—she decided to ask once more.

“When you sit there, doesn’t it make you feel like someone—someone you know, your closest friend—might come? Don’t you actually know that?——”

Oshun said this and blushed, thinking it unlike herself, but Kiyoko seemed not to be thinking anything in particular and was staring blankly when she suddenly said—

“Tei-san, you see, Mother—”

Oshun turned cold.
“What about Tei-san?” Oshun asked in return.
But Kiyoko did not say anything more beyond that.
Oshun felt as though interrogating the matter would be terrifying.
For there remained in her mind’s eye the figures of the siblings—

“You shouldn’t be bringing up that child’s affairs at this point—what a strange girl you are!”
“That’s why they say I’m neurotic—let’s not speak of such things… You understand, don’t you?”

“Yes, that…”

Oshun suddenly felt her heart grow heavy and despondent.

Moreover, the figures of the siblings walking along the dry riverbed's embankment—still lingering in her half-awake mind—now drifted hazily into view as she gazed at Kiyoko's sleeping face.

The siblings always walked together along the sun-dappled road, both wearing red jackets and hats of matching color—the sister in slightly oversized shoes, the younger brother in somewhat undersized ones.
Oshun would often go shopping in the night-time town where those delicate figures hung weighted upon her right and left hands.
She bought identical things for them both.
At times they pushed from both sides until Oshun found herself forced into unsteady strides—as though her feet might be swept away beneath her by their combined force.
In these moments Oshun would slip into a cheerfully odd mood and frequently tell them—

“Don’t push me, please—Mother can’t walk like this!”

When told this, the siblings walked spaced about six inches apart, but each time they spoke of something, they pressed close enough to tread on each other’s feet.
Oshun walked on helplessly, jostled by the two.
Oshun felt a weight in both hands that shouldn’t have been there as she gazed at Kiyoko’s sleeping face.
Oshun sighed and went to the mirror stand to look at the photograph she could now view calmly.
Just looking brought calm to her heart.
Because her utterly resigned heart had kept that photograph’s reality lingering precisely in her eyes for just a brief while.
Oshun found that people’s words about forgetting with passing days instead lingered with inverted meaning.
Only one crucial thing remained in her eyes—smiles, words, footsteps.
Entering the bathhouse brought back the sensation of small feet in her hands.
Washing round feet with soap had nearly consumed her mind daily—picturing that figure on distant evening roads became as commonplace as shadows moving through the house.

The night's stillness resembled an embroidered picture with two pillows laid side by side; two sleeping faces so nearly identical they might be called rare in this world. Oshun fixed her clear, focused eyes on Kiyoko.
The two sleeping faces would open their eyes after entering bed and stay awake for a while, tickling each other or pulling hands and feet…… During those pure thirty minutes before sleep, Oshun—spreading her wings like a mother bird over them—would occasionally pause her sewing to gently scold the playful siblings.

“That’s enough now—off to bed with you. Tomorrow comes early.”

Sister made a troubled face and said with a giggle.

"It's Tei's fault again—see?"
"I'll tell on you."

But the little brother immediately pulled the futon over himself from above and tugged at Kiyoko’s foot from under the covers.
"Good night—you really must sleep now," Oshun said without turning toward them, sensing something tender in her heart—that uniquely quiet and settled nighttime hour…… But where had it gone? A small snore could be heard—a solitary one.
Oshun sighed.
The withered grasses growing along both sides of the dark night path came into view—there walked her small son with his usual plodding steps.
No matter how much she thought or resigned herself—even as she began forgetting—she couldn’t stop seeing her son’s figure fading into dusk.
Oshun’s habitual delusion—or rather this feeling of drawing out his form visible amid desolate windswept scenes to both savor and mourn—had lately become fully anticipated: she herself trailed behind him now walked alongside him he *knew* this he couldn’t possibly *not* know—and might Kiyoko too have been meeting and speaking with him all along unnoticed?
In this way we all meet—they aren’t grieving so… And I thought we mustn’t indulge needless loneliness.

III

“You came after all.”

Oshun stroked the head of the small son sitting in the bright living room.
Perhaps it was her imagination, but even his hair seemed to have grown brittle.
Though his body hadn’t become any stouter, his face alone appeared prematurely aged.

“Mother had been waiting such a long time.”
“You really did come after all.”

The son sat perched lightly, only murmuring vague assents in reply.
He scarcely looked at his mother’s eyes—appearing to deliberately avoid such moments.
Oshun rubbed his small round hands while,

“You must have so much to tell—go on, speak.”
“Since then—what you’ve done and seen, and there must still be so much more beyond that.”

The son silently gazed at the clock from time to time.
The clock that had been winding down since ancient times moved sluggishly with a hollow sound.

"But where did you come from?"
"Go on—say it."

"From over there——"

The son replied for the first time and feebly pointed his right fingers toward the street.
The mother leaned closer and asked again:

"That 'over there'—where exactly? The dry riverbed?"

"Yes. The dry riverbed."

"And where did you walk beyond that? Was it along the cliff top?"

“No.”

“From the embankment?”

“Yes, the embankment…”

“And beyond that?”

“I’ve forgotten what comes after that,” said the son.

He looked utterly unbothered, as if he’d genuinely forgotten it all.

“But you can’t just appear on the embankment out of nowhere—there’s an order to these things. There should be a path, like coming from upriver or descending from the cliff above. Tell Mother about that.”

“I forgot.”

“Really?”

“I really forgot.”
“Whenever I suddenly emerge onto the embankment, whether I walked beyond that point or not—I don’t know.”
“It feels like I might have been walking, but then again, maybe I wasn’t.”
“I just suddenly appear on the embankment anytime, that’s all.”

Oshun thought that might indeed be the case.
This child seemed to be recounting only what remained in his mind.
This child doesn’t lie, she thought.
But why would there be gaps in his memory? Everyone else seemed to remember—Oshun inquired again with a look of puzzled curiosity.

“Tell me what sort of place you’re usually in—stories from where you are, all sorts of things you remember.”

The son looked puzzled.

“The place where I am—isn’t it right here now? I’m not usually anywhere—I’m only here right now.”

Oshun broke into a faint cold sweat. “Then where were you before now? It’s about before you met Mother. Think carefully and tell me.”

“I forgot that.”
“I don’t remember.”

“How odd—”

Yet she found herself believing this might be true.
That he had abruptly appeared here was no lie.
His inability to recall what followed seemed plausible enough.
It struck her that perhaps everything would return at once—like evening lamps flickering on.

“So you remember Mother’s face clearly now—though you’ll have to forget it again anyway—”

“I suddenly remember—though I might still be forgetting things normally. It’s just that things abruptly come back.”

“Then you remember everyone at home now, right?”

“Yes, they come back to me all together—in order, you see.”

Oshun scrutinized her son carefully, one detail at a time—as if belatedly realizing—but found nothing about him that wasn’t her son.
Yet his entire being felt too sturdy, too hard.
When she knocked, it seemed a sound might ring out, and the beauty of his gaze possessed an extraordinary clarity beyond ordinary measure.

“You’ll be staying by Mother’s side from now on, won’t you? Mother has been waiting for such a time for so long—and you know that—so you won’t go anywhere and leave Mother alone? Your home is here—there’s nowhere else for you to return—so you’ll stay forever?”

But the son did not reply immediately; after a pause he stated flatly.

“I can’t stay here forever—before I know it, I won’t be able to remain by Mother’s side anymore.”
“I want to stay, but it’s not possible.”
“But why can’t you just stay like this forever?”

“Even if I stay like this, I’ll disappear—and everyone will forget me anyway. There’s nothing to be done.”

“Everyone will forget…”

After saying this, Oshun thought how indeed—if everyone forgot and even his shadow and form vanished—whether he stayed here or not would become much the same.
This child mysteriously knew this truth.
She believed she understood herself thoroughly.
“And Mother knows you keep visiting Kiyoko—I’ve seen it countless times in my dreams. Doesn’t it feel lonely—meeting her like that?”
“Mother worries you might start thinking that way and stop coming—you’re not one to visit so seldom.”

“Well, that’s…”

After uttering this simply, the son stared fixedly at his mother’s face.
Oshun too met his gaze with affected nonchalance.
“But what will you do if I stop coming?”
Having said this, the son tried to turn his eyes away from his mother.
Oshun hastily interjected.

“That isn’t true—you said you’d always be here! You could come for endless days if you wished! You’re somewhere where everything bends to your will!”

“No, that’s not the case.”
“It doesn’t go according to my thoughts.”
“Why is that?——”
“Why do you suppose?”

Oshun gazed toward the dry riverbed as if searching for something invisible. There was clear air and turbulent rapids. Nothing seemed to come into view. From all the desolate scenery across the area came only a certain expansive emptiness. Oshun, trying to connect this with her son, felt an even deeper desolation. For Oshun, everything had to be real; as she told herself she must place her son once more where she herself existed, a suffocating anguish seized her. She thought that holding such notions must torment him too. When Oshun considered this, she resolved to hold her son herself however briefly to prolong their time apart, then placed him on her lap and hugged him tightly. His body was warm and toasty.

Four

The mild autumn days continued—today too, Oshun noticed Kiyoko habitually playing near the stone steps.
In One-Sided Town, there were no passersby.
Oshun naturally approached Kiyoko.

“What are you doing?”

Oshun took in the dazzlingly white stones of the sunlit stone steps where Kiyoko sat blankly.

“No, I’m not doing anything at all.”

Kiyoko answered with an ordinary expression.

“But isn’t it strange to be doing that all alone?”

“Yes, that’s why I was thinking of going back now—it’s been getting colder here too, you know. And all the fish that used to be here in droves have gone to deeper waters—there’s none left by the shore.”

“It’s because winter is approaching—yes, the wind seems to have grown much harsher lately.”
“Look how cold your hands have gotten!”

“Yes, because it’s cold—”

Kiyoko was accompanied by her mother.
Oshun did not ask anything in particular.
That Kiyoko’s heart—drawn to the stone steps whenever she had a moment to spare—lay so transparently clear before Oshun only deepened her sense of something she must not inquire about.
Kiyoko abruptly said this.

“You understand why I only play there, Mother—it’s just that I’ve completely fallen into the habit now. Is it strange, I wonder?”

“Children your age tend to play only at their favorite spots once they find one. You must have taken a liking to that place too.”

“Yes, there are fish too….”

“Yes, the fish too.”

Oshun decided not to touch upon Kiyoko’s state of mind.
Even so, precisely because she could not believe that such a small soul could harbor a world so meticulously prepared—one it seemed to enjoy all by itself—Oshun sensed a strange bond with what might be called Kiyoko’s precocious delusions.

“And when I’m there, I notice how the snow creeping over the mountains spreads wider each day.”
“At night when I wonder how much more there’ll be by morning, what looked palm-sized already appears twice as big.”
“It happens so fast—soon they’ll all turn completely white, won’t they?”

“Oh yes, very soon—eventually they’ll whiten until the mountain slopes disappear. You know that distant peak far back?”
“The one shaped like a helmet always turns white first.”

“It’s a bit frightening, isn’t it? When I look at that, I feel like someone’s there sprinkling sugar.”

Oshun smiled and said, “It might snow here before long as well.”

When they reached their house’s gate，they stopped again as if by mutual accord．On the opposite bank，a schoolbound-looking child ambled along while dawdling．Kiyoko stared fixedly after them．Oshun，with nowhere else to direct her eyes，likewise focused her gaze．Unintentionally alighting upon shared thoughts，each seemed determined to conceal their sentiments from one another．They went inside—yet moments later，Kiyoko alone stood lingering before the gate once more．

“Ah, again?”

Oshun muttered while watching that retreating figure, and as thoughts of the child she had lost stirred up an unbearable restlessness within her, she absently stepped out to the entranceway.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being quietly called by something unseen—constantly.
The child, though it wasn’t raining, opened an umbrella like a country child and walked along the edge of the withered cliff.
When the wind blew, the cliff grass flipped its white undersides like wave crests.

“What are you staring at like that—isn’t it a bit cold?”

Kiyoko looked at her mother and grew embarrassed to find herself standing there again, but—
“Mother, that child’s eyes are crushed.”

“Crushed eyes? — Why do you say that?”

“I know that child—he was playing a harmonica on the train once.”
“Look, if you look closely, he’s wearing black glasses, right? So at first I didn’t think he couldn’t see, and when he suddenly started playing the harmonica, I was so startled.”

Oshun thought that indeed, the child did seem to be wearing glasses.
The area around his eyes was darkened and looked sorrowful.
Kiyoko said that that child had a habit of playing the harmonica immediately upon boarding the train.
Oshun didn’t understand what that meant, but the sight of the child walking alone, forlornly and ploddingly, lingered in her eyes.

“And the other day on the opposite bank, that child was fishing for crucian carp all by himself.”
“Just when I thought he looked familiar, that child had a face like he could see and was there with my brother.”
“What a strange child.”
“When the line twitches like that, he must notice it, right? Look, he kicks stones with his feet as he walks—he’s always doing things like that.”

Oshun had never once seen that child in town, but there was something about his walking manner—deliberative steps like those of a sightless person—that lingered in her mind.
Oshun found watching that somehow unpleasant.

“Please come inside.”

Oshun said this and let Kiyoko into the house, then closed the gate in the evening.
She thought that child had often cried out of habit when they closed the gates and shutters.