Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

The time to leave had come, but Yasu hadn’t arrived.
When they went to check the back parlor that had become a detached room—next to the half-moon window where bamboo leaf shadows swayed—only Nigatsu-dō stood visible; its master was nowhere to be found.

As she sat waiting by the wall, Yasu—now sixty-one—recalled how she had trudged all the way to Paris alone ten years earlier to meet her son Isaku.

Shigeko had been in Belgium with her husband Katsuhiko when, on the morning of December 29th as the month drew to its close, she was startled to receive a telegram from Yasu addressed to "Asuasa 10 Jipari Nitsuku."

Yasu was Shigeko’s maternal aunt who had lost her husband soon after giving birth to Isaku. At eighteen, she took charge of Nakasutei’s grand food stall—which employed forty servants alone—and became so renowned locally that people would say, “If you want to learn how to manage others, study under Nakasutei’s O-Yasu.”

Nagauta: Rokasaburō; dance: Mizuki.
She detested stinginess and anything flimsy above all else; her favorite foods were kanpyō strands and grilled early-season mushrooms.
A true Fukagawa native for three generations—one who ate live whitebait wrapped in raw nori—Yasu had never traveled further east than Shiobara or west beyond the Doryō-sama shrine in Odawara until that year; a woman who couldn’t bear to spend even a day away from Fukagawa. To imagine what emotions must have carried her to Marseille—how desolate that solitary journey to Paris must have felt—the mere thought tightened one’s chest.

Since he seemed constantly flitting about for amusement all year—Deauville in summer, Nice in winter—there was a chance he wasn’t even in Paris now; and even if he was, that lazybones hardly seemed likely to come bustling out to greet her.
At the station exit, Yasu appeared lost and bewildered—so visibly so that leaving her be became unthinkable.

Katsuhiko grew concerned too and insisted they should go check—so they sped by car to Brussels, caught the afternoon express, and arrived in Paris late at night. As expected, Isaku appeared to be off carousing somewhere, while Yasu’s telegram lay stored in the glass letter box marked with several blue pencil notations for redelivery.

When she stood waiting conspicuously on the platform, Yasu—wearing a mouse-navy crepe kimono with undulating patterns, a thickly padded blue-gray haori jacket lined for winter, Tamakiya’s horse-patterned paulownia geta, and carrying a kago Shingen-style bag—descended from the compartment in an outfit as if heading to Mount Tsukuba to view azaleas,

“Oh Shige, you really shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.”
“And Young Master...?”

“Isaku had unavoidable business to attend to, so I’m acting as his substitute.”

“Well, thank you kindly.”

As Yasu tried to exit the station entrance, she suddenly balked,
“They dropped me off in this sort of place, but here we are in Paris,”
she asked with a puzzled look.

“That’s right, this is Paris.”

When Shigeko nodded, Yasu looked around the sooty station square with a dismayed expression as a ragpicker emerged from a side street calling out “À la vieille chiffonnière!”

“Hmm,” Yasu remarked, “Paris has its charms after all. They’ve come selling treasure ships! Look—they’re shouting ‘Treasures! Treasures!’”

“Don’t be absurd,” Shigeko retorted. “No one sells ‘wave-riding boats’ in Paris! They’re calling for old clothes and rags. Now get in this taxi.”

As the taxi drove on, Yasu gradually grew more irritable,

“Paris is quite a shabby place, isn’t it.”
“Young Master—what on earth could make him dawdle around a place like this for seven or eight years?”
“When I was a child, we sang in that world tour song—‘Come to flowery Paris and see the Seine reflecting the moonlight’—but it turned out to be pure fantasy.”
“Unbelievable!”

and she began denouncing.
Shigeko looked intently at Yasu’s face,

“The one who’s exasperated here is me.”
“What on earth possessed you to trudge all the way here alone to a place like this?”

Yasu responded with unexpected composure,

“Now that Nobu has agreed to take over the shop, I had some free time on my hands, so I just came for a little visit.”

“I don’t know why, but whoever sent it must be quite something.”
“You must have had such a hard time.”
“And how was Marseille?”

“It was nothing at all.”

“It couldn’t have been nothing.”
“But you managed to send a telegram even to me, didn’t you?”

Yasu made a strange face,

“What telegram?”

“It’s because you sent a telegram from Marseille that I’ve come all the way from Belgium to meet you like this, isn’t it?”

“That wasn’t me.”
“Since I’d forgotten your address back in Japan, there was no way I could’ve sent one anyway.”

“But who else besides you would send a telegram?”

Perhaps Yasu too thought it strange—her face still clouded with unresolved thoughts—

"In Marseille, I didn't feel the least bit anxious, you know."
"After clearing customs, I was planning to have someone from a travel agency take me to the station when a lady came up and said, ‘All alone from Japan? My, my.’"
“My, my!”
“That must have been so trying for you.”
“If it’s the station, I shall take you there.”
“...she said, ‘I happen to have a friend’s car available.’”

“How convenient that worked out.”

“She was thirty-seven or thirty-eight, slim and refined—an indescribably fine-looking woman. ‘Since there was still time,’ she said, ‘she took me to this terribly chic waterfront restaurant—one that looked just like those near Akashi-machi Funagata—where she treated me to splendid shrimp and raw oysters, and then...’”

“So that person also sent the telegram for you?”

“That’s right.”
“But it was such an odd thing.”
“I was so flustered I only gave them the telegram’s wording and forgot to mention the Young Master’s address, so it was all for nothing.”
“It wasn’t until after the train had left that I realized my mistake—I kept worrying all the way to Paris about the trouble I’d caused—but I was so relieved when you were there to meet me.”

Setting aside Isaku for now, she wondered who that person could have been who had sent a telegram all the way to Brussels.

"Did I ever ask that person's name?"

"You just didn't notice. But that person would be recognizable anywhere. She saw me off on the platform until the train departed—I've never seen such a sorrowful, heartrendingly beautiful face. It still remains vividly in my mind's eye."

Having said that, as if she had just thought of it, she took out some salt rice crackers from Kago Shingen and,

“Shige, you used to like these, didn’t you.”
“They’re from Tamaruya in Ginza.”
“When the luggage arrives, there’s a whole heap inside.”

She was eating while gazing at the shifting riverside scenery when she spotted the Eiffel Tower faintly towering through the thin haze and clapped her hands in delight,

“Hey, that’s the Eiffel Tower, isn’t it… Back during the 1907 Paris World Exposition, they used to show me those photos all the time.”
“My, my, how nostalgic.”

She had been smiling as if she’d met an old acquaintance in a foreign land, but once they crossed Passy Bridge,

“Hey, Shige, do you think one can go up there?”
“If I said I saw the first sunrise from the top of the Eiffel Tower, that’d be quite the story to tell, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, you can go up.”
“But since that place opens at ten o’clock, you can’t exactly catch the sunrise.”

“Yes, yes, that’s perfectly fine.”

Yasu hurried into the room and, upon seeing Shigeko sitting there,

“Oh Shige, you were here all along. It’s time already. Let’s get going.”

she urged.

II

After passing Kawasaki, the sound of wind striking the front window gradually grew stronger. White wave crests rose offshore as flocks of pigeons wheeled in circles against the wind atop warehouse roofs. When she imagined being mercilessly battered by coastal winds, she suddenly became conscious of her vividly red hair, wishing she had worn different clothing instead.

The baggage inspections on European repatriation ships never went smoothly, and this time was no exception—when a whole trove of jewels turned up in a child’s socks, they were detained for five days off Kannonzaki; just as they finally received landing permission, a typhus patient emerged during quarantine, leading to dreadful chaos.

Yasu neatly aligned the toes of her white tabi socks and, with her plump face, seemed deep in thought, but—

“I had long since resigned myself to the fact that Isaku would never return.”

she blurted out such a thing.

“Huh? Why?”

“There’s no particular reason why—I just felt that way. So even if he were to come back, somehow I can’t bring myself to believe it’s real.”

“What does it matter whether he comes back or not?”
“It’s unavoidable.”
“After nearly twenty years in Europe doing whatever he pleased, to be forced back at forty-two—it’s absurd.”
“You’re familiar with Ambassador Chida, who was assigned to Ankara, Turkey—”

“When Mr. Chida was still a secretary, he used to visit occasionally.”

“Just the other day I heard that Mr. Chida couldn’t bear his nostalgia… He became so desperate to return to Japan that it drove him to a nervous breakdown, and he and his wife committed pistol suicide.”

“That Mr. Chida… along with his wife.”
“That’s so dreadful.”

“After all, his posting was Ankara.”
“When I imagine how excruciating it must have been for them to go that far, I truly comprehend their anguish.”
“Yet even with such people existing—someone like Isaku would just keep gazing toward Europe if he returned, living like an empty husk, wouldn’t he?”
“If he can avoid coming back at all, then that sort of person shouldn’t return.”
“Do you still want to meet him?”

“I do want to see him.”

“Mothers really are foolish creatures, aren’t they.”
“To still yearn for your son after all that misery?”

“Weeell, I’m a fool anyway.”

Leaving Yasu in the car, she went to Yamashita Pier to check things out but couldn’t make sense of the situation at all.
Cold wind and sea spray blew against the pier as she paced back and forth, her skin prickling with cold, but concluding that the repatriates were likely at the camp, she headed that way.

When she went to the lodging house, Isaku was there but did not show himself, and someone like a hotel porter came out instead, telling her to wait at a house called Hagi House in Isogo and that he would come right after.

What name this residence might have borne originally remained unclear—though fitted with bamboo lattice windows and sukiya-style refinement that suggested tasteful elegance, no scrolls hung in its alcove. A flower basket on the alcove post held thistles and sedge tossed in as if making excuses, while the cedar-plank ceiling bore bush clover painted gold and pale green across its entire surface. This seemed to be the fashionable style these days, but even so, it was a peculiar sight.

Perhaps what they called a "waterfall obstruction"—a single straight-trunked maple tree stretched its branches diagonally across the slender cascade tumbling down beyond the pond, reaching toward the plunge pool below. True to its name as Hagi House, bush clovers were planted across the entire garden, even in the margins by the stepping stones.

Isaku had said he would come right away but still hadn't arrived even past eleven o'clock.
Yasu leisurely gazed at the garden before walking over to the alcove where she cradled a celadon incense burner in her palms and began examining it with an air of reverence.
Shigeko was growing irritated.

“What’s happened to him? He’s terribly late. It’s been two hours already.”

Venting her frustration,
Yasu—
“He probably went off somewhere to have fun and forgotten all about us,”
she said in a disinterested tone,
keeping her back turned.
“Even so,
he can’t possibly be unaware
that there’s someone who’s been longing for him like this.”

Yasu turned toward us without rising from where she sat,

“I’ve always been kept waiting my whole life. I waited in Japan, went off to Paris and waited—these twenty years, it feels like I’ve done nothing but wait for the Young Master’s return. In Paris, I’d sit in that velvet chair by the window and do nothing but strain my ears for footsteps. But that was my own selfishness. Once children grow up, a mother becomes unnecessary. It’s only natural, and though they drove me out of the apartment calling me a bothersome old woman and telling me to go back to Japan—since I was the one who went there to pester them—I’ve no right to complain. But at the time, it was so sad that I cried my eyes out all the way to Marseille. Because I didn’t want to be seen by French people, I’d sometimes go out into the hallway to cry, or sometimes go into the bathroom to cry.”

With that, she let out a soft chuckle.

This level of dotingly foolish parenting marked the dead end; Shigeko found herself with nothing left to say,

"If you went through all that and still managed to laugh, that's just adding to our troubles."

"But it was absurd, don't you think? I sat crying unrestrainedly on the closed lid of a train's Western-style toilet. I can't help laughing when I recall that posture."

“Oh, come now—keep up this act of feigned ignorance all you like.”
“Since you’re saying that, I’ll say it too—there was never a time as trying as that one.”
“Even when morning came, Isaku didn’t return, and you just sat there rigidly in that Jikusen black-crested kimono or whatever.”
“Even if Paris doesn’t do proper New Year’s celebrations, you can’t expect people here to grasp that right away—so we rushed to Édouard at Madeleine only to find this peculiar Masamune bottle with an anchor mark, and would you believe it, there was just one miserable bottle left.”
“We had no choice but to procure that, heat it in a handled pot, and serve a round with oil-preserved sardines—that was fine, but there was less than seven shaku (about 126 ml) after all.”
“The two of us had barely taken a sip or two when it was already gone.”
“Because you were sitting there with your hands on your knees, solemnly waiting for more—when I told you ‘The otoso’s already gone,’ you went ‘Oh dear, how strange.’”
“‘What the hell is this?’ you snapped, didn’t you.”
“There was never anything more pathetic than that.”

Yasu laughed gently and,

“If there wasn’t any, then there wasn’t any—or rather, that’s fine.”
“Because you served it so stingily.”
“But the Eiffel Tower was nice, wasn’t it.”
“Getting off the elevator and climbing the stairs was a struggle, but I still haven’t forgotten that view.”

“It was quite something how you started clapping loudly and worshiping the sun on the fourth-floor observation deck, wasn’t it.”

As they were saying such things, she suddenly remembered something.

“When we were walking through Champ de Mars after coming down from the Eiffel Tower, you suddenly shouted ‘Young Master!’ in a loud voice, didn’t you.”
“What was that?”

Yasu tilted her head exaggeratedly and,

“Huh, I don’t recall.”
“That must’ve been your imagination.”

With that, she feigned a look of incomprehension.

Seeing how she feigned ignorance made it clear something had indeed occurred, but since defending Isaku would inevitably lead to endless complications as had always been the case, Shigeko decided questioning her would prove futile and gave up.

When the maid came to inform them of a phone call and they answered, it turned out to be Isaku.

“What’s going on? Keeping someone waiting this long?”

“Things have piled up—can’t slip away right now.”
“I’ll send a substitute, so start without waiting.”
“Take your time with things and I’ll make it by the end. Later.”

“Hold on a second!”
“What do you mean by ‘substitute’?”
“Don’t send over anyone too strange, please.”

“You should know already.”
“Mr. Miki who was branch manager at S Bank’s Boston office.”

“Yes, I know.”
“Mr. Toshiyoshi.”

“I was in the same Paris camp as Ms. Toshōko—that man’s daughter—and since they don’t know where Mr. Miki’s evacuation site in Yokohama was after it burned down, I thought I’d look after her at my place for a while during that time.”

“That’s an unusually solemn story for you.”
“Yes, I understand perfectly.”

“Ms. Toshōko, I’ll come over there in about ten minutes.”

III

As Shigeko stared in astonishment at the face of the young woman named Toshōko, she thought she had never before seen such beautiful skin nor such a perfectly formed profile in all her born days. At the collar of her chestnut-blossom crested kimono peeked a pale tea-colored half-collar, while her embroidered chigusa brocade obi was tied in a slightly elevated drum shape. The haori of cool-toned chirimen silk bore a single crest, its sleeves revealing glimpses of red lining patterned with large snowflakes.

Toshōko sat lightly near the damp veranda in the eaves’ shadow gazing at the garden, then turned toward Shigeko and,

“Would this flower be bush clover?”

Toshōko asked quietly.
Shigeko went to stand beside her,

“Yes, that’s right.”
“That’s mountain bush clover, over there’s bean bush clover… tree bush clover… and that one’s Chiyo bush clover.”
“But those won’t bloom unless it’s April.”

Toshōko tilted her head as she gazed at the cluster of bush clover flowers,

“The flowers are quite chic and lovely, but the leaves aren’t common at all.”

she said.
Shigeko couldn’t help laughing and,

“You might be the first person to ever compliment bush clover leaves.”
“Speaking of which, it seems there was no bush clover in France.”

“In France, there are Lespedeza that look somewhat similar, but they’re entirely different species, you know.”

Having said that, she fluidly gathered her gaze and,

“When I want to see flowers that exist only in Japan and not in France, there are times I feel so suffocated I don’t know what to do.”
“Long ago, Mother and I would often go to Etretat to pick horsetails.”

“In France, horsetails are called ‘mouse tails,’ aren’t they?”

“When we pick horsetails back home, villagers passing by tease us with ‘Rien de coûteux à manger’—meaning there’s nothing decent left to eat in this country.”

Suddenly the sunlight dimmed. The scent of moss blended with damp sea air seeped coldly through the room. Where Toshōko sat beneath the deepening eaves’ shadow, the muted colors of her kimono sank damply into gloom, while her pale skin shone vivid as if about to take flight.

Had this been the usual Shigeko, she would have noticed immediately; it seemed strange she had overlooked it until now without giving it a second thought. When seen like this, it was attire suited for someone around thirty, but the fact that it didn’t look the least bit odd on a girl of eighteen or nineteen made her think this must be truly an extraordinary person.

“Excuse my forwardness, but that attire has quite a splendid color scheme, doesn’t it?”

Toshōko gazed at Shigeko with deep, faintly bluish eyes while,

“Thank you for your kind words.”
“But this is my mother’s hand-me-down.”
“She had it made when she briefly returned to Japan once. Mother loved this kimono so much—she’d often say I should wear this home if I ever went back to Japan—so today I worked up the courage to try it on.”
“But thirty years makes it quite démodé, doesn’t it?”

“I hear you were with Isaku at the camp in Paris.”

“I stayed with twelve others for about seventy days, but Mr. Hisazumi showed me great kindness.”
“He looked after me in many ways during the voyage too.”

Yasu had been listening to their conversation with a smile, but suddenly,

“Madam, have you known Isaku since long ago?”

Yasu asked.
Toshōko softened her eyelids and,
"No, that was our first meeting."
"I see. Well, well."
"Truly a mysterious bond."

Shigeko laughed,

“What an old-fashioned way to call it a mysterious bond.”

“But for strangers who didn’t know each other to meet at a camp—that’s what you call a truly remarkable bond. If there’d been no war, they might’ve gone their whole lives without ever meeting.”

The maid came to inform them about a phone call.

“Yes, this is Miki.”

As Toshōko went out, Yasu sidled up to Shigeko’s side and—

“Shige, you’ve noticed—”

With wet, deer-like eyes fixed on Shigeko’s face,

“Toshōko is my granddaughter.”

she said in a whisper.
Shigeko looked back at Yasu’s face exasperatedly and,

“What on earth are you trying to say now?”

Yasu suddenly adopted an imposing demeanor,

“If she’s Isaku’s daughter, then she’s my granddaughter—there’s no arguing that.”

Shigeko recoiled under the relentless pressure,

“That’s something Isaku said.”

“No.”
“But I can tell for sure.”

Shigeko pulled her shoulders back,

“Please stop saying such strange things.”
“She doesn’t look anything like Isaku!”
“Her eyes? Her nose? Nothing!”
“You’ve lost your mind.”

“They say a father and daughter resemble each other from behind, and it’s true.”
“The retreating figure just now… The way her shoulders were set, her neck, even the very top of her head—it’s exactly like Isaku’s.”
“To confess—under the Eiffel Tower, I let out that shrill ‘Young Master!’ didn’t I?”
“It seems you didn’t notice, but a car carrying Isaku and a woman passed right in front of us.”
“So that woman was the same Madam who was so kind to us back in Marseille.”

“What a fateful meeting this is.”

Yasu nodded,

“If you think that’s something, there’s something even more significant.”
“Ms. Toshōko is the spitting image of that woman.”

The sensational scandal of Miki Kuniko abandoning her husband Toshikiyo and eloping to Europe led the Paris and London branches of newspapers, under orders from their main offices, to harshly pursue Kuniko’s trail.
It was certain that she was in Europe with a man, but they ultimately succeeded in neither locating her whereabouts nor identifying who he was.
Some time later, there were two or three people who claimed to have seen Kuniko in places like Spa in Belgium and Vevey in Switzerland.

Squinting at the bush clover flowers swaying like waves, Shigeko pondered deeply—how could Yasu, who shouldn’t have been able to see it, have witnessed what was likely their single moment of carelessness?

Toshōko returned with a lively expression, appearing unable to contain her joy as she—

“It was from Mr. Hisazumi.”
“He said he won’t make it for your lunch, but will definitely return by evening.”

“Thank you for your trouble.”
“That was quite a long phone call, wasn’t it?”
“Did something amusing happen?”

When Shigeko said this, Toshōko—losing all her inherent dignity—shook with such force that her body seemed about to come apart,

“He guessed it.”
“It was such an amusing phone call.”
“It’s the first time Mr. Hisazumi has laughed like that.”
“And then, when I tried to hang up, he went, ‘A little more, a little more’—”

Quiet footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the maids entered carrying meal trays.

The menu consisted of sea bream sashimi for the main dish, carp stew for the soup, young chicken and lotus root simmered in broth for the bowl course, crispy fried moss fish for the grilled dish, an assortment of sweetfish for the hassun course, and a palate cleanser.
The sea bream sashimi laid out on perilla leaves and the moss fish accompanied by autumn-leaf-red grated radish all held an indescribable beauty tinged with melancholy. Even in Toshōko’s face as she sat across from Yasu sharing the meal, there was something that seemed to resonate with that beauty, and a love akin to sorrow—so unbearably poignant—clutched at her chest.

When the meal trays were cleared and thin tea was served, Yasu, still holding her tea bowl, turned to face Toshōko.

“May I abruptly ask something rather peculiar—did your esteemed mother by any chance come to Marseille around the end of Showa 12?”
“It’s something from long ago, so you may not remember...”

“Showa 12 would be the thirty-seventh year of Showa [1937], correct?”
“I remember it well.”
“On the morning of December 28th, as someone who absolutely had to be met had arrived in Marseille, she departed in a great hurry.”

“I had just arrived from Japan when a middle-aged lady who looked exactly like you kindly assisted me in various ways—so that was indeed your esteemed mother, I see. I forgot to ask her name and was unable to express my gratitude, but how has your esteemed mother been faring since then?”

Toshōko looked down with lowered eyes,

“My mother passed away when the car she was in fell off a cliff on the way from Marseille to San Remo.”

“That’s most unfortunate.”
“On New Year’s Day in January, I happened to see someone passing by the Eiffel Tower in a car—so that was…”

Toshōko widened her eyes,

“Mother passed away on the afternoon of the 30th.”

Yasu glanced briefly at Shigeko’s face as if casually, returned the tea bowl, placed both hands on her knees, and fell completely still.

When the maid came again to inform them of a phone call and Shigeko went to answer it, returning after some time, Toshōko was gone.

“Where’s Ms. Toshōko?”

“She went to look at the garden.”

Sure enough, Toshōko’s figure—bathed in soft sunlight—was visible amidst the bush clover along the pond’s edge.

Shigeko sat down there, face drained of blood as an indescribable faint smile surfaced.

“It was just as you said.”
“Oh… oh…”
She propped herself up with her right hand on the tatami mat,

“Since you’d seen through everything, I suppose you won’t be surprised.”
“Now, please don’t be surprised.”
“Isaku is dead.”
“…The hotel contacted us.”
“It sounds like a dreadful hotel.”
“The way they spoke was downright vulgar… Sat on a suitcase, still wearing his coat, shot himself in the head with a pistol… Oh… oh…”

Yasu turned her face upward, listening silently in a posture that seemed to gaze at the ceiling, but the moment she lowered her face, a single glistening thing fell onto her lap.

“Poor thing, poor thing… I knew everything,” she said in a low voice. “But how did you know it would come to this?”

“I’ve known everything about the Young Master and Mrs. Miki since long ago.”
“When someone goes on deceiving the world like that for ten or twenty years, I’d already resigned myself to them meeting no good end… I couldn’t leave it be—that’s why I went all the way to Paris back then—but Mrs. Miki must’ve thought if they were to be forcibly separated, she’d rather die outright.”
That New Year’s morning when she showed herself standing beside the Young Master—perhaps it had been a plea to at least let her shadow remain by his side…… For a father and daughter to first encounter each other in an internment camp—this was karmic bond.
“The Young Master—who’d never abandon the land where that person dwelled—leaving France to specially bring Ms. Toshōko all the way to Japan… This was love… I’ll go to the Young Master now, so you take Ms. Toshōko home.”