Pathway to Japanese Literature

To this long-familiar coast he returned after ten years.
As everywhere seemed to be, here too all had been flattened by the earthquake disaster—not a single house remained with pillars retaining any glossy sheen.
The town lay parched and desolate throughout, yet the moist sea breeze still carried nostalgia.
With someone disabled among them, half the joy of their family trip inevitably diminished—whether boarding cars upon leaving home or reaching station platforms. Yet putting that aside, that he himself could accompany the children in this third year became their first true delight in ages.
He had entrusted the children to a familiar inn both last year and the year before.
Preventing the onslaught of that one child—who for three years had perpetuated family destruction more cruel than bold—lay beyond what servants could manage.

"If only that man could lend even a little help this year..."
He couldn't help thinking.
In truth, whenever something arose, with their current numbers he alone was insufficient, but he too had gradually grown accustomed to managing a household without a housewife.
And he had come to feel that controlling everything himself—from the depths of wardrobes and wicker trunks to every kitchen corner—proved ultimately more reassuring and engaging than depending on anyone else.
The slender eldest daughter too had gradually learned to attend to such matters.

“Shall we go to the mountains this year, or the sea? What do you all think!”
He would sometimes pop into the children’s room and ask.

“I want the sea!”
Little Kyoko was always decisive.

“So you want the sea?”

“In the mountains you just walk with adults all the time—it’s so boring!”

Those words made him recall the four or five days they had spent in Karuizawa last year.

“Personally, I prefer the mountains, but the coast would be just as well for me.”
“Since I can’t go out to the sea anyway.”

The third son—who had been suffering from tuberculous osteomyelitis in his hip joint and lying on a chaise longue day and night ever since returning from the coast last year—spoke.

Haruyo, the eldest daughter, and Shin, the fourth son, offered no particular opinions.
Haruyo had even considered staying behind alone to guard the house.
Though spending a summer as her little sister's companion sometimes bored her as she grew more aware of life's rhythms, she couldn't bear to leave Kyoko—who couldn't endure half a day without her sister—solely under the men's supervision.

The seaside where he thought to spend one summer with the children—even deciding where to choose proved difficult for him.
He had recently grown weary of superficial urban civilization.
In every aspect, he himself had been feeling the dead end of urban life.
Being nothing but an extension of urban ills, he had no desire to visit such nearby coasts.

“Unless it’s a place that takes at least three or four hours to reach, I won’t feel like we’ve traveled at all.”
The opinion of the child with mobility issues aligned with his.

One day he went to the Bōsō coast intending to find a relatively safe spot—some familiar place where the child with mobility issues wouldn’t get bored—and thus ended up returning to this very shore after all.

He departed Tokyo in the cool evening and arrived at the long-familiar inn around nine at night.
And the next day, he decided to rent a single newly built house relatively close to the sea.
There, green rice fields could be seen spread out expansively from within the room.
The soft sea breeze crossed over the pine grove, rustling and rippling the green rice fields.
The smells of chickens, cows, and manure pits did not reach them.
And the construction was sturdy, with wood grain that pleased him.
There was a scent of cypress and cedar wood.
The space was also sufficient.

“Considering both the view and cleanliness, it must be the best house along that coast.”
When he returned home, he told this to the children.
Then the inn’s daughter who had grown familiar with the children brought freshly picked honey peaches all the way to the station and let them eat.
The fruit carried a fresh fragrance impossible to find in city shop displays.

A day or two earlier, he had taken the eldest son and little Kyoko to Marunouchi to look for swimsuits and hats.
But no decent swimsuits could be found.
So he resolved to buy Kyoko a cool summer dress.
He let Kyoko pick her favorite.
This was settled immediately.
As it was Bon Festival season, the Maru Building shop typically issued lottery tickets.
Kyoko received one too.

“Go and draw it.”

Kyoko went with her elder brother to draw it.

He was peering into an antique shop.
He had a habit of peering into such places at times.

After a while, the eldest son came along wearing a dirty Panama hat.

“Papa, Kyoko drew second prize!”
“I was shocked—just when I thought it was all commotion, they said it’s second prize!”

“Really!” When he said this and turned around, Kyoko stood holding a large formal package tied with ceremonial cords. Two or three unfamiliar women had stopped to watch, smiling.

“Dear children are so innocent, aren’t they?”

“Kyoko，let me see that.”
“Let’s open it up.”

Kyoko handed it to her eldest brother．

“What’s this？”

“It’s a bond, definitely.”
“See?”
“A reconstruction bond.”

“How splendid.”
He laughed too, but both he and the eldest son felt something humorously akin to emotion.

“Kyoko’s got good luck.”
“This bond might win again!”
“Could be about three thousand yen, depending.”

“When will they draw it?”

“Not sure when though.”

“No!”

“Anyway Papa—since Kyoko’s dress ended up being free.”
“Even with buying pants and other bits, we still got about a yen in change back.”

“Right.”
“Let’s go show it at the house we bought.”

The three of them stopped by that shopfront again.
The store staff were smiling.

Then they walked about here and there, bought some pants and shirts for the boys along with other such things, and went down to the cafeteria below.

On a hot afternoon before the Bon Festival, Ms. F arrived bringing something bulky with the eldest son.
It was a fluffy thing still wrapped in paper.
The eldest son placed it before him and smiled.

“What’s all this?”
He too was laughing.

“Since your summer bedding was missing… we wanted to buy something for you…”

“Summer bedding? That’s quite something.”

Earlier that winter as well, at Ms. F’s place and on her recommendation, he had bought bedding fabric, but it had been left as it was, stored away somewhere.
He continued wearing the same heavy meisen silk night robe with torn sleeves and haphazard stripes through both winter and summer.
The children, too, had mostly been wearing the same unwashed things for three years.
Every time he peeked into the children’s bedroom, he was always thinking of replacing their bedding with something a bit fresher and more pleasant.
That was completely opposite to when his wife had been alive.
He would usually reject his wife’s proposals for new household arrangements.
The motherless children never demanded anything beyond absolute necessities before their father.
Even when asked if there was anything she wanted, Haruyo, now nineteen and the eldest daughter, would only reply with things like, “I have what I need,” or “There’s nothing I need.”
He did not consider this a favorable situation, but lately his pockets had always been empty.
Opportunities to buy clothes for Haruyo were rare.
Of course, he had never thought to raise the children in the manner his urban-taste wife had done.
He could not help but wish for his children to gain the strength to live rightly.
The reason he had resolved this spring to break off her engagement—one that for two years had permitted domestic interactions with a bourgeois-class young man under both families' supervision—was because he wanted Haruyo to gain a true life.
During his recent romantic incident, it was she who had consistently been placed in the most difficult position both socially and within the family.
He had to make amends for that.
Pure love welled up within him.
He now had no room left to love anything else.
That was not solely born from his role as Kyoko’s guardian.

The eldest son and Ms. F were returning from selecting Bon Festival gifts at the Ginza department store.
Ms. F was sitting at the entrance of the room.

“It was so hot—so hot—I thought I’d faint.”
“My mind’s gone all muddled.”

“Right.”
“Why don’t you have something cold to drink?”

“No thank you.”
“I couldn’t possibly take anything.”
Ms.F turned to the maid,

“Excuse me—might I trouble you for a glass of cold water?”

“Right.”
“But why on earth would you do such a thing?”

“I did consider a refrigerator or electric fan, but since you dislike such things.”

“What on earth is this?”

The child opened the wrapping paper.

“There weren’t any patterns we liked.”
“If you dislike it, I’ve arranged to have it exchanged.”

“This should work.”
“Refreshingly simple.”

It was a summer duvet of ro-silk gauze patterned with grand peonies shaded in pale meadow-green and rose-blushed crimson.

“Huh—I wouldn’t wear something like that.”

“It’s fine.”
“For someone like your father…”

“In summer, it’s better to have something a bit more refreshing.”

He thought that might be acceptable too.
And when Haruyo—feeling unwell—was escorted home from school by two friends in a car a few days later, everything proved ready just in time.

By the second day, Haruyo had left her bed.

“There was supposed to be one of Father’s linen futons.”
“Is that one gone too?”
He asked Haruyo, as if suddenly reminded by that gift.

Haruyo was thinking.

“There is one, but it’s quite soiled.”

“Right.”
“Why don’t you take it out?”

After a short while, Haruyo searched it out from the storage room and brought it.
Apparently someone had been wearing it—the collar and such were stained with grime.

“How about washing this?”

“I meant to do it last year, but…”

He also remembered that there had been summer bedding for the children.

“Oh, that one too was unfolded, washed, stretched, then stored away as is.”
“I meant to have it done last summer, but that woman didn’t do it for me.”

“Why don’t you take everything out?”

Haruyo brought out several pieces of leather along with the lining fabric.
He was concerned about the bedding to take to the summer retreat.
He had been thinking—should he buy ready-made ones, or have them made at the old familiar futon shop?

“There they are!
“In that case, there was no need to buy new ones.”
“Do we have any cotton batting?”

“We do.
If we re-card it and buy enough to make up the shortfall.”

Haruyo brought out another bolt of linen futon fabric.

“Huh, there’s this too.”
“What happened to this?”

“Not sure.”
Even Haruyo had no memory of it.

“Probably something Mother bought and put away. We can have this tailored.”

“That’s splendid.”
The maid was also laughing.

“I guess Dad’s the one who has to keep track of things.”

From the mire of reality, his feet would likely never escape.

“The little miss heard she’s going to the sea tomorrow and went to bed absolutely delighted,” said the maid Oshino to him one night when he returned late and peeked into the children’s room.
He was slightly taken aback but also found it somewhat amusing.

“Ah, right.
I wonder if the things to take are in order.”

“Oh, everything should be mostly in order.
The little miss has neatly packed her own belongings...”

“It’s not as if we can go tomorrow, I suppose…” he muttered.
He had often considered defenses against his alcoholic second son, but ultimately there was nothing to do but follow the children’s advice—gather their luggage in one room and fasten a lock.
After his wife’s death, he had tried making their home more open, only to confront the harsh truth that a family dwelling must instead remain sealed.
Even when the second son stayed completely away, possessions kept disappearing.
The thief wasn’t always that man alone.
Lately it had become commonplace for items that had been right before his eyes to vanish unnoticed.
He had long sensed they needed a Western-style house with proper door locks.

“And then the second young master did come in.”
“Right after you leave.”

“Right.
“And then what happened?”

“With nowhere left that would trust him and no place to sleep, he ended up sleeping on benches in Ueno Park for three nights straight. He said he got bitten this badly by mosquitoes—his eyes sunken, and compared to when you last saw him, he’s grown completely haggard. It was truly pitiful.”
“He said, ‘I won’t do anything wrong, so please just let me have a meal,’ then took a single summer garment.”
Oshino was teary-eyed.

He too felt uneasy.
When securing the coastal house earlier, he had even considered leaving that man there all summer with his brothers.
He’d been informed his second son now haunted their neighborhood again—drinking at cafés and soba shops, taking fabric bolts from kimono stores, extorting five-, ten-, twenty-yen sums from greengrocers and haulers until nothing remained.
The tasks grew increasingly intricate.
Some days brought pleas from three different merchants he had to address.
The children were utterly trapped.
However desperate—starving, homeless—that man still schemed for drink money.
Even at the coast now, he knew his name would be bartered for liquor.

“You should stop that.”
“If we leave it like that, things will only get worse, but then again…”
The eldest son was also perplexed.

“No matter what we do, that isn’t going to stop, is it.”

“Jirō’s never been able to get along with us brothers from the start.”
The disabled child also said.
“If he were bad in his own way, we could still become allies, but Jirō betrays his friends’ kindness without a second thought.”
“He seems friendly enough, but none of us really understand Jirō.”
“Because he never tells his friends anything.”

“Moreover, how uncomfortable that man must feel being around us.”
“That’s pitiable.”

In the end, he decided to lock just one room.
And the next day, those who went to buy locks went to buy them, those sorting out stored clothing sorted them out, those transporting items transported them, and those attaching locks to doors attached them.
Separately, delivery workers had come again and begun packing the bedding and other items to take to the coast.

Since there was still time, everyone gathered in the chair room.
The disabled child, dressed in a newly tailored Western suit that hung on his spindly frame, leaned heavily on his cane as he shuffled about the room.
He had just had pus drained at the hospital two days prior.

In the train car, Kyoko was fidgeting excitedly all by herself.
The disabled child was leaning against the rearmost cushion, stretching his slender neck to greedily gaze at the vast green fields he could see for the first time in two years.
Before long, Kyoko, who had placed her brother on a cushion as if tending to him, came to her father and sister’s side.
The Ludo game was spread out on Haruyo’s lap by Kyoko.

“Last year, I was the first to walk here,” he recalled Saburō saying while gripping his shoulder as they walked along the platform...
He recalled the words he had just heard from his eldest son standing beneath the window before departure, while at the same time imagining the bleak coastal life they—the children alone—had endured those two summers: the year before last and last year.
One summer they had a youth who liked children accompany them; another summer it was just the children alone.
Every place the train passed through was scenery familiar to the children.
They nostalgically exchanged memories of that day.

After growing tired of the Ludo game that had continued for a while, the cardboard board was soon folded up.

“I didn’t bring any sweets.”
He felt a lonely pang at having no food prepared for the children’s first trip in years.

“Oh,”
Haruyo, who until now had been somewhat animated in the Ludo game at her younger sister’s urging, made an apologetic face.

“There are some, Papa.”
The fourth son laughed as he looked up at the luggage rack, where three or four Sanma oranges left in the basket since yesterday and one melon still wrapped in paper had been placed.

“Today’s exactly when that melon’s perfectly ripe.”
“That’s why I brought it along.”
The disabled child said from behind.

The Sanma oranges were taken down first.

“Sea! Sea!”

After a short while, Kyoko shouted and rushed over to the window on the opposite side.

Neither he nor the children found the four dull hours on the train to be boring.
And he soon arrived at N—— Town.

“This is nice!”
“Splendid.”

Supported by his younger sister and brother, the disabled child who had entered the room stood leaning on his cane at the wide veranda. Gazing joyfully at the green rice fields swaying in the wind like soft blue hair, the greenish-purple mountain visible beyond the pine grove, and the white clouds drifting across the azure sky above them, he exclaimed with delight.

“Here, you probably won’t get so bored.”
“If I stay here, I don’t need to go to the sea.”

And while waiting for the luggage to arrive, he sat on a chair that had been brought from the inn and rested from the fatigue of the train journey.

“Come on, let’s eat the melon. Let’s chill it a little first.”

After returning to Tokyo, he ate dinner out with a certain young man one evening and went out to Ginza.
A hot yellow wind blew through Ginza.
Pale-faced men and women dressed as if they were mannequins continued to stream through the streets as always.

He spent about three days at the sea with the children. Even there along that coast, the cables were already growing outdated in style. Some carried large umbrellas too. Though the earthquake-devastated town remained impoverished, its shoreline alone thrived with red and green rubber hats. Ten times more city folk had come than a decade earlier, churning up the shallows with their splashing. Yet along this stretch of coast, it remained a relatively tranquil bathing beach. No Meidiya branch had yet opened here either. Not a single establishment served what could truly be called coffee. Nor did one see anyone putting on airs of status.

His thin shoulders and arms had taken on a ruddy tinge, but after four or five days of using tap water, they began fading once more.
In return, he entrusted groceries and Kalm to his eldest son and dispatched him to the coast.

He walked listening to that young man discuss rural and urban laborers.
He thirsted for adult conversation.

When he returned home, the house was hushed.
He had intended to return to the coast in a day or two as promised to Kyoko, but upon arriving home found himself immediately entangled in unavoidable tasks.

“There was a call from Kyōbashi.”
The housemaid informed him while opening the closed glass door to the corridor.

“Right… What did they say?”

“Young Master called and asked if you could please come to the phone. He said there’s no need to trouble yourself if you’re busy with work, but… his allowance has completely run out.”

“I see.”
He said with an awkward air, “That might be the case.”

“When you return, please call the house in Kyōbashi—that was the message.”

“Right, maybe I’ll try calling then.”

He went outside.

“...He said it felt like being exiled to a remote island—his voice sounded terribly forlorn.”
“And with just the little ones there, it must be lonely at the sea. Leaving Saburō behind alone seems pitiful too. When you look at it this way, there just aren’t enough siblings…”
Ms. F, who had answered the phone, said in a hurried tone.

“Right. But I’ve arranged everything through regular channels. I even left the allowance with Haruyo.”

“I see.”
“But there was something pleading in that voice—like he was calling for help.”

“Looking after children gets tedious, but I’ll go tomorrow.”

The following night, he returned to the coast house with groceries and sweets he had scrambled to buy at a department store along the way.
When he was leaving, Haruyo and her sister had waved handkerchiefs while calling out “Come back soon!” to him as the train departed, but this time, the eldest son and the fourth son came to meet him.
The eldest son’s face had become like a burnt rice cracker.

“What happened?”

“Since we’ve come all the way to the sea, there’s nothing to do but go in.”
The eldest son answered with a touch of resignation.

“Even so, there’s no need to get that dark.”

“It must be a joke. There are still plenty of burnt spots left.”

In the car, they had that conversation. Before long, they returned to the dimly lit children's nest. The landlord and neighbors who had gathered on the garden bench scattered away. Around the electric light, insects continued to swirl like a whirlwind.

"What dreadful insects."

"Well, if you're scared of bugs and flies, you can't stay in a place like this." The eldest son said as if to blow away the sorrow of banishment to a remote island.

"That may be so, but..." He said that and had Haruyo open a package. Chocolate packages and sweets bottles of various sizes came out in abundance. Everyone ate the chocolate.

“In a place like this, rather than bringing canned goods, it’s much better to eat plenty of fresh fish.”

“By the way, cities are such nuisances—once the train arrives, all the good fish get eaten up by folks from Tokyo.”
“Sooner or later, even around here might end up reverse-imported, I suppose.”

While picking at chocolates, they stayed up late talking about the land and its people.
And around ten o'clock, the father and his five children lay down on their pillows inside the double-layered mosquito net.

The next day was also fine weather.
Everywhere, the rice plants smiled in the wind.

A few days later, he entered the sea again with Kyoko.
The sea was filled with red and blue paper lanterns.
Boats and yachts wove through them, their oars sending silver droplets glittering.

When he suddenly went up to the beach and looked, the dark eldest son was neither under the tent nor in the sea.

“Brother?”
He asked Kyoko.

“Brother’s right there.”
“He’s talking to a woman, right?”
Kyoko pointed.

At the far edge of their gaze stood he—sun-darkened—shoulder to shoulder with a young woman in terry-cloth Western dress, backs turned as they conversed.

“Who’s that?”

“She’s the younger sister of someone from Brother’s school.”
“She came last year too.”
“They have quite a crowd with them.”
Haruyo said modestly.
(October 1929, "Shincho")