Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Niimi Nankichi

In a warm southern town, there was an old wooden shoemaker who always worked in sullen silence. His eyes were as small as an elephant’s—dim and squinty—but by contrast, his nose and palms were twice as large as an ordinary person’s, and moreover awkwardly shaped. Yet those clumsy hands produced—how magnificently—one finely formed pair of wooden shoes after another. It was as though a magician’s hands had crafted them, giving birth to tiny living creatures.

The children always squatted under the shop’s awning and watched the old man work. So skillfully were they crafted that the children sometimes couldn’t help letting out sighs.

But even those hands that moved so deftly—had they ever made a mistake through carelessness? For the old man’s left hand lacked the Nameless Finger. Back when the old man was still an apprentice at a wooden shoe shop, working late into the night while fighting off sleep, the tip of his chisel must have slipped and taken that finger away.

“Old Man Matan.” “Is becoming a wooden shoemaker difficult?”

A child who wanted to become a wooden shoemaker but was terrified of losing a finger asked this question one day.

Then, Old Man Matan,

“Why?” he asked back.

“Grandpa, you cut off your Nameless Finger with a chisel, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, this one, huh?” Old Man Matan spread out his left hand to show them as he said this. “This one wasn’t taken off by a chisel.”

Upon hearing this, the children realized that what they had firmly believed until now was mistaken and were overcome by a strange feeling—yet at the same time, a new curiosity began to well up inside them. “Then how did you lose it?” The same child asked eagerly.

“Hmph.” Old Man Matan, with a faint smile hovering around his mouth, spread open his large hand—missing the Nameless Finger—and clenched it into a fist two or three times. Then he turned his face toward the children,

“Show me your hands.” he said.

The children grew slightly uneasy, and none of them made a move to extend theirs. “What’s this? I won’t do a thing.”

Urged thus, the eager child from earlier timidly extended one hand. The old man took the small hand with his large one, “That’s right. The time I lost my Nameless Finger was when this big hand of mine was about the size of this small hand here. Now they’ve become gnarled like tree roots, but back then, they were as beautiful and soft as this hand.” As he spoke, Old Man Matan gazed at the child’s hand with nostalgia.

“I’ll tell you why I lost my Nameless Finger.” Having said that, he gripped his chisel again, leaned forward, and began hollowing out the hole in the wooden shoe. Old Man Matan had once been a rosy-cheeked boy about fifty years earlier. At that time, Matan was being raised in an old small village in the north by his mother alone. The village had many apple trees whose white flowers bloomed in bright summers, filling it with their fragrance. When cold came, those flowers would become beautiful pearl-like fruits. One day when apples were ripening, young Matan found a walnut by the roadside.

“Huh, how boring.” Matan threw away the walnut he had picked up. Because that walnut had no nut inside—it was just an empty shell. But even though he discarded it, seeing it lying there made him want it again, and he picked it up once more. While thinking *I wonder if this could become something*, he kept twisting it around until it fit perfectly over the tip of his left Nameless Finger.

“Ah, it’s a hat, a hat!”

Matan found it amusing all by himself and laughed all by himself. And then, Nameless Finger, Nameless Finger, Hat-wearing Nameless Finger, Tra-la-la. As he sang such a nonsensical song, bending and straightening his Nameless Finger crowned with the walnut shell, he came upon a girl sitting all alone and dejected beneath a stern stone wall.

“Hey, Julie, look at this!”

With that， Matan approached her． “Look， this finger’s bowing． Yes， Julie． Hello．”

The girl smiled sweetly as the Nameless Finger crowned with a walnut shell bowed to her. But those large green eyes were misty with tears. However, why she was crying, Matan did not ask. For Matan knew well that Julie’s mother had been bedridden with illness for a long time; that her father was a drunkard who seldom returned home; that Julie sometimes went without bread, subsisting only on water; and that on the rare occasions her drunken father did come home, Julie would be thrown out of the house.

Today as well, it was probably just that her father had come home and thrown Julie out. Matan, as he always did, wanted to comfort Julie. But how on earth should he comfort her? If he had brought some biscuits, even if it was just one, they could have split it in half.

Suddenly, as Matan looked up, four or five deep red ripe apples came into view. The tree was growing inside the stone wall, but only its fruits were visible above it. Matan thought to pluck one of them and give it to Julie. Why did Matan think to pluck someone else’s apple? If only he had gone home—splendid apples, as many as he could want, were bearing fruit in his own garden. Even Matan must have known that plucking someone else’s apples was wrong, yet...

But perhaps he was so filled with the desire to comfort Julie that he had no time to think of anything else? “Wait here.” Having said that, Matan ran off toward the wheelwright’s shop. Beside the wheelwright’s shop, many old wheels with fitted hoops were propped up. Matan trundled one of them over with a clattering roll and propped it against the stone wall.

Julie, her round cheeks wrapped in a white hood, watched silently to see what Matan would do. Matan climbed onto the rim of the wheel he had propped up. And then, he reached his hand toward the apple.

“Oh no, you mustn’t!” Julie cried out in alarm.

“Matan, you mustn’t! You mustn’t do that!” And she pulled Matan’s right hand, but by then his left hand had already grabbed an apple. Inside the wall, a wealthy man with scissors had been moving about for some time now, having a young lady hold a basket as he selected apples with fine color and went snip-snipping around them. And just as Matan laid hands on the apple, the wealthy man happened to be standing right beneath that very tree.

“Matan, I told you not to!” When Julie pulled his right hand, Matan came down as he was pulled. But then, something was wrong. He pressed his left hand and squatted down on the spot. His face was deathly pale.

“Ah, Matan!”

Julie let out a sharp cry as if startled by something and covered her face with her apron.

“That’s how my Nameless Finger came to be lost.”

With that, *the old man* had already finished crafting one of *the shoes*. *The children* listened wide-eyed. “*It* disappeared still wearing *the walnut shell*.” Brushing off *the wood shavings* that had accumulated on his lap,*the old man* said. “Did *it* hurt?”

asked one of the children. “It hurt.” “If it were you lot, you’d have jumped clear away.” “Didn’t your ma scold you?”

asked one of the children. That child had asked such a thing because whenever he returned home injured from playing outside, his mother would inevitably scold him. “My mother?” “I was scolded.” “I was scolded plenty.” “But after scolding me, Mother would always press my hand to her chest and cry, ‘Poor thing, poor thing. Who did such a pitiful thing to you?’”

“Did the wealthy man come to apologize?”

asked the oldest boy among them. “He never came to apologize,” he said. “They say he claimed it was wrong that I tried to take apples from someone else’s house.” The children fell silent. Indeed, trying to take apples from another’s house was undoubtedly wrong. Yet cutting off a finger for attempting to take one apple—and declaring it only natural—seemed far too cruel.

“So, what happened to that Nameless Finger?”

The child who wanted to become a cobbler, squatting at the very front, asked. Moved by the child’s earnestness, Old Man Matan... “Still want to hear more, do you?” “Well then, I guess I’ll tell you.” “Just wait a moment.” Since the sun had already shifted westward, Old Man Matan rolled up the sunshade curtain that had been covering the children. Then he sat down at his workbench and began carving the other piece.

When Matan finished elementary school, he thought he wanted to become a wooden shoemaker. In truth, his greatest wish had been to go to Switzerland’s beautiful mountain country and become a shepherd, but sadly he’d had to abandon that dream. The reason was that young Matan believed a shepherd needed to play the flute skillfully. Now then—how could someone without a Nameless Finger ever play the flute well?

There was also a reason why Matan wanted to become a wooden shoemaker. It was because he felt sorry for Julie, who wore nothing but her mother’s old wooden shoes and walked with such difficulty—clomping unsteadily along, only to have the shoes go flying off whenever she tried to hurry even a little. Matan thought of making wooden shoes that would fit Julie’s feet perfectly himself.

In a large town overlooking a river mouth several kilometers from the village, there lived an excellent wooden shoemaker. Young Matan had gone to serve as an apprentice under that wooden shoemaker.

“Since he’s missing a finger, this lad mightn’t make a proper wooden shoemaker.”

Having thought this, the Master Cobbler took Matan’s left hand into his own and examined it. But Matan was astonishingly earnest. While working, his small eyes shone like blue gemstones. Until the wick of the lamp on the wall grew feebly thin and began fading away, Matan continued working steadily in the corner of the workshop.

“Matan. Let’s go to sleep.”

And it was always the Master who would say this first. “Master, I ain’t sleepy yet.” Matan would say, lifting his face.

“Even if your eyes aren’t sleepy, the lamp’s eyes are sleepy.”

It was three years after coming to this town that Matan, for the first time with his own hands alone, carved a pair of wooden shoes.

The first thing he had made. Could there be anything in this world so nostalgic, so beautiful, so good? Matan would clutch the wooden shoes to his chest, align them on his palms and stretch his arms out fully to tilt his head contemplatively; at night, he would arrange them neatly by his pillow, yet still fret over whether mice might drag them away—so worried was he.

Carving the name “Julie” into them, Matan sent those first wooden shoes he had made to Julie in the village. Julie must have shed tears of joy. A long letter of thanks arrived at Matan’s place. “When I think these were made by you, Matan, it feels almost sacrilegious to wear them on my feet,” and “I’ll only put them on for market days, festivals, and Sundays when I go to church,” and “I’ll cherish them like your dear hands,” such things were written at length, with “thank you, thank you” repeated over and over.

However, even if worn only on market days and festivals, wooden shoes do not wear down so easily.

Then one day, after three whole years had passed, a letter from Julie arrived at Matan’s place with such things written in it. “Matan. What am I to do? While my feet keep growing little by little, those wooden shoes won’t grow for me. Even yesterday, I endured it and wore them all the way to church, and ended up with two bean-sized blisters.”

“Oh, poor thing,” he murmured. “I’d gone and forgotten Julie’s feet would keep growing.” By then, Matan had become a proper craftsman in his own right. He quickly picked out a straight-grained piece of knotless wood and set to making new shoes. When they were finished, his master granted him long-awaited leave from his apprenticeship.

“Matan. When you first came to my shop, I looked at your hand and thought, ‘With a finger missing, you’ll never make a proper craftsman.’ But you worked with all your might, and now you’ve become a better hand than I, your master. It pains me beyond words to let you go.”

Having said that, the Master Cobbler gave Matan a large sum of money and mourned their parting. Matan left the bustling town by the riverbank, his money and wooden shoes carefully secured on his person. It was late autumn; a chilly wind blew from the east, and across the fields not a single human figure could be seen. While feeling loneliness, yet with joy welling deep in his heart, Matan made his way briskly along the road. He passed through countless hills. On top of every hill stood four-armed windmills beneath the endless autumn sky, creaking as they spun. And, as if summoned by the windmills' arms, clouds streamed forth from the eastern horizon like wisps of frayed cotton, drifting away to nowhere in particular.

As he passed under one of the windmills, a man appeared from its shadow. “Excuse me.”

And so, the man called out to Matan. “You appear to be a traveler, sir. Might I ask where you’re headed?” Matan thought what a repulsive fellow this smooth-faced man was, but he honestly stated the name of his village, to which he was now returning. “Oh, is that so?” And the man said with an air of having heard delightful news.

“How fortunate,” “I’m actually heading back to that village myself.” “As they say, travelers should stick together.” “Then let’s travel together, if you please.” “Where are you from?”

“I was born in that village.”

“Huh?” Matan looked at the man again. But it was a man he didn’t recognize at all. Then, as if fully aware of the doubt that had welled up in Matan’s heart, the man,

“Born there I was, sure enough,” he said glibly, “but seeing as I hightailed it out of that village a good thirty years back and never looked back, I don’t know much about the place these days. I’m sure a heap of folks I don’t know must’ve sprung up there by now.” After they walked in silence awhile, he tried again: “Since I lit out thirty years back, maybe I’d know your ma from her younger days. What was her name?”

And the man asked.

Matan felt his interest growing.

“My mother’s name is Rosa.” “Rosa?”

With that murmur, the man fell deep into thought, as if trying to recall something from the distant past. And after a while, “Ah, that’s right. “I’ve remembered. “I’ve remembered.” “Rosa, Rosa.” he said nostalgically, then glanced briefly at the flaxen hair peeking from under the brim of Matan’s hat, “Your mother must have had flaxen hair.” he said.

“No. She’s blonde.” Matan answered. Then the man flusteredly— “Ah, right, right—she was blonde. I meant to say that, but I carelessly ended up saying the wrong thing.” And he made an excuse. And this time, noticing how small Matan’s eyes were, “I think your mother had small, lovely eyes.—” he said, and as if to ensure he wasn’t mistaken this time, stared at Matan’s face.

“That’s not true. She has large, wide-open eyes.”

Matan answered.

“Ah, right, right. She had large, beautiful eyes. I meant to say that, but I ended up blurting out the wrong thing. My mouth seems to be acting strange today.”

The man covered it up in that way. Then, finally,

“Your mother must be a kind and wonderful mother—there isn’t another like her in the whole world.”

he said. Indeed, there was no doubt about it. For Matan, there was not a single person in all the world as kind as his mother. Anyone would surely feel happy if their mother were praised. Thus did Matan end up trusting the man.

Therefore, the two of them ended up staying together at the roadside inn they had reached that evening. Evidently exhausted from the day’s journey, the man burrowed into the futon and immediately began snoring loudly. So Matan, intending not to be outdone, began to snore loudly as well. However, the only one who truly fell asleep was Matan; his companion had been feigning snores from the very beginning.

Around midnight, a figure pushed open the inn’s window from within and fluttered down like a bat—this was witnessed by the moon, resembling a silver frying pan, watching from its lofty height. That figure, as if fearing the light, flitted in and out of sight while seeking dark places—hedgerows, thickets, stables, the shadows of walls—until at last it was swallowed up and vanished into the deep darkness of the forest.

When morning came, Matan noticed that the wooden shoes and money had disappeared along with his companion. What terrible people there are in this world! To think that after working diligently for so long, earning precious money through sweat and toil, someone would steal it away like a demon, sneaking off with it.

However, it was foolish to keep lamenting what had already been lost. Matan had not yet paid the inn fee. It was a small sum of money, but now that the thief had completely taken everything away, even that modest inn fee could not be paid. Thus, Matan devised a plan—he borrowed a chisel and hammer from the innkeeper, crafted wooden shoes, and resolved to settle his debt with them instead of cash.

When he made wooden shoes for the skinny innkeeper, the landlady with a belly as big as a balloon, and their cute little daughter—three pairs in total—the innkeeper was overjoyed and said, “This will do just fine.” However, this village had no wooden shoe makers, and the villagers had been greatly inconvenienced. So when they heard rumors of a skilled young cobbler staying at the inn, they came flocking one after another to place orders for shoes.

Evening came, but the work was not finished. Therefore, Matan ended up staying one more night at that inn. When night had deepened and it was time to sleep, Matan said to the innkeeper.

“Last night’s room is too spacious for me alone. If you have another, cozier room available, please let me move there.” “Certainly. A small room at the end of the hallway just became available earlier, so move there.” With that, the innkeeper said and handed a candle to Matan. Matan said “Good night” and went to the room at the end of the hallway he had been directed to.

In the small room with a low ceiling and a single window, Matan worked for a while longer before going to bed.

On the oak-paneled wall, a cricket perched and chirped as if addressing Matan. Now, just as Matan was about to rest—having opened the table drawer to put away his chisel and hammer—he discovered a plump, bulging wallet inside the drawer.

It was unexpected. Matan was left dazed. Whose wallet could this be? Could it be that whoever stayed in this room last night had forgotten it in their haste? If Matan were to take this wallet for himself, what would happen? If he just slipped it silently into his pocket, wouldn’t that settle everything? But at any moment, the person who’d forgotten it might come back to retrieve the wallet. He could push open the window right now and escape.

Staring blankly at the wallet, within Matan’s mind, countless voices chattered in a dizzying whirl about all sorts of things. Even the cricket that had fallen from the panel to the floor seemed to be saying something.

“That’s wrong.” “That’s wrong.” And the cricket sang.

Then inside Matan’s head came a single voice— "In this world everyone does wrong." "Since you’ve had your money stolen by someone else this time you might as well steal theirs."

it whispered. That’s right.

"That’s right," thought Matan.

There, Matan’s left hand hesitantly came to rest atop the wallet.

The cricket fell silent. The candle’s flame had burned out like spent oil. The kitchen area, which had been bustling with a card game until just moments ago, was now completely still. The only sound piercing the deep silence was the faint gurgling of a brook’s flowing water. Just as Matan’s left hand hovered over the wallet in the drawer, he heard a knocking sound. It ceased at once. Thinking it a trick of his ears, Matan reached for the wallet. Then came the knocking again. Who could be striking what? It didn’t sound like a door being knocked upon, nor a window tapped from outside. Could someone still be awake at this ungodly hour?

Matan quietly surveyed his surroundings. He shifted his gaze from one thing to the next: the fireless hearth, the old plate atop the mantelpiece, the ceiling, the black knothole, the Christ figure in a hollow carved into the wall, his own shadow figure bent in two at the boundary between wall and floor, the silent cricket beside the shadow figure. Those things were silently reproaching Matan for what he was about to do, yet once he went through with it, they also seemed to promise they would keep it secret for him. There, Matan tried to take the wallet a third time. Then once again came that knocking sound.

“Who could that be?”

Matan muttered to himself. Then something answered in Matan’s ears. “I am.” “Me?”

Matan was startled. “Me? Who am I?”

Then, the voice answered.

“I have no name. I have been nameless since the day I was born.” “There’s no such ridiculous story! Even cats have names like Pusu or Mii.”

said Matan.

“It really is a strange story. I had four siblings. They each had their own names, but I alone had none.”

And so the voice spoke. “Are you standing outside the door? Was it you who’s been knocking all this time?”

asked Matan. “I was knocking all this time.” the voice answered.

“But I cannot knock strongly.” “When I’m together with my four siblings, I can knock much more forcefully.”

“By the way, what business brings you yourself to a place like this now?”

(Unfinished)