Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Umezaki Haruo

I

I was dreaming.

As I kept suppressing the consciousness that tried to rouse me, I found myself mingling with a disorderly throng of people whose faces and clothes remained indistinct, and we all shuffled through the elementary school's gate.

Corpses were buried in the elementary schoolyard, and since they needed to be dug up, I swung my hoe down into the ground.
The presence of people encircling and watching me gradually tightened their ring until I began hearing panting breaths near my shoulders.
The lukewarm human breathing felt unsettling.
To mask my growing unease, I kept swinging the hoe down with all my strength—when I suddenly felt a squelching resistance, the hoe's tip came up with a white, bloated human ankle attached.
I involuntarily cried out and flung the hoe away—startled by my own voice, I sat bolt upright in bed.

While feeling an unpleasant, sand-packed fatigue in my shoulders and fingertips, I opened and closed my eyes.
Something flickered at the edge of my vision.
Pale sunlight filtered through the window glass, its rays tainted with lethargy.

For lunch I went to a nearby diner and wolfed down rice with oily stewed fish.
Then I returned to my room and spread out bedding, forcing myself to sleep since there was nothing else to do.
As fragmented dreams tore and mended themselves—the wind must have picked up—I heard turbid gusts echoing distantly in some recess of my skull.
Beyond the glass door, tall trees' crowns loomed in my sight.
Branches resembling medical textbook nerve diagrams abruptly swayed.
Simultaneously came the sound of wind battering glass.
I reached out and opened the window.

Outside the window was a graveyard.
A tree stripped bare of leaves, its branches as numerous and spindly as the bones of a small fish.
Stone graves, square wooden markers, and thin plank tombstones.
The roof tiles of the temple’s main hall caught the faint light of the setting sun and glistened darkly.
Across the area, the wind blew with an empty sound.

While changing into my school uniform, I looked down on the graveyard.
Though it was a scene I looked upon daily—the long shadows of tombstones, the withered white chrysanthemums in flower vases—something impoverished—yes, impoverished—those sights bore into me with a bitterness akin to long-ago regrets.

My stomach felt strangely heavy.
I went out into the hallway, locked the door, and walked down the corridor on tiptoe.

Along the slope of Komagome Hōraichō where rows of low houses were bathed in a glowing sunset, I trudged aimlessly with my head hung low.

A train roared past along the train line before Hongō University.
Above ginkgo trees with scattered leaves, the sky spread out at a tremendous height.
Under the university wall, ginkgo fruits lay squashed and pulpy as people walked with chicken-like steps to avoid slipping.
I joined the crowd and deliberately mimicked that fowl-like walk.
And chicken legs—I thought, wiggling my fingers inside my coat pocket.
That bumpy texture—like the shark skin used for sword sheaths, like yellow mixed with red.

Crowded trains dashed past endlessly, making a chaotic racket.
Cars and bicycles raced past.
Men and women with exhausted faces overtook me or passed me by.
As I walked along deep in thought, I suddenly forgot what I'd been thinking about. Hmm... what was it again? Hmm—I involuntarily rapped my knuckles against the nape of my neck.
I felt certain I'd been thinking something fascinatingly amusing, and this forgottenness felt unpleasant.
When I resigned myself to thinking of other matters—just as my mind seemed to catch fantasy's rhythm and began flowing pleasantly—I lost the thread again and gradually started growing irritated.
I crossed the tram tracks before the main gate wearing a sullen expression.

I've been tired lately, I thought. Because I'm living a slovenly life—because I'm not attending school and just sleeping all the time. Thinking about such causes felt dreadful. While fleeing from that line of thought, I tried to seek out other things to occupy my mind. Inside my coat, I walked briskly while bending, stretching, and stiffening my fingers. Though having no particular destination, I stopped and looked around: Now where should I go? The setting sun clung halfway down roof tiles, utility poles stained yellow where their surfaces caught the light. Amid the shivering, clattering din that reverberated everywhere, there came a faint sound—like water striking pebbles, like distant rain falling—a strangely familiar sound. Ginkgo leaves slipped between pedestrians' feet as the wind drove them skittering across pavement. Without reason, overwhelming fatigue suddenly crashed over me; letting my shoulders slump like a jellyfish's bell, I turned into the alley that opened before me.

II

Some time later, I found myself standing at the entrance of Doriryūkan—a dilapidated boarding house deep in the alley of Daimachi’s lodging district—calling out loudly to request entry.
The front desk beside the entrance lay scattered in disarray, devoid of human presence.
A mirror in the entranceway reflected my full figure, though with the outdoor brightness at my back, my form appeared darkly distorted.
The failure to turn on lights left the corridor’s depths dimly lit and vaguely unsettling.
From that gloom emerged a petite maid without sound—scurrying forth suddenly—making me start.
The maid’s countenance differed from its usual state.
Assuming an expression that deliberately suppressed emotion, she crouched in the entranceway and gazed up at me with ominous intensity.

“Is Mr. Amagami here?”

“Do you mean Mr. Amagami?”

Her eyes darted about as if assessing my condition before she suddenly spoke in a breathless voice.

“Ah, he is here.”

I took off my shoes with a sullen expression.
Since I often visited Mr. Amagami at this boarding house, this maid should have known me well.
Irritated by her strangely distant demeanor that suggested some sort of scheme, I started stomping down the corridor when from behind me the maid let out a cat-like voice.

“Please walk quietly in the hallway.”

Startled, I turned around to find the small maid glancing at me with glittering eyes before she vanished into the dim shadows.

As I rounded the corridor bend, a faint chill crept along my spine.
I walked down the oil-coated corridor—its surface gleaming dully—until reaching Mr. Amagami’s room, where the light abruptly flashed on.
Simultaneously, I slid open the fusuma door.

Mr. Amagami—who had apparently been leaning against his desk—clearly looked startled and adjusted his posture with a rustling sound that suggested this was no ordinary occurrence.
It was rude of me to barge in like that—the thought flickered through my mind.
"Good evening," I offered formally.

"What?"
"It's you."
"You gave me quite a start!"

Mr. Amagami's chest still seemed to be pounding.

“Knock on the door when you come in.”

“Today feels strange.”
“Is something going on?”

Mr. Amagami rummaged through the cluttered desk, pulled out a crumpled Asahi newspaper bag, and lit it.
His fingers twitched and trembled spasmodically.

“No.”
“Oh, it’s nothing—I was just lost in thought.”

He suddenly lowered his voice,

“The daughter here is dying.”
“Here.”

The room where Mr. Amagami was staying was a narrow four-tatami space, with an eight-tatami room beyond it.
That was the innermost room of this house, but Mr. Amagami pointed there with a gloomy expression.
I involuntarily looked back in that direction.
From the wall bordering that room, I felt as if a murmuring, murderous commotion was flowing in.

“There were groaning sounds until just now,” Mr. Amagami blew out smoke.
He seemed to have already regained his composure.

The girl was like a flower that had bloomed in a sunless wetland.
Occasionally I would pass her in the corridor.
Her strangely gaudy long sleeves made her pale face appear even more pallid.
When passing by, she would look at people with an ambiguous gaze that seemed both to contain and withhold a smile.
There was an unhealthy beauty about her that somehow drew people in.
I had heard from Mr. Amagami before that she was ill, but the moment I heard his words, the pallid face of the girl on the verge of death floated into my mind's eye.

“Dinner still isn’t ready, huh?”

“Will they bring dinner?” Mr. Amagami turned around.

“They have to bring dinner.” But how tragic—that even as the daughter lay dying, they had to prepare dinner for their boarders. “They probably won’t bring it.”

“Is everyone gathered in that room over there?”

“Before you came in, the landlady kept calling her daughter’s name through tears, so she must have lost consciousness.”
“Can someone still groan even after losing consciousness?”
“That does happen.”

I recalled my father’s deathbed from last year.

“Like sleep-talking, perhaps?”

"Like sleep-talking, perhaps?" Mr. Amagami said in a low voice.
And he made an expression as if suppressing something and straining with effort.

After a while, I asked.

"When you could hear the groans, was that still unpleasant?"

In the next room, a person was trying to end their life.

When I became aware of Mr. Amagami’s state of mind—how he had been holding his breath and staying perfectly still in a corner of the narrow room while sensing that commotion—I felt an uncanny sense of loneliness.
Mr. Amagami lifted his bowed face.
“That has nothing to do with me.”
His eyes turned cold.

“Whether that woman lives or dies, it’s none of my business.”

At that moment, there was a sound of knocking on the sliding door, and Tabikawa entered.
Wearing a padded robe, he sat down restlessly glancing around.

“Has she died yet?”

"Apparently not."

Mr. Amagami said in a gloomy tone.
Mr. Amagami disliked Tabikawa.
I knew that.
There seemed to be some deeper secret in Mr. Amagami’s character that went beyond simply disliking Tabikawa for being a philistine.
I remained silent.

“Because the respiration was 42, you see.”

Tabikawa had attended the same high school as me, but now that he was in the Imperial University’s medical department, that’s why he said such things.

“The groans from earlier seem to have stopped now, but since they were gradually getting faster, I hurriedly counted them with my watch.”
“It’s forty-two per minute.”
“Mr. Amagami.”
“Is having it too fast a bad thing?”

“Of course it’s bad.”
“It’s evidence the body is weakening.”

It seemed the sun had set, for outside the window had turned a dusky dark.
In the shoji screen against which dusk leaned, a single moth rustled.
My mood grew heavy, and I felt as though my back had stiffened.

Tabikawa began to speak.

“Since my room was directly above that one, I couldn’t bear to stay there.”
“When I thought of someone dying right under my feet, it somehow felt wrong—”

“How could such an idiotic thing be possible?” Mr. Amagami let out a rooster-like shriek. “You’re going to be a doctor—you mustn’t say such sentimental things.”

“But then why don’t you go see for yourself? It feels mysteriously unpleasant.”

“I’ve been here since earlier.”
“And I heard the groans from the next room,” Mr. Amagami declared haughtily.
“And I’m perfectly fine with that.”

I remained silent and listened to the conversation.
It was a feeling as though various emotions welled up—and yet when I tried to put them into words, they all seemed ready to flee, leaving only emptiness.
Growing irritated, an impatience arose that made me want to lunge at everyone.

“Is that so?” Tabikawa said.

The sound of the wind seemed to grow slightly fiercer.
At times, it struck the torn shoji screens and produced a flute-like sound.

“The wind’s here,” I muttered to no one in particular. Doriryūkan was surrounded by houses. The wind swept through alley after alley. At a bend in the alleyway, the wind made a mournful sound like some living creature. From the house across came the clatter of a clothes pole falling from beneath the eaves.

I feared the approaching silence.
While feeling compelled to speak, I was simultaneously gripped by a weariness akin to fatigue.
Mr. Amagami looked toward me while restlessly tapping the desk edge with his fingers.

“Ghosts and spirits do not exist. When you die, there’s just a vast emptiness—nothing at all. When someone dies, yet everyone gathers to cry and wail, to worry themselves sick and mope about—it’s all utter foolishness.”

“That simply won’t do. After all, the sadness is genuine.”

“Religion will vanish as science progresses. I firmly believe this—superstitions shall perish.”

Tabikawa interjected.

“Because life is such a mysterious thing—”

At that moment, gut-wrenching sobs of anguish arose from beyond the wall. Another voice overlaid them, calling the daughter’s name. Kimi-chan! Kimi-chan! Kimi-chan! Just as the voices calling her name grew increasingly frantic, they were replaced by blood-curdling sobs. Several sobs arose intermittently. There was the sound of a sliding door opening, followed by the hurried clatter of slippers growing disorganized as they faded into the distance. With a feeling as if ice had been pressed against my back, I looked at Mr. Amagami’s face.

“Because life is protein—because life is determined by the arrangement of proteins—”

Mr. Amagami stammered in a hoarse voice.

Deathbed.
This wailing—the lodgers here were all listening to it now.
The mental stance of these utterly helpless lodgers seemed bizarre beyond measure.
I felt a kind of unpleasant excitement at sitting motionless in this room and sharply held my breath.
The weeping voices repeatedly calling the daughter’s name arose violently again.
The sound of sobbing suddenly swelled.
As this happened, I felt unbearably pained by how something like a sac within my body kept swelling and shrinking.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Kimi-chan!”
“Kimi-chan!”
“Kimi…” The cries scattered as they transformed into choked sobs.
The presence of someone collapsing forward, unable to endure, became clearly perceptible through the wall.
And carrying the desolate night air, the wind threaded through the wailing.

“She’s dead.”

Tabikawa said in a low voice, lowering his eyes.
The fact that even Tabikawa and Mr. Amagami were restless struck me directly.

"I hate this."

"Somehow, I just hate this," I found myself echoing without thinking.
Only through such words could this feeling find expression.
While enduring the tingling numbness in my fingertips, I felt a vague disgust toward the fact that we were alive.

Mr. Amagami leaned against the wall with an extremely melancholy expression and let out a voice that sounded angry.

“Let’s leave this room. Let’s go somewhere for tea.”

We stood up.
We stepped out into the corridor as though muffling our footsteps.
When I cast a glance into the inner room, the figure of a woman weeping prostrate in the shadow of the open sliding door came into view.
The pattern of gaudy clothes stung my eyes.
I closed my eyes for no particular reason.
And then, we began walking cautiously down the corridor.
As the three of us were about to leave the filthy entrance, the petite maid scurried out from some shadowy corner once more and knelt on the wooden floor.

“Mr. Amagami.”
“Are you going out?”
“I have prepared dinner though.”

With a distant gaze that made it unclear where she was looking, she spoke in a blunt tone.
It was an attitude that immediately made one feel she was forcing something.
I thought that while she wasn’t sad about the landlady’s daughter’s death, she must be so flustered she didn’t know what to do.

“I won’t eat dinner,” Mr. Amagami snapped.
“I’ll dine out today.”

In a straggling group, we stepped through the dark alleyway and emerged toward the bright lights of Hongō-dōri.

III

At a deserted coffee shop called Tamura on Hongō-dōri, the three of them sat at a table in the back and sipped coffee.

Mr. Amagami was born in Ryukyu and, despite having graduated from Imperial University, spent every day idling about.
He had a thin face over thirty, but it was unclear where his living expenses came from.
Long ago, there had been a king in Ryukyu who one day went to visit another island, and while he was falling in love with a girl there, a revolution broke out on the main island and his throne was usurped.
That this king was his ancestor—Mr. Amagami told me one night when he was drunk.
I didn't know whether it was true or false, but I imagined that being from such a distinguished lineage, his living expenses were probably being sent from home.
I had met Mr. Amagami several years earlier.
We had somehow become acquainted.
We had become acquainted in a manner befitting us.

Having escaped from that murderous room and suddenly finding ourselves under such bright lights, we felt somehow unsettled.
The daughter’s death somehow lacked a sense of reality, as if it were a dream.
In this disjointed state of mind, the three of us kept trading nothing but jokes.

“It’s a shame when a girl in her prime dies.”
“I somehow feel like I’ve been cheated.”

Mr. Amagami rolled his eyes, scrutinized my face as if taking its measure, and said.
“You’ve gotten fat again.”

“Is that so?” I said, stroking around my cheek.

“Isn’t it swollen?
“Lately you’ve been looking more and more like Enshō.”
“Like Enshō sporting that unkempt beard.”

I suddenly recalled the face of San'yūtei Enshō on the rakugo stage.
Mr. Amagami's ulterior motive in likening me to such a clumsy way of getting fat pierced my heart like a thorn.
I silently sipped the coffee that had turned cold.

Waitresses wearing small aprons began bustling from table to table.
Customers began to trickle in.
There was an Imperial University student drinking beer while laughing uproariously over whatever happy matter he had.
They all seemed happy.
They were drinking black tea and eating warm-looking dishes.

“Are you attending school?” Tabikawa asked me.

“No,” I answered painfully.
“Well—there are—various things I have to take care of.”

“Everyone’s worried. You should go.”

“I know that—but I’ve just developed this habit of laziness.”

“Are you writing a novel or something?”

I gloomily raised my face.
I darkly suspected Tabikawa was implying I led such a slovenly life because of some artistic temperament.

"I don't write novels or anything.
That sort of thing...
It's not in my nature anyway."

“Writing novels wouldn’t accomplish anything,” Mr. Amagami interjected with a smirk.
“This person doesn’t attend school because circumstances naturally led to it.”
“You’re made from the marrow of your bones to have that sort of disposition.”
“You’re precisely the type of human who’d end up sinking to this level anyway.”

“How do you know my character?” I retorted without thinking. “It’s true that I neglect school out of laziness, but there are various circumstances involved—things I think Mr. Amagami couldn’t possibly understand.” “You talk about character—but if I decided to start attending tomorrow, I could march off to school.” “I’ve always had that much resolve.”

“So you’re saying you don’t attend school of your own free will?” said Mr. Amagami.
“I don’t believe that.
But you aren’t actually attending school, are you?” he smirked.

I tried visualizing the listless progression of a day behind my eyelids.
Moments of supreme boredom stretched endlessly onward, seemingly constructing this reality of afternoon naps and meals with fish side dishes.
From the image of myself in school uniform attending classes stretched a world of indescribable boredom at an extreme remove.

“Let’s change the subject. Having to face deathbeds or being told about school—I’m getting sick of it all.”

We talked about wanting to go to the suburbs, how outrageous it was that coffee shops here and there had raised their prices, and various things about women’s menstruation. Mr. Amagami—I didn’t know where he picked them up—was a walking encyclopedia of trivial knowledge, possessing a vast store of useless information.

I felt as if there was a hole somewhere in our conversation through which wind whistled hollowly. In our efforts to fill that hole, we brought out various jokes and tried hard, but they ended up clashing no matter what. To our shame, we had finally begun exchanging vulgar conversation about the girl who had just died. I was tired. However, I found myself strangely reluctant to part ways and return home like this.

We left there around seven o'clock.
Night stalls were set up along Hongo Street, and men and women with bright faces streamed past in a steady procession.

Mr. Amagami staggered through the crowd with shoulders as thin as tinplate, and we followed behind. A yellow ginkgo leaf had settled on the old bookstore owner's shoulder.

The wind seemed to have weakened slightly, but it still blew on pedestrians' sleeves and rattled shop signs. Each time, the row of ginkgo trees shook off a few leaves, which then fluttered down onto the night stall wares.

At the alleyway leading into Daicho, I stopped.

“I’m going home.”

“You can’t do that!” Mr. Amagami exclaimed in panic, grabbing my arm. “Stay at my place tonight. With all this commotion going on, you wouldn’t be able to get anything done anyway.”

“However—during the mourning period, it’s not good for unrelated people to come and go—”

“That’s not true at all,” he said, pulling my arm and leading me into the alleyway. “That’s a boarding house. What’s wrong with coming and going to the boarders’ rooms?”

I resigned myself and began walking.
When I thought about it, even if I were to force a parting and return home, there wasn't a single interesting thing at my lodgings.

There was no one at Doriryūkan’s entrance.
As we were putting footwear into the geta box, apparently having heard the sound, the landlady emerged from near the front desk of the boarding house.
Eyes were red and swollen.

“Welcome back. I must apologize for all the trouble I’ve caused.”

Apparently at a loss for how to exchange greetings, Mr. Amagami rolled his eyes restlessly.

“This time... finally...”

“It was ultimately hopeless.”

The landlady suddenly pressed her sleeve to her eyes.
It was painful to watch her shoulder move.
The three of us stood silently on the wooden floor.
I regretted having come.
They were boarders here, so there was nothing to be done about it, but I was an outsider with no connection at all.

“Please… At least look upon the deathly face.”

Following the landlady’s lonely figure down the corridor, the three of us walked to the eight-mat room in the back.

In the middle of the room lay a bed, its face area covered with a white cloth.
Three or four people were sitting around it, and all of them were hanging their heads.
There was a young woman in Western clothes holding a handkerchief to her eyes.
She must have been a friend from girls’ school days.
Beneath thick, bushy eyebrows were eyes red and swollen from crying.

We lined up and sat at the bedside.
I didn't know what to do.
I felt something terribly sad yet hollow.
When I could no longer bear the oppressive feeling of having nowhere to place my hands or direct my gaze, the landlady’s hand—having circled around the foot of the deathbed to sit on the opposite side—ripped off the white cloth covering the face.
I started and felt as if cold water had been poured down my spine.

The corpse bore a faint smile indeed.
A terror as though I'd glimpsed the absolutely forbidden convulsed my entire body.
Ah, the corpse was laughing.
A cruel smile reminiscent of Smerdyakov from an old movie I'd once seen hovered around the nose of the deathly visage.
I shuddered involuntarily and closed my eyes.
At the foot of the deathbed, a stifled sob arose.
Along with it came a single eyelid-searing tear streaming from my eye.

When I opened my eyes after a while, the white cloth had already been placed over her face.
The prominence of her nose could be discerned from beneath the cloth.
Her hair had been let down and flowed smoothly across the tatami mats.
That hair held no light.
It felt colder than ice.

When I finished my greetings, stood up, and went out into the corridor, the landlady hurriedly rose and came chasing after me.

“There’s nothing much to offer, but please come this way.”

She gestured with her palms.
“We have some alcohol prepared.”

"It's the wake—damn it!" I thought, striking my knee inwardly.
When I had entered earlier, I had sensed a strange commotion occurring somewhere in Doriryūkan.
Mr. Amagami calmly followed behind the landlady as he walked away.
He must have anticipated this from the very beginning.

As I dragged my heavy feet and began walking down the corridor, Tabikawa said to me.

“Everyone will be drinking, I suppose.”
“I won’t be joining.”

“But you can’t just—” I began to protest when Mr. Amagami—standing at the corridor’s bend—turned with a look demanding to know what we were discussing.
I stepped onto the cold corridor and made my way toward him.

Tabikawa disappeared down the opposite side of the corridor.
Even though it was just a girl from a boarding house I barely knew—a girl I'd only met three or four times—who had died, why did I have to drink bitter sake at this gloomy wake?
There was no sense of reality in the clear fact that I was about to drink now.
Like a sheep driven into a maze, I lost my will and followed Mr. Amagami into some room.

IV

In a room about ten tatami mats in size, fourteen or fifteen men formed a circle and were drinking, each with an individual tray before them.
There were men with flushed faces who clearly had already drunk quite a lot, but whether it was because we had entered or not I couldn’t tell—the gathering had become strangely subdued, and entering the room gave me a disagreeable feeling as if I were resisting something.
As we lined up in the corner of the room with blank faces, the middle-aged woman sitting at the center of the circle arranged the trays the small maid had brought one by one before us.
I finally resigned myself to the fact that I could no longer go home.

When Mr. Amagami suddenly straightened his posture and bowed with uncharacteristic deference this time, I hurriedly adjusted my own seating as well—whereupon the woman, clutching an enormous sake bottle, edged closer to us and said, "Now then, drink your fill!"

While having my cup filled with sake by her, I gazed at that woman.

Her eyebrows were thick and prominent like a man’s, and beneath them were eyes where the whites predominated, containing an oily sheen.
She wore a black Western-style outfit cut in a way I’d never seen before.
The chest area gaped open, revealing her blue-veined skin.
That alone might have been acceptable, but for some reason she’d draped a bell-shaped mantle over it.
Ah—the Mona Lisa, I realized.
The tailoring matched that of the dress in da Vinci’s painting.
This mysterious woman stood before us urging drinks with strange phrases about “three arrival cups.”
Her speech carried a faint Hokuriku accent.

As I silently kept drinking what was poured for me, my entire body gradually began to tingle pleasantly with warmth. Since I hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, the sake went straight to my head. The gathering that had seemed awkwardly subdued gradually grew livelier, and the sounds of sipping sake and chopsticks clinking against plates began to emerge. While munching on the unpalatable grilled fish cake, I gulped down the sake. The gathering all seemed to be boarders. Everyone was drinking with uneasy faces. Gradually, voices began to rise.

The Imperial University student sitting to my right suddenly extended his hand jerkily and offered a cup toward Mr. Amagami, who was on my left.

“Mr. Amagami.”
“Let’s drink.”
“We can’t study tonight anyway.”

In reckless abandon, a voice declared, “Let’s drink!”
It was unclear who had said it.
I understood well the irritated feelings of whoever had spoken.
When Mr. Amagami received the cup, the student took the sake bottle and poured.
Mr. Amagami was older and spent his days idling around, but he still seemed to command a certain respect.

However, the act of pouring sake into cups was performed right before my eyes.
I felt ignored and found it unpleasant.
The man's face was bright red - he'd apparently drunk quite a lot.
Whether the daughter had died or not died, he didn't strike me as someone who'd study diligently.
Looking at his lapel pin, it was from the humanities department, but since I didn't attend school, I couldn't tell which department he belonged to.

I prodded Mr. Amagami's leg and jerked my chin toward the middle-aged woman sitting at the center of the room as I asked.

“Who is that?”

"That," Mr. Amagami said, already flushed.
He swayed his upper body unsteadily.
He must have kept drinking heavily, driven by something akin to self-destructive abandon.

“Probably a relative.”

“She’s quite a peculiar person,” I said. He grunted in agreement and poured another cup.

The aunt turned her body this way and that, swinging around a large sake bottle as she poured drinks for everyone.
When someone spilled sake, they would exclaim “Oh dear!”—the youthful quality of that voice struck me as somehow strange.
Until now hidden by shadows and unseen, seven or eight astonishingly large sake bottles were already lined up by the paper-paneled door.
Where on earth had they managed to procure such bizarre sake bottles?
They were about the size of beer bottles.
When I saw the aunt moving across the tatami with that in hand—whether due to drunkenness or not—she looked like a crab crawling.
That sake bottle could hold about four gō.
This meant approximately three shō of sake had already been divided among everyone’s stomachs, but when I tried calculating how much each person had drunk on average in my head, no matter how many times I attempted it, the numbers kept getting tangled up halfway through.
The drunkenness was finally setting in.

The gathering was gradually showing signs of disorder.

The people—who had no direct connection to the daughter’s death and likely felt neither sorrow nor joy—gradually grew cheerful as they drank in their unsettled state of mind, yet their inward restraint against causing a commotion twisted into something peculiar, leaving their drunkenness to fester unresolved before suddenly swelling up in full force.

Before I knew it, that small-statured maid came in and went around pouring sake.
For some reason, they were smiling and exchanging jokes.
Despite having such solemn faces until just moments ago, I dimly thought in some corner of my mind that they were an incorrigible lot.
Mona Lisa Aunt too appeared to have sipped from cups all around, her face mottled red.
Everyone's voices gradually grew louder.
Mr. Amagami also appeared drunk and was talking to the man next to him while laughing.
His forehead was oily, and the way the electric light glinted faintly on it seemed obscene.

When I rocked my upper body back and forth, finding it amusing how my head rumbled and swayed, the small-statured maid scurried near me—then plopped down beside me and started talking to the humanities student next to me.

“You cried so much today, didn’t you?”

When I glanced sideways, the man put on an exaggerated show of embarrassment. It was so affected I could hardly bear it. What an unpleasant face he’s making, I thought. That face reminded me of one I’d seen long ago at Fukuoka Aquarium when I was a schoolboy. The maid taunted him with vulgar familiarity. “No wonder you’re sad,” she crooned. “Still wearing your tears, aren’t you?”

I couldn’t comprehend this man who’d supposedly been weeping moments ago now grinning foolishly over his drink. People’s hearts are strange indeed, I sang silently to myself. The crow that cried now laughs. Whether I wept or laughed myself began to feel equally meaningless. I kept draining cup after cup.

The student beside me who had been exchanging jokes suddenly put on a serious face and spoke up.

"I think Ms. Kikuko is pitiful."

"That's right."

“Since they were so close, he must be really sad.”

The maid lowered her voice.

“Keep crying forever.
Don’t leave the bedside, you know.”

“They were close—those two were special.”

“That’s right,” the maid declared with fervor, her voice taking on a feline quality.

“When they called each other on the phone, they really did seem happy.
They had matching kimonos made and went everywhere together—I know.
That feeling,” she pressed a hand to her chest, “that’s what you call homosexuality, isn’t it?”

Feeling as though a snake’s slimy skin had been rubbed against me, I shuddered and looked at the maid’s face.
There was a smell of despicable dementia.
As I fidgeted restlessly, unable to sit still or stand still, the maid—who had been pressing a hand to her chest while casting disdainful glances around—seemed to notice me. “Oh my, some sake!” she said, filling my cup to the brim.
Somehow, I felt like there was grease floating on the sake.
I closed my eyes and drained it.

The clamor grew louder.
The group lined up on the opposite side exposed their shins and waved their palms about as they argued, the situation becoming increasingly aimless.
In the corner, the Mona Lisa Aunt shuttled between taking and returning cups in a pantomime of drinking.
Is that aunt a relative here?
From where I sat, I could see several patched brown socks protruding from beneath a mantle's hem.
Observing their unsteady movements—clear signs of advanced drunkenness—I watched them wobble upright and approach.
They carried a large sake flask and cup.
Sitting before Mr. Amagami, they gestured toward the cup and muttered something about directions.
They must have been ordered to deliver it.
Having lived seven or eight years at Doriryūkan, Mr. Amagami commanded such master-like deference that basic courtesies had to be maintained.
Across the room, the cup-bearing man bowed to Mr. Amagami.
The Mona Lisa Aunt spoke while pouring sake.

“Oh my goodness, so this must be Mr. Amagami? We’ve been so indebted to you—truly, we’re always in your debt—my late daughter often spoke of you, you know.”

I couldn’t make any sense of what she was saying.

“Your homeland is said to be quite far away, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking I’d so love to visit someday myself, though.”

Mr. Amagami silently drank the sake in his cup. He appeared both uncertain how to respond and too drunk to care, opening and closing his eyes while listening to the aunt talk.

A strange melancholy grazed my heart.

In another room of Doriryūkan, there were several people surrounding a corpse bearing a faint smile, praying for its peaceful rest and lamenting the misfortunes of those left behind.

I took up the cup.
A faint layer of dust floated on its surface.
There, the electric light glimmered small as a bean, trembling with my hand's movement.
An otherworldly beautiful world existed at the bottom of this cup.
I pressed my lips to the cup.
The sake was chilled and bitter.
With a cruel desire akin to impulse, I drank it down in one gulp.
The aunt reached out and poured more sake with steady glugs.

The wind rattled against the window.
My head swam in fog—nothing made sense anymore.
That the gathering had collapsed into chaos hardly registered.
By the paper sliding doors stood endless rows of towering sake flasks.
From the corner group who'd been drinking with the maid rose a voice: "Shouldn't we sing?"

“How about we sing?” came a voice seeking approval.

“Is it really all right to sing?”

“Shouldn’t people drink a bit more quietly at wakes, don’t you think?”

Voices came from here and there.

“Because that child loved singing.”
“If she’d been fond of prayers...”

“Mr. Amagami, won’t you sing?”

Mr. Amagami was earnestly talking to the Mona Lisa Aunt about religion.
The Mona Lisa Aunt interjected from time to time with apparent dissatisfaction.
Mr. Amagami fluttered his hand dismissively.

In the corner of the room, two or three people began singing in low, muffled voices.

Over nine thousand thieves

Sneaking into Tamaya’s second floor

Take the bolts of cloth and flee

Run run anywhere and everywhere

They clapped their hands rhythmically.
They held cups in their hands and clinked bowls and plates.
The song fell apart mid-phrase.
Because it was such a strange song without any discernible melody, it somehow felt perfectly suited to this banquet.
The stagnant mass of tobacco smoke that had hung in the room’s middle air began to flow into motion.
They shouted loudly, "Next turn! Next turn!"
Leaning against the wall, Mr. Amagami—who had been talking loudly with the aunt—suddenly stood up for reasons unknown, repeatedly making gestures as if to quiet the gathering.

“A song!” he said.

It seemed to mean he would now sing.
After all, standing there unsteadily appeared laborious for him.
When everyone quieted down, he began singing in a low, thick voice with a drawn-out melody:
“Two lingering souls at the players’ shack,
Beneath love’s rain umbrella, hidden thoughts,
The rain of mercy comes pouring down.”

After spending two minutes singing just this much, the seats that had fallen utterly silent suddenly erupted into uproar.
Teacups went clink-clatter-clang.

At that moment, I saw the Mona Lisa Aunt suddenly straighten up.
With a face that seemed to have remembered something, she let her mantle slip from her shoulders.
“I’ll sing.”

Her thick eyebrows twitched several times before her eyes closed.
From deep within her throat burst forth a crystalline high-pitched voice.

Ah heartless botamochi!

Stabbed and scorched and pummeled,

Imprisoned in an earthenware bowl,

……………

Ah—why must everyone sing such wretchedly mournful songs?
All the anguish and sorrow I'd been choking down came flooding from my chest in time with those plaintive notes.
Through some bizarre derangement, my eyelids—which had remained fixed on her—suddenly burned hot.

……………

With two chopsticks as a cane

Borrowing a night's lodging in the belly

Tomorrow I depart from the Lower Checkpoint

When something hot surged up from my chest to my throat, I instinctively covered my eyes with both hands.
Tears like molten fire streamed endlessly from beneath my eyelids, dripping down my cheeks.
I could no longer endure remaining seated.
A grief unrelated to human life and death, to joy or suffering—a rending sorrow—welled up from my heart's depths.
I scrambled out into the corridor.

Turning down the corridor, I entered the toilet.
Crouching motionless, I stifled my sobs.
I didn’t clearly understand why I wanted to cry, but afterward the tears flowed endlessly.

The wind blew against the toilet window, gathering the night's dust.
A gritty sound rasped.
Outside was dark, and the houses of Hongo had turned off their lights and gone to bed.
The moonlight shone upon the roof tiles, illuminating the accumulated dust, leaves, and fragments of rope atop them.
There was a clothesline with forgotten laundry left hanging to dry.
While gripping the window frame with all my strength, I felt a hollow loneliness that made me want to lash out at something.

V

When I woke up, the room was dim.
Half of my head throbbed with pain.
Last night, after that, I returned to the banquet and drank copious amounts of bitter cheap sake.

In Mr. Amagami’s narrow room, two futons had been laid out, and I awoke in one of them.
Because the storm shutters were closed, it was dark and I couldn’t tell what time it was.
The storm shutters had a large knothole that projected a small inverted landscape onto the shoji screen.
Like natural color film, colors that felt somehow expensive colored that landscape.
I couldn’t clearly discern what kind of landscape it was.
I positioned my head upside down, fixed my gaze, and stared intently at that image.

The swaying landscape where depth had been indistinguishable gradually settled into place. There was a house. A tree resembling a persimmon tree stretched its branches above the eaves. The treetops moved faintly. There stood a white wall. A clothesline hung suspended. And there dangled a small elementary student's kogura coat—the sort a bean doll might wear. It fluttered softly.

"The wind was still blowing," I thought.
Judging by how the storm shutters weren’t rattling, it seemed the wind had weakened somewhat.
I hauled my lethargic body up.
While staggering to my feet, I threw open the storm shutters.
Bright sunlight flooded into the room.
I blinked my eyes rapidly and sat down by the window.

It seemed noon had long since passed.
All the scenery cast long shadows, and whether it was my imagination or not, it looked close to evening.
The bustle of the town reached me here.
The tofu vendor’s horn sounded, slicing through the air in long, thin notes.

I didn't go to school again today!
With bitterness churning in my gut, I muttered.
What would become of me if I kept living like this day after day?

Mr. Amagami's disheveled hair lay splayed across the pillow.
His small frame made the futon look flattened beneath him.
As I watched his helpless sleeping form—like discarded scraps of cloth—an inexplicable hatred began to well up within me.
This hatred grew murky, tainted by some underlying intimacy.
That very duality stoked my disgust.

The man sleeping here like a tattered rag was living a life where he couldn't survive without tormenting his own flesh.
This bastard was my shadow!
I puffed on bitter tobacco, watching the smoke dissolve into air.
Countless things kept piling onto my shoulders.
They clawed at my neck like bats sinking fangs into prey.
I crushed the cigarette and slipped from the room, leaving the window gaping.

From Hongōdai, I descended a steep slope, crossed the tram tracks at Esashimachi, and wandered recklessly through the cluttered streets of Koishikawa.
While trying to bury my thoughts through constant movement, my chest remained leaden.
Something like gravel lodged in my legs, hindering each step.
Avoiding main thoroughfares, I staggered from one unfamiliar alleyway to another.
I found myself retracing the same familiar paths repeatedly.

Because the days were short, the hues of dusk had already begun creeping into the streets.
A housewife buying horse mackerel at the fishmonger's, an errand boy hurrying along on his bicycle—in the desolate light of back alleys and vacant lots that sloped with odors rising from the entire neighborhood, girls jumped rope or crouched drawing doll pictures on the ground.
It was an unremarkable scene, yet tears unexpectedly welled up in my eyes.
Cruel delusions surged up sharply.
Though my body was exhausted—unrelated to physical form—I felt violent desires raging within the realm of pure mind.
The wind swept gently over the ground and blew at pedestrians' kimono hems.

When the surroundings had grown dark, I was climbing the steep stone-paved slope up to Hongōdai with a miserable feeling. Tonight, how should I kill time again? I searched the coat pocket. Loose change felt cold against my fingers. I'll drink. If anything—sake, opium, hashish—could make me forget everything, even temporarily, I would swallow it immediately. I was listlessly recalling last night's head-numbing drunkenness. I voraciously desired the pleasurable thrill of that moment when one descends into decadence.

In the shadows of Hongō-dōri's tree-lined avenue, street lamps flickered on. Imperial University students wearing their customary vacant expressions and Western-dressed girls with impudent faces passed me by as if in defiance. Near Hongō Sanchōme stood a grimy oden shop; shouldering through the noren curtain, I entered inside. I phoned Doriryūkan and summoned Mr. Amagami. "Care for a drink?"

I settled onto a stool and ordered sake. A fox-faced woman appeared carrying a long-necked decanter. Tepid liquid slid smoothly down my gullet. I rested my cheek in my palm. My unkempt beard rasped against the skin.

"Ensei with his unshaven beard," I thought.
Though I now had no intention of indulging in foolish affairs with townswomen, there was something vaguely disagreeable about how my appearance was growing increasingly ill-suited for such matters.
I was still young.
In what should have been the very bloom of youth.
Yet through some strange decadence, women seemed to retreat into distant realms.
I slammed the table and ordered my second bottle of sake.

As I drank that second bottle, Mr. Amagami entered through the front door like a shadow.
His face looked pallid.
A hangover's doing, no doubt.
I had been the one to carry his drunken form to bed the night before.
With a stiff "Well now," he forced out a laugh.
"My apologies for last evening."
"I couldn't make heads or tails of anything."
Having said this, Mr. Amagami took his seat.

We drank five or six more bottles of sake there.
As I gradually grew drunk, my mood began flowing out pleasantly.
The conflicting desires to comfort myself and torment myself—maintaining a strange harmony—made me talkative.
I exaggerated my suffering and told Mr. Amagami about it.
In this act of exaggerated narration, I felt a certain pleasure.

Mr. Amagami said.

"I suppose even I could be called a disciple of decadence."
"My lifestyle is slovenly, and my state of mind follows suit."
"But when it comes to my own decadence, I fully comprehend its roots."
"I know exactly why I’ve ended up in this state."
"Though understanding it clearly changes nothing."
"But your case is different."
"You don't know why you've fallen into this decadence, do you?"

"Even if I knew the cause, it wouldn't change anything," I answered.
"There might not even be a cause."

"Yes, it might well be true there's no cause."
"You and I are fundamentally different."
"Through ordinary eyes, you're just a slovenly man—that's the whole story."

I felt as if something bitter had been shoved into my mouth.

“You’re nothing more than a slovenly man yourself, after all.”

Mr. Amagami drained his cup in one gulp.
“You seem to feel some affinity for me now, but that’s a mistake.”
“You don’t understand me.”

“If you split open the core, aren’t we the same?”

“No, we’re not the same．You’re suffering，I suppose．I don’t find each and every day painful．Rather，it’s downright pleasant．”

From within my heart came various words with a surf-like sound.

"You once said you hated Tabikawa, but that's because you feel some kind of pressure from him, isn't it? That's why you dislike him, isn't it?"

"Pressure? I don't feel any pressure. How should I put it—" Mr. Amagami's eyes took on a distant gaze. "If anything, I feel physical revulsion."

"That's a lie. You're just saying that." I grew earnest. "Mr. Amagami. I don't clearly understand my own feelings, but I think I probably dislike you. Sure, I come to your place almost every day, but it's not because I want to talk to you or because I like you. In other words—it's like I come here through sheer inertia. There's nowhere else to go and nothing to do, so naturally my feet carry me here. But when you're not there or other guests come talking, strange as it seems, I feel truly unpleasant. This feeling is exactly like jealousy. But peel away one layer, and it's not. When I imagine you doing unknown things in unknown places, I get so irritated I can't sit still or stand still."

“Homosexuality, is it?” Mr. Amagami sneered. He must have heard the maids’ conversation from last night. I continued ignoring him.

“I neither like nor dislike Tabikawa. I didn’t feel angry that he didn’t join last night’s banquet either. He’s someone I have no connection with. From my perspective, he’s an idiot. I could despise him endlessly. But Mr. Amagami—if you’d tried to skip that banquet last night and go to bed, I would have dragged you out or even hit you to make you attend. Yet when I later think about us drinking together, or see you this morning sleeping like a ragged mess, I shudder violently. It’s an affected way of putting it, but you’re like my shadow. I think I’m something like your shadow.”

“A shadow,” Mr. Amagami said with a bitter smile.
“You’re young and foolishly honest—that’s why you’re spinning yourself into circles overthinking everything."
“I’m not saying that’s the case, but if it’s decadence you want, then decadence is fine—if someone were to immerse themselves in such a state of mind for five or ten years, they’d stop spouting such naive nonsense.”
"Escaping your current state of mind should be easy enough."
“You’re drunk on decadence, you know.”

“That’s not the case.”
“I feel it every time I talk with you.”
“You don’t speak the truth.”
“You spout lies and dodge the truth.”
“You are armed.”
“You’re striking a pose.”
“Are you that afraid of getting hurt?”

“That’s not true.”

“That’s right.”

I felt that a certain doubt I had vaguely harbored since yesterday had finally crystallized within my mind. I looked at Mr. Amagami’s face. There was absolutely no expression around his thin cheeks. He looked back at me with a naturalness like wind. Mr. Amagami’s long fingers brought the sake cup to his lips. I said in a low voice.

“Mr. Amagami, you were in love with the dead daughter, weren’t you?”

The sake cup halted abruptly at chest level.
A strange expression seemed to flit across Mr. Amagami’s face and vanish in an instant.
Then he drained the sake from his cup with an audible gulp.

“What would become of things if I were in love?”

“That changes nothing, but――”

“But I’m not in love with anyone,” Mr. Amagami declared with finality.

I simply looked down and drank sake.
An indescribable loneliness assailed me.

I had been feeling an intense need to urinate for some time now.
I unsteadily stood up and walked to the toilet at the back.
While urinating violently, I was seized by a hollow melancholy as though everything were some primeval occurrence.
I returned from the toilet, tapping the back of my neck without purpose.
Mr. Amagami was gone.

The narrow-eyed oden shop woman stood vacantly in the dirt-floored area.

“Where did he go?”
I asked hurriedly.

“He has returned.”
“He left?”
The woman sidled up to me.
“Oh, do sit down.
I’ll pour you some sake.”

I silently sat down and held out my cup.
I began to feel regret—perhaps I really shouldn’t have said that after all.
Even if I’m alone, I thought, maybe I’ll just keep drinking for a while.
The woman said as she filled my cup with sake.

“Is that person your friend?”
“Yes.”
“He seems rather frightening.”

"That's not really true."
"At heart he's a good person."
"Did you have a fight just now?"

“What do you mean, a fight?” I laughed.
“We were just having a discussion.”

After a brief pause, the woman said.

"He said he dislikes you."
I started and looked at the woman's face.
"He said you're being too persistent."

I could clearly feel my own complexion changing before my eyes.
I let out an involuntary cry.

"So he told you to say that to me!"

"Yes."
The woman looked down at me with pitying eyes.
An irrepressible surge of emotion welled up from my chest.
I barely managed to withstand it.

Some time later, I drank sake with that woman while talking about trivial matters. Trying to dispel this unbearable feeling, I engaged in empty chatter. It appeared to be an unpopular shop; I was the only customer, and not a single other person came in. The woman scrunched up her fox-like face and burst out laughing at my joke. Eight or nine sake bottles already stood lined up before me. As I drank, the wind that had weakened during daytime apparently grew strong again—the violent swaying of outdoor lanterns reflected on the glass door. Then the glass door rattled. "The wind's picking up," the woman said, furrowing her brows.

No matter how much I drank, I found it strange that I couldn't get drunk beyond a certain point. I hadn't eaten a single meal since morning, but I had no appetite at all. Around midnight, after emptying all the loose change from my coat onto the counter, I staggered out into the wind-whipped streets.

Crossing the tracks at Third District and following along the university wall until I came before the Red Gate, I stopped. There were no longer any human figures on Hongo Street, and the street stalls, dotted with lights, stretched toward Horai-cho. Not even the street stalls showed any sign of people now. Gritting my teeth against the urge to lurch forward, I surveyed the peopleless streets.

The wind blew, shaking the power lines, and the countless ginkgo leaves scattered before the Red Gate all scuttled away in unison with a dry rustle. They darted left and right with terrifying speed. Like thousands of yellow crabs being chased by some unseen force and desperately scrambling to escape, the vision appeared before my drunken eyes. Tonight is the crabs' festival. Tonight is the wind's banquet. From behind the fleeing swarm of crabs, the wind came whistling with a shrill sound.

Ah, everything was like the wind! While feeling the mournful density of wind blowing through the hollow in my chest, I thought this. A bottomless despair seized me. Suddenly something within my heart assumed a posture of prayer. I began walking. Now I would return to my room in Horai-cho. I would clean that filthy room properly and start attending school tomorrow. It was fine to be an ordinary student. It was fine to be a foolish student. I would lead a disciplined life—a splendid life where each second contained no molecules of boredom. I would truly seek that noble spirit to strictly govern my existence. I kept thinking this as hot tears streamed down my face.

However late that night, drawn by some mysterious force, I found myself standing once more at Doriryūkan's entrance.
I quietly slipped off my shoes, walked soundlessly down the corridor, and crept up to Mr. Amagami's room.
Mr. Amagami was already asleep.
I stared fixedly at his face.
Beads of sweat dotted his forehead where four or five hairs clung.
His sleeping face looked anguished.
Before I knew it, my chest constricted tightly.
All the hatred and sorrow in my heart had been momentarily washed away by this fleeting sentiment.
Living is good.
Living is a good thing.
I muttered meaninglessly while keeping my body rigid.
Mr. Amagami groaned and turned over in his sleep.
I quietly stood up.

I opened the shoji and spread out the futon without making a sound.
After turning off the light and sinking into darkness, I lay there blinking in the stillness, thoughts tumbling through my mind.
I can't live properly.
Just a man chewing through boredom to stay alive.
I sneered at myself - that pitiful creature who'd marched all the way to Horai-cho only to slink back here.

In the darkness, I felt I could perceive various shapes. I strained my drunken eyes to discern them one by one. The moment I sensed darker and lighter patches of shadow merging and drifting in a particular direction, an old painting I'd once seen reproduced suddenly materialized before me—a river spanned by an ancient wooden bridge. Dozens of blind masseurs jostled across it in chaotic procession. As this hallucination gained visceral reality, my breath grew labored. I heard the masseurs' ragged breathing. Two or three nearly plunged from the bridge's edge. Each man's sorrowful expression became distinct to me, as tangible as if I could trace their features with my fingers. Within this vision, wind whipped at their robes, churned the river into waves, and howled through the empty sky. Curling my toes in the dark, I trembled with visceral awe.

After ten minutes, I was exhausted and asleep.

VI

In Mr. Amagami’s room filled with late morning brightness, we ate breakfast.
The wind was completely still.
The sky had cleared to a pale blue, with two or three cloud fragments flying high above.
We ate our late warm meal while discussing plans like visiting the suburbs.
On each meal tray lay a single emaciated saury.
Still clinging to their bellies was a faint layer of fat.

Tabikawa came to summon us.
The funeral was about to begin.
Since early this morning, carpenters had come and built a platform in Doriryūkan’s entrance.
The clanging sound of hammering nails reached this room.
A white curtain had been hung there, and preparations for the incense offering were in place.
A long bench had been placed in the garden path, where the mourners would line up.
We stood in line together with the boarders.
There were several wreaths.
Among them was a wreath bearing a placard that read "Doriryūkan Boarders All."
The monks' sutra chanting began.

So many people had gathered in the garden path that they were pushing and shoving each other.
The figures of nurses in white uniforms were also visible.
And then the sutra chanting ended, and the incense offering began.

Among the boarders, Mr. Amagami was the first to step forward.
While being showered with people’s gazes, Mr. Amagami advanced toward the altar, shaking his head all the while.
Then, taking the bell striker, he chimed it with a clear ring.
He should have stopped after one strike but kept clinking it about twenty times in quick succession—ding-ding-ding without pause.
He grabbed a handful of incense and threw it into the incense burner.
As copious smoke swayed up to the soot-stained ceiling, I saw Mr. Amagami press his palms together and mumble something incoherently under his breath.
He must be spouting nonsense anyway, I secretly thought as I watched his retreating figure.

Mr. Amagami returned with the look of someone who had finally fulfilled an important duty.
The incense still smoldered.
The smoke passing through the entrance and flowing toward the inner garden held a leisurely elegance.
Everyone took turns offering incense.
I too joined the crowd and offered incense.
While acutely sensing the incense's scent, I closed my eyes and pressed my hands together.

After the funeral ended, we all trooped in a straggling manner into Mr. Amagami’s room.
As we were engaging in idle chitchat there, the boarding house landlady came over.

“We will be heading to the crematorium now—would you all care to join us?”

She clearly gave off the impression of having come to formally invite us, though she didn’t actually want us to attend.

“Let us go,” Mr. Amagami boomed.
I gazed at Mr. Amagami’s face.
It was as expressionless as stone.
“Now then, let’s go,” Mr. Amagami said, taking the lead.

When we stood at the entrance, the coffin had already been carried out of the garden path.
On that street, numerous cars were lined up waiting.
We emerged into the garden path.

“Ah, somehow this feels like New Year’s,” said Mr. Amagami.

At the desolate end of the garden path's brightness, Hongo's houses wound and clustered, and at every door, Japanese national flags fluttered and waved.
It was a holiday.
While turning onto the sunlit road, the hearse began moving solemnly.
The air was rather cold, but the clear brightness reminiscent of New Year's Day seemed to seep warmly into my chest as well.

To hurry along the passengers, the car drivers began honking their horns in a steady, rhythmic pattern.
We stepped on the black soil of the garden path and, gathering the desolate brightness around us, trooped out toward the street in a straggling line.