Pathway to Japanese Literature

That night, he was quite drunk.
On the opening day of a solo exhibition held by his friend Sado, several bottles of celebratory whiskey had been brought out.
By the time he arrived at Shinjuku Station, heavily intoxicated, it was already past ten.

The one he caught was a dedicated station taxi.
It was a system where after exiting the station, [the taxi] would drop passengers at their designated spot before rushing straight back to the station—a method he had judged to seem safest.
When drunk, he tended to become excessively cautious.
Some time after the war—he had still been young then—this habit had taken root after he got drunk, fell from a platform, and injured himself.
With each passing year, that habit showed an increasing tendency to grow more stubborn.

“You can tell right away when this guy’s been drinking.”

That night too, Sado explained to everyone while laughing.

“Whether it’s a road or a corridor, when he comes to a corner, he presses himself against the wall and turns at a right angle.”
“From what I’ve been watching, you’ve already started walking at right angles again, haven’t you?”
“Why don’t you head home soon?”

“Clinging to walls? I’m not a gecko.”

He answered.
He could tell himself that his tongue had grown somewhat slack.
And he stood up unsteadily.

“Well, if you say so, I’ll go ahead and leave first. Goodbye.”

“Yagi-kun. You, escort him home.”
“You, escort him home.”

Sado piled on as if to press his advantage.

“It’s nerve-wracking just watching him.”
“You’re headed the same way anyway, aren’t you?”

“I see. I’ll escort him.”

Yagi answered.
Yagi was much younger than he and Sado.
He was an aspiring painter.
Not being much of a drinker, he didn’t seem drunk.
His complexion was pale.

When they went outside, the night wind felt cold against his face.
He refused Yagi’s attempt to lend a hand and walked by himself.
Resolved not to walk at right angles like some drunkard’s caricature, he meant to stride purposefully forward—yet still his legs occasionally tangled.
Yagi turned up his coat collar and trailed two or three steps behind.

It took about ten minutes to reach Shinjuku Station, where a taxi neatly pulled up before him at the main entrance.
Seeing the vehicle’s familiar shape brought relief; he dumped his body into the seat like a sack of potatoes with a heavy thud.
Yagi climbed in after him.
The automatic door slid shut with a smooth mechanical clank.

He said.

“Take me to N District.”

He briefly explained the route, but the driver didn’t respond.
The taxi started moving.
A faint discomfort swayed within him.
Drivers these days don’t even bother to respond properly when you tell them your destination.
But when people go out of their way to exchange words, conversations get tangled—so as long as they understand, it’s better not to respond.
Through experience, he had come to believe this.
In that regard, nothing beat shoeshining.
For a time after the war, he’d struggled to make ends meet and worked as a shoeshiner.
He’d tried running a shop catering to occupation soldiers, but that failed because verbal interactions never went smoothly.
Shoeshining had been better.
Securing a spot had been quite a struggle, but once established, the rest was simple.
A customer would come and place their foot on the shoeshine stand.
He would polish them.
As a sign of completion, he’d tap-tap the toes with a thick cloth to even out the color.
The customer would understand, retract their foot, and hand over the money.
He’d take it and drop it into the cash box.
That was all there was to it.
The customer stayed silent, and he didn’t speak either.
A business transaction completed without either party uttering a word—perhaps shoeshining was the only such trade. Yet that wasn’t why he found himself in such an unpleasant mood.

“This automatic door’s the problem.”

While gazing at the passing cityscape outside the window, he absently spoke to Yagi.

“I really don’t like this automatic door thing.”

“Why is that?”

“I’m the one who got in, right? So isn’t closing it with my own hands just common sense? When it’s closed by some other force, it feels wrong. Stifling and unbearable.”

“I suppose that’s how you feel. Though I find it convenient—”

“Convenient?”
“Yeah, that’s convenient.”

He busily worked his mind and searched for another example.

“However, for example, it feels like a jail cell or coffin lid.”
“No—wait.”
“Jail cells and coffins aren’t things you enter by yourself, but—”

“That’s right.”
“Those aren’t things you enter—they’re places others put you into.”

Yagi said in a calm voice.

“Do you find department store elevators oppressive too?”

Elevators and cars were different.
He started trying to figure out why but gave up halfway through because it was too much trouble.
I’m not asking you to humor me, but your detached calm gets on my nerves.
Since talking had become a chore, he leaned back hard into the seat and kept his eyes glued to the window.
The streets abruptly brightened as they entered a district clustered with greengrocers and pharmacies.
Yagi spoke.

“Please stop.”
“I’m getting out here.”

The car stopped, and without a moment’s delay the automatic door creaked open. The fact that Yagi lived around here was something he already knew from having shared a ride with him once before. He wasn’t particularly surprised.

“So you’re getting off here?”

“Yes. Well then,”

When the car started moving again, he twisted his head toward the rear window glass.
Yagi didn’t look back, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the brightly lit fruit shop…

He had definitely had this kind of argument before.
How many years ago had it been? Where had it happened? He couldn’t recall.
He couldn’t remember, but under the same conditions, in the same manner, he had argued with someone similar.
His mood was identical to how it had been then.
That awareness was weakening his tone.
He said.

“So you’re absolutely refusing to go in, huh?”

“Yeah.”
“Can’t get through here.”

The driver said while staring straight ahead.
The fare meter showed 300 yen.

“A road this narrow is impossible.”

“But look—it might *seem* narrow at first glance, but during the day—sure, big trucks struggle—but regular trucks and cars zip in and out all the time.”

After dropping Yagi off and driving for about fifteen minutes, the car arrived near his house. There was a triangular plot of land surrounded by roads. He didn’t know how exactly it was divided, but four houses stood there. The car stopped in front of one of these houses, and his home lay around a bend on the opposite side. This one house was still up, and light spilled from its windows. Roses twined around the woven iron fence, their white and red flowers visible here and there. This house had previously been occupied by a dentist who moved out after about a year when his practice failed; now an American lived there. He seemed to be a private-sector buyer. During the day, a Japanese maid would hang out flashy undergarments to dry.

“You can get through during the day.”
“But when it’s this dark, I can’t get through.”

Indeed, that road was dark.
Hedges and similar vegetation stretched in a disorderly line, with no light visible anywhere.
The road wasn’t particularly narrow, but there was a contractor’s house nearby with stacks of old lumber piled at the entrance.
From the hedge on the opposite side, a large persimmon tree stretched its branches over the road as if to smother it.
In daylight, visibility was clear, but at night it felt far narrower than it actually was.
To make matters worse, at the road’s entrance there was a narrow sewer ditch, and six concrete square slabs were laid across it.
If they had laid them across the full width of the road, it would have been fine—but they omitted the sides and only covered the central part, half the road’s width.

“Whether it’s dark or light shouldn’t matter.”
He said, suppressing his emotions.
“Every taxi I’ve ever taken has gone through.”

“I don’t know about other taxis, but I’m not doing it.”

While remaining facing forward, the driver’s words grew slightly rougher. He still had not seen the driver’s face. When he had gotten in, he’d missed seeing it. All he could see were the hat, the nape, and the shoulders. The hat sat tilted back on his head. The nape was a dark reddish hue with raised bumps. His age wasn’t clear.

“When you say ‘go in,’ how far exactly are you supposed to go in?”

“It’s right there—my house.”
“Thirty meters in—the house on the left.”

“If it’s thirty meters, why don’t you walk? Quit your yapping already.”

“Walk? You’re ordering *me* to walk?”

“I didn’t give any orders.”
“Just making a suggestion.”

“But that’s—”

Just as he was about to say that—the automatic door creaked open by itself.
It was a sound that seemed to urge him on.
The sound struck his ears with decisive finality.

“Calm down… Calm down,” he told himself.
He took out a coin purse from a pocket while repeating those words internally.
With trembling fingers，he fished out three 100-yen coins and held them out over his shoulder．
“By the way—what’s this car’s number？”
“It’s on the back of the car．Just look there yourself．”

The driver answered curtly while taking the money.

“I see.”

He shifted his body to get out of the car, went around to the back, and looked at the license plate.
The automatic door closed.
Q2039.
After muttering it two or three times under his breath, he started walking along the narrow lane toward his house.
As he walked the thirty meters, taking care not to stumble, he thought of nothing but that number.
Because if he stumbled or let his mind wander to other things, there was a risk he would forget the number.
Q2039... Q2039...

He entered the house, locked the door, and went into his studio.
He wrote down the number on a sheet of drawing paper.
Finally feeling relieved, he sat down lightly on the chair.
He propped his elbows on his knees and rested his chin in his hands.
For five minutes, he remained motionless in that position.
Eventually, he lifted his head from his hands, reached out, and took the phone directory.
He flipped through it on his lap, searching for the taxi company’s number.
He eventually found it.
He muttered.

“That’s all it takes?!”

He stood up and rotated the telephone dial in the corner of the room.
Mid-rotation he hesitated briefly but forced himself to complete the turn.
Someone answered.

“Hello.”
“Your company has a car numbered Q2039, yes?”

“Yes?”
“One moment please.”

There was the sound of a receiver being placed down.
He stood rigid.
In his childhood, his household had included a grandmother of fierce temperament.
Whenever he did something bad, unnecessary, or bordering on mischief, she would fly into a tremendous rage and beat him with fire tongs or a long-stemmed pipe—disciplining him harshly.

“That’s all it takes?!”

“You had to go and do it!”

It meant doing what needn’t be done.
Those words had seeped deep into his body and would sometimes rise to his tongue now.
Wasn’t this just about whether a road curved or didn’t?
Even if forced to walk, wasn’t it merely thirty meters?
If he complained this vehemently over the phone, the driver’s performance rating would likely suffer—and he himself might get dragged into some tedious entanglement.
No one would gain anything.
In other words—wasn’t this exactly *doing what needn’t be done*?
The moment this thought crystallized, the person on the other end returned to the line.

“Yes.”
“That is indeed our company’s car.”

“I see. That car did such a thing about twenty minutes ago.”

He explained the recent incident in an orderly fashion—or at least, he believed he had organized it coherently. The other party responded in a businesslike voice,

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

he replied.
He had planned to explain in detail, but the explanation was over in less than a minute.
Even if he had wanted to elaborate, there wasn’t enough material to do so.
He finally said.

“Dropping someone off midway—I think that’s more malicious than refusing the ride in the first place.”

“Understood. The person in question should return tomorrow morning at eleven, so I will listen carefully to the circumstances—”

He hung up the phone.
He could tell the well-earned intoxication hadn’t properly dissipated, settling thickly instead.
It settled thickly, unmoving.
If I had another drink, maybe I could flush it out, but there wasn’t a drop of alcohol left here—no matter where I looked.—

Around noon the next day, he woke up.
His mouth felt gummy, the drunkenness still lingering.
Yet he hadn’t slept properly.
Once daylight brightened the window, noises seeped in as he lay half-conscious, unable to distinguish wakefulness from sleep.
There was resistance to opening his eyes—and even when he did, everything stayed doubled and warped for some time.

When he heaved himself up to drink water, his eyes first caught the drawing paper with the number scrawled on it.
The thick phone directory still lay open on the desk to last night’s page.
He seized the receiver with force.
This phone directory bore full responsibility for his current wretched state—that’s what he felt.
A different voice from yesterday’s came through.

“I heard about the matter from the night shift.”
“As it happens, the person in question returned to the company at seven this morning and has already gone home, so—”

“Seven o’clock? Last night’s phone call said around eleven.”

The voice droned on with tedious explanations.
"As the Managing Director of this company, I’ve cautioned employees at every turn to prevent such incidents."
"Yet despite these efforts, I can’t comprehend why such discourtesy occurred—my deepest apologies."
"You mention taking proper measures, but I implore you to forgo that course."
"If the individual in question appears tomorrow, I’ll ensure he receives a stern reprimand."
"And so on."

“Instructing him is your company’s prerogative, I suppose,” he said. “My road isn’t narrow. Even large vehicles can enter slowly. Please make sure that’s thoroughly understood. That’s all.”

He hurriedly hung up the phone.
It seems I'm not angry to preserve my own dignity but rather because the road was disparaged.
However, by making the phone call, he felt somewhat relieved.
He went out to the well, gulped down water from a large cup, and vomited it all into the trash hole in the corner of the garden.
Only water came surging up his throat.
With the same coldness as when he drank it, it gushed out.
Repeating this two or three times to empty his stomach, he returned to his room.
And then he slept again until evening.

It was the afternoon of the following day when the Managing Director and the driver came to visit his home.
Two unfamiliar men stood at the entrance.
When he looked at them quizzically, the older man presented a business card.
The title read Managing Director of XX Taxi, and he immediately recognized who they were.
Since they had gone out of their way to come, it felt awkward to receive them at the entrance, so he guided them to his studio.
In the entranceway remained two pairs of shoes—one new, the other squashed-looking.

"I only made a phone call—how did they figure out where I live?"

While preparing tea, he suddenly thought—
The next moment, he immediately realized it was a foolish suspicion.
Neither of them touched the tea.
The Managing Director broke the silence.

“It seems our driver was extremely rude this time—”

He listened to the conversation while stealing glances at the driver’s face.
The night before last, he had seemed younger and more arrogant, but now the man sitting there in a jumper was around thirty, giving an impression of earnestness—or rather, dullness.
Narrow eyes were drooping sleepily.
They seemed unfocused, making it impossible to tell where he was looking.

*They must've brought a decoy,* he thought. *This wasn't that man.*
*If they'd actually brought him here...*
"That being said,"

The corpulent Managing Director took out a box with a rustle.
From the look of the wrapping paper, it appeared to be a box of sweets or something of the sort.

“No—that’s—”

He raised his voice.

“It’s not like I called because I wanted something like that.
“You’re misunderstanding something.
“I just wanted my road—”

“We understand perfectly.
“We do understand.”

The Managing Director stood up and prodded the driver.

“Hey.”
“You apologize too.”
“Now.”

Since the driver remained motionless, the Managing Director placed his hand on the back of the driver’s head and pushed it firmly forward.
As a result, the driver assumed a bowed posture.

“Well. Let’s go.”

The Managing Director removed his hand from the driver’s head and spoke. The driver returned his head to its original position and stood up expressionlessly.

“No—please. There’s truly no need to see us off.”

As if recoiling, the Managing Director backed out of the room. The driver followed behind. He trailed them to the entranceway. The two men were hunched over putting on their shoes. The driver’s neck visible from behind had a sun-darkened shape that felt both familiar and unfamiliar. He spent a long moment staring down at it with probing eyes.

"So it really was that driver from back then.
The skin had numerous pore-like indentations."

Returning to the studio, he thought.
The Managing Director had done all the talking, but he now realized the driver hadn’t uttered a single word.
If only he had heard the voice—its intonation and tone should have revealed whether this was the actual person or a decoy.
But even if it were a decoy—what did that matter?
I absolutely have no recollection of demanding they bring the actual person here to explain themselves.
It’s simply that they came of their own accord.
The Managing Director had never explicitly stated this was indeed that person.
Everything had settled into ambiguity.
Only a single box of sweets remained with stark clarity.

He said aloud.

“Who the hell would eat this crap?”

He crumpled four or five sheets of newspaper, took the box of sweets, and went out into the garden.
He threw it into the garbage dump and set it on fire.
The newspaper began burning fiercely with white flames leaping up.

“That driver’s face…”
“Which driver’s face was it, I wonder?”

“Look.
“At Sado’s event—remember? We hailed a taxi together, didn’t we?”

About a month later, at a café in Ueno, he happened to meet Yagi.
While drinking black tea, he brought up the topic.
Yagi let his gaze float into space and thought for a while.

“Ah.”
“That time.”
“The night you needled Sado-san about having gray hair—”

“Gray hair?”

“Yes.
“You really went on at Sado-san about how his recent gray hairs proved he’d aged terribly, didn’t you?
“So you said his work had gone downhill too.”

He tilted his head.
Sado was the same age as he, and it was true that his white hair had increased strangely of late.
But as for him teasing Sado about that—he had no memory of it, nor could he even imagine it.

“There’s no way I’d do something like that.
Linking gray hair to artwork—that’s utterly irrational!”

He said, groping through his memory.

“He criticized how drunk I was acting—that’s why I got fed up and left the venue.
You were with me too, right?”

“Yes. There was a light rain falling outside.”
“Rain?”

“Yes. It was cold, so I turned up my coat collar and walked.”
“Even so, I got pretty soaked.”

“I didn’t get wet at all.”
“What a strange story this is, I tell you.”

He sipped his cooling black tea.

“Something’s gotten tangled up here.”
“I caught a station taxi.”
“The number was Q2039.”

“You even remember the number.”

“Yeah.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“You got off halfway.”
“And went into that corner fruit shop.”

“Fruit shop?”

“That’s right. There was a sign that read ‘Fuji Fruit Store.’ You went straight in there. I was watching that from the car’s rear window.”

This time, Yagi set the cup down on the table quietly, with a look of disgust.

“Is that true?”
“But there’s no way that could happen.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I had a fight with that fruit shop—must’ve been about half a year ago—over bananas. I paid for a large bunch, but when I opened it at home, there was a small one inside. So I had a huge fight with that old man there, and I’ve made it a rule never to shop there since then.”

“But I saw it.”
“With my own eyes.”

The two of them fell silent for a while.
Eventually, Yagi raised his head.

“Assuming you saw that with your own eyes, then what happened to you after that?”

“When we got near my place, the driver told me to get out.”
“So I got out.”
“But it wasn’t raining, I tell you.”

He explained the sequence of events haltingly, as if verifying each detail.
Yagi listened while offering perfunctory responses.
When he finished speaking, Yagi asked a question.

“So, what was in that box of sweets after all?”

“I don’t know. Only the newspapers and outer box burned away completely, leaving behind this viscous residue. It gave off this weirdly cloying sweetness—made me feel like puking, and looked like maggots would crawl out any minute—so I dug a hole with a shovel and buried it. But if they were going to bring something like that, why couldn’t they have just entered the road back then?”

“Couldn’t he have mistaken you for a car thief?”

“A robber? Me? No way!”

“However, you should be careful around that driver.”
“There are stories about people operating taxis with things like neurosis or epilepsy without even realizing it, you know.”

Yagi turned serious and changed the subject.

“However, even passengers—whether they’re in their right mind—no one can tell for sure.”

“That’s right.”

After a moment, he nodded.

“We’re getting tangled up little by little too.”
“What you remember and what I remember don’t quite line up.”
“And yet we manage to live without a care.”

“Me?”

“No—
“Not just you—everyone is.”

He evaded.

“Once you start doubting, there’s just no end to it.
Forgetting things, getting locked out of memories, feeling at ease staying mistaken—that way of living must be much easier.
Even if you peer into an old well, there’s no point.
Just some useless moss growing—”

“Is that sarcasm?” Yagi countered, his eyes glittering.

Yagi’s eyes glittered as he countered.

On a hot summer afternoon, he encountered that driver again.
Of course he hadn’t realized it was him, and the driver hadn’t noticed him either.
He hailed a taxi near Mejiro and got into it.
While explaining the directions to his home, he wiped sweat from his forehead and arms with a handkerchief.
The taxi started moving.
As soon as it began moving, the driver spoke.

“Boss.
D’you remember me?”

“Huh?”

He stopped wiping his sweat and looked at the back of the driver’s head. Sweat was welling up thickly across his neck too.

“You remember, right? With this route we’re taking now, it came back to me. That was around early May, I think.”

“Ah, that time—”

When he shifted his gaze from the back of the driver’s head to the rearview mirror, he abruptly remembered.

“You’re the driver who dropped me off halfway that time, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t just drop you off!”

The driver’s voice took on an edge.

“I was forced to go apologize,”
“Threw a whole day’s earnings down the drain.”

“That’s right,”
“With that Managing Director or whatever—some fat old guy.”

Peeling his clammy back from the seat, he answered.

“But I never said you should come apologize. You came on your own.”

“If you go makin’ calls like that, even the Managing Director can’t just let it slide.”

“How’s the Managing Director these days?”

“He’s dead.”

“A traffic accident?”

“No—it was illness.”

For a short while, the conversation ceased.
At the intersection’s red light, the car stopped.
While scrubbing his neck with a towel, the driver said:

“That gift too—I paid for it outta my own pocket. Tasted good, didn’t it?”

“Is that so?”

He was thinking about something else.

"That night—the night you picked us up in Shinjuku—was it raining then?"

“Rain?
What’re you talkin’ about?”

The driver sneered.

“I didn’t say anything about rain.”
“It was about the box of sweets.”
“Since they’re apparently Ursa-type, the Managing Director told me to buy the highest grade one, so—”

“Oh.
“So it was such a high-grade confection?
“What was inside again?”

“It was Castella cake.
“You were dying to eat it—already forgot about it?”

“I didn’t eat it.”

He said honestly.
If he told a lie, there was a risk of causing confusion again.

“You didn’t eat it? Did you give it to someone?”

“No.”
“I burned it.”

White flames and a cloying smell came back to him vividly.

“I see. So that’s what burnt Castella smells like?”

The driver did not respond.
His back looked slightly puffed up.

The city seen from the window had no wind.
The street trees and power lines hung dully motionless.
He wanted to return home quickly and wash himself with water.
He was peeling the sticky underwear away from his skin.
In a pressing voice, the driver said:

“Boss.
Still into gambling, Boss?”

“What do you mean by gambling?”

“There.”
“In the car—weren’t you and that young guy with you talking nonstop?”
“About horse racing and hanafuda cards.”

The light turned green, and the car started moving.

“You mean the guy who got off midway?”

“Yeah.”

Here we go again with the tangled reasoning, he thought as he shifted his body toward the window.
The wind roughly scraped his face.

"I don't talk about gambling, I tell you."
"There's no way I would."

“No.”
“You were talking about it.”

“But I’ve never done horse racing or hanafuda—I tell you—if I’ve never done ’em，I can’t talk about ’em.”

As for what he had talked about with Yagi that night—he could no longer recall. He had a memory of having talked, but the content had vanished.

“So you’re saying you don’t do any gambling at all?”

“I wouldn’t go that far. If it’s shogi, I play a little.”

The car stopped again at an intersection.
The driver took out a towel and scrubbed at palms and the steering wheel vigorously.
The towel was dirty and had darkened.

"Hot out, isn’t it? Boss."

In an irritated voice, the driver said.

“Why don’t we have some shaved ice together? There’s a place I frequent up ahead.”

“I guess so.”

He remembered someone had warned him to be careful of the irritated driver. Though he wanted to get home quickly, putting up with it and humoring him here might be safer.
He reluctantly compromised.

“Alright, let’s do that.”

The car drove about five hundred meters and pulled up close to the sidewalk. He got out. The red flag of the shaved ice shop hung limply, and as he parted the noren curtain to enter, the tiny glass beads pricked and tugged painfully at the hairs on his arm. Despite being a shop that dealt with ice, the interior felt hotter than the street outside.

“Two strawberry shaved ices.”

Then the driver went to the corner of the shop, brought over a worn-out shogi board, and sat facing him.
Narrow, sleepy-looking eyes were positioned directly across from him.

“Boss. Let’s have ourselves a game.”
“What? Shogi? Here?”

“That’s right. You said you’d play, didn’t you?”

“I did say I play.
But with you—”

He began to say something but fell silent.
He felt something inescapable closing in on him from behind.

“Are we betting on something?”

“Yeah.”

His narrow eyes widened slightly.
He could see red blood vessels prickling across the eyeballs.

“The loser bows deeply to the opponent. How about that, Boss?”

“Alright.”
“Let’s play.”

The Managing Director’s white, flabby palm pressed hard against the driver’s occiput.
His head resisted the pressure but ultimately bowed down.
Hmph.
That’s what this was about.
The moment he thought this, he felt a strange fighting spirit welling up from the depths of his languid body and began arranging the pieces with a click-clack before the driver could.