Pathway to Japanese Literature

I

One clear evening, when the colors of the sunset clouds were beginning to fade, I was walking along a suburban road. It was late autumn or early winter, I believe. A fairly strong wind was blowing across the ground and through midair, swaying the treetops and kicking up dry clouds of dust. It was a road connecting stations of one private railway and another, its central portion lightly paved. Buses, automobiles, and auto rickshaws passed through there. People walked on the unpaved gravel sections on both sides.

The area was still undeveloped, with only farmhouses surrounded by trees, small housing complexes, and high-voltage line towers scattered here and there—most of it occupied by fields. However, seeing how they were cutting into hills and cliffs here and there to create flat land, it was certain that this area too would rapidly develop and become packed with houses and apartments.

The pedestrian traffic was sparse.

The woman was walking about thirty meters ahead of me in the same direction. She walked not along the roadside sidewalk but along a path sunken deeper into the fields. It wasn't concern over dusk-hour traffic accidents that had made her descend there, but rather to escape the wind buffeting against her. At that moment, a truck came speeding from behind me. As it passed by, I briefly stopped and turned my back to the roadway. The truck continued on before apparently swerving to avoid a pothole in the paved surface and mishandling the steering. The edge of its chassis grazed a bus stop signpost. A dull impact sounded.

The signpost had a concrete base at its foundation, with a metal pipe extending straight up from it and a disk bearing the bus stop name attached at the very top. Since the signpost had a heavy foundation, under normal circumstances it should have simply been knocked over, but at that moment a strange phenomenon occurred.

The signpost's pipe had snapped. The signpost, nameplate and all, didn’t fly straight ahead but instead caught the wind and soared into midair. I hadn’t witnessed the entire sequence of events. When I turned toward the sound, it was already soaring upward. It floated lightly upward, carefree as you please, rising twelve or thirteen meters—then paused for an instant before spinning wildly down diagonally into the fields.

"……"

Letting out a voiceless scream-like cry, the woman went limp from her legs to her knees, from her knees to her torso, and collapsed onto the black soil. At that exact landing point, she had been walking. Earlier I had mentioned that a woman was walking thirty meters ahead, but when the truck passed by, I hadn’t noticed her. Or rather, I hadn’t registered her in my awareness. I had been walking while gazing exclusively at the sky and scenery. Therefore, it was from the moment the broken signpost fell there that I became aware of her presence. I immediately descended the slope and hurried in that direction. Before I arrived there, a young man and woman came running up—where they had been until then, where they had been walking, I didn’t know—and the man was frantically working his hands trying to turn the woman who had fallen face-down onto her back. The young woman from the couple spoke with an excited look in her eyes and voice,

“Did you see the license plate?”

“You.” “Did you see the license plate?” I remained silent. I was so captivated by the signpost flying through the air that I had no chance to see the license plate. The man must have been agitated as well. Stammering, in a voice paradoxically brimming with exhilaration,

“Th-that’s not important! Go call an ambulance right now.” “Hurry! Hurry!” Not even a minute had passed since the incident occurred, yet already about ten people had gathered, and figures could be seen scattering in from the distance. Someone from among them must have run off to reach a phone. Before long, an ambulance approached headlong down the paved road, sounding its siren. The woman, still unconscious, was loaded into the ambulance. The ambulance man sharply informed the driver of the designated emergency hospital’s name. The ambulance made a U-turn, increased its speed, and drove away. All that remained were the rubberneckers and the signpost (as murder weapon?).

The woman had only fainted from shock and regained consciousness immediately upon arriving at the hospital. There were no wounds on her head, bruises on her shoulders and hands, and a compression fracture in one area of her thoracic spine. However, in less than fifteen days, she was discharged from the hospital.

Upon hearing the rumor that Yagi Eisuke had fallen down the stairs and injured himself, I went to visit him. He was lying sprawled out on the bed in his eight-tatami-mat room at home. At the bedside stood a bed table, and beside it sat a guest chair. When Yagi saw my face, he made an expression that seemed both dazzled and annoyed.

“You hurt your back, I hear. What a misfortune,” I said as I sat down in the chair. “Did you fall down stairs at a bar?”

“A bar?” “Not a bar—a bus.”

Yagi grimaced.

“A bar? That’s slanderous talk. Who said such a thing? If word gets around the school, that wouldn’t look good, would it?”

Yagi and I had graduated from school together, and he was now working as a lecturer at a university. As a lecturer, his income was meager, but since his wife ran a beauty salon, they weren’t struggling financially. The reason he was sprawled out like that was said to be not because of their financial situation but due to his back pain. "It’s easier for me to stay like this." Yagi slid his back up and assumed a posture leaning against the kapok pillow. Due to the shifting light, Yagi’s expression appeared considerably sickly and aged. It had a certain quality about it. He was the same age as I was because.

“Mind making some tea? The tea set’s in the cupboard door under the table.”

“Were you drunk at the time?” I asked while placing the kettle on the electric heater. “Falling down bus stairs—what a careless accident.”

“I wasn’t drunk.” “When you’re drunk, your body goes limp—you don’t get hurt like that.” “If you’re sober, you can’t help but flail.” He plucked a single grape from the bunch at his bedside. “It was a large bus with three steps.” “From the top step, my foot slipped clean out—no choice but to go down.” “Holding that briefcase left me no way to catch myself.” “The back doesn’t have hands, does it?” “Nothing to grab—bang! Bang! Bang! Three times down before slamming my hip square into that curb corner.” “Felt my whole side jolt when it hit.”

Peeling the grape’s skin carefully, he threw it into his mouth.

“Why on earth are human backs made so defenseless? Hands thrust forward. Strike. Legs kick upward. The sensory organs—eyes, mouth, ears—they’re all oriented forward to deal with threats ahead. Only the back gets abandoned by everyone and left behind. What’s the reason for that?”

“There’s something called an elbow strike.”

“Yeah. That does exist.” “But that’s a passive thing.” “It doesn’t have much effect on an enemy.” Yagi kept the grape in his mouth and thought for a while. At times like these, I always get irritated, thinking he should just swallow it quickly. There had always been something about the man called Yagi that made him act that way. “When we were kids and Father told us scary stories, we brothers would press our backs tightly against him.” “We never hugged him.” “Because it was our backs that would shudder with fear.” “Are children today like that too?”

“They still do, I suppose.” “So are human beings fundamentally built to be aggressive? Animals that walk with their backs exposed—defensive animals at that—usually have shells or spines, don’t they? For example, turtles or——”

The tea was ready, so the conversation stopped. After drinking about half, I asked.

“So that slipping off the bus—is that your excuse?”

“No—” “It’s not exactly an excuse, but—”

He set down his teacup and shifted position with a pained expression.

“The back is such a troublesome thing.” “I can’t even see it myself—it’s practically a blind spot.” “You never know when an enemy might come lunging at you.” “When people grow close, they talk about opening their hearts—but showing each other their backs? That’s something they’ll never do.”

I half agreed with Yagi’s argument but felt half opposed. After drinking up his tea, Yagi twisted his body, slid down from the pillow, and returned to his original recumbent position. In a voice that sounded pained—or perhaps exaggeratedly so— “Bones move. Unlike human relationships—where you can’t stand one up without knocking another down—that logic doesn’t apply to bones.”

“I once saw someone who had struck their spine and lost consciousness.” “The very scene, I tell you.” I said while recalling the events of that day.

“Accident.” “That was an accident, completely.”

“A traffic accident?”

“Yeah. It was a traffic accident after all.” “The car hit the bus stop sign.” The sign broke off， flew some distance， and struck a woman in the back. The car fled as it was， but I think he probably didn’t realize he had hit the woman. “So then—the woman was definitely a victim—but can we really call the driver a perpetrator?” “Of course—regarding the signpost—since he damaged it—he’s unquestionably the perpetrator there.”

He suddenly seemed to take interest, his eyes glinting. There, I told him the full account of what I had witnessed. He listened, nodding at intervals and interjecting brief responses.

“So then,”

Finally, I said. "I think spinal injuries might heal faster than you'd expect." Yagi stayed silent for a while, thinking. Then he opened his mouth.

“Did you give such a long speech just to say that?”

“That’s part of it, but—” I answered. “You never know where disaster might be lurking.” “That’s also what I wanted to say.”

“Hmph. You’ve been getting rather preachy lately, seems like. A matter of age, perhaps? Come to think of it, you’re forty-four years old too, right?” Yagi laughed.

“So, was that woman an acquaintance of yours?”

“No— I don’t know her at all.” “Just a passerby.” “Then how do you know she regained consciousness right after arriving at the hospital, or where her injuries were?” “I called the hospital two days later.” “I had noted down the hospital’s name from what the ambulance attendant said.”

“Why would you do such a thing?” “I wanted to know how what I saw continued and connected.” “That’s all there was to it.”

“You have monkey-like curiosity.” “Then—whether it was a nurse or female doctor I don’t know—a woman’s voice came through and told me about her symptoms.” Ignoring Yagi’s remark, I continued. “After that, since you asked who I was, I truthfully answered that I was someone who’d happened to witness the scene.”

The voice from the receiver said. In a slightly flustered voice. “Could you kindly come to the hospital?” “The hospital wants to know the details of the situation, and the person involved is also looking for a witness due to various circumstances.” “They probably wanted testimony regarding the car and disaster insurance matters.”

“So, did you go to the hospital?”

“No— I didn’t go.”

I answered.

“I don’t remember the license plate number either—the only things that stuck with me were that signpost flapping like a mad kite and the woman lying in the field.” “She looked about thirty, quite a beauty.” “If she was pretty, you should’ve visited her.” “But I didn’t call to play witness.” “Just wanted to see how things connected.” I switched off the electric heater.

“Then, after about twenty days, I tried calling again.” “It turned out she had already been discharged.” “I don’t know what happened after that.” “If I wanted to know, I could find out.” “Because I had also noted down the woman’s address.”

“You really do have a perverse streak.” “When you get old, you’ll definitely turn into a spiteful old man.” “I’ll vouch for that.”

I did not respond. From the electric heater's kettle, I poured a second cup of tea and drank it.

“So──”

Slowly finishing my drink, I asked. He closed his eyes lightly, as if tired. The color of his eyelids was faintly dark.

“In your case, when you took that spill, did any onlookers gather?”

"They didn't gather." "As if they would've gathered." He listlessly opened eyelids.

“The situation’s different. Besides, I’m no beauty—just a middle-aged man taking a spill, that’s all.”

“Does your back hurt?”

Because he moved his body as if in pain, I asked.

“No.” “It’s not my back.” “The pain has moved somewhere else.”

Indeed, Yagi Eisuke was slightly drunk at that time. After finishing his lecture, he went to a cheap bar with colleagues and drank three highballs. After parting with his colleagues, he boarded the bus. As evening approached, the bus gradually became crowded. Due to the rising temperature inside the bus and his drunkenness, Eisuke began to feel drowsy. As he propped up his head and drifted in a daze, the conductor called out the name of the bus stop. He jolted upright and, pushing through the passengers, rushed toward the entrance.

Because the bus’s stopping time was dragging on, the young female conductor wore a blatant sulky face. Panicking then proved fatal. Thud, thud, thud—three consecutive spills, and in under two seconds he found himself flat on his backside at the sidewalk’s edge. Yet no one laughed. They refrained from laughter—but by the same token, no one offered help either. The catalyst for intervention must have escaped them all. With such seamless fluidity, with consummate naturalness, Eisuke had executed his pratfall.

By the time Eisuke managed to stand by clinging to the support stakes of the street trees, the bus had already driven off, swinging its large rear end. He felt miserable and tried to pick up the soiled bag, but the sharp pain around his waist made it nearly impossible to retrieve. He couldn’t walk home. Still clinging to the support stake, he called a taxi.

When he returned home, he struggled to take off his shoes and crawled to the bed. He asked the housekeeper who had brought tea to call a doctor. The housekeeper did not even ask what was wrong and picked up the telephone receiver. However, even when Eisuke had been crawling like a cat earlier, she had watched expressionlessly and silently from afar. While listening to the sound of her making the call, Eisuke lay in bed,

"That woman's just like a robot. She doesn't show any emotion at all," he thought. However, while he had felt miserable when no one paid him any attention at the bus stop, with this housekeeper it was different. Rather, he found that coldness refreshingly straightforward and even came to like it. He preferred this because being persistently interrogated would have been like reliving his misery.

Eventually, his regular doctor arrived. He was a bald-headed, good-natured man fond of drink who did not impose strict regimens even when ill, so Eisuke liked this doctor.

“What’s wrong?”

Eisuke briefly explained the circumstances. He added finally. “I think it might be a case of acute lower back pain.” The doctor did not show any particular reaction to those words. He had him lie face down, pressed and manipulated various parts of his lower back, and with that, the examination was concluded. “Even when we speak of lower back pain, there are various kinds, and often the cause remains unclear.” “But in your case, you must have hit your lower back, sprained that area, twisted it, and caused inflammation.” “I’ll give you a painkiller injection. If you rest properly, it should heal within that time.”

However, the pain showed no signs of subsiding. On the third day, at his wife Mikako’s urging, he consulted a shiatsu practitioner. Mikako said, “According to my clients’ accounts, he’s quite skilled. A grown man not going to work and lazing around at home—isn’t that disgraceful? Please get better quickly.”

Without mustering any mental fortitude, he was taking it as a lucky break to rest his bones. Mikako seemed to interpret it that way. He had no particular objection to requesting shiatsu—or rather, since it was he himself who wanted to escape the pain and pressure in his lower back, he came to feel willing to actively undergo the treatment. A tall, bony-feeling shiatsu practitioner arrived. Perhaps from years of practice, his fingertips had become flattened like viper heads. “Doctors are no good.”

While pressing on his back, the chiropractor said mockingly. His tone was closer to admonishing than speaking. “Doctors just give painkiller injections and don’t take any other measures afterward. Compared to that, shiatsu on the other hand—”

Eisuke remained face down, listening to this with a sense of amusement. However, when the shiatsu practitioner’s fingers moved to his lower back, he could no longer keep laughing. The pain had arrived. "It's lumber. I'm old lumber."

That feeling gradually faded as the fingers pressed on the pain points, and he grabbed his pillow and groaned, letting out screams of “It hurts!” Each time he shouted, a scolding voice from above—the chiropractor’s—came raining down.

“Don’t go yelling ‘It hurts!’ Say, ‘I felt it’!”

Still, every time a pressure point was touched, Eisuke would yell "It hurts!" and be demanded by the chiropractor to correct himself. Gradually, Eisuke’s laughter was turning into anger. What was wrong with yelling "It hurts!" when it did hurt? How could I possibly utter some sappy line like "I felt it"? He clutched the pillow to his chest, limiting himself to nothing but groans.

The shiatsu session ended with his feet last. When he tried moving his body, his entire back heated up, and around his waist there was a pressing sensation as if there were localized swelling.

The chiropractor began coming every day after that. When he told the doctor about it, the doctor shook his head slightly. Eisuke asked. “Is that not allowed?”

“Yes. After all our efforts to calm it down, it would be like forcibly rousing a sleeping child.”

At first, he couldn’t stand or walk, relying on a broom to get to the toilet, but gradually things settled down, and he became able to stagger along without the broom. However, the recovery could not be called quick. One such day, the doctor had Eisuke stand and, while examining his bare back, said suspiciously: “This bone is protruding quite significantly.” The doctor’s cold fingers pressed near the twelfth thoracic vertebra. “When I press here, does it hurt?”

“No. Not at all.”

“That’s strange. Certainly this bone is deformed. When you were a child—did you ever fall from horizontal bars or get struck hard by something?”

"Hmm," Eisuke tilted his head. I feel like there was something, yet also feel like there wasn't.

“In the military, I did fall off a cliff once, but I didn’t hit my back there. If I had hit it then, would it have hurt?” “Yes. It would have hurt,” said the doctor. “Even pressed this lightly, it should’ve been unbearable.” The doctor’s fingers pressed the thoracic vertebra again. There was no pain. The fingers crept slowly across his back before settling on his right flank. “There’s a strange lump here,” he said. “Odd.” “Does this hurt?” There was no sensation there either.

“Had it been there before?”

“No.”

Eisuke moved his right hand around and touched it. There was something soft and flabby, about the size of an egg. At that sensation, Eisuke suddenly felt a sharp shudder.

“Are you cold?”

Eisuke silently covered his back with his sleepwear and lay down on the bed. The doctor thought for a moment, then said quietly.

“Let’s take an X-ray. Please come to the clinic tomorrow.”

The deformation of the thoracic vertebra, the lump, the lower back pain—what connection did they have with each other? Eisuke tried to ask but stopped. It was because he didn’t want it to be determined. "When had this lump formed?"

It couldn’t be seen with the eyes. However, through touch, he could roughly imagine its shape. As if kneading away the detestable lump, he rubbed that part against the sheets. Before long, the housekeeper came and announced the chiropractor’s visit. He stopped moving.

“Refuse them.” He said. “Please tell them it’s fine if they don’t come anymore.” Two days later, the X-ray images were ready. The doctor came to his house carrying them.

“There’s nothing particularly wrong with your lower back, but this thoracic vertebra—” Covering the stand with a black umbrella and holding the photograph up to the light, the doctor explained. Eisuke couldn’t quite tell which was up or which was the lumbar bone. While panting and nodding, he confronted the skeletal image of himself whose orientation he couldn’t discern. “What do you think? This part is deformed.” At those words, he began to somewhat discern the orientation and could recognize that the part seemed deformed. However, Eisuke had never seen the normal shape of his own bones. So even when told it was deformed, he couldn’t truly grasp it.

“Why don’t you take these and visit the National Hospital once?” “I’ll write you a referral letter.” “Since I can’t determine whether it’s an old injury or not.”

“I see.” “Generally speaking, the bone images appear less dense overall. They’ve been weakening more than expected for your age.” The doctor removed his glasses and gazed intently at the image. “When you were small, you probably didn’t get enough calcium.” Eisuke nodded. Even now when he thought about it, the intake had indeed been insufficient. At the same time, he was thinking about Shirosuke.

“I have a twin brother, you see—” “Sausage?” “No. “I mean I was born as one of twins. “He’s no longer alive though—” “I see.” “Twins develop by sharing nutrients and calcium from their mother’s body. “Given that—couldn’t there be congenital predispositions? Like a softer skeletal structure or weaker musculature from birth?”

“Well. That—” The doctor laughed. He might have thought it was a joke. “Was the other one physically weak too? When you say he died—” “No, he wasn’t sick. He had thicker bones than me and was physically stronger. So in that sense, you could say my share was smaller—” “I’m not sure about that.” The doctor said while putting the X-ray images into a paper bag.

“Since I haven’t researched twins specifically, I can’t make definitive claims, but I’ve never encountered such cases.” “It’s likely unrelated to health matters.”

“But while there are twins who’ve entered show business, you don’t hear much about them going into sports.”

“I’ll write you a referral letter for the National Hospital.” “Please come back later to pick it up.” Without engaging with his theory, the doctor stood up.

“Please take these X-ray photographs with you when you go.” After the doctor left, he tried moving his body in various ways in bed. The first thing that had hurt was his right lower back. Then his left lower back began hurting as much as the right, and over the past two or three days, a strange pressure sensation had started migrating toward his back. That was anxiety.

Was the doctor telling him to go to a large hospital because it was outside his specialty, or because he lacked treatment facilities?

At the National Hospital’s waiting room, he was kept waiting for some time. Since walking there had been impossible, he called one of his students who owned a car and had them drive him over. The room was rather crowded. “The orthopedics department isn’t as stuffy as I’d imagined.” The student accompanying him remarked. “I’d thought it would feel more oppressive.”

Eisuke had sensed it too. A woman knitting in bright sunlight streaming through the windows. A boy laughing as he steered the handcart himself and headed out. The place was generally permeated with a crisp, dry atmosphere. "It's not the internal organs—it's because of the bones." Eisuke said in his lecturing tone, something that wasn't even a play on words.

“Because they’re bones—they’re dry.”

Eventually, his name was called, and he alone entered the examination room. A woman in her sixties was trying to put on her kimono with stiff, awkward movements, but her efforts were making no progress. The old woman smiled at him with an amused look and said: “It’s that my right arm won’t lift, you see. It’s such a struggle.”

The referral letter was addressed to the chief physician. Only the chief physician was seated in an armchair, while the young interns, female doctors, and nurses stood or paced about restlessly. The referral letter seemed to contain detailed findings, and it took a little time to finish reading it. Then he was stripped naked and lay on the examination table like a log. Next, he was made to stand and underwent a thorough examination before being put back on the examination table. Seemingly interested in that lump, the interns and female doctors approached one after another, pressing and pinching it.

“Let’s perform a puncture,” said the chief physician. A needle was inserted into the lump. Though he couldn’t see it, he could tell from the pain that it must have been quite a thick needle.

(Ah. My lump was humiliated.) Keeping his entire body rigidly tense to distract from the anxiety, Eisuke thought baseless thoughts. (It's still being insulted—right now!)

“Nothing’s coming out.”

While pulling out the needle, the chief physician said.

“This is just a lipoma. That will be all.”

He was released from the examination and, while putting on clothes, asked.

“The bone protruding—” “So it was broken at that time after all.” “This area has been swelling and feels tight—it’s uncomfortable, but—”

“Hmm. That’s—” Returning to the armchair, the chief physician began writing a response to his regular doctor, carefully considering each word. “What do you mean by ‘the bones move’?” I asked skeptically. “When you move your hands or feet, the bones in your hands and feet move along with them.” “Is that what you mean?” “It’s not that simple.”

Eisuke gave a wry smile.

“Part of the spine deforms. When that happens, balance gets immediately thrown off. Makes it hard to stay upright, you see. But the deformation’s an established fact now. The other bones start shifting their shapes to compensate—like how ribs pull back, or when thoracic vertebrae twist one way, lumbar vertebrae twist the opposite. That swelling and tightness in my upper flank? All because of that.” “So it’s like they’re all colluding to justify the malpractice, huh?”

I had almost understood.

“It’s like all those bureaucrats covering for each other’s government corruption.” “Did the chief physician say that?”

Eisuke nodded. “So is that lipoma also related to that in some way?”

“No. This must be coincidental.” “I think so too.” “It’s just fat that happened to accumulate under the skin.” “Hey.” “There’s brandy in there.”

Pointing to the door under the bed table, Eisuke commanded somewhat gloomily. “Take that out for me.” “Is it okay if I drink?”

The liquor bottle that had been hidden at the very back—I pulled it out for him.

“Won’t it affect your bones?”

“It’s fine. The inflammation in my lumbar muscles has subsided.” He poured it into a bowl and drank about half. “I wonder if lipomas are hereditary.” “Why? Did Shirosuke also have something like that?” “No. Not Shirosuke—my paternal uncle.”

Eisuke choked and coughed violently. His body jerked into motion on the bed.

“He’s my old man’s older brother, but... From his youth, he’d always make a swelling at the base of his neck, get it surgically removed, then let it grow back again. Like some quack lump-cutter—all sloppy and misshapen. And yet he still won’t die—keeps right on living. I’m thinking of shoving this old bastard into some dirt-cheap nursing home.”

“Why do you speak with such resentment?” “Th-that much—”

With a strange gleam in his eyes, Eisuke looked at me. "Did it sound resentful?"

I remained silent. Even if Yagi Eisuke hated the uncle, it wasn't something that concerned me much. If pressed, Eisuke would likely continue speaking in that evasive manner—like rolling a hard candy around in his mouth—and ultimately avoid addressing the core of the matter. I was one of his old friends, but that had always been the case. He spoke vividly about individual parts, but he did not weave his stories into a coherent narrative. Was he simply bad at conversation, or was he capricious—or was there some part of him that didn't want to reveal his back?

“Can you show me that lump?”

I said bluntly.

“What for?”

“No—it’s not like seeing it would change anything. But I’d like to know, for reference, what shape it has and how exactly it’s concealed.”

I had expected him to refuse outright. But he didn't. After a while, a faint smile rose to Eisuke's cheek. Having injured his bones and grown quite weak-willed—I made this judgment while observing him at that moment.

“That’s just like you—wanting to see something this utterly pointless.”

Eisuke said while pulling the bowl closer again. "It's not particularly anything worth showing off, but no—the day after tomorrow afternoon, they'll be making the plaster bed."

“Where?” “At the hospital?”

"No. At home." He rolled the brandy in his mouth while fixing his eyes on empty space. "I don't know how they make a plaster bed, but I suppose I'll probably have to be naked."

“That’s only natural, right? It’d be impossible to do it while wearing a kimono.”

“You can come see it then. I’ll show you. The bone protrusion and the lump too. That way you’ll get a full view of everything.”

“That’s right. I suppose I’ll wish for that.”

I answered. I did not consider my curiosity shameful. Even if they called me a spiteful old man. “Is that plaster bed the doctor’s idea?”

“Yeah. The chief physician at the national hospital apparently instructed our doctor.” “To keep the bones from moving.” “When the protrusion worsens, the other bones will shift even more.” “So to suppress the protrusion—” “Does it also serve to crush the lump?”

“Like I’ve been saying all along, the lump has nothing to do with it.” “You’re really fixated on that lump, aren’t you?”

Eisuke gave a small yawn.

“I’m a bit tired. Sleepy.” “It’s not that I’m fixated, but—how should I put it—I like things that protrude. Rather than liking it, let’s say I’m interested.”

I said as I began preparing to leave.

“So this lipoma isn’t the harmful sort, is it?”

“Right.” “It’s different from malignant sarcomas.” “It’s just fat accumulating under the skin—if it swells up more, they can cut it open and remove the whole sac.” “It’s nothing.”

Eisuke closed his eyes listlessly.

II

Yagi Eisuke lay prone on his futon, pressed his face into the pillow, and had them make the plaster bed. Keeping one’s face pressed straight down served to properly align the back muscles; lying prone prevented rounding of the spine. When humans lie prone, they inevitably arch their backs. However, Eisuke would sometimes shift his face or use sidelong glances to steal looks at the work being done. The anxiety of not knowing what would be done to him made him act that way.

The back was covered with a cotton cloth.

The assistant spread out a wide bandage. They evenly coated it with a plaster-like substance. They soaked it in hot water. At an appropriate point, they lifted it out and pressed it onto Eisuke’s back. After going through the same process, they firmly pressed the next one on top of it.……

Because there was a cotton cloth interposed, it wasn't too hot, nor of course too cold; rather, there was a pleasant sensation akin to stepping into a bath at just the right temperature.

*It was simpler than I’d imagined.*

Comfortably stretching his limbs, Eisuke thought. He probed the depths of his memory.

(This feeling resembled something.) (something.) To adhere the layered bandages to his back, the doctor’s hands pressed and tapped them down. He could feel the soft mass on his back squishily shifting its shape. With the paper screens of the skylight opened to leave only the glass panes, the blue sky became visible and sunlight streamed through. He abruptly realized— “Ah… It’s mochi-pounding.”

He unintentionally voiced it aloud. “This feeling—it’s like mochi.”

“I suppose so.” The doctor answered while patting his back—pat pat.

“It’ll harden soon.” He visualized the scene of mochi-pounding in the sunlit front garden. Back then, the days they pounded mochi were always blessed with warm autumn sunshine. The mortar and mallet would be brought out; steam rose warmly from the steamer as its contents were transferred into the mortar. The mallet pounded with a lively rhythm while the partner kneaded. Occasionally, spirited shouts would ring out. As a child, he waited with his mother, older brother Ryusuke, and younger brother Shirosuke before the new rush mat on the engawa. Father Fukujirou was still vigorous, his upper half bare as he alternated between pounding and kneading. Watching them, young Eisuke thought that while pounding required strength, kneading must be more difficult—after all, mistiming your hand’s withdrawal risked a strike from the mallet. So when Fukujirou took over as kneader, Eisuke grew anxious, his small fists tightening. He loved and respected his father.

*Wasn't that time the happiest period for Father?* And we too—— The fact that they pounded mochi in the yard wasn't because Eisuke's family was particularly wealthy. It was a local custom from an era when hired mochi-makers were practically unheard of. Most households kept mortars and mallets at the ready; those that didn't borrowed them from relatives or neighbors. This was a leisurely age—there was never any shortage of helping hands, and making mochi at home served both as a seasonal ritual and an exercise in thriftiness. Since the pounding, kneading, and shaping were all done by family members, there was no need to pay anyone wages.

(When I became an adult, when the year drew to a close, I would take out the mortar and mallet and make our mochi.)

As a child, he had believed this without question. He had no reason to doubt. The role of doing this had always fallen to adults from time immemorial, and the idea that the times might change never even crossed his mind. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. In the same way, at that time, it was a self-evident fact. His older brother Ryusuke, now a middle schooler, had grown dissatisfied with his task of shaping the mochi and kept trying to join the pounding work, only to be admonished by their father and mother.

“You’re still too early—you need to settle your hips better first—”

When Ryusuke took the mallet, he became unsteady. The mallet would sometimes thud against the rim of the mortar, and other times become so stuck to the mochi that it couldn’t be lifted back up. That required unexpected skill; just because one’s arms grew stronger didn’t mean it would go smoothly. Even so, Eisuke, now that he was forty-four, had never once had the opportunity to wield a mallet. Only now could he imagine such a thing.

“How does it feel? How is your back?” The doctor asked. “It’s not too cold, is it?” “No.” He tried to shake his head, but the weight pressing down on his back made it impossible.

“It’s getting heavier by the minute, isn’t it?” Eventually, the pounded mochi was brought to the veranda. On the new rush mat, they would tear off pieces, coat them with flour, and shape them into round mochi. They didn’t use knives to flatten and shape them into squares like they did in Kanto. All were round mochi, and shaping them had become the task of the women and children. When it came to making those round mochi, Shirosuke was far quicker than Eisuke. It wasn’t that Eisuke was clumsy. It was because Shirosuke’s method was haphazard. In contrast to Eisuke’s uniformly shaped pieces, Shirosuke’s creations varied in size—some large, some small—with inconsistent thickness and shapes. If anything, the mother sided with Eisuke.

“What’s this? Why don’t you make them a bit more carefully? Take Eisuke as your example.” Then Shirosuke would deflate, and Eisuke would grow smug, working his hands all the more meticulously. However, when Father’s older brother Koutarou came, he would praise Shirosuke instead.

“Hmm. Boys should make them more energetically. After all, once it’s in your mouth, it’ll just melt away. The shape doesn’t matter one bit.” Even back then, Koutarou had a swelling like freshly pounded millet mochi dangling from his neck. Fukujirou was lean and muscular, but Koutarou was softly plump. Even when visiting Fukujirou’s house, he never once helped with the mochi-pounding. This was because Koutarou was the head of the main family. He kept his hands tucked in his sleeves, doing nothing but watching, giving orders, and offering critiques. Despite this, the first mochi made was always offered to Koutarou, and he sampled it as though it were his due,

“This pounding isn’t thorough enough” or “Your hips are weak!”

“Hmm. This one’s passable, I’d say.” Koutarou made comments such as these. In other words, despite not being particularly advanced in years, he wanted to act like the family patriarch. Because he was the eldest son, monopolizing ancestral property and putting on airs as a master—such things were possible only in the distant past of the pre-war era; in today’s world, they were utterly unthinkable.

Koutarou had inherited the family business, while his younger brother Fukujirou had finally graduated from a second- or third-rate technical school and was working at the prefectural office. Though it was a rented house, they lived in one with a gate and entrance, a narrow front garden and a relatively spacious back garden. This wasn’t because their income was particularly high, but because rented houses were generally inexpensive. Even as a minor official, there must have been considerations of maintaining appearances. Eisuke and the others were born and raised in that house. When Eisuke was in high school, Fukujirou once reminisced while slightly drunk.

“When you twins were born, I really struggled.” “With twins, everything costs double.”

Though they lived in a house with a proper gate, their actual circumstances hadn’t reached utter financial ruin but seemed rather strained all the same. The back garden had been completely tilled into cultivated fields and vegetable plots. Where vegetables were concerned, they had established a nearly self-sufficient system. Eisuke and the others had made weeding and pest control part of their daily routine. Even making mochi at home wasn’t for luxury or celebration but seemed rooted in that same spirit of self-sufficiency. In this regard, the main family’s Koutarou did things quite differently. Unlike Eisuke’s household, they prepared multiple mortars and hired young men from the neighborhood. They would pound three or four times as much mochi as their own household could consume, donating it to charity pots and elementary schools or making sweet red bean soup to host grand feasts. This was less a practical event than something resembling a festival. Even the ritual offering mochi had about four times the volume compared to Eisuke’s household’s versions. Though Eisuke and the others were invited to attend, he never particularly envied the main family’s mochi-pounding. People simply milled about in noisy disarray; Eisuke and the others were made to sit in a corner like some afterthought, left to watch quietly without even being permitted to help. By contrast, their own household’s mochi-pounding wasn’t the main attraction but still held a supporting role—they were entrusted with shaping the mochi, that crucial task. In that sense, this was far more enjoyable. Those front garden mochi-pounding sessions on Indian summer days remained with him as joyful memories, no matter how poor they’d been. What resurfaced in his mind as they made him create the plaster bed wasn’t the main family’s mochi-pounding, but naturally his own home’s.

“How are you holding up? Are you getting tired?”

The doctor said to Eisuke, who had closed his eyes. “No, it feels fine.” He answered. Though somewhat heavy, the warmth spreading across his entire back meant this statement was no exaggeration. “Is it done already?”

“No—I’ll make it a bit thicker. If it’s too thin, there’s a risk it might bend or warp. If it’s too thick, we can always shave it down later.” Eisuke did not know what feelings his elder brother Ryusuke and younger brother Shirosuke had held toward that Koutarou. Both had died, so there was no way for him to know. The feeling that he should have asked—or rather, a vague sense of regret—was what he now harbored.

It can be inferred that this was indeed around that time.

One day, Koutarou made the following proposal to Fukujirou.

“Among the twins Eisuke and Shirosuke, I will fund the university education of the one who excels academically. In return, should I not have a child of my own, I want to adopt that one as my heir.” Koutarou was not blessed with children. That had led to such a proposal. This was not an unnatural arrangement by custom. It was only natural to want to welcome a nephew as one’s own child rather than an unrelated outsider. However, Eisuke’s parents seemed to feel a certain degree of reservation about this. Wasn’t he using their children’s educational expenses as a pretext to indirectly assist their household finances? Fukujirou was relatively fastidious about such matters and also had a stubborn streak. He had monopolized the family property, so there must have been a sense of “What more could you possibly want now?” Moreover, if providing educational expenses for both children would have been logically consistent, investing solely in the better one to take as an adopted heir struck him as slightly too self-serving. What would become of the child with worse grades who remained?

However, their household’s lack of affluence ultimately forced Fukujirou and his wife to yield. Fukujirou, who had graduated from a third-rate technical school and entered government service, had come to understand through bitter experience how profoundly one’s alma mater influenced career advancement. They wanted to send their children to university. That desire must have been far stronger in parents of earlier generations than in those of today. Graduating from university was practically tantamount to being guaranteed success. Moreover, if Koutarou were to father a son, getting a university education would become sheer profit.

(But did Dad and Mom really have such calculations?)

Eisuke thought. The plaster cast on his back retained a faint warmth as it gradually began to harden. When he shifted slightly, there was a rough, uneven pressure. "It seems to be hardening now." He muttered to no one in particular. "Seems to harden faster than mochi." "Yes," replied the doctor. "It should be ready soon—"

“It sort of feels like a kappa’s shell, don’t you think?” Eisuke joked. “If I dye this thing and carry it on my back while walking around, don’t you think I’d look exactly like a kappa?” “I can’t say I’ve heard much about people carrying beds around to walk.”

The doctor seemed too occupied with moving his hands to spare any attention for responding to jokes. Because his back had been kept arched, Eisuke too was beginning to feel somewhat fatigued. However, it was much later that Eisuke and Shirosuke were explicitly informed about the promise concerning them. Their parents must have reasoned that teaching them about the promise would instill unnecessary rivalry—in other words, that it would wound their young hearts. Despite this, both Eisuke and Shirosuke had somehow sensed that something was there. For Koutarou had hinted at it every time he visited. Koutarou seemed to love Shirosuke’s liveliness more than Eisuke’s. Whenever an occasion arose, Koutarou would stroke the children’s heads and say.

“Graduate from university and become someone great quick. And what’s more, studying comes first.” The number of times their heads were patted was far greater for Shirosuke than for Eisuke.

“It seems to have hardened now.”

“It should be fine now,” said the Doctor. “Let’s try peeling it off.” With creaking groans, the plaster was peeled from his back. A relieved sense of liberation washed over him. He sat up stiffly, adjusting his posture.

“Please let this dry in the shade for two or three days.” “Until it hardens completely.”

Eisuke looked at the removed plaster. The part that had pressed against his back was gouged deeper than he had thought, deeply indented. The imprint of his spine was dotted across it. The moment he saw that, a faint impulse and shudder ran through his entire body. He involuntarily groaned.

On the promised day, I went to Yagi Eisuke’s house. The usual brusque housekeeper let me in. I asked.

“Is he in the middle of treatment now?” She silently shook her head. Eisuke was lying in bed in the same position as two days prior. I placed the get-well flower bouquet beside his pillow. “You brought something strange.”

Eisuke turned his head and gave a wry smile.

“Looks like artificial flowers.” “Are they real?”

“Of course they’re real.” “You can tell if you look.”

I answered as I sat down in the chair. “It’s not a funeral or anything. I thought about bringing something edible instead, but choosing was too much trouble.”

When Eisuke had called them artificial flowers, it was a joke, but there was some meaning to it. It concerned Shirosuke. I kept looking around the entire room.

“Haven’t they made that thing yet?” “So that’s what you call a plaster bed?”

Eisuke stopped laughing. "They made it yesterday."

“Yesterday? Wasn’t the plan to make it today?”

“Was it today? But the doctor came yesterday.” “Right.” “The doctor must have gotten the date wrong.”

Clearly, Eisuke was lying. I knew. He was still reluctant to show the lump on his back.

“You bailed again.”

I laughed. “You used to bail on Shirosuke quite often back then too.” “Whenever he got stood up, he’d come to my boarding house grumbling about how ‘that brother of mine has no discipline.’” “So I’d take his place and we’d go out to places like Asakusa.”

“Asakusa back then was fun, wasn’t it.” “There were all sorts of things there, and everything was cheap—” Eisuke shifted position. I carefully watched how his back moved.

"But I didn't mean to stand Shirosuke up, you know. His workplace was like that—they didn't give regular days off. When he had free time, he'd wander over to my place. Since he never contacted me, I didn't wait around either. Him calling me undisciplined came from a different reason." "Yeah, I know that." "I read it in the diary." Eisuke made a displeased face. I had Shirosuke's diary in my possession—from around Showa 11 or 12. A small cloth-bound volume, sometimes penned, sometimes penciled. Back then, I'd asked Shirosuke:

“Why are you entrusting it to me?”

“I’ve had a feeling the maid’s been sneaking peeks at it, you see—this has some rather unflattering things about the master written in it.” “I’d be in trouble if she started making strange reports.”

“Why don’t you leave it with Eisuke?” “Eisuke is out right now. It seems he went to see a movie.” Shirosuke gave an ambiguous laugh.

“And it’s got some unflattering things about Brother written in there too.” “It’s in a bit of a bad state.” Shirosuke sometimes spoke to me like a friend and at times treated me as an elder. He himself probably didn’t quite know how to treat me.

“Well, I’ll look after it for now.” So it was decided, and I placed it into a large envelope and sealed it. Since then, the diary has remained in my care. The seal wasn’t broken by me—after being carried around for years, it had naturally worn away.

“So, are you using the plaster bed already?”

Since Eisuke did not respond, I prompted him. “Did it turn out well?”

“I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but anyway, it’s finished.” “It’s still wet, so I can’t use it.” “It’s drying in the garden.”

Eisuke jerked his chin.

“Do you want to see it?” “Yeah.”

Eisuke slowly shifted his body and sat upright. He reached out and took the bamboo cane. It was a crude staff made by cutting off the bristle portion of a tatami-room broom. “Do you still need the cane?” “No. I can walk without it, but this way’s easier. Besides, patients ought to look like patients.”

He stepped out into the hallway. Outside was a narrow garden. Five or six slender-trunked trees stood spindly here and there. Newspaper was spread across the shoe-removal stone, and atop it lay the plaster bed quietly drying. I felt an oddly incongruous sensation—as if it were out of place. I squatted on the engawa and gazed at it. “It’s more like a pathetic objet d’art, I suppose.”

“The part for your back must be quite sunken in.” Because he couldn’t squat, he leaned his body against the doorframe and spoke in a dark voice.

"But my back isn't dented in, you know. It's bulging out by that much instead. In other words, this thing's made backwards. The spine hollow—" "I know already. Save your breath."

“I see. “If that’s how it is, then fine—”

Though it wasn’t the real thing but a replica, since he had finally shown it, Eisuke seemed to feel somewhat relieved. His tone lightened somewhat.

“When it was finished, I felt so sad thinking, ‘Is this really my back?’” “But isn’t this much of a hunchback common enough anywhere?” I said gently. “It’s because it’s mine that I’m overreacting.” “If you made a cast of me, even I’d look like that.” “That’s probably how it goes.” “Don’t strain yourself to console me.” Eisuke said with a bitter smile. “I was thinking about Father’s back.” “When I treated his bedsores, it curved and bulged exactly like this.”

Eisuke's father Fukujirou died in the autumn of his second university year. After collapsing from a stroke, he never rose again and passed away six months later. Having lain on his back those six months, his back grew raw; the area around his protruding spine reddened and even partially festered, making the nursing itself more agonizing than the condition. Eisuke thought the man himself hadn't suffered much - those carefree groans as he submitted to treatment likely meant his pain nerves had numbed.

“This is Father.” “And I am this Father’s child.” Eisuke could feed Fukujirou with a spoon or treat his bedsores only when he was home visiting. In other words, that meant summer. During treatment sessions—not wanting neighbors peering in—he would shut all the shoji doors completely. The warmth and smell of pus hung stiflingly throughout the room. In that atmosphere, Eisuke moved his hands in silence.—The impulse and shudder that had passed through him when he’d gazed at his plaster cast the day before were precisely that memory. Eisuke said in a low voice:

“Once his back became like that, Father died soon after. His bones must’ve been quite weakened too.” “When people get old, everyone’s bones weaken.” I didn’t care much for Eisuke’s sentimental tone. He might’ve shifted the conversation to his father to hide his embarrassment at having shown me the plaster cast.

“Shirosuke was pretty hunched over too. It really stood out when he ran. He ran like he was riding a motorcycle.”

“Have you ever seen Shirosuke run?”

“I have.” “Where was it... At some amusement park.” “I haven’t told you yet, have I?”

III

It was Yagi Shirosuke who suggested hitting. Of course I stopped him.

“Just leave them be.” “Hitting them won’t solve anything.”

But Shirosuke remained silent, glaring in that direction. His eyes gleamed savagely as they darted about. This manner of eye movement was something Eisuke would never exhibit. I had learned early in our acquaintance that this was peculiar to Shirosuke. Though called twins, being fraternal meant they were essentially siblings who merely shared a womb simultaneously—while their facial features resembled each other, their personalities and ways of thinking differed considerably.

The amusement park was a pre-war establishment, so it wasn't as large-scale or gaudy as those of today. However, its layout was nearly identical—hills and hollows and gardens, rental boats floating on the pond, amusement facilities adequately equipped. At concession stands they displayed oden and caramels, while loudspeakers were playing melodies like "Tokyo Rhapsody" and "Humoresque" throughout the grounds. Once I went there with Shirosuke to enjoy ourselves. He had probably come to my place because when he went to visit Eisuke, he wasn't there.

Because Tokyo’s population was small, even though it was a Sunday, there weren’t many visitors. It wasn’t exactly sparse, but there was hardly any sense of bustle. But amusement parks—those places where the elderly, children, or men with women could enjoy themselves—were never fun for two sullen young men shuffling along; they only ended up exhausted.

In the direction Shirosuke was looking lay a small valley. A suspension bridge spanned the valley. At its midpoint, two young women were emitting sounds that hovered between screams and coquettish shrieks. Three male students stood at the bridge's base, and upon seeing the women begin to cross, abruptly started shaking it. I couldn't tell which university they attended, but they clearly carried alcohol on their breath. Or rather, not so much intoxicated as three youths who'd shared a bottle or two of beer and now roused themselves up in feigned drunkenness. They stood close by. They were likely younger than us. Deliberately leaving their jacket top buttons undone, they exuded not affectation but a leering smugness.

The fact that the women on the bridge and those students were unacquainted was nearly certain from how we’d watched things unfold. Those young men too—having gone through the trouble of coming to the amusement park only to find nothing amusing—must have reached their emotional limit. “Should I hit them?”

Shirosuke said to me. At first, I took it as a joke. Because his tone had sounded almost joking. "Why would you hit them?" "Because they're harassing the women." Shirosuke answered.

“Ah. If they shake it that hard, they might fall off.” We were sitting on a bench halfway down the slope from the suspension bridge to the valley, smoking tobacco. The spot gave us a diagonal upward view of the women. As the bridge swayed, their skirts fluttered, offering glimpses of white underwear and legs. For my viewing pleasure, they appeared to be frozen in place and making a commotion—it almost seemed deliberate. That was why I couldn’t grasp Shirosuke’s feelings at that moment.

“It’s fine. It won’t snap.” The suspension bridge was woven with iron wires and had boards laid over them, so even if you let go, there was no danger of falling. The women probably knew that too. The reason their screams sounded more like coquettish voices was also because of that. “They’re just acting spoiled and making a fuss. It has nothing to do with us.” “It does have to do with us.” This time in a stifled voice, Shirosuke said. “Those bastards—when they passed us in front of the concession stand earlier, they snorted and spat on the ground like they owned the place.”

“They’re just a bit drunk.” “Even now—they’re doing this to show you lot could never pull it off! Those good-for-nothing students!” That was Shirosuke’s baseless suspicion, I thought. He stomped his tobacco into the ground and heaved himself up. He was really going to do it. It was then that I first understood. I hurriedly stopped him.

“Just leave them be—those idiots.” “Hitting them won’t solve anything.” He kept his gaze fixed on the students and the swaying suspension bridge for several heartbeats. Shaking free of my grip, he suddenly scrambled up the slope. It happened faster than a drawn breath.

The two of them were pushed into the valley (though it was only about three meters deep) and fell; one crouched down as if clutching his stomach. Until the bridge stopped shaking, Shirosuke remained on guard, monitoring the three's movements. The women, as if encouraging one another,

“Hurry! Hurry!” Calling out to one another, they returned to where Shirosuke stood with footsteps as if treading on clouds or something. They must have been truly frightened after being shaken so violently. Then, those must not have been coquettish voices but actual screams—now that I think about it. The two who had fallen brushed the dust from their clothes and, while exchanging glances, appeared to be discussing whether to climb back up and fight once more. However, overall, those three had lost their will to fight, judging from their movements.

The women approached Shirosuke. They lightly bowed their heads and started to say something.

…… Shirosuke delivered a stinging slap to the cheek of the older woman. The woman pressed her hand to her cheek and staggered. The sight was so unexpected that I reflexively stood up. Hadn’t he lunged at the students to help her? Slapping the woman’s cheek—this wasn’t part of the plan. Shirosuke turned toward me and shouted loudly. “Hurry. Run!”

And he hunched his back and broke into a full sprint. Like a pickpocket pursued by detectives trying to vanish into a crowd. No—like a jockey driving into the final stretch of a race. —or perhaps like a child bolting after being caught in mischief. Rather than fleeing from pursuers, he found sheer exhilaration in the act of running itself. He ran in precisely that manner.

“And then—”

Looking down at the garden, Eisuke said. “Did you run away too?”

“Yeah. No—” “I ran about fifty meters and then stopped.” “Since I hadn’t done anything, I figured there was no reason to run.”

Beyond the garden fence crawled a spotted dog, moving sluggishly.

“If you leave the plaster here to dry, won’t dogs or stray cats end up using it as a toilet? Given its shape and all—” “Does it look like a toilet?” “No— To me it looks like plaster, but dogs and cats probably don’t see it that way.”

Eisuke thought for a while.

“Yeah. That makes sense.” “After going to all the trouble to make it, it’d be a problem if dogs and cats used it.”

Eisuke moved his back away from the door compartment.

“I’m sorry, but pull it up to the veranda. My back hurts.” He returned to the bed. I did as instructed. The half-dried plaster felt spongy and unsettlingly pliant, as though pressing it would leave fingerprints. It would still need two or three days to fully harden. With a touch of perverse satisfaction, I dragged it up to the veranda and carried it into the room. “The way he hunched his back then left a strong impression on me.”

As I sat down in the chair, I said. “Did he always run like that?” “If you stopped running—”

Eisuke did not answer my question.

“What happened to Shirosuke?”

“He apparently dashed straight out of the amusement park.” “The next time we met, he said that.” As we talked, the seasonal atmosphere of that day revived itself vividly.

“That’s right. That was a relatively hot day. I found myself alone, no longer feeling like I was in the amusement park, so I went outside and drank draft beer. It must have been early summer, I guess.”

“Earlier, you said he was selling oden at the kiosk, but—” “They sell oden even in summer. It’s an amusement park after all. But—” I tilted my head. “Why ever did Shirosuke slap that woman across the cheek? There was absolutely no need to hit her.”

“Didn’t you ask him when you met next?”

“Yeah.” “It was just a cover-up for his embarrassment.” He made a snorting sound. “If it was a cover-up for embarrassment, what exactly was he embarrassed about?”

“Can’t you tell? A woman’s scream like tearing silk—when I rushed over and looked, it was nearly a scene of scattered blossoms—”

And Eisuke let out a short laugh.

“After he’d finished her off, he realized there was a witness—you.” “So that’s when Shirosuke tried to cover it up.” “When you met him next, saying you didn’t ask—that’s a lie.” “Yeah.” I nodded honestly. “When I asked him, he just laughed and said it was force of habit.” “But back then, we were only around twenty or so.” “At that age, would he really get embarrassed over something like that?”

“So how do you interpret it?” “I don’t really understand. He’s active but aimless, blindly—”

I hesitated mid-sentence. “Well, it’s like when you went clattering down the bus stairs and took a tumble.” “For him, it must’ve been unavoidable.” “But considering his appearance, he wasn’t actually that fast.” “Even as his center of gravity kept surging forward, his feet couldn’t keep up.” “He wasn’t fast.” “But he was faster than me.”

Eisuke assumed a distant gaze. "He once failed when he tried to run away." "A long time ago, back when he was a middle school student." "He did a dine and dash at an udon shop."

“Was he caught?”

“No—he didn’t get caught. But that’s what derailed his fate.”

Eisuke let out a small sigh. "In the region where I'm from, restaurants serving noodle dishes are called udon shops." "We don't call them soba shops." "Udon was the main dish - soba was just an extra option, and hardly anyone ate soba anyway." "Since it was a warm region, the soba probably didn't grow well there either." "It didn't taste good either."

“That’s right. That seems like food from cold regions.”

“At my middle school, there was a rule that students couldn’t go in and out of udon shops.” “If you were with a parent or guardian, it was fine, but if you went alone or with friends, they made a huge fuss.” “But why did those middle school teachers back then fixate on udon shops?” “It’s not like there were women serving or anything—just kids eating udon and leaving, you know.” “But we went out anyway.” “It’s precisely because it was forbidden that we wanted to go in and out.” “In other words, we wanted people to think we weren’t children, and we probably wanted to believe it ourselves.” “Hey.” “Pour me more brandy.”

“I had something like that happen to me too.”

Retrieving the brandy from its usual place, I poured him a drink and took the opportunity to refill my own glass as well. "He begged my mother to make him a kimono with flowing sleeves, then proudly paraded around in it." "Then the neighbors went and criticized him, saying he looked like a wolf dressed in clothes." "So he stopped wearing it for a while."

“It was a shop called Atariya.” “It was near the school.” “A good shop, you know.”

Eisuke rolled the brandy in his mouth and thought about something for a while.

“In Kanto they think udon’s just for mule drivers, but that shows they don’t know how to eat it right.” “What Tokyo calls udon is just overcooked sludge.” “Back home ours were hand-pulled, lightly seasoned – served in big bowls with thin aromatic scallops they called hitomoji.” “Or was it hitomoji? I think that’s what those scallions were called.”

At that Atariya, there was an old woman who kept watch over the shop. Given it was from that time, whether this "old woman" was just over fifty or around seventy—he no longer remembered. In any case, back then, there had been a broad range in what constituted old men and women. They didn’t gradually age into old women—instead, they plunged into old womanhood all at once, both in demeanor and attire. The problem was that old woman being too strong-willed. Or perhaps such incidents had occurred repeatedly, and even she could no longer stomach it.

One could also say that Shirosuke and the others were unlucky.

During lunch break, climbed over the middle school’s wall, Shirosuke entered Atariya with three classmates while glancing around cautiously. On Atariya’s grease-stained paper doors, pictures of arrows that had hit their targets were darkened by smoke. In the back was set a large pot, beneath which firewood crackled as it burned, keeping the water inside always at a rolling boil. When entering from outside, one’s glasses would fog up instantly. Shirosuke and the others rubbed hands together and sat at the table, “Plain udon.”

“Plain udon.” they ordered. When the udon was brought, they heaped on thin green onions, slurped it all down smoothly in one go, and drank every last drop of the broth. The notion that udon was not something to chew but something to savor in the throat was middle schoolers’ dandyism. Such foolish dandyism could be seen in any era or place from time to time. However, Shirosuke and the others didn’t visit Atariya merely out of bravado or dandyism. The boxed lunches they had brought from home had been finished during the break between second or third period, leaving them hungry by noon. Therefore, it wasn’t such a blameworthy act after all. Shirosuke, partly due to his hunger, got as many as three refills.

Up to that point, things had been fine, but when it came time to pay, the four turned slightly pale. They had come relying on each other’s pockets, and none of them had any money. "This is bad." "We’re stuck."

The four huddled together and held a hushed discussion. Someone would stay behind as collateral while the three returned to school to get the money. Such a plan was proposed, but with afternoon classes about to start soon, climbing back over the wall to retrieve the money would be an extremely risky undertaking. There was also the problem of who would stay behind. On that point, since the three had only eaten two bowls each,

“You’re the one who ate three bowls, so you stay behind.” Shirosuke refused that. Atariya employed an intriguing pricing system where one bowl of udon cost five sen, two bowls eight sen, and three bowls ten sen—a testament to how fiercely competitive and penny-pinching udon shops were in those days. Udon shops near middle schools didn’t offer many toppings and ultimately had to rely on making customers eat large quantities to turn a profit. Furthermore, this pricing system was popular among the students. The reason Shirosuke had eaten three bowls wasn’t solely due to hunger—it was also because of that pricing system. Finally, one of them said.

“It can’t be helped.” “Shall we run away?”

It was not Shirosuke who proposed that. But that single remark made them commit decisively. Looking back now, they could have left a jacket or hat as collateral—that bit of ingenuity simply didn’t occur to them. Even had it occurred, fleeing would still have been simpler than facing the aftermath. After all, they just needed to never visit Atariya again.

There was another reason Shirosuke refused to stay behind—he also couldn’t fully trust the three others. After the incident, Shirosuke said to Eisuke. This was Shirosuke’s answer to Eisuke’s reproach of "Why did you do something so stupid?"

“Those three aren’t poor.” “They all live in relatively large houses.” “So those three were being stingy with their money, is that it?” “No, that’s not it. “At that time, they probably didn’t actually have any money on them.” Shirosuke formed a pained smile. “Guys like that would leave me behind and just go on calmly attending class.” “I’d had that happen to me before a few times, so I hated the idea.” “So, Brother, don’t you think this me here is just too pathetic?”

After reaching a unanimous decision, they resolved to flee. After waiting for Atariya’s old man to disappear from the kettle area to make a delivery, the four slowly stood up. Hiding their faces from the old woman tending the shop, they slid open the shoji screen, peered cautiously at the road, and suddenly broke into a run. The old woman tending the shop was startled, let out a scream like a chicken being strangled, and stood up. Barefoot in her tabi socks, she jumped down into the earthen-floored entryway and rushed out onto the road in pursuit of the four.

Since she was an old woman, her hearing was poor and her eyesight was likely dim. That she would even give chase was unthinkable—or so they had assumed, which proved to be Shirosuke and the others' miscalculation. The old woman staggered along while shouting at the top of her voice. “Hey, wait!” “Hey, waaait!”

Shirosuke ran hunched over. He was the last one, running while glancing back repeatedly.

"This has turned into a real mess." His slow-footedness stemmed partly from his anxiety about what lay behind. They filed into the alley one by one from the front. As he too tried to make the turn and glanced back at the old woman, she had misstepped from the gutter plank, thrust one leg into the ditch, and pitched forward face-first. That explained why her screams had ceased. He halted his run at the corner. His emotions tore in two directions. (Should I keep fleeing? Or go back and help?)

However, reflexively, Shirosuke ran back to the scene. Was he afraid to flee? Was it a sense of justice that made him think, “How could I abandon her?” The old woman lay face down, clawing at the ground and groaning. When Shirosuke picked her up, the landlady of the gutter-plank house abruptly showed her face with a suspicious expression. Shirosuke said quickly: “It seems this old woman’s been hurt. Please take care of this.” Then he laid the old woman back down on the ground and ran toward the school. In the end, this turned out to be the worst possible move. Even if Shirosuke hadn’t gone out of his way to return, someone would have found the old woman and tended to her. Thus, what Shirosuke had done was akin to having rushed back just to show his face to the landlady.

It was later discovered that the injury the old woman sustained from her fall was not serious. However, from the shock, she developed a fever and was bedridden for a little over ten days.

The udon shop owner flew into a rage and stormed into the school authorities to protest. It was a demand to have all students undergo an identity lineup. The principal also seemed troubled. If an identity lineup were to become a newspaper article, that would be disastrous. Because it also related to the principal’s tenure, after various discussions, “Let’s put a stop to such exaggerated measures and instead keep watch during students’ arrival and dismissal times to identify the culprit.”

Thus, they reached an agreement. The one troubled by this was Shirosuke. Shirosuke was the one whose face had been most recognized, and while he alone might have managed to attend school by using the back gate or even climbing over the wall, there was his identical twin brother Eisuke. There was no way that landlady would overlook that. Driven to desperation, Shirosuke sat before his father and bowed his head.

“Father.” “I’m quitting school now.” “Why?”

Fukujirou retorted in surprise. “Have you grown tired of your studies?”

“That’s part of it, but actually—” Eisuke learned of this not from Shirosuke, but from Fukujirou. Eisuke reproached Shirosuke. “Why didn’t you talk to me about it? Dine-and-dashing at the udon place isn’t good, but if that’s all you did, you should’ve just gotten about ten days’ suspension.” “That’s exactly why it wouldn’t work. Brother.” Shirosuke had been ordered by his father to remain confined in the dimly lit storage room where a long chest was kept. As for work, it was limited to weeding the backyard garden or fetching bathwater, and since he couldn't go out, he grew bored and seemed to have too much pent-up energy.

“I’ve always been like this. “During school swimming, when I’d swim in off-limits areas, it was always my legs cramping up and me nearly drowning. During snowball fights on the playground, my snowballs would always end up hitting the teacher’s head. “I’ve just always been terrible at figuring things out.” “But this time—” “Even that—if the old lady hadn’t rushed out, it would’ve been fine. “It’s less about skill and more about luck. “Bad luck always comes my way.”

“That’s just what you tell yourself.” Eisuke said that to him. But even if he said it, it was already too late to make a difference. (Was it because he was afraid I’d try to stop him that he didn’t consult me?)

In later years, Eisuke would sometimes think.

(If I tried to stop him, his resolve to quit school might falter. Was that what he feared?) Yet Eisuke couldn’t claim not to understand Shirosuke’s desire to leave school at that time. He himself had grown thoroughly sick of the rigid institution’s stifling, stagnant atmosphere. Upon hearing his son’s confession, Fukujirou promptly resolved to withdraw him from school. Then he went alone to meet with the principal.

IV

"Father’s back too had begun to round slightly around that time."

The plaster bed was placed on the floor. While stealing glances at it out of the corner of his eye, Eisuke said to me. He didn't want to look, yet his demeanor suggested he couldn't help being concerned.

“Back when he was still making mochi himself, his posture remained straight.” “Not because of age—perhaps it was due to emotional reasons.” “Emotional?” “Rather than emotional, maybe it was an issue with his profession.”

Eisuke pressed the area around his cheekbone with a sullen expression. Shirosuke had prominent cheekbones, and Eisuke did too. He had apparently lost weight recently, making them stand out even more. "Father actually quit the prefectural office." "Is it because of that?"

“No—it was long ago. Have I ever told you I have an older brother named Ryusuke? Though that brother’s already dead.” Ryusuke was eight years older than him. The photographs allowed him to remember, but almost no impression of the real Ryusuke remained. He had been a pale-faced man with hair hanging over his forehead, sullen in demeanor. That he hardly ever doted on his younger brothers—or even spoke with them—might have been due to the age gap. Perhaps he’d been too filled with pent-up feelings when dealing with them. Yet Eisuke recalled one scene. It was from when he was still very young, not yet in elementary school. There had been a marital quarrel.

“I’m returning to my parents’ home.”

With her face drenched in tears, Mother opened the drawers of the chest in the storage room and vigorously stuffed her kimonos into a karakusa-patterned furoshiki. “I’m taking only Ryusuke back with me.” In the living-dining area, dishes and bowls were scattered because Fukujirou had kicked over the box meal tray. In his house, only the father used a box meal tray, while the rest of the family ate at the low dining table. “I will absolutely never return—”

It was unclear for what reason the father and mother had clashed. But according to his memory, they had already finished eating, so Fukujirou must have returned late. And that he had been drunk—Eisuke now thinks this because he has a vague memory of kaiten-yaki (something like imagawayaki) scattered across the tatami along with the dishes and small bowls. Whenever Fukujirou returned home drunk, he had a habit of buying kaiten-yaki as a souvenir.

"Mother." "Wait." "Don't go!" The young Eisuke cried and screamed as he clung to his mother's back. Mother's back remained stubbornly still - he felt her entire back rejecting him through its rigidity. Yet he desperately clung tighter. "Mother." "If you're leaving then take me too!"

His older brother Ryusuke stood frozen in the corner of the room, his face deathly pale. The storage room was dark. A naked light bulb hung from the ceiling. The voltage must have been low as well. The light bulbs of that time, unlike those of today, did not have smoothly rounded lower halves. Sharp thorn-like protrusions jutted out from them. Eisuke had once been taught by Fukujirou that these thorns formed to create a vacuum inside. Because of this, the light bulb was hung higher than necessary to avoid hitting one’s head. The darkness was also due to that.

“Mother. Mother”

Eisuke, sobbing, faintly felt in his child’s heart that he was now betraying Father. Fukujirou sat before the scattered dishes, not uttering a word as he gloomily tilted a glass of sake. The memory of that scene ends there. The cause of that quarrel was probably something trivial. Eisuke considers this. In the end, his mother had not returned to her parents’ home—that was why. If she had returned, there was no way that memory wouldn’t remain. However, that scene had left a scar on his heart for a considerable time.

(Mother favored Brother Ryusuke over me. (Someone like me isn’t really needed by Mother.)

The guilt of betraying Father had also been there. But now, a different irresolvable doubt superimposed itself upon that scene for Eisuke.

That Ryusuke had graduated middle school and failed the entrance exams for higher schools once again. While idling about, he became ideologically radicalized. Fukujirou never spoke of it throughout his life, and Eisuke too hesitated to inquire, so the details remained unclear. There was no way to investigate it now. The final memory concerning Ryusuke was of the tuberculosis hospital. Ryusuke had fallen ill in the detention center—or rather, his condition had worsened there—been released, entered the hospital, and soon died. Eisuke could recall the gloomy hospital ward but had no memory of ever confronting Ryusuke’s deathly visage. He had likely not been permitted to enter the hospital room. As they passed through the hospital gate, Fukujirou—

“Now then.” “From now on, you’re the eldest son.”

Fukujirou said to Eisuke. "I have to stay strong." It was less a statement to Eisuke than a tone of convincing himself. However, no sense of actually having become the eldest son welled up within Eisuke.

Fukujirou had already submitted his resignation to the prefectural office at this time. Eisuke would not learn of this until later. Since his son had become a Red, he could not remain in his bureaucratic post. He had been forced to resign. But Fukujirou’s, “I’ve got to stay strong.” There was almost no darkness or sadness in those words. Precisely because of that, those words now press down on Eisuke with a crushing weight.

“At the funeral, did your mother cry?” I asked Eisuke while licking brandy from my lips. Though I knew it was a rather cruel question.

“Your mother must have been quite a beauty.”

“Yeah.” “She was beautiful.” “You can tell from the photos.” “You can’t compare her to my wife.”

He had also emptied about three glasses, his cheeks flushed, so the flow of his speech had become somewhat smoother.

“But human memory is such a strange thing. “As lines, they don’t connect. “Scattered bits remain here and there. “Only the intense parts stay—everything else just disappears.”

“Everyone’s like that.” “We must have held the funeral. But where it was held, how it was conducted—I don’t remember. So whether Mother cried or didn’t cry—”

Years later, at a Tokyo izakaya while drinking with Shirosuke, Eisuke happened to bring up that marital quarrel. Shirosuke didn’t remember it. “Huh. There was such a thing?” “Wait. You don’t remember?” Eisuke retorted in surprise. “It was nighttime—you couldn’t have not been there.” Even though I’d been so shaken by it, had Shirosuke felt nothing at all? But Shirosuke wasn’t the type to lie or feign ignorance. The memories between those points must have simply vanished.

“After being forced to resign from the prefectural office, Father apparently had a very hard time.”

Eisuke said while adjusting the position of his pillow. “It was an era of hard times.” “But he was finally able to join a small company run by a friend from his school days.” “So that’s what you mean by occupational issues?”

I asked.

“That’s right. Bureaucrats—they’re still like that today, but even back then they were the same—always putting on airs with ordinary folks. In other words, they maintained a superior stance.”

“Did your father also go around putting on airs?”

“I don’t know whether he did or not, but bureaucrats generally acted that way back then. He must’ve ended up working at some small company where he had to bow and scrape. I suppose it’s only natural his back started hunching over bit by bit.” It was phrased jokingly yet argued with conviction.

I have, of course, never met Eisuke’s father. I can only vaguely imagine a thin and sinewy middle-aged man who seems worn out by life.

“And then Father went to meet the principal. “Because he’d done such a disgraceful thing, Father went to request that Shirosuke be expelled. “Father believed that was an honorable act.”

However, Eisuke thought that had been too hasty a decision. Perhaps Fukujirou had kept the deceased Ryusuke in mind. If left unattended, there was no telling what young people might do. One had to establish order before they acted. That awareness had compelled Fukujirou to take swift measures.

However, things did not proceed so simply. The principal said.

“I will approve the expulsion. I will approve it, but—” The principal was a timid and overly cautious man who, having diligently worked his way up from the bottom ranks, seemed solely concerned with self-preservation. He was the type often seen among principals of regional elementary and middle schools. A school headed by such a principal generally had teachers and students alike who lacked vitality. The teachers called him Principal Kigane behind his back. Because he was constantly preoccupied with school inspectors and public appearances.

“Could you please backdate that expulsion request to before the incident?” True to the Kigane faction’s nature, his words were courteous but hollow in substance. By expelling Shirosuke predating the incident, they could claim the udon dine-and-dash ringleader hadn’t been their student. The school’s honor would stay intact. Though seething inwardly, Fukujirou refused with measured calm. “That’s impossible. “As this happened during his enrollment, we intend to take full responsibility.”

“I understand that, of course.”

The principal removed his gold-rimmed glasses and said while wiping the lenses with a cloth: "There's a significant difference between being expelled over that incident and voluntarily withdrawing due to family circumstances." "For Shirosuke's future." "When you say 'family circumstances'—for example—" "Such as lacking tuition funds or needing to transfer schools—" The principal had fallen prey to his own crafty deception. Fukujirou refused again. The misfortune following Ryusuke's death had significantly hardened Fukujirou's disposition.

“I cannot do that.” Fukujirou’s tone grew slightly harsher. “It wasn’t just my son who did the dine-and-dash. There should be three others. How do you intend to discipline those students?” If Fukujirou had still been a prefectural office official, the principal would never have taken such an attitude. If Fukujirou had still been with the prefectural office—where departments like Academic Affairs and School Inspection existed—the principal would likely have taken a stance to protect Shirosuke instead. However, Fukujirou had unfortunately been driven from his position and was now working as a general affairs clerk at a small company. Of course, the principal knew that.

And so, the first meeting ended in a deadlock like this. Eisuke only learned of these circumstances later through Fukujirou’s occasional reminiscences; at the time, he had been told nothing. However, he had grasped the general outline.

The vice principal and several men in suits came frequently to the Yagi household in the evenings. They whispered in hushed voices in the tatami room and slipped away quietly. The fathers of the three boys who had done the dine-and-dash with Shirosuke were: one a judge, one a railway executive, and one a physician. Shirosuke knew that, and Eisuke knew it too. Eisuke and the others instinctively sensed that the visiting men in suits were either those fathers or men connected to them. Whenever there were visitors, Eisuke and the others were driven into the storage room, so they couldn’t grasp how exactly the discussions were progressing.

“They’re coming to cover up the incident.” In the dimly lit storage room, leaning against a long chest, Shirosuke said mockingly. “They’re trying to sacrifice just me to save their own sons.” “It’s sickening.”

Eisuke couldn't bring himself to offer any facile responses to Shirosuke's words. Shirosuke had already steeled himself to drop out and assumed the posture of a cornered beast. Any words of comfort would have rung hollow by now, and besides, this problem wasn't Shirosuke's alone—it had ensnared Eisuke too. While dropping out would resolve things for Shirosuke, Eisuke still had several more years to endure as their classmates' peer.

And finally, Fukujirou relented.

“When you say ‘he gave in’—”

I asked. “So you mean he was pressured into agreeing?” “That’s right.” Eisuke brought the glass to his lips again, his eyes squinting as if dazzled. Fatigue lay bare across his features. “During that period, the school had been negotiating extensively with the udon shop too. ‘We’ll fully cover the old woman’s medical bills and compensation,’ they said. So it was something like ‘Please bear with this arrangement.’ From the shop’s perspective, their real loss was just the dine-and-dash. The old woman’s injury wasn’t from being beaten up—she fell because their chasing was clumsy, see?”

“And I suppose their being in the customer service business was another vulnerability.”

“Of course that’s part of it.”

Eisuke nodded.

“If they got into a dispute with the school authorities, there was a risk they’d lose their delivery orders. From the udon shop owner’s perspective, as long as they received sufficient money, they’d rather not have any victims, so to speak.” “How do you know what the udon shop owner was thinking?” “After graduating from middle school, I once went to the udon shop. Of course, I wasn’t there to complain—it was to eat udon. Then the old man came out and said, ‘I must’ve caused trouble for your brother too,’ then treated me to a free bowl of tempura udon. He must’ve thought Shirosuke was the older brother.”

“So you ate that tempura udon for free, did you?” “Did you refuse and not even try to pay?”

I asked.

“If it were me—no, if it were the younger me—I would do that.”

“No—I accepted the treat without protest.”

Eisuke twisted his mouth into a smile. “Don’t go spouting political theater lines—it doesn’t suit a cranky old man like you. I only went because I was hungry—this wasn’t some vendetta mission. But that tempura udon was damn good. When you hear ‘tempura udon,’ you’re probably imagining shrimp tempura or something fancy.”

“Yeah. The ones where the batter’s all big and the filling’s tiny, you know.” “Where I’m from, what we call tempura udon isn’t like that. On top of the udon sits satsuma-age.”

“Satsuma-age?” I stifled a laugh. “I see. Satsuma-age is certainly a type of tempura, but it does feel a bit poverty-stricken.”

“No—it doesn’t have that impoverished feel.”

Eisuke said resolutely.

“Where I’m from, the fish are fresh and cheap. Even with satsuma-age, there’s no strange filler mixed in. In other words, it’s not some shoddy product like Tokyo’s satsuma-age.”

"That may be true—" "No— If you put shoddy satsuma-age into Tokyo-style simmered udon, this wouldn't be something you could eat. Not that I mean to badmouth Tokyo."

"You can’t know unless you try it."

“That’s right. You can’t know without eating it.” Eisuke shifted his gaze toward the window and stared at the sky for a while. Unlike yesterday, the sky was thick with clouds, their forms shifting moment by moment with the wind. “At the udon shop, I was treated to two bowls of tempura udon. And then I came back. That’s all there is to it.”

“What about the old woman?” “The old woman wasn’t there.” “She might’ve retired, or maybe she was already dead by then.” “Feels windy today.” “When you lie in bed all day, your body stops sensing the weather changes.”

He returned his gaze to me. "A considerable sum was paid to the udon shop by the three fathers." "So that’s what you call a settlement payment, then." "Thanks to that, the three students avoided punishment." "And Shirosuke was made to withdraw from school, with a withdrawal date predating the incident." "There’s a rakugo called Three Parties, Each Losing a Ryo, but this is one hell of a mess."

“So it means Shirosuke-kun drew the worst lot, then.” Eisuke nodded feebly.

“But there was no helping it.” “Father and younger brother too.” “It’s like that traffic accident with the signpost you saw.” “If Shirosuke was the victim, then the direct perpetrator would be the old woman from that udon shop.” “But cornering her wouldn’t have changed a thing.” Eisuke closed his eyes wearily.

I thought about other things for a while.

“If you’re sending him into service in Tokyo, a funeral parlor’s best.” “This business will bring the most profit because the war’s going to spread even wider.” The one who proposed this was Uncle Koutarou. He kept repeating it while pinching the lump protruding at his throat. Or rather, he insisted vehemently.

“In Tokyo, I have an acquaintance who runs a thriving funeral parlor.” “Send him there.” Why had Koutarou clung so stubbornly to this idea? As the war progressed, casualties would mount, and funeral homes’ revenues would grow accordingly. That might be true, but Eisuke doubted this alone explained his insistence. He sometimes wondered now whether Koutarou had actually been angry at the time. Angry that their family had produced this disgraceful dropout, and that his younger brother Fukujirou had handled it unilaterally without consulting him.

(The sons of other influential people got off scot-free, didn’t they? So if they had just consulted even me, Shirosuke could have—) Though he could no longer throw his weight around as master as he once had, Koutarou remained, for their household, the head of the main family. Even when the twins were born, it was Koutarou who had been delighted; that he had named them by splitting the name of the castle in his birthplace, Eijō, made this clear. In other words, he was the one who named them both. However, at that time,

“Between Eisuke and Shirosuke, I’ll provide tuition for whichever child can study better.” “In exchange, if I don’t have a child of my own, give me that one as my adopted heir.” In later years, he likely hadn’t possessed enough restrained foresight to make such proposals to Fukujirou. Koutarou was still young then, and he couldn’t have anticipated that.

Eisuke still dimly recalls. Even though they were close brothers and he could have simply gone around to the garden to visit, he would always swing open the front door with a clatter and come inside. He did not ask to be shown in. He would then stomp up the steps and settle squarely into the sitting room connected to the entranceway.

“Fuku, you there?” Koutarou referred to his younger brother as “Fuku” or “you.” Koutarou’s voice was loud and gravelly, so it echoed throughout the house.

The main point of the story was roughly as follows. Once the withdrawal notice had been submitted, even if he—Koutarou, who had declared himself the local influential figure there—tried to argue with the principal, it would likely be futile. The principal too would certainly not accept it for the sake of his own reputation.

“Hey, Fuku. Your approach was flawed, but what’s done can’t be helped. So now it’s about how we settle Shirosuke’s situation—”

However, even if he styled himself an “influential figure,” Koutarou was merely a seafood wholesaler in that region—it was doubtful whether he could have exerted any real pressure on the principal. To be fair, he had skillfully navigated the shop inherited from his father through the economic booms and busts of the Taisho era, expanding it to twice its size. Though luck had played a part, Koutarou gave it no thought and seemed to overestimate his own abilities. That was evident in his attitude toward his honest younger brother. Honesty alone wasn’t enough to navigate this world.

“If you leave him be and he turns out like Ryusuke, you’ll have trouble on your hands.”

On that point, Fukujirou agreed.

“That may be true, but—” “That’s why I’m telling you to put him in apprenticeship at a funeral parlor. If he learns a proper trade, everything else will follow. As long as people live, the funeral business will never disappear.” Or perhaps Eisuke thought Koutarou had been deeply marked by seeing funeral processions pass daily during his childhood in the First Sino-Japanese War. And that became tied into how Shirosuke’s situation was settled.

“Funeral parlors are not a lowly business. It is precisely because of their existence that we can die with peace of mind.”

“Brother.” “You can’t force this on me so arbitrarily.”

Fukujirou answered in a low voice.

“We must also hear the person’s own thoughts.” Having his family’s future determined by others’ convenience and schemes was unacceptable even to someone as cautious as Fukujirou. Yet just as he had done with the principal, Fukujirou ultimately relented—not from external pressure, but because Shirosuke himself had consented. Thus did Shirosuke depart for Tokyo to become an apprentice at a funeral parlor. On the eve of his journey, a modest farewell gathering was held. Uninvited yet again, Koutarou arrived bearing gifts of liquor and seafood. True to form, he entered without awaiting permission, leaned against the tokonoma pillar, and sat cross-legged in his usual grandiose manner. Shirosuke, who had been seated in the place of honor, found himself sliding down to the next position as if naturally displaced.

“What?” “You’d already started without me?” After placing the gifts in the tokonoma alcove, Koutarou said: “Shirosuke.” “Take care of yourself when you go there – make sure you work hard.”

Perhaps because alcohol had already taken effect, Koutarou was in relatively high spirits. He occasionally told jokes and let out loud laughter that reverberated through the entire house. It wasn’t that he’d become cheerful because his demands had been accepted. Because Koutarou’s demands were rarely refused in Fukujirou’s household.

Eisuke felt a faint hatred and fear toward Koutarou’s attitude. Eisuke silently kept shoving pieces of the sukiyaki feast into his mouth.

V

About twenty days after seeing that cast, a postcard arrived from Eisuke. It was a simple message asking me to come because there was something he wanted to ask. On the third day, I visited him. On the veranda’s canvas lounge chair, Eisuke leaned back at length and read a book.

“Is your back better now?”

As I settled onto the round stool, I asked.

“Yeah. It’s almost better.” “After fifteen more days pass, I plan to go back to school.”

Compared to twenty days ago, his complexion had improved; he had shaved his unkempt beard and made himself presentable. However, his hair had grown too long, and the hair at the nape of his neck stuck out unkemptly from his collar. When he noticed my gaze, he irritably ran his hand through it. "I’ve been thinking of going to the barber, but…" He said defensively. "I still can’t bring myself to endure sitting in that barber’s chair for an hour." "My back—" "You’re not asking me to cut it for you, are you?"

“No way.”

He laughed. “If I were to have you cut it, I’d have my wife do it." “My wife’s a professional beautician, you know.” He slowly rose from the lounge chair and entered the study. He was no longer using a cane, but whether out of consideration for his spine or not, his movements remained sluggish. I wondered if he was doing it on purpose. After all, he had always been somewhat lumbering and clumsy from the start. That was also why he had slid down the bus stairs.

“The thing I wanted to ask about is this,” As he returned and settled back into his original position, he held out a single envelope. The envelope was old and worn, with stains even here and there. “I want you to track down this sender.”

“You’re asking me to do such a job—”

"I said in disbelief."

“So that’s why you called me here. I’m not a private detective, you know.” “I know.”

Eisuke said.

“I’m not asking you to track them down like some detective. You know those newspaper columns these days—‘Please transfer such-and-such’ or ‘Looking for so-and-so who lived at such-and-such place during the war’? I want you to put it in that section. If I could go myself, I’d go to the newspaper office, but—”

“Why don’t you use a student?” “Like when you went to the national hospital the other day—” “No—this is a personal matter—” Eisuke gave an evasive response. “Actually, I’d like to have your name listed as the inquirer.”

“Why?” “I don’t want my name appearing in newspapers much.” Thinking he was acting selfish, I asked just to confirm.

“Who’s the sender of this envelope?” “A man called Kano—a friend of Shirosuke’s.”

And then Eisuke closed his eyes for a while. He seemed to think about how to explain. Eventually he spoke. What came out wasn’t an explanation.

“What do you think? Will you take this on for me?” “Is it urgent? Can’t you wait even fifteen days?”

“I’m not in any hurry. But once I recover, I’ll probably get busy too.”

Eisuke let out a sarcastic laugh.

“While I’ve got time to spare, I want to either meet that man or try writing him. So I want to quickly figure out how things connect and what happened next. Just like you.”

“You have too much free time on your hands.”

While sipping the black tea the housekeeper had brought, I said. “As long as I stay still, it doesn’t hurt at all. And yet I can’t move.”

He nodded. He nodded compliantly.

“Because I don’t come into contact with the outside world, my thoughts tend to become backward-looking.” “You’re not old enough to be looking backward yet.”

“That’s not it. I’m thinking about the present.”

Eisuke took a deep breath.

“But sometimes, when I look at the shape of this plaster cast, I think about Shirosuke and the others. There are so many things I don’t understand. Though if I don’t have to understand, it’s something that could be left unknown—”

The only one who accompanied Shirosuke to the station was Eisuke. The station wasn’t in their town either; they had deliberately chosen the next one. How had it come to that? Was it their father’s intention, or Koutarou’s idea? Or perhaps Shirosuke had requested it himself—Eisuke could no longer remember. In any case, because they were dressed for a long journey with large luggage, there must have been a fear of attracting attention. If they were to meet an acquaintance, “Where are you going, and what for?”

they would certainly be questioned—or at the very least, arouse suspicion if not. In connection with the expulsion incident, that would be problematic.

It was a warm day. As he walked carrying the luggage, he could feel his back growing clammy with sweat. Since they had left home a little early, when they arrived at the station, there was still about an hour to spare. After entrusting their luggage to the baggage service, they left the station building feeling unburdened. “Brother, let’s get some udon.” Shirosuke said jokingly while looking up at the sky. When he had left home, his face had been pale with tension, but now it wore a bright expression. Although he had been confined to the storage room for some time and felt restricted, now that he could move freely under the blazing sunlight—that must have opened up Shirosuke’s mood.

“This might be our last chance to eat udon for a while.” “There’s udon in Tokyo too.” Eisuke answered. “But I guess it’s okay to eat.”

There was a small udon shop in front of the station. They passed through its curtained entrance. The waitress looked at their faces with mildly startled eyes. Both had grown accustomed to such stares. To those curious glances that whispered “Twins.” “Two tempura udons.”

And Shirosuke added in an adult-like voice. “And a bottle of sake while you’re at it.”

After the waitress went into the back, Eisuke asked Shirosuke. In a small voice. “You. Do you drink sake? Do you like it?”

“No. “I don’t like it. “Once there was leftover sake of Dad’s in the kitchen – I drank it and my face got so hot I couldn’t stand it.”

Eisuke remained silent. The silence persisted until the sake and udon arrived. They divided the sake into two cups and drank it down bitterly. While picking up his chopsticks for the udon, Eisuke said.

“Shirosuke.” “Aren’t you depressed?” “What about?” “You’re going to Tokyo all by yourself.” “No,” Because he had udon in his mouth, Shirosuke’s voice was muffled. “It’s not that I’m not depressed. But rather than working in service here—”

With only having left middle school midway, there were no decent jobs. After all, it was a recession—even graduates couldn’t find decent jobs. Therefore, when it came to work, there was no choice but to go into service somewhere. Fukujirou suggested to Shirosuke that he become a company messenger during the day and attend night school, but Shirosuke refused. “I’ve come to hate studying.” It wasn’t that he had come to hate studying; rather, the weight of his aversion lay in shifting from regular middle school to night school. Working in service in this area was similarly unappealing to him. The accomplices in the incident were still attending school, yet here he was being worked to the bone in the same town.

“If I’m going to be worked to the bone anyway, I figured Tokyo—hundreds of miles away—would be better.”

Their faces were flushed red from the sake and hot udon. "But Uncle Koutarou has some strange acquaintances—like a funeral parlor owner, huh?"

Eisuke said, “Last night, he said that if you learn the ropes and come back, he’d provide the funds to open your own shop.” “He was probably just drunk when he said that.” “But no—he sounded unexpectedly serious, I tell you.” While feeling his head and body throbbing, Eisuke said, “It might be his ulterior motive to make us hold his own funeral.” Shirosuke suddenly let out a loud laugh. “When that time comes, we’ll have to give him about half off.”

After composing his laughter, Shirosuke said. “Brother, you don’t need to worry.” “About what?”

“It’s about the funeral parlor. I don’t know what steps they actually take there, but at least it’s not backbreaking work. That’s why I like it.” “That may be true, but—”

Eisuke started to say but then closed his mouth. This was the first time the funeral parlor had been discussed between them. That complicated feeling shot through Eisuke’s chest.

“Well… Guess it’s time to go.” “Shall we get going?” As if sensing Eisuke’s feelings, Shirosuke said. “We can’t exactly dine and dash here.”

“I’ll pay.” “That was just a joke.” Shirosuke pulled out a wallet.

“I received a farewell gift, so I’ve got plenty.” After settling the bill, the two went outside. Having suddenly stepped out into a bright place, their eyes dazzled, and the ground seemed to sway. Eisuke became conscious of being drunk for the first time. They bought tickets for Tokyo and went out to the platform. Beyond the platform stretched a vast wheat field, its ears yellow and ripe. Children were playing around, blowing grass whistles. The air hung stagnant and still, yet the landscape pressed into Eisuke’s eyes with extraordinary vividness. At the edge of the platform, poppies—likely cultivated by the stationmaster or a station attendant—bloomed in clusters. The two walked over and stood before them.

“Do you know what kind of flowers these are?” Eisuke said.

“They’re poppy flowers.” “I know.” “You can get opium from these.”

With an uncertain feeling, Eisuke explained. “Opium is a narcotic,” he said. “If you drink it, you’ll get addicted.” There were likely various types of poppies, and Eisuke didn’t know which part of them could be processed to extract opium. His pompous explanation had been nothing more than a way to kill time until the train arrived. Waiting for farewell trains was always a tedious affair.

“Is that so?” Shirosuke showed little interest and kept gazing at the other scenery. A train whistle sounded in the distance.

“Brother. If you can make it to university, make it one in Tokyo for me—because I want someone to talk to too.” “Yeah.” Eisuke nodded.

Eventually, the train arrived. Because it was a small station, the stop was brief. Shirosuke turned his face away from him and briskly boarded the train. When he saw Shirosuke secure a seat, the train lurched forward with a heavy clunk. Shirosuke never looked at his face.

"This might be my last time seeing him." With a pang of sorrow, he watched the train depart. It gradually moved away, growing steadily smaller. The moment it completely vanished from sight, he nearly lurched forward but managed to plant his feet firmly. Sweat burst out drenching his forehead.

“The other day you were exhausted and dozing off, so I quietly left.”

I said.

“I meant to ask you then—when Shirosuke caused the udon dine-and-dash incident, didn’t some flicker of satisfaction stir somewhere in your heart?”

“Why?”

“If Shirosuke-kun were expelled, you would have secured university tuition funds.” “There was supposed to be a promise that Mr. Koutarou would provide tuition for one of you two.” “That’s how the promise stood.” Eisuke slowly sat up. “But I felt no satisfaction whatsoever.” “Do you have siblings?” “I do.” “When siblings compete and one loses their standing—does that bring you happiness?” “Hard to say.” I faltered.

“I-I’ve never been put in such a position, so I can’t really say.” “So after all, you did think Shirosuke-kun was pitiable, then.”

“Or maybe not.” Eisuke ran both hands through disheveled hair and thought for a while.

“I was born as one of twins. Since I’ve never experienced being born alone, I can’t say for certain, but I think there must be a special emotional exchange between twins. For example, I have an older brother named Ryusuke, plus one younger brother and one younger sister each. My feelings toward them are still different from those I have for Shirosuke, you know.” “Maybe it’s because of the age difference?” “That’s probably right. We grew in the same womb and were born on the same day. We shared something—like a doppelgänger, my own other self—”

“From the very beginning? That feeling—” “No—it wasn’t like that at first. I thought this was natural and taken for granted.” No—I hadn’t even considered it. That’s a lot of dandruff. It’s because I haven’t washed my hair in ages.

He brushed the dandruff off his knees.

“When I entered elementary school and looked around, all my friends had different faces - there wasn’t a single pair that looked alike.” “That must have been where it began.” “What emerged as a tangible feeling was—”

I was gazing at the liverwort clinging to the garden. Compared to when I last came, it had spread considerably. “When Shirosuke got into fights with others, I’d rush to back him up, and when I started something, Shirosuke would come running to take my side.” “We’d work together harmoniously to face outside threats.” “But once we got home, we’d often end up fighting over the most trivial things.” “It’s strange, isn’t it?” “So you mean you two were roughhousing?”

Eisuke snorted a laugh through his nose and did not respond. “But thinking this might be the last time I’d see him when the train started moving—that’s a bit overdone, don’t you think? Sentimentality, I suppose. In reality, we did reunite in Tokyo after all.” “No—even now, when parting with someone, there are times I feel this might be our last meeting. More than just sometimes. That intuition usually doesn’t prove right, though. The feeling from when I saw Shirosuke off in Shimonoseki back then might still linger somewhere in my heart.”

6

According to Eisuke’s memory, the city of Shimonoseki in December 1938 was an exceedingly dark place. Of course, it wasn't dark in terms of mood or atmosphere—there simply wasn't much actual light.

"I wonder if they were conducting a blackout drill that day." He sometimes doubted this, but since there was no reason to implement blackout measures in 1938, and moreover shops and bars remained open, it couldn’t have been an actual blackout or even a drill. December being the time of year with the shortest days, the two of them arrived in Shimonoseki around six o'clock in the evening. Having grown accustomed to Tokyo’s brightness, it must have felt darker than it actually was.

Eisuke was holding an empty suitcase.

A draft notice arrived for Shirosuke.

When they said a telegram had arrived, Eisuke spoke. “I’ll go back with you too. Since it’s winter break, and spending New Year’s at the boarding house would be lonely anyway.” The notice simply stated, “Assemble in Shimonoseki on a certain day in December,” with no mention of which regiment or unit he would be joining. The empty suitcase was for bringing back Shirosuke’s civilian clothes and personal belongings. Eisuke was dressed in his university uniform, and Shirosuke wore a suit. It was a cloudy day, and the sky was uniformly dark.

“It’s cold. This place called Shimonoseki...” “This place called Shimonoseki—” “It’s because it’s a port town, I suppose.”

Shirosuke answered while turning up his coat collar.

“Oh.” “It’s snowing.”

Fine snow fluttered down onto their shoulders, but it soon stopped.

While he was completing the procedures at the designated location, Eisuke entered a nearby café and ordered a warm cocoa. Just as he finished drinking it, Shirosuke hurried into the café. As soon as he sat down, he said in a low voice.

“It seems I’m indeed being sent overseas after all.”

“Where’s this ‘overseas’ supposed to be?” “I asked, but they wouldn’t tell me.”

Shirosuke lit a cigarette. The hand holding the match trembled slightly. “I think it’s either Korea or Manchuria.” “Tonight I’ll stay here, and tomorrow I’ll board the ship.”

“Are you staying at the barracks?” “No—it’s a private house. I had them draw me a map.” And Shirosuke ordered coffee.

“Taiwan would be nice... I guess.” “I’m terrible with the cold.” “It might be Taiwan.” “But there’s no fighting in Taiwan. It’s got to be the north.” When they finished their coffee, the two went outside. They began walking using the map. What he remembered was how dark those town streets were. Did people in Shimonoseki go to bed early, or were they just keeping their doors shut against the cold? Probably the latter. It took about thirty minutes to find the house. Among rows of low-eaved buildings, this one jutted abruptly into the night sky.

“This must be the place.”

Shirosuke stopped. "I'll go in and ask them, so wait here for me."

Shirosuke entered through the small door. Eisuke stood in the middle of the road and observed the building. A faint smell of sake lees lingered in the air. He had an elementary school friend whose family ran a sake brewing business, and he had visited their house two or three times. The feel of that house and its fence, though unclear in the darkness, had something in common with here.

"Ah," he thought. "So it was a sake brewery."

He thought.

"Would they even put him up in the brewmaster’s sleeping quarters? It must be cold." Eventually, Shirosuke came out. He was still wearing the same clothes. "They said I just need to be in this lodging by ten. Let’s hang out until then." "Well, that’s a relief."

Shirosuke looked up at the building and confirmed its shape. Then, in what appeared to be the direction of the entertainment district, the two began walking.

First they entered a pachinko parlor and played pachinko. He remembered it this way, but since pachinko wasn't introduced until after the war, it seemed postwar memories had seeped into that moment. Or perhaps they had entered something like an amusement arcade?

“Brother, let’s have a drink.”

It was Shirosuke who suggested it. Though he too had wanted a drink because of the cold, he'd been holding back out of concern for Shirosuke's situation. "Is it all right to drink?" "Why?" "You're a soldier now, aren't you? Wouldn't they scold you for getting drunk?" "I'm not a soldier yet." Shirosuke laughed.

“Even if I board the ship tomorrow, I’m still not a soldier. After we arrive somewhere, I’ll officially become a first-year soldier.” “Really?” “It’s true. I was told that earlier. Since I haven’t enlisted yet, they said not to act like a full-fledged soldier. Right now, no matter what I eat or drink, it’s my own business.” He wondered if Shirosuke was misinterpreting the command not to act like a full-fledged soldier, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop him. And they entered a nearby izakaya. The interior was quite warm from steam rising off pots. Shirosuke took off his hunting cap and stroked his head.

“Once I shaved my head，the cold really seeped through.” And then they ordered sake and oden. “When I’m in front of Dad and Mom，it’s so stifling the sake don’t taste right.” “After all，it’s gotta be a place like this.”

Shirosuke had his hair cut yesterday at noon. In the front yard of his house, Eisuke used the clippers himself. The Yagi family wasn’t wealthy, so they couldn’t afford to go to the barber. Since childhood, they had been cutting each other’s hair. Going to a barber costs money, but doing it themselves was free. Since graduating middle school, he had not once held a pair of clippers. Shirosuke kept wincing in pain. “It hurts. It hurts.”

Shirosuke kept wincing in pain and let out exaggerated screams. In truth, his skills had dulled, but his exaggerated cries were also a performance for his young brother and sister. Every time he let out a scream, his younger brother and sister would delight and burst into gleeful laughter. For his younger brother and sister, this was their first time seeing Shirosuke, “Tokyo brother” “Tokyo brother!”

Since the day Shirosuke had returned, they had done nothing but cling to him. "Ah, that hurt," he said. When the cutting was done, Shirosuke made his sister bring a mirror. "Brother," he said. "What a terrible job you did cutting it. It looks just like terraced fields." "It'll grow back soon," I said. "Once it does, the terraces will disappear."

At that exact moment, someone from Koutarou’s shop arrived as a messenger. The message was that Koutarou wanted to hold a send-off banquet at his residence tonight, so they were to come. However, that banquet was supposed to be held at our house tonight.

Fukujirou was at work, and Mother was in the kitchen preparing for it. “Brother. What should we do?” Shirosuke consulted him. “I don’t really want to go.” “Then refuse.” Shirosuke said to the messenger.

“If we were to be sent home immediately, we’d lose face, so we must decline the send-off party. We’ll have a simple gathering at home ourselves—” The remark about the sake tasting poor in that stifling atmosphere referred to that night’s small banquet, but Shirosuke drank and ate heartily all the same, cheerfully declaring how much better it was at home. At the family-only banquet, Koutarou never showed his face. He must have had his pride wounded somewhat. A single bottle of sake was all that arrived.

The oden broth was slightly too sweet.

“We’ve both gotten better at holding our liquor, haven’t we?”

He said to Shirosuke. "The first time I drank alcohol was at the station-front udon shop when I went to send you off to Tokyo."

“That’s right. Brother turned bright red after just half a flask.”

“That’s right. My legs went unsteady. Beyond the station were wheat fields—a yellow like Van Gogh might use—ripe and sweltering.” “Was that how it was?”

“There were beautiful flowers blooming on the platform. “That was around what day in June?” He had many things he wanted to say. He felt that way, yet there was actually nothing. After the two of them emptied six bottles, he began growing slightly intoxicated. Shirosuke’s complexion had hardly changed. Yet he too knew Shirosuke was drunk. Shirosuke had grown skilled at drinking without showing intoxication due to his apprenticeship. He said.

“It’s about time we should get going, don’t you think?”

Shirosuke obediently turned his cup over, and the two left the shop. As they walked along the dark road toward their lodgings, they came upon a seedy-looking bar with a red lantern hanging at its entrance. Shirosuke halted and glanced at his wristwatch.

“There’s still about an hour left. Let’s have another drink or two before we go.” A hostess in her mid-twenties, her face caked thickly with white powder, leaned against a table as she sang the same ditty repeatedly, cycling through its lines again and again. The morning glory's a fool, clinging to a rootless fence Risking its life to cling tight The sake tasted more watered-down than at the previous bar. Perhaps this was the sort of establishment that prioritized prostitution upstairs over proper drinks or snacks. As he thought this, Eisuke tilted his cup. Suddenly Shirosuke changed the subject.

“Hey.” “Brother.” “I have a child.” “Child?”

Shirosuke nodded slowly with bloodshot eyes. Though they had both been in Tokyo and met occasionally, Shirosuke had never once let such a thing slip until now. Yet it was unmistakably clear from his expression and tone that this was no lie. “How old is it? And the child?” “The child is due in March.” “Did you promise to marry her?”

Shirosuke shook his head.

“So you left Tokyo after getting her pregnant?” “That’s right.” Shirosuke emptied his cup with a bitter look.

“I can't get married.” “That woman’s already another man’s wife.”

“A married woman?” “Then how can you tell whether that child is yours or her husband’s?”

“That’s right. “But she believes it.” “Since she believes it, there must be some basis for it.”

Shirosuke twisted his lips. He seemed about to laugh, but no sound came out. "But I have no basis for it. It's not that there's absolutely no basis, but neither is there any absolute certainty. Come to think of it, fathers are such uncertain things."

He remained silent. He was lost in thought. “For example, even us—it’s a fact we were born from Mom. But that it’s clearly the old man’s seed—”

Shirosuke’s enunciation grew slurred. “I don’t think you can say for sure,” he said. “I sometimes thought about such things—about the two of us, you know.” “In what way—” “We were born as twins. But the old man didn’t name us himself. The one who gave us our names was someone else. That person is now providing Brother with tuition—”

A realization surged through him with overwhelming force. So Shirosuke had been dwelling on such matters all along, he thought. When had those thoughts first taken root? The questions welled up through his mental fog. But maintaining a facade of composure, he wrestled the conversation back on track. “Who’s this married woman?” “I could go see her for you, if you like.” “Can’t tell you that.”

Shirosuke spoke in a dismissive tone.

“I’ll deal with what I’ve done on my own.” “I won’t cause you any trouble.” “So when you say you’ll settle things, do you mean you plan to return safely?” Feeling his mood suddenly turn cruel, he said. However, Shirosuke seemed to take that as a joke. “It’s just changing from the business of burying people to the business of killing them.”

Shirosuke let out a short laugh. “Because I’m used to it, I won’t mess up. I’m not going to die so easily.”

And Shirosuke glanced at his wristwatch and slowly stood up.

“We only have fifteen minutes left. Let’s go.” They paid the bill and left the shop. They arrived at the lodging, and he too passed through the small door together. The earthen floor transitioned to wooden flooring, and there was a large staircase leading to the second floor. A bare light bulb was hanging. The pillars and beams were sturdy and thick, their surfaces gleaming jet-black throughout—perhaps from having stood for so many years. “Brother. Is my face red?” “No. It isn’t red.”

“No, it’s not red.” To his eyes, Shirosuke’s face looked rather pale. “Is that so? Just wait here for me. I’ll go change and come back.”

With those brusque words, Shirosuke began climbing the stairs. He sat down on the step up and remained still for about ten minutes. Eventually, Shirosuke bundled his clothes and overcoat together and came down the stairs. He simply couldn’t recall what Shirosuke had been wearing at that time. Since he had taken off his clothes, he must have been wearing something else, but both the color and shape had been completely wiped from his memory. In any case, the two of them hurriedly packed the clothes into the suitcase. Because they were in a hurry, they forgot to pack the shoes they had taken off in the entryway and had to repack everything midway. When the work was completely finished, Shirosuke said in a small voice.

"Well, I'm off." Without giving him time to respond, Shirosuke turned his face away and walked toward the stairs. It was exactly the same as his attitude when seeing off the Tokyo-bound. Shirosuke clattered up the stairs and disappeared from view.

“Ah.”

He groaned softly. A wave of sadness welled up. "This might be the last time I see him."

For one minute, he stood in the earthen entryway. Then, picking up the suitcase, he stepped out through the low doorway. As he walked toward the station, he thought. (He’s a sentimentalist—more sentimental than I am, and a show-off too—so he hates people seeing his tears.)

The suitcase filled with clothes was unexpectedly heavy. While they weren’t heavy when worn individually, holding them all together had a solid heft. Shifting the suitcase from his right hand to his left, he walked hurriedly as if being pursued. Somewhere along the way, he must have taken a wrong turn. Suddenly the sea appeared before his eyes. He stopped. Then he slowly approached the stone wall. The sea was dark, its waves lapping gently against the shore. In the distance, ships lay anchored with scattered lights glimmering. The briny smell of tide rose to his nose for the first time. He set down the suitcase and stared intently into the black sea.

(That guy... had to go and leave behind one hell of an outrageous statement before departing.) With a head numbed by drink, he thought these thoughts. The weight lay more with Koutarou than with Shirosuke’s child. (Leaving me, his older brother, with his geta—)

Eventually, Eisuke slowly turned around. As he walked on for a while, he came upon a familiar road. In the distance, he could see the red lantern lights from earlier. Eisuke hesitated, then gently slid open the oil-paper door. There were no customers, and the barmaid from earlier sat alone at a table, chin propped in hand as she drifted in and out of sleep. She opened her eyes languidly. “Will you put me up?” Eisuke said, jerking his chin toward the second floor. “Ah. Sure.”

The barmaid sluggishly stood up and lowered the front shutter. He followed the barmaid up the dark stairs. The barmaid dragged the futon down from the torn closet with a clatter. Eisuke had not yet known woman. While observing the woman’s movements out of the corner of his eye, he slowly took off his coat and jacket. The woman looked at his face and laughed. "Why’s your face all stiff like that?" “Kano, you see—he had indeed departed together from Shimonoseki. He was Shirosuke’s war comrade.”

Eisuke explained to me.

“About five years after the war ended, a postcard came from Kano. He must have seen my name somewhere—the name resembled Shirosuke’s, so he inquired if we were brothers or something.”

“I see.” “When I sent a reply confirming that was the case, a return letter arrived by return post. A photo had been enclosed. This is it.” Eisuke turned the old envelope upside down. A single small photo came out. I received it.

The colors of the photo had faded. In the center stood a wooden grave marker. *In Memory of Army Medical Sergeant Yagi Shirosuke* I could barely make out the inscription. Around the grave marker, short grass grew here and there, and the background stretched boundlessly with nothing in sight. The boundary between earth and sky remained indistinct. In a desolate landscape where no flowers bloomed and no birds flew, the grave marker stood solitary. “Where is this place?” “It’s outside the walls of a town called Atsuwa. It seems it used to be called Suiyuan in the past. It’s the Mongolian region.”

“What a bleak place, eh?”

I said while handing back the photo.

“Though Shirosuke had hardly any interest in flowers or nature.” “In that respect, he probably wouldn’t feel lonely.”

Sometime when I was still a student, Shirosuke came by. He rustled through the package and pulled out flowers. They weren't real flowers, but artificial ones.

“What’s the matter?”

When I asked,

“Yeah. Brother’s room wasn’t decorated much, so I quietly brought some out from home for him, but he wasn’t there. Can you pass this to Brother later?”

Shirosuke’s explanation had been that real flowers and artificial ones were much the same—flowers wither, but artificial ones last forever. “How about it?” Eisuke lit a cigarette and said.

“Will you consent to help find Kano’s whereabouts?”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a try,” I answered. “When exactly did Shirosuke die in battle?” “Die in battle?” Eisuke’s expression darkened as he pondered for a moment. “August 17, 1942. I’d graduated from university and was working then.” “Ah,” I said. “That place in Kanda—some research institute, wasn’t it? It’s a hotel now.” “Right. In January ’42, I got my draft notice too. But they sent me home that same day.” He tapped his chest. “Bronchial issues. Spent two months hospitalized, then loafed around the rest of that year.” His gaze drifted seaward. “That day I’d gone fishing too. Our house stood right by the coast.”

That day, Eisuke was dangling his fishing line at the tip of the breakwater. There were only two or three anglers on the breakwater. The Pacific War had already begun, manpower was diverted to weapons production, and people with time to fish had nearly all disappeared. That day, he had a good catch. Though they were just small fry, he caught fifty or sixty of them by around three in the afternoon. As he became increasingly absorbed in replacing the bait, a child came running from the direction of the distant coast. Eventually, the voice reached him.

“Eisuke-nii-san. “Come back home.” “Mom said so!”

He had a foreboding. He hurriedly folded the fishing rod, lifted the fish basket, and rushed to the coast. He asked the younger brother.

“What’s this about?” “I don’t know.” Being called back in the middle of fishing was something that had never happened before. His anxiety heightened. “She said to go call Brother right away.” “Mom was crying.” “She was crying?”

A shock akin to having made an irreparable mistake struck him. He began running toward home with the younger brother.

Let it not be about Shirosuke. Let it not be about Shirosuke!

However, it was indeed about Shirosuke. A letter had arrived from a unit commander named Nakata. The contents were written in curt prose:

Such was the message conveyed. The disease name was not written. However, the phrase "just ten days before [his return]" pierced Eisuke’s heart. “What an unlucky bastard he was.”

Returning to the homeland meant coming back and being discharged from conscription. He knew that. "You shouldn't have died yet." When he realized those stairs at the Shimonoseki sake brewery had truly been their final meeting place, his chest filled with something like rage, and he began to tremble. No tears came, but the trembling would not subside.

At the end of that year, there came a notice instructing him to come receive the remains. It was from Nagoya. He couldn’t understand why someone who had departed from Shimonoseki would end up returning to Nagoya. He still cannot understand. Fukujirou, their father, had died of illness about a year after Shirosuke went off to war. Now, when it came to family, there was only the mother, Eisuke, his younger brother, and his younger sister. The one who could go to receive them was him, and it was also his responsibility.

“Why on earth would the remains come back to Nagoya?” Their mother too found it strange.

“If they’d just brought it straight here, you wouldn’t have wasted money on travel, right?”

Having said that, he couldn’t very well not go. Eisuke departed for Nagoya. In the vast desolate chill of military grounds, something resembling a joint memorial service was conducted. From far away came the solemn blare of a trumpet; what sounded like a captain’s address and eulogistic readings drifted through the air. The sky stretched clear above them, whipped by strong winds. Carried on those gusts, fragments of sound would intermittently reach them. Of course, the words’ meaning remained unintelligible. Before a raised platform soldiers stood arrayed in formation, with bereaved families made to line up behind. There were no chairs. They remained standing. He stood in the rearmost row of mourners. The lining-up itself had taken ages, and now the ceremony dragged on endlessly.

"What... That those who conduct funerals are now being buried themselves - how bizarre," he thought.

At first, Eisuke had thought so too, but gradually a simmering irritation began to rise within him. He had thought that if he submitted the notification, they would hand over the remains in exchange, yet here he was having to endure this pompous, hollow ceremony. He found this unwelcome. Moreover, he had come by night train, so he hadn’t slept well the previous night. “It’s taking so long. Isn’t it over yet?” To the bearded old man standing next to him, he quietly spoke. The old man glared at him but did not respond. The old man’s lips had turned purple from the cold. Eisuke’s earlobes had gone numb too, and his nose wouldn’t stop running. When he had reached a state of mind where he could endure no more, the ceremony finally ended.

It was an hour and a half later that he received the remains. This was because it was crowded, and his turn simply wouldn't come around. Even after receiving the box wrapped in white cloth, he felt no sorrow whatsoever. He sullenly slung it from his shoulder to his front. Then he exited the camp gate and trudged toward the station.

"How utterly idiotic." "How utterly stupid." As if to soothe his own displeasure, he walked on muttering to himself. He had planned to stay overnight in Nagoya and return to his hometown in the morning, but now he no longer felt like staying. "I'll take the train back right away." After ordering a meal at the station cafeteria, he settled on that course of action. He removed the remains from his shoulder and enshrined them on the table. In other words, they had taken on a posture as if facing him. He still hadn't felt the reality that Shirosuke's bones were inside there. He recalled Shirosuke's words at the red lantern shop in Shimonoseki.

"You said you'd settle things yourself, but in the end you couldn't, could you?" He spoke inwardly to Shirosuke's bones. "Once humans are born, they get entangled with or become entangled by all sorts of things—these matters can't be settled in a single generation." "They gradually get passed down or vaguely disappear—"

The meal arrived. Facing the remains, he alone ate. He felt somehow unsettled. “Remains are such a peculiar thing, you know.”

Eisuke wrapped both hands behind his head and said to me. “That thing—it’s only when you hang it from your shoulder and hold it up with both hands that it looks proper. When eating meals, it’s a hassle to handle. If there were no people around, it’d be fine—but everyone must be watching. Not the bones—me, you see. They’re watching this me as someone who’s lost family and is overflowing with grief. Eating a meal under those gazes is uncomfortable, I tell you. But if you get hungry, you can’t just not eat—”

“I see.”

I felt like I could understand that perplexity as well. “Because I have to put on a sad face, I suppose.” “But conversely, I can turn it around and use it to my advantage.”

He said.

“Then I boarded the train. The train wasn’t exactly packed, but there were no seats available. Because I was carrying the remains, I couldn’t push ahead to board first.” Eisuke was terribly tired. Having not slept well the night before and stood all night in the camp grounds, it was only natural he felt exhausted. He remained standing in the aisle and even considered placing the remains on the luggage rack. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. The anger that had lain dormant now flared up again, smoldering in his chest.

"Do they mean to keep me standing like this?" "This me!" While thinking this, he methodically checked each of the seated passengers' faces one by one. About ten minutes passed. Finally, as if unable to bear it any longer, a student stood up and offered their seat.

“That train was a long-distance one. That’s why nobody wanted to give up their seat. I now realize that when I boarded that train, everyone must have been troubled. It was like I barged in waving the remains as my righteous cause, you see. There were even guys pretending to be asleep.”

“So, did you thank that student?”

“I didn’t,” “Without saying a word, I sat down with perfect composure.”

Eisuke emphasized his tone. “Because it wasn’t me the student gave up their seat for—they gave it up to the remains.”

While thinking it was strange reasoning, I kept quiet and listened. "I managed to sit down, but what came next was tough." "I couldn't doze off." "Closing my eyes was fine, but if I started drifting off, my body would lean forward and the box would almost slip from my knees." Startled awake, I straightened back up. "I kept dozing off and jerking awake like that—over and over—until by the time I got off at my hometown station, I'd definitely lost a full kan of weight." "Truly, receiving those remains was an ascetic ordeal." "I could endure it because I was still young then—the me now could never manage such a thing."

On the canvas chair, Eisuke stretched. "When I arrived home and opened the box, there was a bone urn." "When I opened the lid, there were a few bone fragments inside." “Did tears come out?” "No."

He let out a sigh.

“When you witness a family member’s death firsthand, the grief condenses into tears—but with Shirosuke, it wasn’t like that.” “First came the letter, then what passed for bones.” “They were just burned remains from some foreign field.” “I never saw his death face.” “Without that reality, the sorrow never coheres—it just scatters.”

"I suppose that's how it goes." "Besides, I went through all that trouble to get to Nagoya." "I had this strong feeling of 'They made me go through all that trouble for this thing.'" "In fact, when Kano sent me that photo, it felt more real." "Ah, so they’re buried in a place like this." "But it’s strange, isn’t it?" "I didn’t write back to Kano’s letter." "I felt like I didn’t want to write it."

“You say you were put through all that trouble for Shirosuke’s bones, but when he was alive, he was the one made to endure hardship by you.” “You borrowed money from the funeral parlor owner and never paid it back, did you?” “Ah.” Eisuke said with a groan. “You know a lot about that.”

“It’s written in Shirosuke’s diary too, and he often complained to me about it.” “Big brother’s sloppy with money too,” he’d say.

The funeral parlor was located at the bottom of a long, gentle slope leading down from a private railway station. The owner was a thin man with a close-cropped head who rarely changed his expression. Later, when I asked Shirosuke about it, he told me funeral parlor workers were instructed never to show emotions on their faces—to handle matters with expressionless composure. The proprietor’s reserved demeanor seemed an extension of his professional discipline into daily life. Eisuke went to borrow money there two or three times.

After all, Koutarou’s remittance for school expenses was meager. Since he only sent an amount comparable to what rural high schools required, it fell far short. Eisuke took on part-time work too, but when even that proved insufficient, he had no choice but to turn to the funeral parlor. When the proprietor heard Eisuke’s requested sum, he made his young, beautiful wife bring the money and silently handed it over.

Because he was struggling daily, he couldn’t return the money. Eventually, he found it increasingly difficult to visit the funeral parlor. “Brother. Why not pay it back little by little and then go borrow again when you need to?” Sometimes Shirosuke would say this to him. “When I hear Father telling guests, ‘This one works hard, but the older brother is sloppy,’ it pains me a little.” Eisuke had a hard time too. He couldn’t bring himself to make empty promises about repaying after graduation. In the midst of all this, Shirosuke was conscripted, so the debt ended up going unpaid.

“The reason I didn’t respond to Kano was that a part of me certainly didn’t want to know too much about Shirosuke’s hardships in the military.”

Eisuke said.

"But then six or seven years later, I suddenly wanted to know about it." "So I sent a letter to Kano asking to meet and hear his story." "Then it came back with a note attached." "Why did you decide to write the letter?" "I don't know clearly." "Probably because time had passed and it wasn't as painful as before."

“As you’ve aged, maybe you’ve started wanting to settle things once and for all?” I said jokingly. “I think listening to Kano’s account won’t settle anything—it’ll only tangle things further.” “Maybe so.”

The conversation lapsed for a moment. Eisuke closed his eyes listlessly. I took the old envelope and looked inside. There was nothing inside.

“Was there only a photo in this one?”

“No— “There was a letter in it too.” “What did it say?” “It briefly described the circumstances of his death.”

“Hmm. What illness did Shirosuke die from?”

“Suicide.” “Suicide?”

Since this was my first time hearing about it, I unintentionally raised my voice.

“Yeah.”

Eisuke opened his eyes and, after a moment, nodded. “It was suicide by sleeping pills.”

VII It was late June 1942 when Shirosuke's unit returned to Datong from Hong Kong. Nearly all medical soldiers who had enlisted alongside him had become sergeants. Sergeant Kano was among them. They moved again from Datong to Kouwa. Their duties in Kouwa grew utterly chaotic and dissolute. Having fulfilled their heavy responsibilities in Hong Kong and returned to their original base brought them relief, while being stationed in the north meant there were no sudden military operations to undertake. Moreover, they would soon be discharged. They received special treatment as personnel marked for return.

Of course, not all of the Kouwa unit was in disarray. It was only those scheduled for repatriation. “Even though we can go home, how could anyone feel like working?” “This is absurd!” With that mindset, Shirosuke and the others hardly worked, skipped their daytime duties, and spent every night drinking alcohol. The unit leader was an army medical captain named Nakata, a man with a somewhat sinister disposition, “Even if you are personnel scheduled to return, you must not become lax.” He often lectured them, but it didn’t get through. Once someone became a veteran sergeant, they were practically like gods in the military—not the sort to be moved by mere lectures.

“What a disgusting bastard that guy is.” “He’s only thinking about his own damn promotion—a disgrace to the military.”

Captain Nakata was disliked by everyone. Shirosuke in particular disliked him.

That evening, Shirosuke took a bath. It was not a drum can but a jar bath. The drum can’s water was harsh, but the jar’s touch was gentle, and they preferred it. Then, a drinking party with five comrades began. The liquor was white liquor.

Shirosuke and the others were residing in a requisitioned civilian house. In that one building, there were only five people.

All of them were fond of alcohol. To put it more precisely, those who loved to drink had gathered in that particular building. This was because the assignment of quarters had been largely based on their own preferences. As they grew drunker, stories flowed endlessly. Tales of hometowns. Recollections of Hong Kong. Discussions about women and gambling. Amidst this revelry, Shirosuke stepped down from the room, retrieved white powder from a haversack hung in the earthen-floored entryway into his palm, and returned to the drinking party. It was a crystalline powder resembling aspirin. Shirosuke placed it in his mouth before everyone’s eyes and washed it down in one gulp with baijiu.

“What did you drink?” Kano demanded when he noticed. “Nothing special,” Shirosuke replied, his tone oddly cheerful. “This wrecked body anyway. This works better.” The conversation moved on, leaving the powder matter unresolved. That night they sang drunkenly before collapsing into sleep. When Kano awoke next morning, he immediately recognized the abnormality in Shirosuke’s breathing. He had been sleeping beside him. Not quite snoring—the throat produced low feline rumbles. Peering at Shirosuke’s turned face, he saw cream-thick sludge oozing from nostrils to blanket below. The clogged nasal passages explained the gurgling throat.

“It’s terrible! Everyone, wake up!” The remaining three also sprang up.

“What’s wrong?” “Yagi’s condition is strange. Get the soldiers to bring a stretcher right away.” One of them rushed out. Kano wiped away the thick, viscous substance with gauze. However, since his nostrils were still packed tightly with it, the gurgling in his throat didn’t cease. Shirosuke had fallen into a deep coma and was incontinent. That white drug from last night. With a feeling that made him want to gnash his teeth, Kano thought. If I had made him vomit right then, this wouldn’t have happened.

“Even taking a bath yesterday was part of that resolve,” Kano realized. Shirosuke had always claimed baths were too much trouble and rarely bothered with them. He would just wipe himself down at most. That he’d entered the jar-shaped bath and scrubbed himself thoroughly must have been part of his preparation. Soldiers came rushing in with a stretcher immediately. Shirosuke’s body was taken to the hospital. They pumped his stomach and gave him enemas, but his consciousness never returned. He died at noon. The cause was ruled a Veronal overdose.

Due to having shared the same room, Kano and the others underwent preliminary questioning. However, Kano never disclosed that white powder had been consumed during drinking. They crafted a grave marker from unvarnished wood, negotiated with the canteen to obtain sake, poured it over the marker, and held a memorial banquet with what remained. Then, one week later, they departed Kouwa and headed for the mainland. Just as Eisuke had asked, I went to the newspaper office. There was a friend of mine at the company who kindly took on the request. The article searching for Kano was published on the third day after that.

However, no reply came from Kano for quite some time. After about two months had passed, I met Eisuke.

“So you’re giving up, then?”

I said.

Eisuke’s spine had deformed and solidified into its warped shape, yet according to reports he had resumed attending school. “He might already be dead,” he said. “Human life proves itself unreliable at every turn.” “Traffic accidents multiply daily.”

Eisuke answered. Compared to when he had been bedridden, his tone lacked its former fervor. After all, once immersed in the disorderly routine of daily life, one likely grows indifferent to the past.

“I suppose I’ll give up.” “There’s nothing else left to try…”

However, one month after that, a letter arrived from Kano. He had been adopted into another family, and his surname had changed. The address was in Chiba, “By chance, I recently read that newspaper article – for what reason are you searching for me?” he wrote.

Exactly the next day, as I had business in Chiba, I went around to that address in the evening. There I found a small boat rental. When I asked for him, a woman who seemed to be his wife came out and said he was out at sea but should return soon. In fact, within less than thirty minutes, a fishing boat came back puttering its engine. A sunburned boatman got off and tied up the boat. That was Kano.

“Oh. It’s you, huh?”

Kano removed his headband. “Well, you see, we don’t actually subscribe to that newspaper at home.” “When I was idly reading an old newspaper a customer had left behind, there was my name, wasn’t there?” “I was surprised!”

Kano looked much older than Eisuke. After all, daily exposure to sea winds must roughen the skin. "What's the reason you're looking for me?" "Well, the thing is, I have a friend named Yagi Eisuke—"

“Ah.” “Ah. You’re that Mr. Yagi’s older brother, right?” “I did send a letter once.” There, I briefly explained Eisuke’s feelings. Asking him to come to Tokyo and share his stories was something I found difficult to say outright. The boat rental owner was bound to be busy. “Since Yagi Eisuke also likes fishing, if I could borrow your boat once and have a leisurely talk while fishing—”

“That’s fine. If you call me the day before, I’ll have everything ready.” Kano readily agreed. “I believe that Mr. Eisuke was twins with Yagi, wasn’t he?” “That’s right.”

The river in front of the boat rental was polluted, with oil glaring on the surface. Boats were tied up in several places. Beyond the row of houses across the river hung a red evening sun.

“There’s been a lot of smog these past two or three days, hasn’t there?” Kano said, shielding his eyes.

“When you go out to sea, the sun seen through Tokyo’s smog looks exactly like Mongolia’s.” “Though what’s over there isn’t smoke but sand dust.” “I hear Shirosuke-kun killed himself there.”

Kano did not respond directly to that. After a while, he averted his eyes from the setting sun.

“Even if he’d returned alive from Mongolia, he’d have been drafted again right away,” Kano said. “They sent me to New Guinea instead.” “New Guinea? That must’ve been hell.” “Hell doesn’t begin to cover it.” His voice flattened. “Two hundred forty thousand men went out. Seven thousand two hundred came back. Wasn’t a war—more like a meat grinder. Ate roots and grass for a year straight—” He studied my face, sunlight glinting off the oil-slicked river behind him. “Shirosuke’s better off counted with the dead. Me surviving? Pure damn luck.”

I wondered whether Kano looked so aged because of those hardships. I received a large business card from the boat rental and left the place. The next day, I called Eisuke and conveyed the details.

“I see. So Kano was there?”

Eisuke said.

“It’s been ages since I last went fishing. I’d like to try it again.” “So what caused the suicide?” “Since it was just a quick chat, I didn’t ask.” “I figured I could ask about it later anyway.” I answered.

“They’ll handle the rods and bait on their end.” “You just need to show up.” One morning I met Eisuke and took a taxi to Chiba. The air was still and the weather fine. “Is your back fully healed now?” I asked. “Can you sit in a boat all day?”

“Well, it’ll probably be okay. If it gets unbearable, we’ll just turn the boat around.” “How’s the lump?” Instantly, Eisuke’s face turned gloomy. “I feel like it’s gotten a bit bigger than before. From the way it feels to the touch.” “But at least it’s on your back.” I consoled him. Eisuke nodded. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want to end up like Uncle Koutarou.” “How’s your uncle doing?”

“Yeah. He’s the same as ever. Besides the fixed amount, he sometimes comes to beg for pocket money. Given his age, I’d like to put him in a nursing home, but I wonder if there’s a good place somewhere.”

Since Koutarou had moved to Tokyo alone, Eisuke had been providing him with 5,000 yen each month. Koutarou came to his house at the beginning of every month. When he was home, he handed it over directly; when he was out, he put it in an envelope and left it with the housekeeper. Even if Eisuke offered to send it to his lodging, Koutarou would not agree. “There’s no need to do such a thing. I’ll come get my share myself.”

Koutarou had always been the type who wouldn’t listen once he made up his mind. Born into the main family and having lived as its master, even now that he had fallen into decline, that inherent disposition remained unchanged. He would receive it with a natural expression, as if withdrawing his own savings from the post office. "When it’s sent to him, it must feel like he’s being given an allowance—maybe he dislikes that."

Eisuke would sometimes vaguely imagine such things. Eisuke’s tuition had been arriving via checks from Koutarou. When receiving it, Koutarou would leave through the entrance without offering thanks. His retreating figure looked desolate. Over the past six months, Koutarou had abruptly started showing signs of weakening legs.

“Can an old person really get by on five thousand yen?” I said.

“No matter how you look at it, five thousand yen just isn’t enough.” “Probably not.” Eisuke said in a calm voice. “Even just the rent would cost that much.” “Then how is he managing his food expenses? Is he working?” “No—at his age, he probably can’t work. When I checked his lodging once, they said he goes out every day, though.”

Eisuke gazed at the shifting scenery and said in a distant voice.

“When Uncle Koutarou came to Tokyo, there were signs suggesting he had brought considerable money with him. I think he might have come to sort out some assets or something.” “The funeral parlor where Shirosuke worked—that was through your uncle’s connections, I suppose?” “That’s right. But it seems the owner of that funeral parlor died. In an air raid.”

At the end of the year the war ended, Eisuke once visited the funeral parlor. After getting off at the private railway station and looking out from atop the long, gentle slope, he saw that the entire vicinity where the funeral parlor had stood was burned out, while far in the distance Mount Fuji appeared small beneath its crown of snow.

“Ah.” This place had burned down too. Eisuke gazed at the scenery for a while. Eventually he slowly began descending the slope. A cold wind blew up from below into his overcoat. Near where he remembered the funeral parlor standing, there was a small shack built from charred lumber and corrugated iron. Peering inside, he saw a middle-aged woman in monpe work pants simmering something in a pot on a stove.

“Excuse me—might I ask you something—”

Eisuke removed his combat cap. “There used to be a funeral parlor up ahead, didn’t there? Where might that family have gone—?”

“Who knows?” The woman turned her face toward Eisuke. “Around here, everything got burned down together, you see.” “From what they say, it seems the master was killed by a direct hit from an incendiary bomb.”

“A direct hit, you see.” He recalled the master’s sullen expression.

“What about the family?” “Who knows.” “Maybe they went back to their family home or something.” The woman stood up, exited the shack, approached Eisuke, and stared intently at his face. “That’s right. You’re definitely the person who worked there around Showa 10, aren’t you?” “You still have traces of his features.”

"No." "You're mistaken." Eisuke took two or three steps back. The woman said suspiciously, "There's no need to hide." "I remember you." Finding it too troublesome to explain that was his brother, he hurriedly bowed and put on his hat. "Thank you very much."

While feeling the woman's stinging gaze on his back, Eisuke hurried up the long slope.

“Therefore, I don’t think Uncle Koutarou has any dealings with you.”

“How did you figure out he apparently had money when he first came to Tokyo?” “He didn’t come straight to Tokyo but stopped to stay in places like Kyoto, Nara, and Nagoya along the way.” “Well, whether he was visiting old friends or got off intending to sightsee—I don’t know about that.” “In any case, he must have had financial leeway.”

“The fact that he’s demanding money beyond the fixed amount means his funds are nearly depleted―”

“I don’t know about that.”

Koutarou started coming to pester for money about half a year ago. Even when he pestered, Koutarou did not come pleading from below. He borrowed it openly.

“Lend me money.” He didn’t phrase it that way. “Lend me such-and-such an amount.” When convenient, Eisuke would provide the requested sum, but when inconvenient, he refused. Even when refused, Koutarou neither complained nor inquired about the reason. He left without a word. After about a week, he’d come to borrow the same amount again. In the end, Eisuke always ended up lending it. “I suppose I’m just weak-willed.” Eisuke gave a wry smile.

“I guess I’ll end up giving it to him after all.” “In Tokyo, you’re Uncle’s only relative, aren’t you?” “My younger brother and sister are also in Tokyo. However, as its representative, it’s probably just me.” “Is your sister married?”

“Yeah. The husband works at a tax office.” The taxi was now driving along Keiyo National Highway. To the right, the sea glistened in the sunlight. “In other words, Uncle’s alone now, right? So isn’t he trying to forge a connection with you?” “Why?” “By not letting you send money and making him come collect it himself—or even outright begging.”

“By causing trouble or harassment—trying to forge a connection that way—” I said. “A connection?” Eisuke laughed.

“That’s quite an advanced tactic.”

But deep in Eisuke's chest, a shadow of dark melancholy faintly swayed. When Shirosuke had said at that Shimonoseki izakaya that he couldn't definitively state it was Father's seed—whether he'd joked using his own child as pretext or meant it seriously—there remained no way to know now that Shirosuke would never return. Now it had been left solely to Eisuke and Koutarou, the survivors.

A silence fell. Along the seaside road here and there were shops selling shellfish. (Perhaps that woman was the one.) While gazing at the scenery outside the window, Eisuke found himself thinking of such things again. However, that was an impossibility. (Fabricating lies again) That Shirosuke had said he had a child—that was no joke. There was a heartrending resonance to it, the kind that comes when confessing a secret. Who could that married woman be? The woman who was in the postwar bunkhouse—Eisuke sometimes recalls her.

When Eisuke went there that time, it wasn’t to investigate that matter. But if he met the funeral parlor owner, he intended to casually inquire about it. However, since such affairs were carried out in secret, even if the owner had been alive, he probably couldn’t have uncovered it. (If that woman were indeed the one, they wouldn’t refer to her as “someone who worked at the funeral parlor”—they’d address her directly by her real name.) Whenever Eisuke thought about Shirosuke’s child, he recalled that woman. Of course, this was nothing more than a delusion. The woman from that lone bunkhouse in the scorched field must have left an exceptionally strong impression.

After that, Eisuke had never set foot in that direction. He had no particular business there, nor did he feel any interest in seeing how the scorched fields had been rebuilt—after all.

“Ah—by the foot of that bridge—”

I pointed ahead. “Please stop on the other side of the bridge.”

The taxi stopped.

I got out first, and Eisuke followed. To the left of the road was a steep slope, and at the bottom of the descent stood a boat rental. When I asked for directions, Kano came out. "You took your time getting here," Kano said. "I was just thinking you might not come after all." "We’re just not morning people, I must say." And I introduced Eisuke. Kano stared fixedly at Eisuke’s face for a while. "Ah. You really do look like him after all," Kano groaned.

“I see. If Sergeant Yagi were alive, he’d have a face like yours now,” Kano said. “Your eyes and nose are exactly like his.” “It’s not to the point where you can’t tell them apart, but—” I explained. “When they were young, they really did look alike.” “I was young once too,” Kano blurted out nonsensically. From Eisuke’s face, he must have recalled Shirosuke’s younger days—and then his own youth. Seeming to realize immediately, he hastily added: “No—everyone was young once.”

“No— Everyone was young once.” The boat had already been prepared with fishing gear and bait loaded aboard. We took off our shoes and changed into straw sandals. We descended the stone steps and boarded the fishing boat. Though small, it felt spacious with just three of us.

“There’s no wind—a perfect day for fishing, isn’t it?” I spoke to Kano, who was adjusting the engine. “Though of course, today isn’t really about fishing.”

“Well then, let’s head out to open water and talk at our leisure.” The engine roared to life, and the boat began moving. Eisuke gazed curiously at the sky and watched the wave spray. After passing under two bridges, the boat emerged into a broad bay.

8 “Huh? Paviat?”

Eisuke retorted. “Yes. We used to call it that.” Stopping the engine and moving the bait box from the stern to amidships, Kano said. Inside the bait box, mud-covered bloodworms twitched restlessly.

“We abbreviated Pavinal Atropine and called it that.” “Speaking of Pavinal—”

Eisuke gazed at the sea surface and eventually spoke. "It was a narcotic, wasn't it?" Since it was a weekday, there weren't many fishing boats. When they reached open water, there was indeed a faint breeze, and small waves lapped against the hull. "Opium extracted from poppies—" "All narcotics are of that type. Pavinal and morphine too." Kano attached a bloodworm to the hook. Eisuke slowly followed suit. The bloodworms wriggled their bodies as they sank into the sea.

“Why did Shirosuke become addicted to Pavinal?”

“I can’t say I fully understand it myself, but he did have asthmatic tendencies." "I think he started injecting it to control the attacks." “After all, over there—the temperature swings were brutal and the air parched—” Eisuke didn’t truly know asthma as an illness. He knew of it academically but had never suffered it personally. He clearly remembered being taught it was hereditary. Yet neither his father nor mother had shown such inclinations, and while he couldn’t vouch for his brother Ryusuke, neither he nor his surviving siblings displayed any symptoms. Could temperature and aridity alone conjure such a disease?

“Was it truly such a cold land?”

Eisuke said. "The day I went to see him off to Shimonoseki was cold too." "Shirosuke stayed on the second floor of a sake brewery." "Were you with him too?"

“No,” “I was elsewhere,” “I stayed at a temple.” Kano fluttered up a twisty goby and removed it from the hook with practiced hands.

“That was cold too, but the cold operated on a different order entirely.” “I never imagined they’d suddenly haul me off to a place like that.” “Anyway, the next day they issued us cold-weather gear, didn’t tell us our destination, and packed us onto a ship.” “Now when I think back—how many tons do you reckon that ship was?” “Can’t rightly remember.” “Only thing I recall clear as day is us sailing into Genkainada.”

“Why?”

“Because someone said that—their voice still sticks in my ears.” “It didn’t rock much.” “We were crammed tight into the ship’s hold, forbidden from going up to the upper deck—but when I sneaked a peek from the hatchway, there was moonlight.” “I could just make out the smokestack and mast swaying against the moon’s position.” “That smokestack kept belching out pitch-black smoke.” “I thought we were bound for Korea.” “No—” “Not just me—every last one of us draftees.”

“You must’ve been disappointed when it wasn’t Taiwan.” “Not Taiwan.” “Disappointed doesn’t begin to cover it." “We’d been given cold-weather gear—we knew it wasn’t Taiwan.” A sense of unease and tragic resolve. “Heading north… I felt I’d never return alive to this sea.”

The ship was not heading to Korea. If it had been Korea, they should have arrived by now, but the ship kept steaming onward, still belching smoke. Where were they taking us? Confined in the ship’s hold, they could no longer distinguish night from day by sight. They would look at their watches and do nothing but wonder what time it was now.

By their watches, in the predawn hours, a strange sound began echoing through the ship’s hold. At first faint, gradually growing stronger, it came cracking through and made the air in the ship’s hold tremble.

“What is that?” “What’s that sound?”

Kano and the others whispered to each other. They knew it wasn’t the sound of war, but not knowing what it was filled them with unease. Eventually, the ship stopped. They crawled out onto the upper deck in a line, like bundled-up cockroaches. And they all let out a collective gasp of surprise. The sea had frozen over completely.

“Ah, I see.” Kano spoke to the man next to him.

“That was the sound of ice cracking after all. Where on earth are we?” “Who knows?” The man next to him tilted his head. “It’s a damn cold place.” Since it could be cracked by a requisitioned passenger ship, the ice couldn’t have been that thick. However, for Kano, seeing the frozen sea for the first time left a strong impression. On the distant shore stood a town of unfamiliar style. Kano felt a cold unlike any he had experienced in the mainland—a piercing, needle-like chill.

They waited their turn and disembarked one after another via lighter boats. There was a flat area where military buildings stood. They were not barracks. Dozens of long, narrow makeshift structures resembling temporary rest houses were lined up. They were put inside to undergo military uniform inspections, and once completed, pork soup and rice were provided. “That pork soup was delicious, wasn’t it?”

Kano said while adjusting the boat’s course with an oar. “The cold was brutal, but that pork soup scalded your tongue.” “Stuffed full of meat chunks.” “Men kept lining up for seconds.” “Where exactly was that port?” “They didn’t tell us squat.” “Not out of spite—just wouldn’t acknowledge us as proper soldiers.” “Treated us like livestock.” “But someone finally wheedled it out—Dagu.” “So the ship had crossed the Yellow Sea?”

“Well, that’s about the size of it. Still, even when they said this was Dagu, it meant nothing to us. We thought we’d be enlisting there, but then they made us board the train again. Now that I think about it, that place called Dagu must’ve been a troop hub. Those makeshift buildings must’ve been serving as relay stations.”

They were put on the train. It wasn’t a freight car but a passenger car, yet they were packed in even more tightly than in the ship’s hold. They weren’t wearing mainland army uniforms but winter gear, and since it was brand new and hadn’t conformed to their bodies yet, they were all puffed out like bloated sacks. They had not yet been issued weapons, but they had been provided with backpacks, canteens, and other gear. Even if they adhered to the passenger car’s capacity limit, those items alone would spill over. The train raced on for two days and nights. The destination was Datong.

The train was equipped with steam heating. The non-commissioned officers and seasoned soldiers who had come from Datong to meet them, half in mischief, “Information came in that there’s an Eighth Route Army unit ahead,” or, “There’s apparently a plan to derail the train,” they said things like that to intimidate them. The shades had been drawn over the windows, so the outside scenery couldn’t be seen. The train car’s lights were dim, and the air hung heavy and stifling. Shirosuke Yagi happened to be seated next to Kano. They exchanged names. Shirosuke said.

“It’s terrible, isn’t it? Like we’re slaughterhouse-bound.” “Yeah… I wonder when we’ll get to Datong.” Sleeping proved difficult. The veteran soldiers who had come to meet them—perhaps hardened to the cold—wore only standard uniforms with winter caps, but the drafted soldiers sat immobilized in their heavy gear, too bulky for the cramped seats. In the end, they sprawled across the floor, contorting themselves into whatever makeshift positions allowed sleep. They arrived in Datong via Zhangjiakou on the morning of the third day.

They disembarked at the station and lined up on the platform. There were brick station buildings and warehouses, with utility poles scattered about. There, the battalion commander conducted his inspection.

“The cold’s on a whole different level, like I told you earlier.” “I first felt it there.” Kano said while lighting a cigarette. “When I stepped off that steam-heated train, my face felt like it was freezing solid.” “North China—and the northernmost part at that—with January on top of it all.” “We wore cold-weather gear and gloves, sure, but as we stood in formation, our limbs went numb—no, it felt like they were being torn apart by the cold.” “We could barely stay standing.” “The cold in Shimonoseki doesn’t even register as cold.” “Our very first impression of the army was that freezing.”

“That must have been freezing.” Eisuke remembered that Shirosuke had been sensitive to the cold. “So Datong’s a big city, huh?” “Well, it’s not much of a place. But there’s an open-pit mine called Datong Coal Mine there. They produced high-quality coal, so there were plenty of laborers—kuli mostly. As for Japanese civilians, you’d only find those connected to the mine or Mantetsu people. Anyway, once censorship ended and we thought ‘Now we’ll get warm barracks,’ we were dead wrong.”

The soldiers had come a long way. After receiving that peculiar military greeting—something about welcoming them with heartfelt paternal joy—their solemn march began. “Then we saw castle walls way off in the distance. “Those are Datong’s castle walls,” I said. “Thinking ‘The regiment must be inside those walls,’ we kept walking—and there in the square before them were a bunch of guys dressed just like us. “The ones who’d come on the earlier train were waiting there like they were taking a breather. “Ah, since you’d all come so far, they’d brought out buckets of pork soup—”

“They sure served pork soup a lot.” “Yes. That was breakfast, and there they formed the Twelfth Independent Infantry Regiment. Shirosuke and I were put into the Second Battalion together. The First Battalion stayed in Datong, but we got assigned to some place called Zuoyun County—made boxed lunches and got loaded onto trucks. When we left Datong, nothing but desert stretched out as far as you could see—just dunes after dunes. And then there was this thing they called the Mongolian storm howling like crazy. Whenever we passed through areas that looked kinda mountainous, there’d be a detachment stationed there. Guarded by maybe twenty or thirty men each. They’d welcome us with ‘You made it all this way! Good work!’ and serve hot tea or whatever. Took seven or eight hours total from Datong to Zuoyun. Distance-wise, we’d gone deep into the mountains—really deep.”

“It must have been daunting for you.” “Well, of course it was. Shirosuke had said the same thing, you know—‘If we got surrounded and attacked there, we wouldn’t make it back alive.’ Because it was a place that took eight hours to reach by truck, you couldn’t just run away.”

“So the unit was stationed in that Zuoyun?”

“That’s right. That whole area was the Second Battalion’s security zone, with the battalion headquarters located in Zuoyun.” Eisuke gazed at the sea as he imagined truck convoys moving in columns through the vast desert, raging storms, and Zuoyun’s streets. Yet he couldn’t visualize them clearly. Considering the timeline, he had still been at home then—fishing daily for crucian carp in a nearby marsh. The school’s winter break hadn’t ended yet.

“Did he receive his basic training in that unit’s barracks?”

Eisuke said.

“He must’ve really wanted to come home.” When he had gone to the funeral parlor, it had been the same. Shirosuke sent frequent letters addressed to Eisuke, begging for just a week’s leave to return home and asking him to plead with their father. He had also written about wanting to do things like swim in his hometown’s sea and go fishing. Eisuke once conveyed this to Fukujirou, but of course, it was rejected.

“Once we’ve sent him into service, his person is entrusted to them.” Fukujirou said, his temples twitching.

“Tell him to abandon his selfish wishes and devote himself to his work—that’s how you reply.” Eisuke wrote and sent that message, deciding afterward to suppress any further letters. He reasoned that even a perfunctory reply would only intensify his brother’s homesickness. Yet Shirosuke’s longing wasn’t merely for his hometown’s landscapes. It was linguistic. When Eisuke entered high school, a congratulatory letter arrived from Shirosuke—in it, he wrote of having finally grown accustomed to his life there, confessing that his earlier desperation to return stemmed from being mocked for his rural dialect.

"What's worse, the mistress here is a terrible woman—whenever a call comes from outside while the master's away, she always makes me answer it." "And whenever I gave some awkward response, she'd clap her hands and laugh herself silly." "People from Tokyo—lots of heartless bastards out here." "But I've gotten used to it by now."

When the environment changes, we can’t adapt quickly. We fumble around. Such a trait existed in me, and certainly in Shirosuke as well, Eisuke thought when he read that passage. (In other words, we shared this clumsy nature.) “Mr. Yagi,” “You’ve got a bite, I tell you.” Kano alerted Eisuke. Eisuke hurriedly hauled up the line. A goby had come up clinging to it, but it had already swallowed the hook deep into its belly.

“The unit had no barracks.” Kano took the goby from Eisuke and, skillfully using a spatula to make it spit out the hook, replied. “They commandeered private homes and had us live there.” “In military dramas on TV and such, they often show scenes of the barracks, you know.” “Our barracks squad wasn’t like that.” “So even when you watch TV, it just doesn’t feel right.”

“When you say ‘private homes,’ you mean stand-alone houses—” “Independent? “No—not exactly independent.” “Extended-family principle, clan-based principle—I guess you’d call it that.” “Anyway, each compound covered about three thousand tsubo.”

The compound was entirely encircled by an earthen wall. Dozens of houses stood within it, arranged in a haphazard, irregular manner. There was one large building where the main family of this enclosure had apparently resided. The Japanese military had repurposed it as a central assembly hall and dining room. Kano and the other first-year soldiers were distributed among smaller buildings—"You three here," "You five there"—scattered about like wartime ration allocations. Each building came equipped with ondol heating, making them comfortably warm. The first-year soldiers finally began regaining their vitality.

“After all, they’d driven here nonstop in an open-bed truck over that long stretch. They were utterly exhausted, their bodies completely chilled, and for dinner that evening, they were served red rice with a whole sea bream—head and tail intact. Then there were other sweets—kasumaki rolls, you know—castella sponge cakes rolled with sweet bean paste, and rock sugar too. So they were shocked—here we were in the middle of the mountains, and even in a place like this, the army would serve us such lavish meals?—and devoured every last bite. Yagi—no, Shirosuke-kun too.”

“So the provisions were plentiful, then?”

“Yes. They were plentiful.” “Prawns would arrive by the crateful—even us first-years got three fried ones each.” “These days? Prawns cost a fortune—couldn’t afford ’em if we tried.”

At the captain’s words—“You must be tired; I’ll let you sleep tonight”—the first-year soldiers returned to their respective buildings and went to bed. They spread straw mats over the ondol and slept wrapped in blankets on top of them. Toasty and warm. Such favorable treatment continued for two days. The veteran soldiers served the meals and cleaned up afterward. On the third day, just as they were settling into that routine, they were suddenly lined up in the courtyard at dawn, “How long do you bastards plan to keep playing the honored guests?” “Insolent brats!”

And with that, the slapping of the entire group began. Letting them feel a brief sense of security before tightening the screws—it was a method unique to the military. No one knew who had invented it, but this had a considerable psychological effect.

Thus began the training of the first-year soldiers. Unlike the training back on the mainland, Zuoyun’s was a battle against cold and sand.

“Was Shirosuke well-built?” “Well…” “He was weak.”

Kano smirked wryly and answered clearly. “Both Shirosuke-kun and I were city-bred, you see.” “Compared to farmers who’d casually hoist rice bales and run with them, or the coal miners who’d worked underground, our bones and muscles were downright puny.” “We had it rough.”

“Was it the cold?”

“No—the cold? Everyone was cold. Even coal miners were cold. In my opinion, holding conscription in winter—well—probably also aimed to make us taste the very limits of coldness, as a sort of endurance training. After a year passed and winter came again, we’d gotten used to the cold and didn’t find it so harsh anymore. Strange how that works.”

The training was conducted outside the walls of Zuoyun. Outside the city walls lay a desert where sand grains were as fine as soybean flour. Military boots sank into it. Unlike hard soil that allowed solid footing, even their double-time marches saw one-meter strides reduced to fifty centimeters. Shirosuke particularly struggled with the double-time. They also crawled forward while holding their rifles aloft. This proved difficult as their elbows sank into the sand. Though Kano was unskilled at this maneuver, Shirosuke fared worse still. After crawling, yellow sand would seep inexplicably into their uniforms, staining their chests and bellies ochre.

When the exercises ended, they would form a line again and return within the city walls. Inside the city walls was dusk, and the streets were crowded with vendors and customers. They spread planks across the main street and sold vegetables, meat, and daily necessities. The meaning of those clamorous voices was beyond Kano and the others’ comprehension, but in their essence of daily life, they evoked a powerful nostalgia. “During that training period, I was beaten quite a lot too, but Shirosuke-kun was beaten terribly.” “In particular, he was targeted by a superior private named Niki and bullied at every turn.” “After all, he was slow-footed and wasn’t the dexterous type.”

“He must’ve been depressed.”

“No—Shirosuke-kun himself didn’t seem depressed,” Kano answered. “He’d laugh and say, ‘Being slow-footed’s just how I was born—can’t do a thing about it.’ I don’t know what was in his heart, but he was a cheerful man—well-liked by his fellow soldiers. Whenever something happened, they’d go ‘Yagi! Yagi!’ and lean on him. That’s the kind of man he was.” “A gentle disposition?” Eisuke asked.

“You could say that, but when he acted, he did decisive things.” “Bold things others couldn’t possibly imitate.” “Like climbing over earthen walls to buy paichu—what we called smuggling—or getting civilians to post uncensored letters.” “If it’d been discovered, it would’ve meant big trouble.” “Ah.” “Now that you mention it, I sometimes received ones without censorship stamps too.” “I’ve got three or four stored at home—”

Eisuke let his gaze drift into space. "There was also that bizarre case about corpses' nails growing nearly two inches."

“Ah, I remember that too.”

Kano slapped his knee. “That was during the final exercise of the first-year soldiers’ training.” “Not a corpse—an arm.” “And a woman’s—”

Shirosuke and the others were walking along the moonlit riverbed path as scouts. Because the desert was difficult to traverse, whether marching or conducting reconnaissance, they utilized the riverbed paths as much as possible. Though called a path, it wasn’t anything special. The water had dried up, leaving the riverbed exposed, but since it didn’t sink in like quicksand, it was easy to walk on. On that riverbed lay something like a white stick. “What could it be?”

Kano approached it with a puzzled look. Shirosuke shouted.

“Ah! It’s a human arm.” The arm from the elbow down lay sprawled out. The cut end was irregular; it didn’t appear to have been sliced with a blade but rather gave the impression of having been torn off by brute force. Shirosuke shuddered and whispered to Kano.

“It’s a woman’s. What happened here?” The nails had grown long and spindly. Each finger’s nail had lengthened to an even measure. “That was—forgive the phrasing—so profoundly disturbing that we kept recalling and discussing it long afterward. Especially Shirosuke-kun—”

“Why was a woman’s arm lying there in such a place?” “At the time we didn’t understand—just felt horror—but later figured it out. Over there they don’t cremate bodies; they bury them. Wild dogs did it—locals called them wolves, but they’re just wild dogs. Dug it up with their jaws and dragged it to the riverbed. For some reason left that arm behind. But with the cold and dry air, the arm stayed preserved without rotting. Only the nails kept living and growing.”

“Are the nails alive?” “When we became medics ourselves and asked the military doctors about it, they said there was no way that could happen.” “But we saw it with our own eyes.” “The nails had indeed been growing.”

“There’s a story that upper-class women there intentionally grow their nails long—” “If it’s an upper-class woman, they’d properly bury her in a coffin. Wild dogs wouldn’t dig her up.”

Kano said emphatically.

“Every time I recall it, I feel my body sinking deeper and deeper into some unknown place, you know. When it comes to humans, they’re ultimately alone—”

Nine

Around that time，Fukujirou，their father，collapsed at home due to a cerebral hemorrhage． After getting out of the bath in the evening，he was reading the evening paper when—

“Since I’m feeling a bit dizzy，lay out the futon for me.”

The moment he stood up, he staggered and collapsed onto the tatami mats. They immediately called a doctor, but half his body had already become paralyzed. Eisuke was summoned back from Tokyo by telegram. Fukujirou was in a comatose state. According to the doctor, it was neither an illness that would suddenly improve nor one showing signs of worsening. Since the doctor said all he could do was wait patiently and rest, Eisuke stayed only four or five days before returning to Tokyo. During that time, Eisuke and Koutarou clashed over whether to inform Shirosuke. To Eisuke, who argued that it was better to tell the truth, Koutarou—

“If we inform him, Shirosuke’s morale will decline.” “There’s no need to inform him since it’s not a terminal illness.” Koutarou insisted. Eisuke was inwardly furious. because he thought it was opposition for opposition’s sake. Moreover, while Koutarou was indeed Fukujirou’s older brother, that reason alone shouldn’t have given him the right to interfere. Young Eisuke thought this, but due to the circumstances of receiving tuition support, he yielded in that moment. His mother’s plea that upsetting the main family would cause trouble also crushed Eisuke’s resolve.

The debate took place at the bedside of the sickbed. Fukujirou lay there snoring, unrelated to the debate.

Finally, Eisuke said. “Then let’s stop trying to inform him right away.” “Yeah. That’s for the best.”

Koutarou nodded arrogantly.

“Since you’re still young, you would do well to follow the opinions of your elders.”

Eisuke became aware that his childhood fear of Koutarou was now transforming into defiance. He returned to Tokyo, and after about a month had passed, wrote to Shirosuke about Fukujirou’s condition. Fukujirou remained bedridden, unable to move his body. Even when Eisuke returned home during summer break, his father’s mental faculties had not recovered. He lay on his back sporting an unkempt beard, had grown somewhat gaunt, with only his eyes gleaming unnervingly. He mistook Eisuke.

“Oh… Shirosuke?” “Have you been discharged from the military?” His pronunciation was so unclear that Eisuke had to ask him to repeat himself three or four times before finally understanding. He pitied his father. The very act of pitying him pained Eisuke. “That’s right.” “That’s right.” “Dad.” Eisuke nodded. “I’ve come back just fine.”

The hospital room was one that looked out onto the front garden. That spot had the best airflow. However, when evening calm arrived, the wind stopped abruptly. Fukujirou’s back had developed bedsores from being bedridden. Because it was the hot season, sweat would form, tending to worsen them. Eisuke decided to take on the treatment himself. Fukujirou’s back was hunched, each segment of his vertebrae protruding. Because it would be problematic if unexpected guests saw, he closed all the shoji screens, wiped away the pus, and changed the gauze. Warmth and the smell of pus permeated the entire room.

“This was Father’s smell.”

He thought as he carefully moved his hands. When Eisuke and his siblings were young, they would press their faces against Fukujirou’s kimono and coats hanging on the wall. “Oh! It smells like Dad.” Back then, their father’s scent had been the tobacco ingrained in his clothes. Now it had become the stench of pus and sweat. One evening during the windless hour, Eisuke sat in the hospital room. Fukujirou began muttering something. The words were unclear. Eisuke asked him to repeat it several times before finally understanding.

“Where’s the woman? Hurry up and bring her here from downstairs.”

“Where is this place?” Eisuke retorted. Then Fukujirou uttered the name of a red-light district in a city of the neighboring prefecture. Fukujirou seemed to believe he was on the second floor of one of those brothels. During his time at the prefectural office or his company employment, he must have been ordered on business trips, and that experience had resurfaced. Eisuke answered. “This isn’t that kind of place. It’s home.”

However, Fukujirou would not accept this. Growing impatient at being told to hurry up and bring the woman, and seeing that Eisuke wasn’t moving, he suddenly extended the leg he could still control and—with his toes—clamped down on Eisuke’s calf like a crab. With terrifying force, Eisuke let out an involuntary scream. How could a sick person have such strength? “I give up.” “I give up.” “Dad.” After struggling to pry loose his father’s tightly clamped toes, Eisuke apologized. When he rushed out of the room and returned thirty minutes later, Fukujirou had already forgotten about the incident. Of course, he didn’t tell his mother or Koutarou about this incident. Only a purple bruise remained on Eisuke’s shin for a time.—

“That first-year soldier training was the toughest part.”

Kano said.

“After three months ended, we were transferred to Daido.” “Even if you call it North China Mongolia, it’s not constantly cold.” “When late April turns to May, spring arrives all at once.”

Spring arrived in a surging wave. The trees budded, blossomed, and the season arrived when the world brimmed with vibrant life. Eisuke found it hard to imagine. “Do flowers bloom in the desert too?” He had been envisioning nothing but a barren, desolate wasteland, yet suddenly the image of blossoming flowers superimposed itself, leaving him bewildered. “It’s not all desert.”

Kano gave a wry smile.

“There are mountains and rivers. Around towns and villages, trees grow and fields spread out. On windless days, the sky turns so clear blue you could fall right through it—if not for the war, you could call that place paradise. Apricots, apples, jujubes... they all bear fruit there too.”

“And summer?” “Summer’s really hot, huh. The air’s bone-dry, so it just scorches you relentlessly. When you walk under the direct sun, it’s like being dry-roasted in a frying pan. When you march, sweat pours out and soaks through your clothes. But if you rest in the shade for even ten minutes, your sweat dries up—evaporates completely. Only the salt remains, leaving the back of your clothes stark white. It’s what they call a continental climate, I suppose. You can’t really understand unless you’ve experienced it—it’s nothing gentle like Japan’s four seasons. Summer and winter are intense.”

In Datong, recruitment was held for various military branches. Shirosuke consulted Kano. After all, both of them were so-called town-bred, so they were unsuited for manual labor. The roles that didn’t require much physical strength were medical soldiers or sewing soldiers, among others. Sewing soldiers were responsible for mending tears in military uniforms and repairing shoes. They didn’t particularly require prior experience. They would provide appropriate training locally.

“I’m clumsy by nature, you know.” “I’m not cut out to be a sewing soldier.”

Shirosuke said. “You’d be better off as a medical soldier. “Kano. “You should volunteer to be a medical soldier too.” And so Shirosuke and Kano volunteered, took the exam, and passed. Since others came from different regiments as well, about two hundred men had gathered. They were all soldiers from the same enlistment year. They were to undergo six months of training at Datong Hospital. The training curriculum consisted almost entirely of academic subjects, with physical activity limited to calisthenics for physical training. “The one who was probably happiest may have been Shirosuke.” “For him, the first-year soldier training had been too harsh.”

Kano laughed. However, he immediately stopped laughing.

“But in the end, that decided Shirosuke’s fate. If he’d become a sewing soldier instead, he should’ve made it back alive.”

Life became significantly easier. Every day, they went to the hospital and attended lectures. In the evening, they returned to the dormitory. The fifteen men from the 12th Regiment borrowed two dormitory buildings from another company and lived there. The dormitories were civilian houses, same as in Sōun. Therefore, there were no direct supervisors. Within the same earthen-walled compound were those of higher rank, but they were too preoccupied with their own company’s affairs to bother with outsider trainees such as medical soldiers.

“The majority of first-year soldiers’ hardships involved doing laundry for non-commissioned officers and veterans, kowtowing to them, or getting beaten by them.” “All of that vanished at once.” “Even when going to the hospital, they’d take turns becoming the leader, issue commands, and march out through the gate.”

“What were the academic subjects like?”

Eisuke asked.

“For example, how to wrap bandages—” “No—from human anatomy to physiology and pharmacology—they crammed all the fundamentals into us in six months. Shirosuke grasped things quickly. Sharp-witted—that’s how he was. But lazy? Absolutely lazy. Lazy through and through, yet remarkably efficient.”

They received lectures from military doctors of various specialties. There were occasional exams. Shirosuke was good at predicting exam questions. Therefore, the soldiers in his room learned the exam questions from Shirosuke and always achieved good scores. “Is that so?”

While feeling a pang of heartache, Eisuke answered.

“I’d convinced myself I was all thumbs and always botching things.” “I wouldn’t say that. When he climbed over the earthen wall at night to smuggle in baijiu, he never got caught once.” Eisuke started to retort that deftness with petty matters meant failing when it counted most—but held his tongue. “His efficiency backfired sometimes. Shirosuke-kun had this knack for dozing off with his eyes wide open. They discovered it during a lecture—even when called on, he’d stay silent like a mummy with eyes unblinking, so they realized he’d been asleep.” It happened during a urology lecture. “They made him their guinea pig for urethral irrigation as punishment. He spent the whole day whining ‘It hurts! It hurts!’”

October—the training ended. They became independent medical soldiers and were simultaneously promoted to superior privates. They were promoted earlier than regular soldiers. The reason for giving special treatment only to medical soldiers was to grant them authority to issue commands such as administering medication.

Shirosuke was to remain in Datong as a Superior Private (Medical). He worked daily in the medical office. From morning onward, those who appeared to be patients from each company would come for diagnosis, escorted by Education Superior Privates. The diagnosis was performed by the military doctor, while the medical soldiers handled tasks such as writing medical records, preparing medications, changing bandages, and drafting reports for the division headquarters' medical department. They did not do internal squad duties.

“It was around November, I think.” “It was right after we’d become independent.” “That’s when the letter came about your father passing away—”

“That’s right—around that time.”

Eisuke answered.

“I was the one who wrote that letter. How was Shirosuke doing then?” “He took leave from duty and went home. When we returned, he was asleep wrapped in a blanket. It seems he’d been crying quite a bit—his eyelids were all puffy and swollen.” “Father critical. Return immediately.”

Eisuke received the telegram at the Tokyo boarding house. He watched a movie, drank on his way home, and returned around 1 a.m. The telegram was on the desk.

Eisuke still remembers that movie. Directed by Leo McCarey, it was titled Life Begins at Forty-Two and starred Charles Laughton.

Eisuke was quite drunk that night.

_Come back immediately—at this hour of the night—_ Eisuke thought with a dazed mind. He was terribly sleepy.

_There’s no way there are trains at this hour._ _Moreover, a critical condition notice must mean he’s already dead._

He thought for about five minutes, then crawled into bed.

The next morning when he awoke, he read the telegram by his pillow once again. His head throbbed with a hangover. He remembered the movie from last night. They say life begins at forty-two, but Father— When this thought came, he suddenly felt tears threatening to spill over and hurried to the washroom, scrubbing his face vigorously. He had no appetite. Skipping breakfast, he rushed out of his boarding house and headed for Tokyo Station.

As the train approached Shimonoseki, a strange man sat down in the seat next to him. He addressed him in an arrogant tone.

“Where do you think you’re going at this hour?” From that tone alone, he immediately recognized him as a plainclothes Special Higher Police officer. He had been investigated several times before. “I’m returning to my hometown.” He wasn’t carrying any luggage, and it was an unusual time for a homecoming. The Special Higher Police seemed to find this suspicious. Even when he explained that his father was in critical condition, they wouldn’t readily believe him. “How did you know he was critical?” he pressed. “A telegram arrived.” “Show me that telegram.”

“I left it at my boarding house.” “You’re lying.” According to that plainclothes officer’s theory, when people receive news of someone being critically ill or dead, they unconsciously(?) slip that telegram into their pocket and return home—or so he claimed.

“But if I don’t have it, there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?”

Eisuke said irritably. “Since my old man’s death is a fact, if you think I’m lying, go ahead and contact my home or boarding house.” “He died?” The plainclothes officer glared at Eisuke.

“You just said he was in critical condition, didn’t you?” Eisuke fell silent. Then for about an hour until they reached Shimonoseki, the plainclothes officer relentlessly grilled him about various matters—his social connections, personal history, and more. In Shimonoseki, he was finally freed from the unpleasant interrogation. He had such an unpleasant face. “That guy.”

From aboard the ferry, as he watched Shimonoseki City receding into the distance, Eiske shifted his gaze restlessly. Where along here was that dark coastline he had stumbled upon after parting with Shirosuke and taking a wrong turn? He could hardly get his bearings. "Telling Shirosuke about Father... that would be tough."

He turned his eyes away from Shimonoseki while thinking such thoughts and entered the cabin. Fatigue pressed heavily on his shoulders.

The critical condition telegram had indeed been true. At that time, Fukujirou had still been in critical condition. Ten hours before Eisuke arrived home, Fukujirou had drawn his last breath.

“Why were you so late!”

As he was trying to take off his shoes in the entryway, Koutarou emerged from the back and barked at him. “I sent the telegram two days ago!” The moment he returned home to be yelled at, Eisuke felt a flicker of irritation. Yet with no room for excuses, he kept silent. In the room facing the front garden lay Fukujirou’s body on its back, face veiled by a white cloth. From his red-eyed mother came fragmented explanations of what had transpired. Beneath the white cloth waited Fukujirou’s death-mask. Beard shaved clean, complexion artificially softened—he might have been sleeping. Will I cry? Eisuke had wondered this repeatedly on the train, yet faced with reality now found his eyes dry. He replaced the cloth precisely as it had been.

“Eisuke. “You couldn’t even make it to your own parent’s deathbed—”

Koutarou said. “You’re an ungrateful child!”

Koutarou must have been agitated and grieving as well. Perhaps he had been using his outbursts to mask his true feelings, Eisuke later reflected. There were all sorts of tasks to handle. When a person dies, the people around them suddenly become busy. When one is born, almost no one stirs themselves. Is this human wisdom—distracting oneself by keeping busy?

Even after Eisuke returned, Koutarou remained in complete control of all arrangements. Under Koutarou’s instructions, Eisuke went to the government office, obtained the necessary form, and visited the doctor. It was to have a death certificate made.

“It’s sepsis, isn’t it? “The cause of death was...”

The young town doctor explained to him. The pyogenic bacteria had entered through the bedsores.

“Due to arteriosclerosis, his heart had weakened, and nutrients weren’t reaching his skin.” “That’s how he ended up developing bedsores.” “It wasn’t due to inadequate nursing.”

“Was he conscious?” “No. He was in a coma the entire time.”

After receiving the death certificate and stepping outside, Eisuke walked briskly. He felt more relief than sorrow. The fact that it wasn't due to negligent care and that there seemed to have been no pain in death eased Eisuke's mind. "I couldn't even see my father on his deathbed—" He resentfully kicked a pebble.

“Since he was in a coma, there was nothing to be done.” “Even if I had met him, Father wouldn’t have been able to see me.” To change his mood, Eisuke went out to the coast. On the white sandy beach, fishing boats were lined up and nets were spread out to dry. At the water’s edge, unnamed seaweed was washed up while children played by throwing stones. It was a quiet inland sea. Fukujirou had liked fishing. The fact that both Eisuke and Shirosuke liked fishing was also due to their father’s influence. Eisuke went to the water’s edge, picked up five or six shells, and put them in his pocket.

“Let’s have you stop that meddling.”

Eisuke said angrily. He was drunk. Though his fatigue had been intense, his nerve endings were tingling, and his drunkenness had taken a strange, warped turn. “This is our house. Our house’s affairs are ours to handle.” Looking back now, Eisuke realized he had spoken too harshly and acted rashly. However, Koutarou had also been too overbearing. Or rather, he had been too meddlesome. For Koutarou, he must have found it unbearable to watch the bereaved family unable to handle even a single funeral procedure, and he likely felt that as the main family head, it was only natural for him to take care of things. However, it had been ill-advised for him to make their incompetence a topic of conversation at the wake and drag Shirosuke into it. Given his upbringing, Koutarou had little regard for others’ feelings.

“First of all, isn’t it improper to drag Shirosuke’s name into this?” “What’s improper about mentioning Shirosuke?”

With a look of surprise on his face, Koutarou retorted. "I only said that given his profession, Shirosuke would have handled this well." Koutarou had recently grown fat again, his skin taking on an oily sheen. Partly due to alcohol consumption, not just his forehead and cheeks but even the lump at the base of his neck glistened slickly. This stood in stark contrast to Fukujirou’s deathly visage with its sunken cheeks. "You people can’t do anything right." Since returning home and being branded an unfilial son, Eisuke’s grief had been gradually curdling into veiled anger. Now fermented by alcohol, it swelled violently until bursting forth.

“Get out!” Eisuke shouted and stood up. “I don’t want you here, Uncle. Human death demands greater solemnity.”

In later years, whenever Eisuke recalled this line—that he had said something so pretentious—he would be overcome with a cringing disgust.

“You. How dare you say such a thing?” Koutarou raised one knee. The room fell into an icy silence. No one stepped in to mediate. The mother was in the kitchen making sake lees, and the younger brother and sister were cowering in the corner of the room. Those seated were Fukujirou’s company colleagues and friends from his prefectural office days. They barely knew Koutarou and likely found his grandstanding distasteful. Koutarou surveyed the gathering. His expression clearly sought a mediator. Yet no one moved.

“Alright.” “Then I’ll leave.”

Koutarou indignantly went out to the entrance and called out toward the kitchen.

“O-Fude-san. I’m leaving.” When his mother hurriedly rushed over, Koutarou’s figure had vanished into the darkness outside. After all the guests had left, Eisuke was severely scolded by his mother. His mother raged, her voice trembling, about how he could have treated Koutarou so cruelly when Koutarou had provided nearly all the manpower and expenses for this funeral. He stubbornly shut himself away or maintained a sulky attitude, listening in silence.

Eventually alone, he burrowed deep into the futon. Dark spots danced wildly behind his eyelids. At that moment, the reality of Fukujirou’s death suddenly surged into his chest. He groaned. “Father was already dead.” Eisuke curved his body like a shrimp and wept in muffled silence.

The next morning, he went to Koutarou’s shop to apologize. The scent of seafood wafted through the shopfront, wooden crates and ropes lay scattered, and shop workers bustled about busily. Due to the war, orders and shipments had increased significantly. Eisuke entered through the wicket gate at the side of the shop, stood at the main house’s entrance, and requested to be announced.

Before long, Koutarou came out. He seemed to have had morning sake, his complexion a glossy red. Without inviting him in, he remained standing on the entrance step, looking down at Eisuke with sharp eyes. “What?” “What do you want?” “I think I was wrong about last night.” Eisuke removed his hat and bowed his head. “I was exhausted and drunk, and I’m sorry for speaking so rudely.”

Koutarou did not respond for a while. Eventually, he spoke.

“Did you come to apologize of your own will, or was it O-Fude-san’s order?” This was the first time Koutarou had ever referred to Eisuke as “you”. Eisuke arched his back. “Both.” The two men stared intently at each other’s faces, as if probing. “Understood. If it was said in drunkenness, let’s forget it.”

After a short while, Koutarou said.

“The farewell ceremony was at two o’clock, wasn’t it?”

After three o'clock, the coffin containing Fukujirou and the shells passed through the front garden and was loaded into the hearse.

After resting at home for about a week, Eisuke returned to Tokyo again. From the following month, the remittances from Koutarou ceased. Eisuke ended up having to obtain tuition through part-time work.

10

In the doma, Kano’s homemade tempura began to fry. The cap was removed from the whiskey Eisuke had brought, and it was poured into teacups. The tempura was delicious. The taste differed from that of eating at a restaurant. The smell of oil dispersed by the sea breeze—that must be why it didn’t linger heavily. “The people over there, you see, cook everything with just one pot.” “No—it’s not some flimsy little pot like this.” Kano tapped the frying pan lightly with long chopsticks.

“The big ones were washbasin-sized, this thick—over an inch.” “With those, they’d make porridge and simmer meat and vegetables.” “Though ‘simmering’ isn’t quite right—more like searing everything through.” “They’d season it with rock salt.” “When it came to kitchen tools, there was just that iron pot.” “For them, that was their only real treasure.”

“Did you use it too?”

“Yeah,” “We used it sometimes.” “Handy thing.” Kano sipped from his teacup. “When we went out on field operations, see.” “Back home, they’d call them grand maneuvers every spring and autumn—hold exercises around Mount Fuji’s foothills.” “Over there instead, we ran sweep operations those seasons.”

“They were large-scale sweep operations lasting about a month,” Kano explained. “Since there were always injuries and illnesses, medical soldiers had to accompany them. No vehicles—they marched on foot.” Unlike infantrymen, they didn’t carry rifles but were issued pistols. They had to haul first-aid kits marked with the Red Cross as they walked. It wasn’t an easy march by any means. But this was only during their rookie year; once they’d gained some experience, they’d procure a donkey from somewhere, load its back with saddlebags, and make it carry the medical supplies.

“In that regard, Shirosuke was quite bold.” He would pack not just medical supplies but also his favorite things—sake, jellies, canned pies—disguising them as pharmaceuticals to transport. Though spring and autumn brought favorable weather, it remained arduous for Shirosuke with his weak legs. His remarkable skill at procuring donkeys stemmed from fervent determination to escape the agony of marching under heavy loads.

During sweep operations, we would stay in villages. Meat and vegetables were mostly procured locally, and we would cook them in those enormous iron pots. We didn’t have much trouble with food, but water posed a real challenge. We couldn’t drink the raw water there. Wells were scarce as well. Those wells were tens of meters deep, and drawing up a single bucketful took considerable time. If we dawdled, securing our own water would take an hour or even two, and meals would be delayed by that much.

“If it weren’t for these sweep operations, army life wouldn’t be half bad...” Shirosuke would often grumble to Kano like this. “Just want to finish my duty quick and go home.”

Two years passed in this way. During that time, some remained at headquarters, others were dispatched to squadrons, and they became scattered. Because junior medical soldiers kept arriving in large numbers, the experienced veterans were inevitably transferred to forward bases.

An order was issued for all medical soldiers who had enlisted in January of Showa 14 to assemble in Daito.

At that time, Shirosuke was near Zuoyun while Kano belonged to a small detachment stationed at a frontline settlement. "Though they called it a detachment, it was modest in scale—the commander was a sergeant major with twenty-four or twenty-five men total." "One medical soldier and one communications soldier."

They dug a horizontal tunnel into the mid-slope of a hill near the settlement and created entrances on both sides. In other words, it was a tunnel. They equipped the entrances with machine guns. The surrounding mountains harbored the Eighth Route Army. You could call it the front lines, but there were no major battles to speak of.

“I was there for about three months, but I hardly ever saw any enemy soldiers.”

Kano's cheeks were faintly flushed with whiskey. "When evening came, about ten rat-a-tat shots would ring out from the distant mountains." "It was a Czech machine gun." "We'd return ten rat-a-tat shots in that direction." "That was our 'good night' greeting, I suppose." "That was quite the stylish routine." "That marked the extent of a day's combat."

“Why doesn’t the enemy launch any attacks?” Eisuke asked skeptically.

“If there are so few of them, it should be straightforward.” “That may be true, but the Eighth Route Army’s real enemy was the Nationalist Army. It’s pointless to waste effort on Japanese soldiers. They wanted to conserve both personnel and weapons. So while combat would happen during our sweep operations, they never actively initiated attacks from their side.”

“So the detachment was quite laid-back too.”

“That’s right. Other than eating meals, there was no work. They’d play hanafuda cards, play shogi, take naps, or laze around drinking sake and such. Yes. The shogi pieces were handmade. When I asked the guy who made them, he said compared to Japanese boxwood, the stuff over there had tighter growth rings—three times harder. Harsh nature does that to things, I suppose.”

“So the medical soldiers must’ve been idle too.”

“Yeah.” “There was one patient.” “It was Sergeant Kawabe, but――”

Staying shut up in that tunnel all day long left them increasingly stifled. They began craving female company. Sergeant Kawabe—whether you called him impulsive or downright reckless—had an impatient disposition where once he got an idea, he couldn’t restrain himself. Even in broad daylight, he would gallop across the desert on a bareback horse to procure private prostitutes in rear villages. Since it was broad daylight, there was ample danger of being targeted by the enemy, and he had actually been sniped at before. The bullets missed, but he contracted a venereal disease from a prostitute. They referred to the private prostitutes as Shotorupī.

“Tch.” “That Shotorupī bastard!” Even if he lamented, it was already too late. Sergeant Kawabe became this detachment’s sole patient. Kano’s daily work now consisted entirely of treating this Kawabe. “At first glance he seemed like a gentle soul, but his temper was fierce.” “The yakuza type through and through.”

That illness was agonizingly slow to heal. This was still an era without penicillin. Kawabe grew restless. He'd heard rumors that ingesting pulverized human bones had miraculous curative effects and resolved to try it. About six months prior, they'd captured an enemy spy, executed him by firing squad, and buried him in the earth.

“It was Sergeant Kawabe who remembered that, you see.”

Kano said. “He dug up that skull and brought it back.” “Even if you told him it wouldn’t work, he wasn’t the type to listen to a mere medical soldier.” Since it had only just been dug up, the skull was still hard. Kawabe put it into a Daruma stove and spent seven days and nights burning it until it glowed red. Bones are sturdy things—even with stove-level heat, they might break into fragments, but they’d never turn to powder. “Kawabe put those fragments into his mess tin lid and kept hammering at them.” “No matter how much he hammered, they only became granular.” “They absolutely refused to turn into powder.” “Maybe because the bones were fresh.”

Kawabe gave up on pulverizing it and swallowed the granular human bones. That night he abruptly developed a fever, the mercury column climbing to forty degrees.

“What a reckless thing to do.” Eisuke said. The story being about bones, something in him jolted sharply.

“So what happened to that man?” “What happened to him?”

Kano’s gaze turned distant. “The next morning, relief medical soldiers arrived, and I ended up going to Daitō. I still didn’t know why we were gathering there, but I was happy to see comrades from the same enlistment year after so long. I even thought maybe I’d be discharged and could return to Japan—” Two hundred medical soldiers from our enlistment year gathered in Daitō. What we thought would be our discharge turned out to be a directive urging us to volunteer as non-commissioned officers. The war was expanding—or rather, sinking into a quagmire. This stemmed from high command’s policy to strengthen the ranks of career soldiers. Everyone leaned toward refusal. If you remained a regular soldier, there was hope of going home. But becoming an NCO meant you were essentially a lifer—no return in sight.

Sensing this atmosphere, the Surgeon General delivered an extraordinary address. "Gentlemen, your thinking is mistaken. The non-commissioned officer training exists for your benefit—volunteer and complete it, and we'll transfer you to the reserves to go home immediately." and so on.

“There’s something fishy about the Surgeon General’s lecture.”

The one who said this was Shirosuke. Shirosuke, seen for the first time in a year, had put on a little weight and looked healthy. That something was off about the story was something Kano had also sensed. Not only Kano—nearly all the soldiers from their enlistment year had. In the end, rather than a recommendation, they were semi-forced to take the exam. Since none of them had any intention of complying, they wrote haphazard answers, wrote lies, or simply submitted blank answer sheets. They thereby expressed their lack of intention to volunteer. It wasn’t collective resistance; rather, individual instances of it had aligned.

However, they all ended up passing. “Once the exams were over, they were immediately made to put on corporal insignia.”

Kano said with a laugh.

“And they became reservist corporals and were immediately conscripted locally.” “Going home was out of the question.” “We’d been completely had.” As a result, Shirosuke and Kano were reunited and ordered to transfer to the First Field Hospital. The hospital was located in Kōwa. Thus began their military life in Mongolia.

“Was Shirosuke already suffering from asthma by that time?” Eisuke asked while pouring his second glass of whiskey.

“What was the treatment for that?” “Yes.” “He would have attacks from time to time.”

Skillfully splitting the dried goby, Kano answered. "As treatment, it was pretty much just subcutaneous adrenaline injections and oral ephedrine." "What about Pavinal?" "I don’t think they were using it yet." "I think it was around the time of the Ordos Campaign." "But he didn’t like to talk much about himself, you know." Kano plopped the goby into the pot. "Even though I was so close with Shirosuke-kun, I hardly heard any details about his life." "He talked about you." "I have two older brothers." "'Even though I was born first, it’s a strange story how I ended up the younger brother,' he laughed."

“Is that all?” “Yeah. Well—I’ve also heard about your other brother. He became a Communist and killed himself at the hospital, they say.”

“Suicide?” Eisuke inadvertently retorted loudly.

“He killed himself?” “You didn’t know? I shouldn’t have said that.”

What Shirosuke had told Kano was the method of that suicide. Around that time, a soldier had hanged himself in the latrine, and that was how the topic came up. “My eldest brother also hanged himself. But not by suspension.” He tied a necktie to the iron frame of the bed, thrust his neck into it, and let his body drop below the floor. It was the same method as a judicial hanging. That method was less unsightly, and since there was also the possibility of the neck bone breaking, it caused less pain—or so went Shirosuke’s theory.

“Is that really true?”

Eisuke tilted his head. He wondered whether Shirosuke had fabricated the story on the spot. The memory of Ryusuke’s death was nothing but the memory of that gloomy tuberculosis ward. Shirosuke’s memory of it was probably the same. Eisuke and Shirosuke had hardly ever spoken about their eldest brother, whether in their hometown or in Tokyo. If there were any,

"I wonder how old Brother Ryusuke would be if he were alive now." To that extent—in other words, for the two of them, Ryusuke was already a figure from an unfamiliar past.

(But that time—)

Eisuke momentarily thought— (We weren’t allowed to see Ryusuke’s face in death. Did they not want to shock us in our youth, or perhaps—) If it had been suicide, who had informed Shirosuke of that fact? And they even described the circumstances of the hanging in detail. And why hadn’t Shirosuke told Eisuke about it? Eisuke felt a momentary daze and said. “That’s definitely Shirosuke’s fabrication. He often tricked people and enjoyed it, you know.”

“Is that so?” Kano answered nonchalantly. While transferring the fried gobies to a plate, he changed the subject.

“But Shirosuke was furious,” Kano continued. “They promised discharge after training ended, then shipped us to Mongolia—a rotten swindle.” “He passed with blank papers too.” “Blank papers passing—utter nonsense.” “His asthma made him desperate to return.” “Was life in Kouwa harsh?” “No—” “No—it was easy.” “We weren’t recruits anymore—non-commissioned officers now.” The train carried us from Datong beyond the Great Wall’s shadow. Crossing that ancient barrier changed nothing of the land’s essence— “Just some nomad yurts for novelty.”

Their duties were light. Rather than having free time, they mostly pushed their work onto junior medical soldiers and focused on resting. Sometimes they would visit the yurts of nomadic people. They settled in their earthen-reinforced yurts during winter, but once the weather improved, they wandered through marshlands and grasslands with their flocks of sheep, traveling light. They did not cultivate vegetables, nor did they eat them.

“How do they get their vitamin C?”

Since both Kano and Shirosuke were medical non-commissioned officers, they had once raised such a question. In the end, they concluded that they must be getting it from sheep’s milk (since milk is a complete food). They also carried compressed Chinese tea molded into round shapes, and whenever we brought Japanese tea as gifts, they would be delighted and give us dried meat in return. They were, on the whole, a simple and pure-hearted people. “That kind of life isn’t so bad.” Shirosuke occasionally voiced his thoughts to Kano.

“A guy as clumsy as me is suited for that kind of wandering life. I hate the competition for survival.”

Eleven

“I see. Shirosuke didn’t talk much about his personal circumstances, did he?”

Eisuke muttered as if to himself while gazing at the waves. As the afternoon wore on, a faint wind began to stir.

“Didn’t he talk about the child?” “A child?”

“Yeah,” “The child Shirosuke had with a married woman.”

Kano remained silent for a while. He moved the scull and turned the bow into the wind. “Yeah. He did. “That was when we departed for the Ordos Campaign. “Shirosuke told me，‘If anything happens to me，go to such-and-such house and inform them of my final matters.’ “And he asked me to check whether the child’s face resembled his，then wrote down a map and a name and handed it to me.”

Kano lowered his gaze but immediately tilted his head back. “But I burned it.” “When?” “When Shirosuke-kun committed suicide.” “I burned it along with him.” “Even though he was the one who killed himself, I figured there was no need for an outsider like me to confirm anything.”

“What was the name of that married woman?” “I’ve forgotten. I can’t recall. Though I do remember she was the mistress at his workplace.” “His workplace?” “Yes. He said she was the one who seduced him. That’s what he told me.”

Eisuke remained motionless and silent. If we were talking about where he worked, it had to be that funeral director's wife. When Eisuke went to borrow money as a university student, the funeral director expressionlessly called his wife and had her bring it. Young—though she must have been around thirty at the time—she was a beautiful woman with clear skin and dimples that appeared when she smiled, too lovely for a funeral director's wife. He remembered being surprised when he first saw her face. From Shirosuke's early letters, he had imagined her as a mean-spirited woman who ridiculed his dialect, but she turned out to be unexpectedly kind.

“I see…” “So that’s how it was.”

Eisuke said to no one in particular.

“I’d only ever assumed Shirosuke disliked that woman.” “Mr. Kano.” “Did he mention what business his employer was in?”

Kano shook his head. After bringing Shirosuke’s remains back from Nagoya and completing the interment, about ten days later, the funeral parlor’s mistress came to visit the grave with her child. It was less a grave visit than a delivery of condolence money that included severance pay. The sum appeared far larger than he had anticipated. The mother said.

“Just as your brother said, funeral parlors really do make good money.” “I brought plenty.” “I see.” Eisuke did not ask about the amount.

He took the mistress to the Yagi family grave. The temple was located in the countryside, four stations away by train. The head priest had been Fukujirou’s middle school classmate, which was why they had designated it as their family temple. Inside the grave already rested the bones of Fukujirou, Ryusuke, and Shirosuke. The mistress spent about ten minutes praying with her hands pressed together in front of it.

The cemetery was midway up the hill. Sitting on the sunlit withered grass，Eisuke said to the girl. “What do you think?” “It’s the beautiful sea，isn’t it?” “You can’t see this in Tokyo.”

Beyond the pine grove, the winter sea could be seen. The sea reflected the sunlight, glittering brightly. The girl did not respond. Seeming bored, she was climbing up and running down the path.

*(So that was Shirosuke’s daughter?)* Eisuke didn’t much like children. So he didn’t remember her face clearly. He didn’t even pay attention to whether she resembled Shirosuke.

That was the last time Eisuke met the mistress. The mistress and her daughter were heading to visit relatives in Beppu, so they parted ways at the station.

“Lately, I’ve been having nerve pain.” The mistress said.

“I plan to recuperate in Beppu for about half a month.” “A daughter? So it was a girl?”

Kano said in surprise. He counted on his fingers.

“So if she were alive now, she’d be about twenty-five or twenty-six. About the same age we were back then.”

“That’s how it would be.”

“She might already be married and have children by now. So that would make Shirosuke a grandfather, then?”

Kano said that and turned his vacant gaze toward the sun beyond the smog. Eisuke also remained silent for a while. The emptiness of time’s passage welled up profoundly in his chest.

“Did that girl look like Shirosuke?”

“No. I remember she was wearing a red sweater, but I’ve forgotten her face.” Eisuke answered. “He said she was a married woman, but I didn’t know she was the mistress of the funeral parlor. It’s only through your explanation that I’ve come to understand. Because he said he’d settle his own matters himself, he didn’t tell me her name.” “Funeral parlor? Was he working at a funeral parlor?”

“Was he working at a funeral parlor?”

Eisuke nodded. “Huh. I’d thought he was working at some small company or something.”

“When he wrote that map and name, Shirosuke was already using Pavinal—”

“I suppose that’s probably the case.” Kano answered while putting away his tools.

“Adrenaline and ephedrine—those don’t work well at all. They just dull the symptoms a bit—the attack won’t stop unless time passes. But when you inject Pavinal, the pain cuts off instantly. Since we were non-commissioned medics, they put us in charge of managing the drugs. If we wanted to fudge the Pavinal quantities, we could.” “Does it feel good?” “No. When I was a medic, I once jabbed half a CC as a lark. Broke out in cold sweat, got hit with violent nausea—felt like absolute hell. That cured me—never touched it again.”

Kano spat out.

“Then came the Ordos Campaign. This wasn’t just a routine mopping-up operation—it was a major one. I’ve never understood why they launched such an enormous campaign, but the objective was a place called Wuyuan.” “Is Ordos a place name?” “Ordos forms part of Inner Mongolia—the region between the Great Wall and the Yellow River’s rectangular course. Mostly desert or steppe. Steppe means grassland, see? Turns to grassland when it rains, but in dry seasons—well, you could call it barren land. They marched through that to attack Wuyuan. Wuyuan served as an arms depot—the Eighth Route Army was supposedly procuring weapons there to build up their forces. So we were ordered to strike it—pushed ourselves beyond all reason. Our side suffered heavy casualties too.”

The Ordos Campaign was conducted during the winter from 1940 to 1941. The unit rode the train to Baotou Town. The enemy also knew their operational objectives and troop strength. Guerrillas would emerge to destroy rails or remove spikes. Since they had to eliminate them to advance, their progress was sluggish and made little headway. From Baotou Town onward, it was on foot. They marched through desolate deserts and withered-grass steppes.

“The most common was frostbite.” “Unlike the spring and autumn mopping-up operations, this was winter.” “In combat, you can’t fire a rifle with thick fur gloves.” “And if you wear bulky shoes on your feet, you can’t walk in the desert either.” “Strange as it may seem—or perhaps not strange at all—the face alone doesn’t get frostbite even when exposed to cold.” “It always starts in the hands and feet.” Frostbite had three stages: first, when blood drained away leaving white skin; second, when purple cyanosis set in; third, when it carbonized and turned pitch black. It progressed exactly like burns. Carbonized parts had to be cut off—there was no alternative. For the pain before and after amputation, Pavinal and similar drugs were used.

“I’ve got a theory that Shirosuke became a regular Pavinal user during this Ordos Campaign.” Kano explained.

“The field hospitals were stretched to their limits,” Kano said. “Since we kept advancing nonstop, anyone having an asthma attack couldn’t possibly keep pace. They resorted to Pavinal as a quick fix—that’s how he got hooked.” Then came rampant outbreaks of disease—typhus from lice, waterborne infections, and more. What plagued us most during that campaign was water. Not just its scarcity, but how foul it was. They tried resupplying us with water trucks and drum-loaded vehicles, but there were never enough to go around. Once, Shirosuke and his squad melted snow for water and cooked rice in their mess tins. When the rice finished steaming, Shirosuke stared in disbelief.

“What the hell… This looks just like millet rice!”

The snow, carrying yellow dust from the heavens, fell to the ground, staining the rice a yellowish hue.

There were things called crevices. If you were to liken the Earth to a human body, you could think of those crevices as being like cracks or chapped skin. They were scattered all along the march route. The smaller ones ranged from mere trenches to those spanning hundreds of meters in width and about a hundred meters in depth, their banks reduced to sheer cliffs or precipitous slopes.

“In America there’s something called the Grand Canyon.” “I’ve never been there myself—but I imagine it must look similar.”

Kano said. “They zigzagged down that steep slope.” “The valley bottom usually had some moisture—frozen solid.” “They’d melt it, boil it to drink, then scramble back up the cliff.” “Some slipped and fell.”

Sergeant Niki slipped and fell, broke his spine and leg, and eventually died. Niki was the man who had mercilessly bullied Shirosuke during his first-year soldier training. He was transported to a field hospital and by chance became Shirosuke’s charge. “I didn’t know Niki had died,” Kano said, “but Shirosuke told me this: ‘Niki glared at me and said, “You must be happy I’m dead.”’” Kano lamented.

“The two of them just didn’t get along.”

“When he was told that—I wonder how Shirosuke felt.” “He hated war.” “He’d say how utterly detestable it was.” “Until then they’d been living an easy life in Kowa.” “Then they were suddenly dragged into brutal combat.” “No one could endure that.”

Eisuke imagined the vast steppe and tried to conjure the massive crevice that abruptly manifested before his eyes, but still it refused to take shape.

“So did you make it to Wuyuan in the end?” “We didn’t go.” “The frontline units charged in, captured Wuyuan, and immediately turned back.” “All that marching through deserts, climbing down crevices and scrambling back up—just for that.” “Thousands upon thousands of soldiers.” Kano clicked his tongue. “Since we took Wuyuan once, I suppose you could call the operation a success.” “But there were too many casualties.” “Some squads got surrounded along the way and were practically annihilated.” “If they were willing to sacrifice that many men, wouldn’t it have been simpler to build an airfield near Kowa and bomb them? That’s what I think now.”

Kano cupped his hand over his eyes and looked at the sun. The sun hung in the sky like a red basin, less shining than simply suspended.

“Shall we head back now?” Kano lowered his hand and said. “How about having a drink at my place?” “I also have an album from that time.”

“Yeah. Let’s do that.” Eisuke agreed. He had needed to urinate for a while now, and because he remained sitting cross-legged between the boat’s ribs, his spine began throbbing with a dull ache. The fishing rods were folded and the fish basket pulled up. The engine puttered rhythmically as the boat started moving toward shore. “If we’d raised a fisherman’s flag it would’ve looked proper lively—but today we got too wrapped up in talking to catch much.” Kano tightened his headband and spoke.

“You see those seaweed stakes over there? Those will only be around until this year—they’ll be gone starting next year. The businesses will receive compensation and switch to other work.”

“How’s your business these days?” “It’s all right.” The voice was torn away by the sea wind. “As long as there are gobies in Tokyo Bay, I think I can manage somehow.” “After the war, sardines completely stopped being caught, you know.” “If the gobies were to disappear like that, I’d be done for.” “Well, when that time comes, something will work out.” “You make it sound so simple.”

“This too is thanks to the war.”

Kano laughed. “After that came New Guinea, right? Out of two hundred medical soldiers from our year, how many do you suppose are alive today? Ten or so.” He gave a dry chuckle. “At first I kept thinking—why’d you all go and die without even a word to me? Isn’t that just unfair?—but now I’ve given up. Or rather than calling it resignation... Since I lucked out and survived, I’ll live as much as I want in their place.” He adjusted his headband against the sea breeze. “I’m in the mood to live a long life.”

The words "died without notice" held visceral reality. That pierced sharply into Eisuke’s chest.

They reached the shore. Eisuke disembarked and climbed the stone steps. The outhouse consisted only of an enclosure, its design allowing urine to drop directly into the river. When he finished voiding his bladder, fatigue came crashing down upon his shoulders. (In just this single day, I'd heard nearly everything about Shirosuke's military life.)

Exiting the outhouse and vigorously scrubbing his fishy-smelling hands with soap, Eisuke thought. (It’s only natural to be exhausted.) Carrying tools and fishing rods, Kano climbed up the stone steps. He called out loudly toward the shop.

“Hey,” Kano called toward the shop. “I’ll have a drink with the guests in the inner room—get it ready.” “Mind if I lie down here for a bit?” Eisuke asked while patting his own shoulder. “I’m worn out.”

“Did your shoulder get stiff from all that talking?”

“Well,” Eisuke continued, “the other day I slipped off a bus and hurt my spine. When I sit cross-legged now, that spot just stays bent.” In the inner room, folding a zabuton cushion in half, he lay down on his back. His spine creaked and groaned faintly. Closing his eyes, he became aware of tears seeping beneath his eyelids. Unlike the boat’s confined space, the house brimmed with smells—the drifting, swaying odors of daily life. A hollow emptiness lingered within him, like finishing an endless narrative scroll.

“I see.” “So she was the funeral parlor owner’s wife?”

He muttered with his eyes still closed. Still, doubts remained, but to him, it no longer mattered either way.

“Even if that were true, that girl must have grown up as the funeral parlor’s child.” “And she would bear a child.” “That child would never know their grandfather marched across crevices, nor that he killed himself with Veronal.” “What people do gets forgotten one by one as years pass.”

Footsteps approached. Eisuke opened his eyes. Kano was there.

“This is an album, you see.” “This is me.”

On the first page of the album was a photograph of a young man wearing the shoulder insignia of a Private First Class. Eisuke raised his head and let out an involuntary groan.

“I see. So this is you.”

Eisuke looked at Kano’s face, then returned his gaze to the photograph. The figure in the photograph looked youthful and composed, with a faint tinge of hope in his brow. "I see. You look so young."

“It was already twenty years ago, you know. “Of course I was young back then.” Kano answered. “Take your time looking through this until everything’s ready.” “Look, this is the Shanxi Bank building in Datong.” “In this building, we received our non-commissioned officer training.”

Against the backdrop of the building, three soldiers stood photographed. It was immediately clear that the soldier on the right was Shirosuke. Eisuke strained his eyes and gazed at it for some time.

Twelve

The inner room of the boat rental was an eight-tatami space with several fish rubbings hanging on the walls. They all measured about one shaku in length, each bearing notations of where and when the fish had been caught. On the engawa veranda, cheap fishing rods for casual anglers lay bundled together. The closet had been built generously wide, suggesting lodging facilities might be available. Though the main pillar stood smooth and polished, its edges remained rough with exposed wood grain. These additions had likely been made using parts salvaged from dismantled boats.

"How's it going?" "Are you tired?"

I asked Eisuke.

“How’s your back?”

“Ah.” “It’s gotten a bit better.” Eisuke sat up. “I guess sitting upright for too long is still beyond me.” At that moment, Kano entered from the shop area with a black ceramic bottle dangling from his hand. He settled cross-legged before the table. “This here’s Baijiu.” He poured it into teacups. “The other day I had a customer—someone who’d been in Manchuria during the war—and when we got talking about this stuff, he brought me a bottle as a souvenir on his next visit.”

I took a sip. It had a slight peculiarity, but the taste wasn’t bad. I asked. “What’s this made from?” “Sorghum.” Kano clicked his tongue. “This one seems to be made in the mainland. The stuff over there felt even harsher, I think. Though maybe I’d just gotten used to it by then.” “When you talk about smuggling liquor back then—buying whole bottles—” “No. We’d carry one-sho bottles and beer bottles, then buy it by weight, you see. Well. I wonder how much it was per one-sho. After all, it was twenty years ago.”

The landlady brought simple side dishes. Eisuke scrambled over on all fours and approached the table. Though outside remained bright, dusk had begun pooling gradually beneath the eaves since the room faced north.

After returning from the Ordos Campaign to Hohhot, they were once again scattered and assigned to various garrison units.

Kano and Shirosuke parted there. Kano was sent to Lingqiu County in Shanxi Province. Kano, being in the Eighth Company of the Second Battalion—the rearmost company—was assigned to the most remote mountain detachment. Since he had already become a sergeant, his duties weren’t so harsh. In November 1941, Kano received orders to transfer to the First Field Hospital. Even though the orders had come, being deep in the mountains meant they couldn’t move out right away. The squad leader, too, was reluctant to let go of a capable medical non-commissioned officer. Even if they were a little late, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal—so they complacently kept waiting, and before they knew it, December had arrived. The No. 6 radio belonging to the detachment intercepted the declaration of war against Britain and America. It was the middle of the night on the eighth. Around midnight, the squad leader called for a full assembly of all members. Kano, too, was shaken awake and learned of the proclamation.

“That night was perfectly clear—a beautiful moon hung in the sky. The cold was bone-chilling, and in the nearby mountains we could hear the nocturnal cries of animals. We all listened tensely to the squad leader’s address.” “How did it feel?”

I asked.

“When you speak of tension—that sensation of your nerves being stretched taut—” “Yes, that’s part of it. But we’d been stuck up in the mountains of Lingqiu County for ages—no newspapers, no radio. You could say we were left completely in the dark. It’s different from being back in the mainland. In that regard, the squad leader was practically no different. Anyway, since it had turned into a major war, it was a simple address—just telling us to devote ourselves wholeheartedly to our duties.”

However, Kano intuitively sensed that his transfer was related to that major war. That was directly connected to the conscription being prolonged. He immediately organized his personal belongings and waited for the pickup. Since the detachment was deep in the mountains—beyond mountains and more mountains—he couldn’t just walk there alone. The pickup finally arrived. “And it wasn’t a truck—a single passenger car had come all this way just for me, taking three whole days,” he said. “I was surprised. When I asked, they said it was an order from the regimental headquarters.”

“That’s officer-level treatment, huh?” “Well, yes. At the time, I was certain they’d assigned me to southern operations. When a war escalates like that—it’s not just garrison work anymore. Medical duties become overwhelming, you see.”

After bidding farewell to his bearded squad leader and comrades, the passenger car headed straight for Hohhot. There, Sergeant Yagi Shirosuke—a medical non-commissioned officer attached to the 12th Independent Infantry Regiment—and others had already been ordered to transfer en masse and had gathered.

“Oh. We’re together again, huh?”

Shirosuke raised his palm and said to Kano.

“You’re the last one to arrive.” “Stay at my place tonight.”

“Is that so?” “Is that what you want?”

The lodgings were private homes; once you became a non-commissioned officer, you could allocate them freely. Since Kano had arrived late, he ended up taking off his straw sandals at Shirosuke’s quarters. They pleaded with the canteen, but it wouldn’t provide any alcohol. Shirosuke and the others were soon to be transferred south, so the canteen staff were reluctant.

“Tch. Stingy bastards, every one of them.” While grumbling, Shirosuke nevertheless climbed over the earthen wall to buy paijiu as a welcome gesture. While drinking paijiu, Kano asked.

“How’s the war situation going?” At the No. 6 radio deep in the mountains of Lingqiu County, news communications hardly came through. The declaration of war had been confirmed, but almost nothing was known about the subsequent progress of the war. “Yeah. It seems to be going well.”

Shirosuke said, "Looks like we'll be busy again. Though at least we'll get some warmth unlike here."

Shirosuke and the others were being transferred to Hong Kong. There was already an army hospital in Hong Kong, but since that alone wasn’t sufficient, they were compelled to establish a second army hospital.

“In other words, we’re the establishment crew for the Second Army Hospital.” “Then it seems we won’t be going back for a while.” “Back? You mean to the mainland?” Shirosuke tilted his paijiu bottle as he countered. “Or deeper inland?”

“What was Shirosuke-kun’s complexion like at that time—” I asked. “How was it?” “He was dead serious,” he said. “I thought he was worrying about the same things as me.” “No—I meant not his expression, but whether addicts’ complexions turn ashen or something. Isn’t there some change like that?” “Well…” Kano tugged at the sleeve of his haori and thought for a while. “His complexion hadn’t changed. If you looked closely, there might have been some slight changes, but his attitude was cheerful and he seemed full of energy. I remember him drinking paijiu and saying nothing but funny things.”

Kano took a sip of paijiu. "But he seemed to be drinking more paijiu than before." "No matter how much he drank, he never got drunk." "His body would sway unsteadily, yet his mind stayed perfectly clear." "That's the impression I had." "Though I couldn't say whether that related to Pavinal or not."

Two days later, the two hundred setup personnel boarded a train and headed south. They passed through Beijing and approached Tianjin. This was the same railway line that Shirosuke and the others had traveled northward to Datong on about three years prior, as new recruits. Back then, they had lowered the window shades and had no means to peek outside, but this time, they could gaze upon it in detail. Though still monotonous, the terrain and scenery began to show subtle changes as they headed south. Eventually, they arrived at Tianjin Station. From there, a branch line led to Dagu.

“Dagu’s in that direction, huh?”

Shirosuke said to Kano in a deeply moved tone, “Compared to back then, we’ve really become army-hardened, haven’t we?” “Yeah,” Kano responded. “I wonder if that temporary barracks is still standing. It was just a slapdash shack back then.” On the platform, members of the Women’s Association waved flags and distributed comfort parcels. Given their early victories in the war, security around troop movements probably wasn’t strictly enforced. The train wasn’t bound for Dagu—it would traverse Nanjing before reaching Shanghai. At major stations they’d halt to load provisions and coal, doing calisthenics on the platforms during these stops. Otherwise crammed inside, their existence reduced to eating and sleeping in cycles, the men grew listless and slightly pudgy from inactivity. Not so much fattened as gone soft in the muscles. Even the shifting landscapes outside failed to hold their interest anymore. When they finally reached Shanghai, liberation from the railcar came as a relief.

“During our train journey as new recruits，we were so tense that boredom was out of the question—but this time，there’s no tension.” “Moreover，it was a long haul from Houwa to Shanghai.” “We were thoroughly sick of it，I tell you.”

Kano explained to me. "When we arrived in Shanghai, Shirosuke and I went over to the locomotive. Shirosuke joked to it, 'You must be worn out too, but we're completely worn out ourselves,' and he made everyone laugh. In reality, the locomotive looked utterly exhausted too—puffing out smoke and gasping for breath." They embarked from Shanghai. They loaded medical supplies and other items. Shirosuke and the others oversaw that. They had no time for sightseeing in Shanghai or such things. The establishment of the hospital was an urgent matter.

The military vessel departed alone. There was no escort. Enemy submarines had not yet appeared in these waters.

Thus, the ship safely arrived in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Unlike the northern regions like Houwa, the subtropical scenery was splendid, appearing as if it were blazing. The air was moderately humid, and there was a smell of the sea. Among the ships in the harbor, sampans maneuvered by boatmen wearing bamboo hats darted about. That scene was striking.

“A bit of trouble broke out there in Kaohsiung, you know.” Kano said with a laugh.

“The usual Women’s Association—you know, the Aikoku Fujinkai—they came bringing comfort items.” “What they brought was yokan and black sugar—sweet treats.”

On southbound trains and military vessels, various topics about the South emerged. One of their hopes was to eat bananas, fresh pineapples, and such things until their stomachs were full. They hungered desperately for abundant fruits.

They temporarily disembarked there. They ended up staying overnight in Kaohsiung to transfer to another ship. Their lodgings were at an elementary school, and when they arrived there, the members of the Women’s Association came. They went around each classroom distributing comfort items. A woman who appeared to be the president of the Women’s Association—a fifty-year-old—spoke in a manner that felt both patronizing and harassing, so Kano and the others grew somewhat irritated. They too had become seasoned by the army; while they treated officers with care, there was an air of them handling non-commissioned officers and soldiers like children. Shirosuke stood up and made a statement to the following effect.

“We’re sick of eating stuff like yokan. Bring us fruits—bananas or pineapples.” They stiffened. Bananas here were food for rickshaw pullers and stablehands—not something the Imperial Army should wolf down like animals. A brief, prickly exchange followed, plunging the room into stiff silence. “Shirosuke snapped,” Kano said. “His eyes went sharp—”

As I listened to Kano’s words, I recalled those eyes of Shirosuke’s at the Tokyo amusement park. The desperate movement of those eyes that even appeared violent.

“Hey, everyone.”

Shirosuke turned around and called out. “Don’t you touch that yokan or anything.” “I’ll go call the banana vendor.” Shirosuke jumped out of the classroom window and returned with a banana vendor from town. While moving from the wharf to the lodgings, he had seen many banana vendors. Everyone gladly bought and ate them. “Over there, bananas were called kinchou and were cheap.” “A bunch was about fifteen or twenty sen.” “The locals there could get them cheaply and easily, and they were absolutely sick of eating them.” “In pre-war Japan, you could say they were like roasted sweet potatoes—they weren’t considered a very refined food.” “That’s where the discrepancy lay, you see.”

In the end, they didn’t touch the comfort items and returned them all to the Women’s Association. The President of the Women’s Association must have been seething too. She proceeded to report that fact to the higher-ups.

“Those who did not accept the comfort items must report.”

Such a message came from the officers' room. Shirosuke restrained everyone.

“I can handle this alone. Traipsing along in a crowd would be unseemly.”

Shirosuke went alone as the responsible party and returned about an hour later. Kano asked. “How did it go?” “It’s nothing. They just told me, ‘Don’t make such a scene.’” Shirosuke explained with a laugh.

“After that, I was treated to Scotch whisky.” “Still better than the local hooch, I tell ya!” The unit stayed overnight at the elementary school and embarked again from Kaohsiung the following day. By their own hands, bananas and such were brought in as well.

“Did you find them delicious—the bananas?”

I asked.

“I’ve heard bananas aren’t good when freshly picked—that they need to be ripened first—but…” “No—they were delicious.” Kano answered.

“But the pineapple was surprisingly bad,” Kano said. “It was all gritty and dry, you know. That one at least should’ve been canned, I thought.” They ate too many bananas, and a few cases of diarrhea occurred. Since they could eat as much as they wanted once they arrived locally, disposal was ordered. If the Medical Unit were to produce patients, it would be a matter of prestige. And then they arrived in Hong Kong. The Second Army Hospital was established. The First Army Hospital was on Hong Kong Island, but the Second was in the Kowloon area. Even though it was called an establishment, they weren’t constructing new buildings—they were repurposing requisitioned houses for it. They requisitioned Central British School to serve as the First Branch Hospital, and Kano, Shirosuke, and the others were assigned there. The First Branch Hospital was on a small hill. Looking around, unlike the mainland cities back home, the colors stood vivid against the navy-blue sea. On the sea, ships moved about and lay anchored here and there. Somehow they looked like toys.

“Shirosuke wasn’t the type to take much interest in scenery, you know. When everyone was admiring it, he’d just say something scornful like, ‘What’s the big deal? It’s like a damn picture postcard.’”

“Shirosuke’s always been like that.” Eisuke interjected from beside them. Eisuke seemed quite drunk on baijiu, his speech slurred. I cautioned.

“Yagi. Don’t drink too much. You won’t be able to get home.”

The work at the branch hospital was busy. Wounded soldiers from the Malay Peninsula, along with tuberculosis and malaria patients, were being transported back continuously. Hong Kong had become something of a relay station for these patients. Yet the climate was pleasant, supplies abundant, and liquor decent—compared to guarding the northern frontier, it felt almost comfortable. Their string of victories in battle contributed significantly to this atmosphere.

The Malay Campaign reached a temporary halt, and the unit was to return north once more. It was just before the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Campaign. When departing Hong Kong, an incident occurred where a significant amount of Pavinal went missing from the field hospital’s medical supplies. It was unclear whether this occurred before the medicine bags were packed or during their packing. Someone had taken them.

“It couldn’t have been from outside.” “There must be an addict within the unit.”

A quiet investigation began within the unit. "There were times when I thought something wasn't quite right myself," Kano said while gazing at Tokyo Bay's waters darkening with dusk.

“There was a time we took showers together in Hong Kong.” Unlike in the north, even Shirosuke—who hated baths—had to wash his body at least once a day; otherwise, the clammy feeling became unbearable. While making small talk, Kano suddenly noticed Shirosuke’s arm. There were clearly numerous injection marks. “What kind of injection are you getting there?”

Asthma attacks also seemed to have nearly ceased since arriving in Hong Kong. The environment had changed, so they must have subsided somewhat.

“Adrenaline?” “No—that’s part of it, but—” Shirosuke evaded the question, deliberately turning up the shower’s noise. “Lately my body’s been so sluggish I can’t stand it. That’s why I’m getting vitamin injections.” “You eat good food every day—there shouldn’t be any vitamin deficiency.” Kano laughed. Shirosuke’s complexion looked healthy, and by any measure he showed no signs of vitamin deficiency. His youthful skin repelled the water, gleaming with a glossy sheen. Wiping himself with a towel, Shirosuke changed the subject.

“Do you know Tokyo was bombed?” This was the Doolittle Raid.

“To secure that airfield, it seems an operation will be launched soon.” “So we’re moving the field hospital again?” “That’s likely how it’ll go.” “Depressing.” Since they’d had that exchange, it must have been around April. Yet contrary to expectations, they were ordered back to Datong. During their return preparations, someone made off with a substantial stock of Pavinal. “Not Yagi...?” Kano briefly doubted himself. He knew Shirosuke had used Pavinal sporadically around the Ordos Campaign. But that was temporary relief—any medic knew regular use meant addiction. Kano shook off the thought initially. Yet with narcotics under strict control, external theft seemed impossible. A sliver of suspicion lingered.

They departed for Datong along the same route as the southward advance.

On the deck, Shirosuke said to Kano. “It’s like being dragged back by the hair, isn’t it?” It was a tone that seemed almost joking, yet tinged with melancholy. “If I had to say, Shirosuke-kun seemed to prefer the sea over the mountains.”

Kano explained to me. “Humans can apparently be divided into two types—the mountain type and the sea type.” “Born that way, I suppose?” During the journey from the military ship to Datong by train, Kano found himself watching Shirosuke’s movements—not quite unconsciously, but with a certain preoccupation—his gaze flickering toward him intermittently. However, Kano could not catch him in the act of using Pavinal, nor detect any signs of it.

“But Mr. Yagi was doing it after all.” Kano gulped down the paichu.

“Within the unit—those who never injected anything.” “Those showing neither symptoms nor motive.” “Let’s categorize these as negative subjects.” “When you cross them off the roster one by one...” “...a few positive candidates remain.” “Among them, the strongest match—the prime suspect—was Shirosuke-kun.” “They narrowed it down to Sergeant Yagi.” “Seems command had already marked him.”

The train arrived in Datong. Kano, Shirosuke, and the others returned to Kouwa Field Hospital again. They were designated as return personnel.

One day, medical soldiers discovered a considerable number of empty ampoules discarded in the firebox of a heating stove. When they checked, they were all Pavinal. They promptly reported it to the unit captain. Kano learned about it in the medical office. He searched for Shirosuke. Shirosuke was lying back in his quarters, reading a novel from the comfort items. Since he was return personnel, there was no one to reprimand him even if he slacked off.

“Yagi. So it was you after all who’d been injecting Pavinal.”

Kano said with a slightly harsh tone.

“The empty ampoules have been found!”

“I see.” “In the ondol stove?” Shirosuke threw down the book and slowly righted himself. His demeanor suggested he’d already made his resolution—there was now an air of reckless finality about him.

“The one who discarded them was definitely me.” “Why didn’t you consult me before reaching this point!” Kano said, pressing closer. “If you’d told me beforehand, I could’ve managed it.”

Shirosuke remained silent for a while. He listlessly opened his mouth. “Has the report already reached the unit captain?”

Kano nodded. "I see."

Shirosuke picked up the book he had thrown down and neatly straightened its pages. He said without looking up. "There’s no point in consulting you." "You wouldn’t understand." "I’ll handle my own business."

“There’s no way you can handle this!” “Get yourself hospitalized!”

Before long, a summons came from the unit captain. The unit captain was a military doctor named Nakata who had returned from Hong Kong and been promoted to major. He was a man of passive-aggressive temperament obsessed with promotions—a self-centered egotist devoid of compassion for his subordinates who had earned a terrible reputation and was universally despised. What conversation took place there, Kano did not know. There was no doubt that hospitalization had been ordered, but Shirosuke refused.

“Could he refuse?”

I was a little surprised and asked Kano.

“A superior’s orders are absolute, right?”

“In principle, that’s correct—”

Kano clenched his back teeth and thought for a moment.

“There are two possible scenarios.” “First is Major Nakata’s character.” “If it came out that an addict had emerged from the unit, the captain would be held responsible.” “He couldn’t report that he’d left it unattended until then to the division medical department.” “The captain was timid—a coward, you see.” “Since Shirosuke was return personnel anyway, I think they called off the hospitalization order on condition he gradually reduced his Pavinal dosage.” “And Shirosuke was removed from pharmaceutical duties.”

“So he could no longer obtain Pavinal, then.”

“No— “That’s not how it worked. Shirosuke was disliked by his superiors but well-liked by his subordinates, you see. The junior medics looked up to him like an older brother.” “He had their respect.” “If you asked them, they’d arrange things for you however needed.” “In fact, you could say that became his undoing.”

Eisuke, perhaps drunk, rested his cheek on the table, covered his face with his palm, and closed his eyes.

“And the other scenario?” “I think he threatened the captain. Given Shirosuke’s personality, that’s what I think now. He’s the type to take drastic measures, you see.”

While looking sideways at Eisuke, Kano said in a low voice.

“When he went to the captain’s office in response to the summons, Shirosuke had a pistol with him.” When he returned to the dormitory after the summons, Shirosuke removed the pistol belt from his shoulder and hung it on the wall. In one hand he carried a bottle of British whiskey. He sluggishly clambered onto the heated floor.

“I got my hands on something good.” “Let’s all drink together tonight.” Shirosuke’s voice was cheerful, but his face carried a faint pallor.

“There’s no need for a pistol when meeting Dr. Nakata.” “And taking one with him—” Kano faltered slightly. “I surmise Yagi-kun went there intending to cross blades with the doctor—but Dr. Nakata, frightened by that and thinking this troublemaker would be gone soon anyway—revoked the forced hospitalization order.” “That’s the kind of man Captain Nakata was.”

“Then did Shirosuke have no intention of seeking treatment?” “No—that he did have. He certainly had a strong desire to recover. So he exercised self-restraint—determined not to increase the dose even a bit but to gradually reduce it—and I think he made tremendous efforts toward that. But he couldn’t do it. When I asked whether it was the next day or how many days later that he started using it regularly, he laughed it off, but my estimation is that it was around the time of the Ordos Campaign. Even though we trusted each other so deeply, he hardly ever opened up about his own sufferings and sorrows. Was he always like that?”

Kano’s question had been directed at Eisuke. Eisuke vacantly opened his eyes.

“That’s right. Since I’m his brother, I can’t really say—”

Eisuke reached for the glass. "There might have been."

I was picturing in my mind the situation where Shirosuke was pointing a pistol at Dr. Nakata in the captain’s office. It was probably also because I had seen similar scenes in movies and on TV. I could imagine that with a certain vividness. “He wanted to recover and return home,” “However, he didn’t want to be forced into hospitalization by that kind of captain.” “A sort of feeling—or maybe stubbornness—I think he had that in him.”

Kano shifted his gaze from Eisuke to me. "He didn’t want to be forced." "Shirosuke-kun—no—everyone must have wanted to return home quickly."

“Not exactly. The feeling was more… unsettled.”

Kano answered. "The prospect of returning to the mainland wasn't such a happy thing anymore after being selected as repatriates." "The feeling that we had to part with comrades we'd shared life and death with for years, and the anxiety about returning to homes that had forgotten us." "Well sure, letters came from home." "Just formulaic ones." "They all said things like 'We're doing fine here, so work for the country without looking back,' never giving any concrete details about what was actually happening on the mainland or how people were living. Would we even be able to adjust right away when we returned? Wouldn't we just be treated like outsiders?" "That anxiety—or maybe nihilistic feeling—would stick in the back of our minds even while packing our things, and we couldn't get through it without drinking." "So every night—"

“On the night Shirosuke-kun took Veronal, were there any changes in his attitude or complexion?” “His attitude?” “His attitude stayed the same.” “But his complexion had looked pale and swollen for two or three days prior.” “The area under his eyes was puffy and swollen—I thought his cheeks seemed to sag too.” “The moment he tossed the powder into his mouth—‘This wrecked body anyway—’”

Kano started to say something, then clamped his mouth shut. He shook the black ceramic bottle with a clinking sound. From how he shook it, the contents seemed nearly depleted. Kano poured it into his own teacup. I said while dimly picturing the scene.

“But was that truly something worth committing suicide over?”

“That’s right. Once you leave your unit to return home, you can’t get the drugs anymore. If withdrawal symptoms showed up along the way, you’d have to get off alone and be forced into hospitalization. Even if you made it back home, the drugs wouldn’t be freely available on the mainland, you know? Though honestly, there’s something about how people thought at that age that I can’t quite understand now that I’m older.”

“Did he just grow weary of it all?”

“Well, such things can happen.”

Kano nodded slowly. “When we cremated Shirosuke-kun’s body, it burned unusually fast. The bones crumbled away like dust. After the war, I read in some magazine that Hiropon addicts’ bones turn brittle and shatter easily. His case was likely no different. The drugs had eaten clear through to his bones.”

Thirteen

Eisuke hardly remembered the bones in the urn he had received from Nagoya. It contained only a small amount of slightly darkened fragments, and he did not touch them to see whether they were brittle or not.

The mother, however, pressed it to her cheek, bowed her head, and wept silently for some time. Unable to bear watching this, he went to the backyard, squatted in the vegetable garden, and spent some time mindlessly pulling weeds. Due to the labor shortage, the field had become neglected.

"You shouldn't have died yet."

He said aloud. Of course he still didn’t know about the suicide. “Until she saw your bones—until then—Mother wouldn’t believe it.”

After about ten minutes had passed, he washed his grassy-smelling hands in the kitchen and returned to the tatami room. Koutarou had come. Koutarou was still fat. General supplies were gradually becoming scarce, but marine products, being military-required goods, faced no risk of being discontinued. The composure of a purveyor had come to take root in his demeanor.

“You’ve had a rough time.” Koutarou said to Eisuke.

Since then, Koutarou had maintained what one might call a curt, or perhaps distant, attitude toward Eisuke. And Koutarou shifted his gaze to the mother.

“Ofude-san, may I see the remains?” “Please ask Eisuke about that.” The mother said. Koutarou looked at Eisuke with an attitude that seemed to show resistance.

“Fine. If you want to see them.”

With a sensation like his eyes turning parchedly dry, Eisuke answered.

“Mother,” he said aloud. “I’m going to sleep.” “I hardly slept on the train.” He entered the storeroom roughly thudded down his bedding and crawled under its covers. Indeed not only his eyes but his very skin felt parched from exhaustion and when he lay down he could feel blood pulsing through his body. At last sleep came.

In the evening, Eisuke awoke to clamorous voices and the sound of hammering nails. When he got up and went out into the garden, three or four young men from Koutarou’s shop were moving about near the gate. They were spanning a crossbeam between the gateposts and nailing to it a signboard that read "House of Fallen Heroes." Not only that, but at the entrance leading from the gate to the front garden, a wooden pillar inscribed with "Spirit of the Late Army Medical Sergeant Shirosuke Yagi" had been erected. “What a pointless thing to do.”

Thinking this, Eisuke stood with his hands in his pockets, watching their movements. He knew the characters on the wooden pillar were Koutarou’s handwriting. After the official notice of death from illness had come, Koutarou had prepared it and brought it over. But at that time, the mother refused. “Even with an official notice, I couldn’t possibly erect such a thing without seeing the actual bones.” With the remains returned, the mother must have finally relented. She sat on the veranda with her hair still tightly pulled back, gazing vacantly up at the evening sky.

Compared to that wooden pillar, the "Home of the Fallen Heroes" signboard on the gate had a thinner wooden frame and was far too crude. After all, this wasn't Koutarou's responsibility; he was merely acting on behalf of the town council, so there was nothing to be done. The fact that it was hung on the gate felt utterly contrived.

"Home of the Fallen Heroes"—what home could the dead possibly need? Putting up such worthless nonsense!" Yet paradoxically, this sign proved surprisingly useful. After Eisuke got drafted and the war intensified, their household—with only women and children left—was frequently exempt from burdensome cooperative duties during neighborhood association tasks, fire drills, and mandatory shifts. But even this reprieve proved fleeting. Soon every other house displayed "Household of a Deployed Soldier" or "Home of the Fallen Heroes," until such signs lost all distinction and authority, their value plummeting relentlessly.

“Hey, Mom.”

Sitting next to his mother on the veranda, Eisuke said.

“Let’s stop the funeral. We’ve already settled it with the joint memorial service.” “I suppose so.” With swollen eyes, the mother nodded. “You handle it however you see fit. I’ll leave it to you.” Around the time of Shirosuke’s notification of death in battle, a turning point seemed to have arrived within the mother. Had she grown stronger, or weaker? By “strong,” she meant toward Koutarou; by “weak,” toward Eisuke. The mother continued.

“If we’re stopping it, I’ll handle talking to Uncle Koutarou.” Eisuke also knew that Koutarou wanted to hold the funeral. Why did he want to hold a funeral so badly? Eisuke wondered. Was it because he wanted to demonstrate the main family’s authority? Or was he interested in the funeral itself?

I didn’t know how she had settled it, but in any case, the funeral was called off. A week later, Eisuke boarded a train with his mother carrying the remains and went to the family temple. The remains received sutra chants in the main hall and were given a posthumous name. “It must have been difficult for you, Mrs. Yagi,” said the thick-browed priest as he offered tea. “Not only Mr. Fukujirou, but losing two sons as well—” Then turning to Eisuke: “If you ever need counsel, please come see me anytime. Though consulting a temple isn’t exactly what one would call auspicious.”

With that, the priest laughed.

The grave on the hillside had been thoroughly cleaned by the old temple caretaker. The urn was placed into Karato, and the priest recited the Shiseige before the grave. The worldly ceremonies concerning Shirosuke were now more or less settled.

About three months later, Eisuke went to Tokyo. Due to his job circumstances, he couldn't afford to idle around indefinitely. After returning to work and a little over a year passing, this time a draft notice came for Eisuke. It was from the navy. However, Eisuke did not feel particularly shocked. It was because there had been a prior instance that he anticipated being sent home the same day. "What? You thought they'd discharge you on the spot?"

I said, slightly taken aback. “You fret over others’ problems, yet you’re an optimist at heart.” Since Eisuke said he had something to discuss, we met at the museum café. That was when the topic came up. “I’m not optimistic,” he said. “The Army sent me back. The Navy’s even stricter—” Eisuke wiped the beer foam from around his mouth. “I naturally assumed that’s how it would go.” “Here, you’d get hauled off by the Navy and end up dead in the southern front. I thought this might be our last meeting.”

I said.

“We had to really push ourselves to gather all that sake for your farewell party.”

“I submitted mine too.”

Eisuke puffed out his cheeks.

“I handed over the full rationed liter of sake exactly as it came.” “At your send-off party, we made you bare your back so everyone could write messages in ink, remember?” “The grease made it bead up—the ink just wouldn’t take.” “Did you go home to your hometown still like that?”

“Ah.” “That did happen.” “Back then I was young too—in my twenties.”

Eisuke’s gaze turned distant. At that time, supplies were scarce, and obtaining sake or beer was an extremely difficult task. However, those who were drafted received special rations. At that time, he was lodging near Benten Pond in Ōmori. After receiving the one-sho bottle from the station-front shop and approaching the entrance to Kurayami Slope, a trio of middle-aged women in monpe work trousers turned to look at him, “Is that oil?”

“No. It looks like sake. It seems there was a ration somewhere.”

Eisuke still remembered vividly how they had whispered to each other. That was a desolate and shabby scene, and a state of mind. The next day, he boarded a train, disembarked four stations early, and visited the temple. Fortunately, the priest was there. Eisuke spoke about his draft notice. "If air raids should come, could you shelter my mother and brothers here?" Eisuke made his request. He felt optimistic about his personal fate yet deeply pessimistic about the war's outlook. The priest replied.

“Ah.” “I’ll handle it.” “Depart with peace of mind.”

Even though only a little over a year had passed, the house looked oddly aged. As he passed through the gate, Eisuke felt this. Both houses and people maintain their vitality for some years, but once decline sets in, they seem to deteriorate rapidly. It doesn’t happen gradually—they age with a clunk.

“There’s no need to hold any farewell party.” Eisuke said to his mother. “If I’m given a grand send-off only to end up returning home the same day, it’d make for an awkward spectacle.” “Is that so...” The mother said apprehensively. “But you should at least go pay your respects at the graves.”

“I’ve already taken care of that.” Eisuke explained to his mother what he had discussed with the priest. Since enemy planes would likely come eventually, he repeatedly urged that when that time arrived, she should consult the temple rather than rely on Koutarou. The mother listened in silence. She neither agreed nor disagreed. “I don’t hate Uncle Koutarou.” “I neither like nor dislike him.” Feeling he was at least partly lying even to himself, Eisuke said.

“Uncle Koutarou is the kind of person who only thinks of himself when things get dire.” “That’s why you can’t trust him.”

“You’re not planning to go die on us, are you?” The mother said something else with a resolute expression. Eisuke flinched.

“If you don’t come back alive, I won’t stand for it!” “Mother.” “Why are you saying such a thing?” “That’s inauspicious.”

While perplexed by his mother’s harsh tone, Eisuke retorted. “It’ll surely—no, it’ll usually mean returning home the same day. Just like last time.” “If that’s the case…” Mother sighed.

“You should still go greet Uncle Koutarou properly.” “Go immediately.”

Eisuke visited Koutarou’s shop as ordered. The shop door was half-closed. They must have run out of goods to allocate for civilian use. Koutarou was absent. Without mentioning his conscription, he returned home. The next day, he departed for the designated naval corps.

“So that’s why you didn’t return home the same day?” “Yeah.”

In response to my question, Eisuke answered with a faint smile.

"They told us to report any pre-existing conditions, so when I did, I got beaten up—end of story." "And half the men who’d enlisted were sent to Saipan the very next day." "Not a chosen half, but a random half." "They’d just bark orders like ‘All men from service number X to Y fall in,’ and ship those entire batches off to Saipan." "That’s appallingly slipshod."

“Yeah. That’s messed up.”

Eisuke lowered his voice. “Either they’d get sunk by submarines en route, or even if they managed to arrive safely, it’d be annihilation—you know? The Americans landed on Saipan in June, and on July 7th, the Japanese military was annihilated.” Eisuke fell silent for a while.

“I was fortunate enough not to be annihilated and saw the war’s end in southern Kyushu. “Two months after the war ended, I returned home—no, to the temple. “Well, since we’d evacuated there after all. “I got an earful from Mom. “She kept asking why I hadn’t come back sooner, you know.”

Eisuke turned his face toward the ceiling.

"This coffee shop feels so dark and oppressive. Let's go outside." "What did you mean about consulting me?"

“Actually, it’s about Uncle Koutarou—he says he’s fine with entering a nursing home.”

Eisuke stood up with the bill in hand.

“Let’s talk while we walk.”

Fourteen

One day over a decade later, Koutarou suddenly came to Eisuke’s house. No—there had been advance notice, so calling it sudden was odd. However, Eisuke had absolutely no intention of welcoming Koutarou into his home. Even though he had only gone to meet him at the station, Koutarou forcibly followed him along.

As soon as they entered the gate, Koutarou said in a scornful whisper.

“What the— “What the—such a tiny entrance you’ve got here.” Passing through the plain gateposts led directly to the entrance. As Koutarou had said, the entrance was exceedingly small. Not just the entrance—the entire house was small. Being a ready-built house of about fifteen tsubo, there was no way to make only the entrance enormous. Compared to the entrance of the rented house where Eisuke had grown up in his hometown, it was roughly one-third the size. Moreover, in postwar Tokyo architecture—partly due to lifestyle changes—there was a tendency to make gate fronts and entrances smaller. Having always lived in the countryside, Koutarou likely didn’t know this. He pretended not to hear and opened the entrance door.

“Good grief—so many shoes and geta lined up here.”

Koutarou frowned exaggeratedly. “In this mess, there’s no space to squeeze my shoes in.”

Because the genkan's geta cabinet was also small, footwear that couldn't fit naturally ended up lined up on the entryway floor.

“No space to squeeze in, you say?” Feeling a cold laugh rise in his chest, Eisuke replied. He had no intention of rearranging the footwear for Koutarou’s sake, nor did he feel any obligation to do so. He said flatly: “Then let’s go around to the garden veranda.” “The veranda?”

Koutarou let out a reproachful voice. Before the war, when Koutarou visited Eisuke’s house, he would open the entrance without waiting to be guided and proceed straight into the tatami room. This was because he was the head of the main family. “Yes. The veranda.” “The veranda.”

He understood Koutarou’s feelings, but with a posture as if to crush something beneath him, he turned his back on Koutarou and stepped into the garden. The narrow garden held only azaleas bearing meager blossoms, five or six slender-trunked trees standing among them. In the sunless patches, liverwort clung thickly, spreading like a rash. Koutarou followed behind him, removing his worn-out shoes on the stone step and climbing up with evident reluctance. Mikako was out, and a housekeeper with a mask-like, expressionless face brought in black tea.

As they drank the tea, the two remained silent. When he finished sipping, Koutarou slowly began to speak. “I’ll be imposing on you here for the time being.” It wasn’t his usual arrogance but a forced and presumptuous air that seemed put on.

The autumn of the year before that, a letter arrived from Koutarou. It was unclear where he had obtained Eisuke’s address. Written in brushstrokes on scroll paper, some sections were rendered with such calligraphic mastery that they verged on illegibility. After finally signing “Yagi Koutarou, humbly,” there was a second postscript, and even a triple bow had been added. It stated that he had quit his business and was now living in seclusion in a rural town, that he had grown old, that he wished to come to Tokyo due to loneliness and requested assistance when the time came—such was the content. Compared to the scroll’s length, the content was simple; beyond that, tedious reflections on his current existence and ramblings about how things used to be were interjected at length. As people grow old, they tend to want to write long letters. Or rather, once they begin writing, they feel they’ve forgotten something and end up unable to find a place to stop. Eisuke tried to count Koutarou’s age on his fingers but couldn’t manage to calculate it properly. The letter stated he had grown old but didn’t specify how old he had become.

“He must be in his seventies by now.” While thinking this, Eisuke threw the letter into the desk drawer. A faint anxiety and dread stirred in his chest, but no desire to write a response rose within him at all. Even if he had tried to write, there was nothing to write. And so he did not send a reply. Then when the New Year came, a New Year’s greeting arrived. Koutarou had added that he looked forward to meeting Eisuke and his siblings that year, as he planned to come to Tokyo. Eisuke decided to ignore that too. He thought it strange to send a New Year’s reply without having answered the previous letter, yet simultaneously realized his own reasoning was equally strange. It was like being served zaru soba when already full—in short, he simply couldn’t be bothered to lift a finger.

On January 3rd, his younger brother Shirou and his sister Yasuko and her husband came to pay their New Year’s visit. As they drank together, Eisuke brought up Koutarou. I had wavered over whether to mention him or not, but I also felt I didn’t want to shoulder this alone.

“A letter came from Uncle Koutarou the other day.” “Huh.” Shirou leaned forward.

“What did it say?” Eisuke stood up, went to the study, and opened the desk drawer. He rummaged noisily. “Oh. I’m sure I put it here…” He checked the stationery holder and other places but couldn’t find it. So he took only the New Year’s card and returned to the banquet. “I can’t find the letter.” He circulated just the New Year’s card and verbally explained the letter’s contents. Shirou picked at the sashimi while listening with interest. His sister Yasuko spoke.

“So did you send a reply?”

“No.” “I didn’t send one.” “Even the New Year’s card?”

Eisuke nodded.

“When do you think he’ll come to Tokyo?” “Since he’s an old man, the cold would be too much for him. Probably April or May. But I won’t meet him.” Shirou declared in a tone thick with distaste. He had always liked painting and entered an art school after the war, now making his living through it. Shirou handled alcohol better than Eisuke did. Despite having drunk quite a bit since earlier, his voice showed no trace of slurring. “That won’t do,” said Yasuko’s husband Kawazu, turning to face him. “You have to send a reply.”

Yasuko’s husband Kawazu turned to him and said. This man’s speech was somewhat slurred. “Why?” “There’s no ‘why’ needed here. You’re supposed to reply to letters.” Kawazu drained his cup in one gulp for emphasis. Kawazu worked at a tax office and was as hairy as a horsehair crab. He was three years younger than Eisuke.

“Suppose you become seventy-something and send a letter to a child you once doted on.” “If there’s no reply, it’s lonely—no, beyond lonely, isn’t it sad?”

"I see." "But you’re not even seventy—how could you possibly understand what a seventy-year-old man feels?"

“That guy took our pomegranate tree. He brought a gardener, you know.”

Shirou interjected. "He took it away by force and planted it in his own garden." “Hmm, was that really how it was?” “Now that you mention it, there was a pomegranate tree by the shed.” “It was after Brother was conscripted.”

According to Shirou, Koutarou had insisted that pomegranate trees were unnecessary during wartime and that the front garden should be converted into a vegetable garden for self-sufficiency, so he uprooted it and took it away. Since this was a tree Fukujirou had cherished, when his mother objected, “Your garden is too small. Mine is large. I’ll keep this pomegranate tree until we win the war. That way Fuku would be happy too, right?” Koutarou dismissed her protests.

“He was just plain forceful and tyrannical. Whenever geta were scattered in the entranceway, he’d get angry and make us tidy them up.” And Shirou put on Koutarou’s tone of voice.

“What in blazes is this mess in the entrance? “The entrance is like the face of a house for a human.” “Since Fukujirou died, this house has become so disorderly!” The imitation was so spot-on that Eisuke and Yasuko both laughed. Kawazu continued drinking alone without laughing.

“So, after the war ended, did the pomegranate tree come back?”

After stopping his laughter, Eisuke said. “Ah. Uncle Koutarou’s house was also burned down in the air raids.” “Even if it hadn’t burned down, it wouldn’t have returned.” Shirou said nonchalantly. He brought the sake bottle near his ear and shook it with a clinking sound. This stingy habit had also been present in his father, Fukujirou. “Because it was a promise until we won the war. In reality, we lost. Though even if they’d returned the pomegranate tree, it wouldn’t have mattered. There are plenty of other things we’d want back.”

The conversation about Koutarou ended there, turned to the taste of pomegranates, then shifted to a discussion that while it was permissible to dig up and eat bamboo shoots if they grew from the neighbor’s yard into their own property, one must not pick the fruit even if mandarin orange or persimmon branches crossed over the boundary. When it came to such topics, Kawazu would talk at length. It was partly due to his drunkenness, but working at a tax office seemed to have familiarized him with such particulars and background.

The January 3rd banquet somehow came to an end in that manner.

A long winter dragged on, and Eisuke had temporarily forgotten about Koutarou. Or rather than forgetting, he simply hadn't thought of him at all. As the days gradually warmed, one spring afternoon brought a postcard from Koutarou. He knew immediately from the fountain pen script without checking the sender's name. Feeling both weariness and irritation, he flipped the postcard over.

"I am presently in Osaka."

Written in his distinctive calligraphy, it began with such words. It mentioned that he had stayed at an old friend’s house from his school days and toured Osaka and Nara under their guidance. There was no mention of the lack of replies to previous letters and New Year’s cards. Eisuke felt a slight sense of relief along with something akin to bewilderment. The next day, a postcard came from Kyoto. Two days later, a picture postcard came from Nagoya. They were gradually getting closer.

“Why’s that old man fixating only on me now?” As he muttered this, his bewilderment abruptly curdled into irritation with a sharp click of his tongue. The educational funds Koutarou had once provided still gnawed at him like an unhealed debt. “Not replying means refusing engagement—a clear statement.” “Why can’t Koutarou grasp even that?” To Eisuke, Father Fukujirou had long receded into abstraction. Dead two decades prior in flesh and nearly erased from memory. Yet imagining Fukujirou’s brother—still breathing rancid breaths—leeching against him now brought nausea like waking mid-nightmare. This revulsion merged with disgust at his own survival and all its petty compromises. That evening over supper, Eisuke slid Koutarou’s postcard across to Mikako.

“He’s gotten old, so maybe he wants to see people from the past now.”

As she handed back the postcard, Mikako said. I don't want to meet him, and neither do Shirou or Yasuko. Yet Kawazu had insisted we send a reply, and even Mikako's current tone was relatively favorable. On the night of January 3rd, that tax official had gotten drunk and confronted Eisuke like this.

“Brother-in-law, you’re a cold-hearted man.” “And it’s not like you turned cold halfway—you’ve been cold since birth.” “Then I should’ve become a tax collector too,” he retorted jokingly, but whether it was this tax official or Mikako, they remained ultimately unrelated third parties. There was no way they could grasp the intricate background. Koutarou must not live. To Eisuke, he was someone who should have died long ago. How could they possibly comprehend that?

“There was a film called ‘Ballroom Handbook’ long ago, wasn’t there?” “Don’t you think it’s that sort of feeling?” “‘Ballroom Handbook’? Then I—”

Eisuke answered with a wry smile. "So I'm supposed to play the role of being visited? Reduced—"

Having started to say that much, he then shoveled his rice in silence and hurried back to his study. Sitting at his desk, he read the picture postcard once more, and just as he was about to tear it up, he abruptly remembered Koutarou’s first letter. He had tried to tear up that letter too. That had been at a year-end party with his school colleagues where he got terribly drunk. He had returned home by taxi while intoxicated. When trying to put away his wallet and opening the desk drawer, Koutarou’s thick letter had been the first thing to catch his eye. The distinctive upward-slanting handwriting had suddenly grated on his nerves. He pulled it out and tried tearing it in two at once. But it was too thick—it only twisted without tearing. Irritated, he pulled out the rolled paper, crumpled it, threw it into the brazier, and lit it with a lighter. Perhaps because the air was dry, the fire caught well—flames roared up fiercely and nearly all of it burned away in an instant. To the faint remaining embers crawling along, he poured water from the pitcher before crawling into bed. Why had he forgotten about that until now? Why hadn’t he remembered it on January third?

"Am I starting to lose my mind a bit too?"

While tearing the picture postcard to shreds, he thought. But he wasn’t yet old enough to be going senile. His consciousness had tried to purge Koutarou and must have ejected the memory of burning the letter along with him. He opened the window and flung the torn postcard fragments outside with a sharp flick.

A telegram arrived. Eisuke called the Kanda Gallery from a red public telephone. Shirou came out. "He says he'll arrive at Tokyo Station on tomorrow's one PM train."

“Who?” “Don’t ‘who’ me! Uncle Koutarou. It says ‘Please come pick me up.’ You going?”

“No way.” “I’m not going.” “I’m busy.”

Shirou was holding a week-long solo exhibition at that gallery. Being busy wasn't necessarily an excuse. From far away on the other end of the line, faint music could be heard. Shirou's voice interrupted it.

“What about you, Brother?”

“I don’t want to go either.”

Eisuke answered. “He comes here uninvited—he shouldn’t have the gall to demand being picked up.”

“That’s true too. But Uncle Koutarou knows your address, doesn’t he?” “Well, he did send a postcard after all. But if we don’t go pick him up, he might give up on meeting us. An unwelcome—” “You really think it’ll go that smoothly?” Shirou’s laughter came through the line.

“He’ll definitely barge into your house, Brother.” “That’s a very real possibility.”

Eisuke said in a serious voice. When he thought about that possibility, he felt overwhelmed. "Anyway, you should at least give the tax office guy a heads-up by phone." "I'm counting on you."

With that, he hung up the phone.

The next day, he woke up around nine-thirty. Since there were no lectures that day, Eisuke stayed in bed reading newspapers and magazines until nearly eleven o'clock. Then he reluctantly got up, finished a simple meal, and prepared to go out. However, he still couldn't decide whether to go pick him up or not.

He exited the small entrance and went down the slope toward the private railway station. At the bottom of the slope, a large black bull crouched with a crowd gathered around. Approaching to look, he saw the bull collapsed on its side with the cart still attached, its entire body heaving as it gasped, bloody saliva drooling from its mouth. Large flies swarmed incessantly about the area. The bloody drool dripped in relentless waves, staining the ground.

"It won’t be long now."

That made Eisuke feel death more viscerally and intimately than any human passing ever had. He observed the bull’s movements intently for about five minutes, then slowly began walking. When he checked his watch, he realized it was now a time when leaving for Tokyo Station would mean he might or might not make it. As he waited for the train and paced the platform corridor, Eisuke kept weighing the awkwardness of Koutarou’s sudden visit to his home against the oppressive feeling of going to meet him at the station himself. Eventually the train arrived.

After boarding and remaining seated for some time, he finally resolved to go meet him. Rather than cowering in wait for some unpredictable calamity to strike, it was still preferable to take one's place in the seat of execution at the appointed hour. He thought this with a bitter smile.

He climbed the stairs and emerged onto Tokyo Station's platform corridor. The train seemed to have just arrived, with travelers carrying luggage and greeters creating chaos around it. Eisuke angled his body, elbowed through the human tide, and shuffled forward slowly. When he had walked about a third of the corridor's length, Eisuke spotted someone matching the description. The man was encircled by two elderly people and a woman in her thirties wearing a kimono. He was talking to the two old men with a slightly agitated expression.

Is that Koutarou? The image of Koutarou that remained etched in Eisuke’s mind was that of a portly man wearing a kimono with practiced ease, his spine held straight. The old man now surrounded by three people wore Western clothes, his back hunched into a stoop. Though the suit followed an outdated style, its well-preserved condition maintained neat, old-fashioned creases. The hunting cap crowning his head was brand new. By contrast, his shoes lay in wretched disrepair—soles and heels worn down at sharp angles from years of exclusive use, their black leather surfaces faded to dullness. He took this all in at a glance. Here stood a figure both fastidious and discordant—the very epitome of a provincial elder.

"This must be Uncle Koutarou," I thought. Eisuke approached to within about two hundred meters, hid half his body behind a pillar, and observed the group. Compared to twenty years ago, Koutarou's body seemed to have shrunk by a full size. Was it due to his clothing, or had he diminished with age? What convinced him this was indeed Koutarou was the lump at the base of his neck. Though his face showed prominent wrinkles, the lump alone—while somewhat reduced—remained glossy and swollen. A vigorous air still clung about him.

In contrast, the two old men, though more neatly dressed than Koutarou, were terribly frail and devoid of vitality. It was only Koutarou who spoke loudly; the others' voices were either faint or their words slurred. The mixing of terms like "you" and "I" in their conversation suggested they must have been classmates from their school days. The woman in a kimono must have accompanied one of the two. She had taken about a step back and was looking down.

"A bit dingy for something called 'A Ballroom Handbook.'" While watching them sidelong, Eisuke strained to catch their conversation. Though part of him wanted to prolong delaying his greeting, he sensed this wasn't yet his moment to intervene. If they were classmates, they'd be about the same age. Did country living really preserve one's vigor through clean air, while city life wore people down through constant strain? Yet the two elderly men appeared visibly exasperated - even embarrassed - by Koutarou's booming voice that disregarded their surroundings. Put plainly, they looked mortified by his peasant-like boorishness.

“It’s good! You’ve managed to stay alive, you have!” Koutarou called out loudly while wiping his nose with the back of his hand. A strong wind blew through the platform walkway, creating small whirlwinds of dust here and there. “What happened to Endo? Even though we went to the trouble of sending a telegram, he didn’t come to meet us.” One of the two elderly men answered in a mumbling voice that slipped through his dentures: “He’s gone senile. Been bedridden ever since. His mind’s completely gone too.”

“Senile? That’s no good. Did you all go visit him?” The walkway gradually grew sparse with people. When the crowd thinned, a mournful shadow drifted through the station. The loudspeaker’s voice echoed near and far. “Yeah. We’re not exactly free to move around either.”

Koutarou’s gaze caught him in the pillar’s shadow at that moment. Despite the dwindling crowd moving briskly past, Koutarou seemed to abruptly grow suspicious of the man standing vacantly in the pillar’s shade. Their eyes met with perfect alignment—Koutarou’s stare and Eisuke’s. Eisuke peeled himself from the pillar and approached Koutarou with a sulking stride. “Oh. Oh.” Koutarou emitted a groan-like sound.

“Eisuke? Eisuke-kun? You’ve changed, haven’t you.” “Eisuke-kun?” “You’ve changed, haven’t you.”

“Well, we’ll—”

The two elderly men said in unison, as if relieved.

“We’ll take our leave here. Take care.” One shuffled feebly while the other moved away supported by the woman. Only Koutarou and Eisuke remained.

Fifteen

Eisuke and I were strolling along the path within the park toward Hirokoji. "So you refused to let him stay?"

While imagining the old man’s figure, I said.

“How cold-hearted.” “Cold-hearted? You mean me?”

“Well… It’s about the flow of time, you know—”

I tried to evade. But Eisuke wasn't fooled. "Maybe I am heartless. But I can't stand having intruders invade my home!" Eisuke raised his voice. "He did pay my tuition." "It was a half-hearted effort, though." "So I decided to contribute too." "Five thousand yen a month."

“That wouldn’t be enough to live on.”

“That’s why I told you before, didn’t I? Uncle Koutarou came from the countryside with plenty of money.” “How do you know that?”

I asked. “After the war ended, what kind of life had your uncle been leading?”

“I don’t know that.” Eisuke tore off a leaf from a roadside tree, rolled it into a ball between his fingers, and crushed it. For a while, we walked without speaking. Eventually, in a low voice,

“At first I listened seriously, but each time he gave a different answer,” said Eisuke. “He’d say he ran a shop in Kumamoto, or that he was recuperating at a hot spring in Beppu around the same time, or that his aunt died right after the war ended—or maybe around 1955. Every time he talks, the story changes.” He hesitated before continuing. “When I asked a friend who’s a doctor—Korsakoff—” Eisuke pronounced the term awkwardly.

“Without a proper examination, it’s hard to say for sure, but he thinks it might be senile dementia accompanied by Korsakoff’s syndrome.” “In other words, it’s just old-age senility, right?”

We left the park. The town had its own smell.

“But the money’s starting to run out. So he started coming to beg for more than the fixed amount,” I said.

“So that’s how it is.”

“Yeah. Seems that’s how it is.”

Eisuke nodded.

“The other day when Uncle Koutarou came, he forgot his newspaper at the entrance.” “What kind of newspaper do you think it was?” “A keirin newspaper.” “Is he into keirin?” “That’s right.”

In the bustle of the sidewalk, weaving through the crowd kept us too busy, and our conversation tended to break off. We walked in silence to the intersection. The signal was red, and we stopped. “Did you use that to get him to agree to enter the nursing home?”

“Hmph.” Eisuke snorted and laughed.

“I wouldn’t do something that heartless. When I suggested it indirectly, he readily agreed. His body had weakened, and I suppose he himself came around to the idea.”

Contrary to what Eisuke’s words conveyed, that tone still struck my ears as merciless. Even if Koutarou’s entry into the nursing home might have been a path toward happiness. “So I’ve got a favor to ask—Uncle Koutarou says he wants to visit the graves at Tama before going into the nursing home.”

“Tama?”

“That’s right.” The traffic light turned green, so we started walking.

“I was thinking of taking him there by car, but I don’t think I can handle it alone by myself.” “Can you come along too?” “Have you ever been to Tama Cemetery?” “No.” “After the war, I won the lottery for a plot at Tama Cemetery and moved the bones from Kyushu.” “It’s a nice place.” “There are so many trees growing there, it’s just like a park.” “Will you come?”

“I could go with you, I suppose.”

I said. “Don’t you have any interest in Uncle Koutarou’s past?”

“Not interested.” Eisuke answered curtly. “I just hope he dies peacefully. That’s all there is to it.” “That’s all.”

"But you know, I have a hunch that once Uncle Koutarou dies, you’ll suddenly develop an interest in his life." “Using his belongings or something as clues—” I sharpened my tone slightly. “When someone dies, you abruptly start taking an interest.” “That’s what I think.” “From your relatives’ deaths, you begin voraciously feeding on spiritual nourishment.” “Like a crow scavenging corpses.”

“Crow?”

Eisuke began to laugh in a hoarse voice.

“A crow feeding on corpses? Me?” “Me?”

A little late for the appointed time, I visited Eisuke’s house. The Koutarou I met for the first time differed remarkably from the image I had pictured. He was small and shriveled, his eyes flitting about uneasily. I had imagined the lump would be enormous, but it was merely a compact protrusion clinging neatly to the base of his neck. When I greeted him, he worked his mouth wordlessly and produced an unintelligible sound. It resembled a cat’s voice.

The driver was a young man who appeared to be one of Eisuke’s former students from his teaching days, judging by how he addressed him as “Professor.”

“Uncle.” Eisuke called out to Koutarou.

“Uncle, you sit in the passenger seat. That way you’ll get a better view of the scenery.” Eisuke likely disliked sitting in physical contact with Koutarou. He opened the door himself and pushed the old man inside rather than assisting him properly. Koutarou obeyed wordlessly. Eisuke and I settled into the back seat side by side. The car began moving. Koutarou’s neck and shoulders filled my view ahead. The fabric of his coat—perhaps over-ironed—had lost its nap and shone slickly across the shoulders. It gave precisely the impression of being someone’s sole presentable suit.

What must it feel like for one so old to visit the graves of family members who died young?

I thought so, but of course didn’t say it out loud. I whispered something else to Eisuke.

“How’s your spine been holding up?”

“Yeah. “I get salivary gland hormone injections every week, though.”

Eisuke answered with a clouded expression. "If I strain myself, it still hurts." "It’s less about pain and more about this oppressive weight building up." "But apparently I’ll have to bear this heaviness my whole life."

“Did the doctor say that?”

Eisuke nodded.

“What about that *rei*-like sarcoma—” Eisuke made a displeased face and gave a deliberate cough. It was clearly a deterrent.

“That’s enough about that—there’s no need for you to concern yourself.” Eisuke said quickly.

So I changed the subject. “Where is this place?”

When the car stopped before Tama Cemetery’s gate, Koutarou peered dubiously out the window and spoke. Eisuke opened the door and replied. “It’s Tama Cemetery.”

“Tama Cemetery? Then it’s a graveyard, isn’t it?” Koutarou forcefully twisted his upper body backward. His eyes, which had been darting about uneasily, suddenly fixed in place and glittered sharply.

“Who ordered you to bring me to such a place?”

“Didn’t you say so? Uncle.” Eisuke answered wearily. “You said you wanted to visit the graves the other day—” “The graves—whose graves are you talking about?” “Of course it’s our family’s graves. Father’s and Shirosuke’s and the others’.” “What? Fuku’s grave is here?”

Koutarou retorted in a high-pitched voice, sounding surprised. "I never said I wanted to visit Fuku and the others' graves!" "Then whose graves do you want to visit?" "It's His Majesty Emperor Taisho's grave." "I'm certain I stated that clearly." There was no lie in that expression. In other words, Eisuke had misunderstood something. Eisuke left the car door wide open, crossed his arms sullenly, and leaned back against the seat.

“So you’re saying you won’t visit our family graves?” “That’s an entirely different matter.”

Koutarou, growing impatient, tapped the shoulder of the front seat. “The place I want to pay respects at is the Tama Imperial Mausoleum.” Eisuke did not respond. Even if there had been a misunderstanding in their exchange, why didn’t he feel inclined to visit the gravesite where his brother and sister-in-law and nephews’ bones were interred, now that they’d come all this way? After a moment, Eisuke reached out and violently slammed the door shut. Ignoring Koutarou, he addressed the driver.

“You.” “Do you know where the Tama Imperial Mausoleum is?” “Let me check.”

The young man took out a map.

“Oh. This is quite far.” “Professor.” “It’s past Hachioji, you know.” “I’m sorry, but could you take me there?” “Yes.” With the engine’s sound, the car began moving and changed direction. It continued driving through wind-battered streets for nearly an hour. Throughout that time, Eisuke kept his arms crossed without uttering a word. Eventually the car traveled along a ginkgo-lined avenue. When it turned right midway, the rows of trees became zelkovas. The giant zelkova trees spread their branches skyward in patterns resembling nerve diagrams from medical texts. The young man spoke.

“The Imperial Mausoleum is at the end of this road.” “I see.” “Slow down a bit.”

The car reduced its speed. The name on the dilapidated bridge spanning the drainage ditch read "Minami-Asakawa Bridge." To the left lay a sports ground at a lower elevation, where people playing baseball could be seen moving about. The sports ground was divided by scattered trees, with hills and mountains looming faintly beyond them. The young man pointed at that conspicuously tall mountain.

“That is Mount Takao.” At the end of the zelkova-lined avenue stood a white main gate. The car stopped beside it. We each opened our doors and got out. Only the young man remained in his seat. “I’m a bit worn out, so I’ll wait here.” The young man laughed, revealing clean white teeth aligned in perfect rows.

“Besides, I’m not particularly interested in things like Imperial Mausoleums.” Koutarou entered the main gate first. Eisuke deliberately lingered by the entrance office to delay his progress, gazing up at the tree that grew before it. I followed Eisuke as well. “This is a plum tree. How unusual.” Eisuke said to me. The plum tree had not yet borne any flowers.

“As Shirosuke wrote in his letters, these trees are apparently common over there.” “They’re actually smaller than peaches and said to be sour.” About ten ken into the grounds, Koutarou turned around. When he noticed Eisuke lagging behind, he sharply turned his face forward again and began walking alone. The shape of his back and movement of his legs perfectly mirrored Eisuke’s. The old man’s back appeared to reject all existence, his entire posture radiating anger.

Both sides of the wide approach were densely lined with rows of cedar trees. The slanting sunlight hazed faintly over the cedar treetops. Each time a strong wind gusted, the cedar branches swayed back and forth. In early spring, the Kanto region tends to have winds like this.

“Shall we walk on?”

We slowly began to walk. The gravel grated beneath the soles of our shoes with a crunching sound. The cedar rows had their lower branches untrimmed, arranged in conical shapes that bulged out low over the approach like the disheveled underhair of a lazy person. However, upon closer inspection, they had left the branches untrimmed only on the approach side; the lower branches at the back had been completely cut away, with bamboo, miscellaneous trees, and weeds growing thickly. They must have adopted this irregular pruning method out of fear that ventilation would worsen. Because that struck me as somehow comical, I laughed.

"What a sham this was." There was a pond where several carp swam. Eisuke stopped there. Koutarou walked ahead with difficulty due to the gravel and wind, his pace slow. Without passing time by watching the pond, the distance between them would have closed too quickly. The carp scattered when we moved only to form two or three orderly rows when still. Whether from poor sunlight or other lack, both black and scarlet varieties had faded—their forms neither lush nor full but gaunt. We lingered along the water's edge observing these piscine maneuvers.

The mausoleum stood atop a small hill. There was a fence that made climbing the hill impossible. Red pine trees grew thickly about the area, bearing pine cones. The front formed a gravel square where a white wind ceaselessly swept through. The circular mausoleum was covered with numerous round, darkish stones. They had likely affixed stones of uniform shape to a concrete base like the dappled pattern of deer-spotted confections. Since we were looking up from the hill's base, its full form remained beyond our view.

A new torii gate stood there. Koutarou had already purified his hands at the water ablution pavilion, knelt at the fence entrance, and pressed his palms together. I brought my nose close to a crack in the torii pillar, trying to discern what wood it was made from. But there was no scent of timber—only the smell of preservative lingered. Eisuke called out to Koutarou's back, stiffened from the cold.

“Uncle. We’ll be waiting at the main entrance.” Koutarou neither broke his posture nor offered a reply.

We hurriedly walked back along the path we had just come, heading toward the main gate. Throughout that time, Eisuke remained silent, not uttering a word.

In the car beside the main gate, the young man was dozing off, his head leaning against the seat. There, we politely entered a side path and sat down on a crude wooden bench.

“Ah.” “A kite!”

The moment he stretched up, he saw five or six kites flying in the blue sky. Judging from their positions, they seemed to be flying them from near the ditch's bank. The wind was strong, and with air currents seemingly swirling around the area, all the kites shook unsteadily. Even those that had maintained their position normally in midair would suddenly sway left and right as if buffeted, spinning rapidly as they spiraled down. In the blueness of the sky, they seemed to be playing yet also appeared to struggle desperately. The smoke from our cigarettes scattered and drifted chaotically.

“……”

Trying to say something, I shifted my gaze from the sky to Eisuke. Eisuke’s profile, upturned toward the kites, had hardened like stone without moving a muscle. His eyes were parched dry like a mummy’s. I fell silent. I don’t know what Eisuke was thinking or feeling at that moment.