Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was the end of September when Shinkichi Aihara and his wife rented and moved into the detached house at Gyokusōji Temple.
It was a year of fierce lingering heat, and the temple grounds glistened as if sweating; even in the middle of the day, the shrill cries of oil cicadas could still be heard.

Until then, the two had been living on the second floor of a tobacco shop in Iibakura—still so newly together that even their growing closeness carried an air of lingering formality, a shyness that made such intimacy feel almost improper.
When renting a room in someone else’s house, one had to be considerate in countless ways, and because of this, between husband and wife there existed more reserve than usual—the husband toward his wife, and the wife toward her husband.

After graduating from a rural commercial school, he had worked at a local government office for a time, but with no prospects for the future and being by no means an heir to begin with, he resolved to try his luck in Tokyo—twelve years had now passed since Shinkichi left his hometown.
In elementary school, he had even served as class monitor, and at commercial school, his average scores had always been top marks—so if only his family’s tuition funds had been plentiful, he would have wanted to attend university. But that was an unattainable wish.
Through a senior from his hometown who held a considerable position as a government official putting in a word for him, he became a low-ranking clerk at the bank where he now worked, attending a private university in Kanda at night.
The notions he had clung to—that simply by going to Tokyo he could rapidly rise through the ranks based on his abilities, or that being a class monitor alone made him superior to others—had vanished more swiftly than a dream.
Without distinguishing between good schools and bad, lured by the allure of the very name “university,” even the way he had imagined it to be something grand had been utterly irresponsible.
Even when he graduated from three years of night school and received his diploma, he took comfort in the thought that from tomorrow onward his hardships would ease, and that once the bank closed for the day, he could stretch out his limbs in ease—that was all the reassurance he had.
He didn’t think his academic abilities had particularly improved either.
Nevertheless, at the bank he worked twice as diligently as others, and as a quiet, honest clerk caught the eye of his superiors; each year he received raises of three or five yen, and managed to save a modest amount.
He was a man of great patience; during that time, he lived in the tobacco shop’s attic for six years.

He rose early, returned home punctually in the evenings, and never once indulged in nighttime revelry. Subscribing to two or three magazines each month and reading them thoroughly from cover to cover was one of his pleasures; on Sundays and holidays, going for walks in the suburbs was about the limit of his indulgences. The tobacco shop’s old woman went around proclaiming to all the neighbors just how diligent, studious, and upright Shinkichi was. The old woman had a son who worked at an insurance company’s Taiwan branch. Lonely from never seeing her grandchild’s face, she doted on Shinkichi as if he were her own child. It was also this old woman who had arranged Shinkichi’s marriage.

Otoki was the daughter of a distant relative of a retired confectioner—a prayer companion of the old woman’s—who lived near the tobacco shop.
Her family ran a small geta shop in a Nihonbashi backstreet; she had attended girls’ school through her third year before her parents, fearing she might grow too headstrong, withdrew her and sent her to serve as an etiquette apprentice at a daimyo aristocrat’s residence.
From sixteen until twenty she worked there, but after falling ill and returning home, matters dragged on until she found herself assisting her mother.
When the retired confectioner mentioned Otoki in passing one day, the tobacco shop old woman immediately linked her with Shinkichi in her mind.
At first there had been hesitant talk—it was too soon, two would struggle financially—but when shown the borrowed photograph that proved unexpectedly appealing, they found themselves unable to reject it outright.
Since marriage seemed inevitable anyway, matters resolved with surprising speed.
Though they briefly considered securing their own home, the old woman’s insistence that second-floor lodgings would suffice for now left them continuing life in the tobacco shop’s six-tatami room—constrained yet quietly content.
That had been this spring.

At first, even the old woman felt a rare joy akin to having a bride enter her own home, but that did not last long.
She began to be troubled by the suspicion that the two upstairs saw her as a nuisance.

“Our Mr. Aihara isn’t the same as he used to be.”

She began tattling such things to the neighbors as well.

Indeed, Shinkichi’s life had changed somewhat from before. Occasionally, they would go see moving pictures together, or Otoki would meet Shinkichi on his way back from the bank and they would eat out somewhere before coming home. Each and every one of these things displeased the old woman.

The two on the second floor were also troubled by the crampedness of their rented room. Especially for Shinkichi, who had been sincerely grateful for the old woman’s kindness over six years, now only unpleasant things stood out before his eyes, and he came to keenly feel the constriction of living in another’s home.

Even so, having been looked after for so long, and since it was thanks to the old woman that they had come together with Otoki in the first place, their guilt-ridden consciences held them back from voicing any desire to move out so soon after marrying. On this point, Otoki herself felt no particular debt of gratitude, so she pleaded year-round to move into any back-alley tenement—any house of their own would do. When pressed like this, Shinkichi’s urge to please her grew so strong he nearly resolved to act. Yet his innate meekness and stubborn adherence to duty and gratitude kept him procrastinating day after day.

Fortunately, the old woman’s son, who had been stationed in Taiwan, was suddenly transferred back to the main office and returned. Though they might eventually have to establish a separate household of their own, for the time being, by arranging to live with the old woman, the Aihara couple became able to move out without having to face her unpleasant expressions.

When they actually began searching, rental houses proved harder to find than expected. They looked through newspaper classifieds, paused at notices posted outside rental agencies’ offices, and wandered aimlessly through Yamate on Sundays—but ultimately decided after a bank colleague informed them of a vacant detached house at Shirogane Temple, which they went to inspect together as a couple.

The temple stood perched on a high bluff overlooking a cliff.
It gazed down upon towns straddling the Furukawa River and faced Azabu-dai with its profusion of mixed deciduous trees.
Though not particularly large, the temple grounds were spacious. The modest detached house built for rental purposes—comprising six-tatami, four-and-a-half-tatami, and three-tatami rooms—stood crudely constructed yet blessed with ample sunlight and ventilation. Claiming dominion over the lushly planted trees and flowers, the couple deemed it a perfect dwelling for just the two of them.
Compared to their former second-floor room in Iibakura's tobacco shop—where opening the shoji exposed them to a stifling glare of zinc roofs stretching from Kamiyachō below to Nishikubo—they now felt like fledglings escaped from a cage.
Greeting mornings and evenings free from others' presence, they discovered true marital tenderness for the first time.

The pleasure of gradually acquiring household furnishings deepened.
On the evening of Mita’s festival night, when they bought the long hibachi they had long desired, both Shinkichi and Otoki became utterly excited—their voices rising animatedly as they talked on the way home, clasping each other’s hands tightly in less crowded spots.
Their hearts brimmed with mutual gratitude.
The next day, when Shinkichi returned from the bank, he found Otoki attending to the long hibachi that had arrived in his absence. Cradling the iron kettle like a mother bathing her infant, she wiped its surface with reverent care.

For the couple, their greatest challenge was the Priest’s Wife’s relentlessly talkative nature.
A formidable woman who kept the nearly sixty-year-old priest, a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old daughter from her previous marriage, and the sole disciple monk under her thumb, she made no secret of her desire to instruct what she saw as an utterly naive couple in worldly matters.
She observed their still-formal marital relationship with amusement, adopting the attitude of a seasoned veteran scrutinizing novices.

The reticent and bashful Otoki found herself completely overwhelmed, going out of her way to avoid encountering the Priest’s Wife.
During Shinkichi’s daytime absences when Otoki did laundry at the back well—the Priest’s Wife would clatter over in her wooden sandals and chatter beside her out of sheer boredom.
With the priest spending his days playing go with the temple gatekeeper, her daughter attending girls’ school, and the disciple monk commuting to religious university in his square cap, the Priest’s Wife hungered for conversation partners.
Enduring repeated complaints about rising temple expenses, the priest’s growing senility, and gossip about previous tenants was tolerable enough—but being subjected to invasive probing into every detail of their private affairs left even Otoki thoroughly drained.
When confronted with prying questions—about how they had gotten together or Shinkichi’s exact monthly salary—Otoki could only blush crimson and bow her head in helpless silence.

“I’m really at my wit’s end with the Priest’s Wife,” Otoki would say when Shinkichi returned home, her voice gaining strength as if rescued. “She asks things like how much your salary is!”

When her words grew too impassioned, she even let slip remarks that seemed to resent living in the temple’s detached house.

“That’s terrible,” Shinkichi responded. “But that much can’t be helped. A rental house like this isn’t easy to come by. Compared to when I was in Iibakura, my mind feels more rested, my appetite has increased, and I feel my health has improved remarkably.”

“That may be so, but it’s simply too much.”

Yet when she dined facing Shinkichi on the veranda as dusk fell and the air turned abruptly cool—gazing through the vast garden, where no sound stirred save insect cries, at lights kindling in the town below the cliff—she felt a richness of spirit akin to visiting a hot-spring resort.

“Not a soul among my bank colleagues has such a spacious garden.”
“Only the president and manager, I’d wager.”
“Growing up rural, a teacher instilled childhood interests in plants and insects—but living here after so long, even just seeing trees and grass refreshes me.”
“Still, Iibakura was wretched through and through.”

The morning glory pot that had been placed on the tobacco shop’s second-floor window was brought over at the time of their move and placed on the veranda, but now even its flowers had withered.
Even that fleeting single pot, set against the backdrop of zinc roofs, had instilled in them a rather deep attachment to the colors of its flowers that bloomed each morning.

“I was born in such a noisy part of town—I don’t know any of the trees’ names at all.”

“But when you were at the estate, there was a spacious garden, wasn’t there?”

“Well, they said it spanned thousands of _tsubo_—so yes, it was vast—but I only ever thought of it as a splendid garden.”
“The groundskeeper who tended it used to say even a single one of those pine trees was worth a thousand yen, though.”

“This temple has such an unusual variety of trees.”
“Shall I teach you each one?”
“Yes, please do.”

The two of them sat side by side on the veranda, facing the garden as dusk fell.

“You know the tree immediately to the right when you enter that gate, don’t you?”

“Oh, that one I know.”
“That’s a ginkgo tree, right?”

“Then what about the one in front of the main hall?”

“Crape myrtle.”

“You know quite a lot, don’t you?”
“Then what about the tallest one you can see over there?”

“Ah.”
“That’s the tree where lots of birds come, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”

“That’s a hackberry tree.”

Night had fully fallen, and until the crickets’ chirping grew thick, they talked ceaselessly about plants, insects, and birds.

Shinkichi was delighted by how much he knew compared to Otoki, who one might say knew almost nothing.
For Otoki too, Shinkichi—who knew every answer to her questions—became a source of joyful reliance.

That became the catalyst for Shinkichi to find joy in teaching Otoki the names of various trees, plants, birds, and insects.
Within the temple grounds alone, alongside towering trees such as pine, cedar, maple, and ginkgo—intermingled with chinquapin, oak, hackberry, elm, sawtooth oak, magnolia, and pagoda tree—there were flowering and fruit trees for every season: cherry, plum, peach, Japanese bush cherry, chestnut, loquat, and persimmon.
The flowering plants included autumn varieties such as bush clovers, bellflowers, chrysanthemums, silver grass, and cockscombs, as well as many Western species; now salvias were blooming in crimson splendor.

Flocks of bulbuls came to the high branches of the hackberry tree. There were days when a shrike cried shrilly from the top of the ginkgo tree. They noticed crows pecking at crow-dipper plants tangled in bamboo thickets, sparrows venturing close enough to alight on the veranda’s edge, and finches and tits threading through the garden trees’ slender branches.

When Otoki spotted a darling little bird on the branch Shinkichi pointed to, she cried out in delight. For the first time, she discovered a self within her that found joy in such things. When she found joy, it made her even happier that her husband was satisfied. She realized there were interests she had never known before, existing in both fields and thickets.

However, what troubled Otoki was the abundance of insects.
Because they had not prepared a mosquito net, they struggled until mid-October.
It wasn’t just mosquitoes.
Insects whose names they did not know came drawn to the light.
Butterflies, moths, and their kin—planthoppers, mantises, golden beetles—would collide with Otoki’s face or alight in her hair.
She let out a loud cry, her face paling as she scrambled about, but Shinkichi calmly plucked them off with his fingers and tossed them from the veranda.
He never killed them.

“Insects aren’t that scary.”
“Take a good look.”
“They’re all wonderfully and ingeniously made.”
“As for me, I find them unbearably adorable.”
“Just as people cherish things like small birds and goldfish, I think these tiny insects are adorable too.”

Saying this, he would sometimes place insects so light they could be blown away on his palm and gaze at them for a long time. Shinkichi showed Otoki how they fluttered their wings ever so slightly, rubbed their legs together, and rolled their eyes around, finding amusement in it.

“Even you must find mantises hateful.”

“He’s a good guy.”
“For all his bluster with that big outdated weapon of his, there’s something comical about him.”
“There’s practically no insect I find unpleasant.”

“Oh, honestly!”
“I shudder whenever I see a snake.”

“Snakes are beautiful.”
“The way they undulate across the ground like waves of fire is far better than any human dance.”

“You’re such a strange person.”

Otoki said this as though she didn’t understand at all, but deep down, she was impressed, thinking her husband’s ability to never overlook even the smallest observations and find interest in everything stemmed from the breadth of his heart.

“Aihara is quite peculiar.”
“I know he loves potted plants and flowers, but he even dotes on tiny insects and would never do something like kill them.”

Even Otoki—who was always being addressed first and merely responding—spoke to the Priest’s Wife while secretly blending pride for her husband into her words.

“Butterflies and dragonflies I can understand—but he treats snakes and centipedes and golden beetles like they’re friends or something!”

“Snakes? Oh no no! Just hearing about them makes me shudder.”

The Priest’s Wife furrowed her thin eyebrows and put on a frightened look.
That gave Otoki an intensely triumphant feeling.

“When it comes to food, he prefers vegetables over fish or meat—doesn’t even touch sweets—but he adores fruit. He says being raised in mountain country makes him love anything close to the earth.”

When she spoke the names of trees and plants she’d first learned by asking Shinkichi, or pointed them out, she felt no small pride.

When mid-October passed, the early-shedding Chinese parasol trees, Japanese bigleaf magnolias, and cherry trees had nearly scattered all their leaves; the branches of the other trees had thinned, and the autumn sky visible through them stood crisp and lofty.

In front of the detached house the couple rented, amidst miscellaneous trees beginning to yellow, there stood a single magnificent persimmon tree.
The large, thick leaves that felt dull and heavy had sharply reflected the sunlight all summer long, but now those leaves too had lost their luster and sheen, and the ones that had turned yellow and dry were beginning to fall listlessly to the ground.
Instead, the persimmons that had been hidden in the leaf shadows had colored richly, and the branches bent as if unable to bear their weight.

“I’ve been looking forward to watching those persimmons turn redder each day—when I open the storm shutters every morning, I always stand on the veranda to gaze at them.”

Because there had been a persimmon tree that often grew in the backyard of his childhood home, Shinkichi said that watching the persimmons reddening before his eyes now made him recall even his childhood days—and he gazed up nostalgically at the treetop gleaming in the morning sun.
Otoki pointed to that persimmon tree and told the Priest’s Wife how the abundance of fruit trees within the temple grounds brought such joy to their hearts.

“Oh my, does Mr. Aihara really love gardening that much?”
“Even so, those persimmons are all looks—they’re astringent ones.”

The Priest’s Wife also gazed up at the treetop where persimmons hung in clusters, glittering in the western sun.

“Oh my, can such large, splendid persimmons really be astringent?”

That such vividly red, ripe persimmons could be astringent was utterly beyond her expectations, so Otoki widened her eyes without a trace of doubt.

“Indeed, they’re truly all show.”
“Astringent? They’re beyond astringent!”

“Oh my, does that mean they can’t be eaten?”

“Can they even be eaten?”

The Priest’s Wife, seeming unable to bear the astringent taste in her mouth, wrinkled her entire face around her large, thick-tipped nose.
Saying how lifelike her performance was, Otoki doubled over with laughter, her back curved like a shrimp.

That day, when Shinkichi returned home and they had a pleasant meal together facing each other, as usual they spread futons on the veranda and drank tea while Otoki informed him that the persimmon tree in front of the garden was an astringent variety.

“Hmm, I wonder... I didn’t think so, though.”

Shinkichi, looking unconvinced, gazed up at the dotted persimmons visible in the dimming evening sky and tilted his head.

“But today at noon, the Priest’s Wife said so. That woman, making such a face—it was truly hilarious.”

Otoki mimicked the astringent face the Priest’s Wife had made and burst into laughter herself.

The persimmons grew redder the more their yellowed, withered leaves fell, presenting a scene of quintessentially Japanese charm against the late autumn sky.
Shinkichi loved the color of the sky on clear days, the unclouded luster of the persimmons, and the refined shape of the branches just the same, whether they were astringent persimmons or not.

Even from the street outside the temple gate, the red fruits on its treetop were visible over the earthen wall.
The mischievous instincts of the children gathering in the vacant lot nearby—a blend of adventure and greed—seemed to have been stirred by this sight, for in broad daylight, they peered into the hushed temple grounds, weasel-like eyes darting warily in all directions as they crept in carrying bamboo poles.
Some threw stones while others tried to knock down fruits with their poles—all wore cunning expressions as they briskly moved their tense limbs.
The temple staff hadn’t noticed, but Otoki, sewing in the sunny spot near the veranda, was quick to spot the children’s mischief.

“You shouldn’t do such things.”

Even though she thought they were elementary schoolers, that was all she could muster. After speaking, she felt her face flush red.

Startled by the sudden voice, the children all turned around and briefly hesitated, but upon sensing Otoki’s timidity, they shamelessly resumed swinging their bamboo poles with that uniquely childish audacity—boldness calibrated to their target’s meekness.

With a thud heavier than its true weight, the crimson persimmon struck the ground.

“Who cares?”

“Oh dear.”

Even they lowered their voices while egging each other on, some scattering stones here and there.
Otoki set aside the things on her lap onto the tatami and stepped out to the veranda.

“I told you to stop—you’ll get scolded!”

She called out desperately once more, but to no avail.
The children’s manner made their utter contempt plain to see.

“Even if you take those, you can’t eat them,” she said. “They’re astringent persimmons.”

“That’s a lie! We can eat ’em!”

One of them took out a persimmon he had stolen and hidden inside his clothes and suddenly bit into it.

Otoki, feeling wretched at her own spinelessness and utterly helpless, gazed painfully at the persimmon tree whose branches quivered under the children’s violent onslaught. Though she was undeniably an adult, her gentle voice and soft features made her seem like a pushover, so the mischievous brats had completely written her off. Knocking down persimmons right under the nose of their scold felt thrilling, as if it proved their mettle. Without an ounce of restraint, they whooped and thwacked the persimmon branches.

“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

Suddenly from the direction of the kitchen quarters, the Priest’s Wife appeared, her voice quivering.
In her hand was a rigid stick like a hoe handle, her corpulent body lumbering awkwardly, her face twisted in fury as she charged forward.
Thoroughly intimidated by her ferocity, the children scrambled to escape like hermit crabs on a tidal flat.

The Priest’s Wife chased them as far as she could, but the children were quicker, scattering beyond the gate in an instant.

“Old Hag!”

“We got ’em! We got ’em! Six persimmons!”

Outside the wall, one of them jeered in a singsong voice.

“We got ’em! We got ’em! Eight persimmons!”

This time, upping their haul’s count, two or three mocked in unison.
Persistently repeating their chant, the children fled far off.

“Damn it! These ill-bred brats are beyond belief!”

With lingering reluctance, she kept looking back toward the street again and again, panting heavily, until the Priest’s Wife finally returned.

“My, look how they’ve ruined everything!”

Standing under the persimmon tree while glaring at the scattered branches and leaves and muttering—to Otoki, this felt like a reprimand for her own inadequate oversight.
She had even considered retreating into the room and closing the paper doors, but instead found herself compelled to step out onto the veranda and initiate the conversation herself.

“It’s truly awful—no matter how much I tell them not to misbehave, they just won’t listen.”

“As if they’d ever listen to such talk.”
“If they come again, I’ll slap them good.”

For a long time, she stood gazing up at the desolate treetop, openly revealing her inner desire to lash out at anyone as she continued speaking harshly.

“Children are so unmanageable, aren’t they? I told them they’re astringent persimmons and that taking them wouldn’t do any good, but they just went on crunching away at them to show off.”

Otoki repeated her feeble excuses and timid remarks, all the while feeling wretched in her heart.

When Shinkichi returned home, she had been waiting and told him about the day’s events.

“But she made it sound like they were stolen because I’m spineless!”
“That Mrs. Bonsai is utterly impossible.”

Thrilled to have gained an ally, she kept defending herself while condemning the Priest’s Wife’s abrasive manner.
Though she had always referred to her as “the Priest’s Wife,” now she was tossing out names like “Mrs. Bonsai” and plain “Bonsai.”

“Kids are so unruly… But that sight of fully ripened red ones dangling in clusters on bare, bone-like branches stripped of all their leaves—that’s the very essence of autumn.”

Since he had always cherished them as something to delight his eyes and soothe his heart, he made a point of going out to the garden to see the aftermath of the children’s rampage.

“Oh, it’s nothing to worry about.”
“It’s just five or six that were taken, at most.”

With a seemingly relieved expression, he went back inside the house.

“It’s not so bad if they take a few astringent persimmons, is it?”

The Priest’s Wife’s attitude lingered in her mind, and even during the pleasant meal, Otoki chafed with resentment.

Around that time, Otoki first noticed an unusual change occurring in her body.
When her youngest sister was born, she had seen her mother suffer terribly in childbed, and now, thinking of how that frail child continued to worry their parents year-round, she grew anxious.
Though nothing was particularly wrong, she felt she had imposed a great burden on her husband and, filled with guilt, found it difficult to speak up.
Yet she couldn’t remain silent,

“I think I might be pregnant.”
“I’m sorry, but…”

When she broached the topic while gauging her husband’s expression, Shinkichi was in high spirits and,

“What are you apologizing for?”
“I love children.”

Having said that, he laughed at Otoki’s words as if amused.
When she heard this, Otoki felt as though her husband’s affection had taken tangible form within her body, and suddenly she found herself cherishing her own being.

“I hope they’re smart like you.”

Saying such things, she came to genuinely look forward to it.
As the nights grew colder—when the chill made closeness all the more cherished—the fact that his wife’s body had undergone an unusual change further deepened the couple’s intimacy.

Even though only four or five days had passed since the children first came to steal persimmons, they planned a second adventure and sneaked in again.
Fortunately, at that time, the temple gatekeeper—who usually weeded grass in the back cemetery—happened to chase them away.
Rushing over in haste, the Priest’s Wife once again raised her grating voice and berated the mischievous children.
Having grown somewhat sensitive from her own state of mind, Otoki was deeply troubled by this.

“Even though she has no intention of enjoying them just by looking like you do, why is she so possessive?”
“So astringent, so astringent you can’t eat them,” even though she says.

For mere children’s mischief of coming to steal persimmons, the Priest’s Wife—who had gathered even the temple priest, disciple monk, daughter, and temple gatekeeper in her agitation—left no room for Otoki to find humor in it; instead, she resented it as though she herself had been berated. In her heart, she was thinking how good it would be if the children just took them all without anyone knowing.

That day, the temple members gathered beneath the persimmon tree and held a brief discussion. Before long, the disciple monk and temple gatekeeper brought a ladder, and the younger of the two—now wearing student trousers and a shirt—climbed up to the high branches. Below, the Priest’s Wife and her daughter held the four corners of a straw mat, catching the persimmons being plucked and dropped from above. The old priest stood in the sun, watching in a supervisory manner with his hands tucked into his sleeves.

Otoki, fearing she might get involved, did her needlework inside the paper sliding doors while occasionally peeking through the gaps. After quite some time had passed—amidst the clamor of voices and mingling footsteps heading toward the kitchen—she opened the paper sliding doors and stepped out onto the veranda to find that every last one of the countless persimmons, which had glowed red in the sunlight, had been plucked.

Upon returning from the bank, as soon as Shinkichi entered the temple gate, he noticed that the persimmon tree’s treetop had been ravaged. Unlike those that had fallen naturally to the ground when fully ripe in their due time, these—perhaps because they had been forcibly plucked by human hands—appeared all the more pitiful.

“What’s going on? Did they take all the persimmons?”

As soon as he saw Otoki’s face greeting him, he asked unpleasantly.

“Yes, since the children came to raid again, the temple people all came out and took them all.”
“The young monk climbed all the way to the top and broke off branches without hesitation to drop them down.”

In her rapid-fire manner of reporting, Otoki provided a meticulous description of the daytime scene.

“Do they plan to remove the astringency and eat them?”
“The view of branches completely stripped of leaves would have been most beautiful from now on—what a shame they went and ruined it.”

On the veranda as dusk approached, he spoke regretfully, as if pained by the sight of the persimmon tree with its vividly raw broken branch stubs. In his heart, the image of his hometown—now in autumn, beautiful with its many persimmon trees throughout the village—appeared more vividly than any painting. From his hometown home, even during his single days when he rented a room above the tobacco shop, they had occasionally sent apples and persimmons, but this year they had sent first-flush mushrooms and wetland mushrooms. The rice cooked with mushrooms came with a note written by his sister-in-law on behalf of his mother, stating that it had been Shinkichi’s favorite dish as a child.

“Oh my, this is my first time having first-flush mushroom rice.”
“I wonder how it will be.”
“If they were matsutake mushrooms, I think they’d be delicious...”
“Shall I try cooking them right away tonight?”

Holding what spilled from the coarse bamboo basket in her hands, Otoki examined them with fresh curiosity.

Early November brought a cold day after a passing shower.
The aroma of the mushroom rice carried a particularly nostalgic quality.

"Well, they aren't as delicious as matsutake."
"Back home, we don't have such fancy things."
"First-flush mushroom rice... It feels like returning to the countryside after ages."
"I'd love some tofu soup."

For Shinkichi, the evening meal became something to genuinely anticipate, lending purpose to his workday demeanor.
Otoki found joy in this transformation.
When footsteps echoed on the paving stones beyond the lattice door, Shinkichi unexpectedly returned.

“As for those first-flush mushrooms and wetland mushrooms—we’ve got such an abundance. Why don’t we share some with the temple people?”
“They’re from my hometown, you know.”

He went out of his way to come and say this, then left upon seeing Otoki’s nod.

In the evening, Shinkichi,

“Ah, I’ve never had a day as busy as today.”
“I’m completely exhausted and starving.”
“I can’t wait for the first-flush mushroom rice.”

While taking off his shoes, he kept saying such things, but upon hearing it wouldn’t be ready so soon, he took his towel and headed out to the bathhouse.
The days had grown noticeably shorter, and on the way back from the rather distant bathhouse—even fresh from bathing—he now felt a chill in the air.
Having been worn out by the day’s hectic work, his exhaustion only deepened in the bath, leaving him even hungrier afterward.
As he walked through the evening dusk, listening to birds clamoring at their roosts, he came to feel with visceral clarity how this season’s piercing loneliness seeped deep into his core.
When he saw their home’s light glowing through the paper sliding doors, Shinkichi’s heart trembled as if with joy.

While blowing on the steam rising from the hot first-flush mushroom rice to cool it, he fondly recalled—almost to the point of tears—the time in his hometown when autumn would hurriedly give way to early first snow, ushering in the season of winter seclusion.

“This is my first time having it, but it’s delicious.”

Otoki also praised the faint aroma of the first-flush mushrooms, their texture that seemed smooth yet crisp, and the taste that held somewhere within it a hint of earthy coolness when chewed.

“Did you share some with the temple people like I mentioned this morning before leaving?”

“Yes, the Priest’s Wife was overjoyed.”
“And then—as a return gift—she brought us persimmons.”

“Persimmons.”

“That’s what’s odd.”
“She said they’re from the garden’s persimmon tree.”
“But she kept insisting they were so bitter—what could’ve changed?”
“She probably said that because she thought we might steal them, don’t you think?”

“That might be the case.”

“How detestable!”
“We wouldn’t steal them even if you hadn’t said such things.”

Recalling how many times she had heard it straight from the Priest’s Wife’s mouth since moving here—she couldn’t begin to count them all—Otoki seethed with resentment.

“Ah, I ate and ate,”
“That was really delicious—it’s been so long.”
“Eating something rustic like first-flush mushroom rice makes me feel like I’m seeing my old man and ma’s faces.”

Sipping the fragrant roasted bancha, Shinkichi—his body heavy with fullness—leaned against the dining table and laughed while looking at Otoki’s face.
At a moment when everything was filled with contentment, a smile naturally rose to his lips.

“I really ate a lot myself,”
“I thought mixed rice would make us eat more, so I made extra today—but look at this.”

When she removed the lid of the pot and tilted it to show him, the inside was completely empty.

While Otoki was tidying up after the meal in the kitchen, Shinkichi closed the storm shutters on the veranda and meticulously read the evening paper he had bought on his way home from the bank.
It was a night of cold blue moonlight like water’s depths, and the garden trees stood in a silence as though sentient beings were forced to keep still, their towering bare branches stretching into the sky.
That silence seeped even into the shuttered room.

When sounds of running water and clinking dishes reached him from the kitchen, Shinkichi found himself unable to absorb the newspaper article he was reading.
The fact that a child was growing inside Otoki’s belly as she worked there clung stubbornly to his thoughts.
That a woman would bear a child through him tickled his heart’s depths with wonder-laced anticipation.

“You’ll catch a cold if you keep dozing off like that.”

Having been nodding off without realizing it, Shinkichi was roused by Otoki and sat up with a sneeze.

“Look here, you’ve already caught a cold, you see.”

Scolding him while adding charcoal to the long hibachi, Otoki furrowed her brows.

“Shin must be tired today.”
“Let’s turn in early on days like this.”
“It’d be downright absurd if we caught colds now.”

“That sounds good.”
“The night has gotten completely cold, you know.”

The two of them sandwiched the long hibachi from both sides and warmed their hands.
Pretending nonchalance, Shinkichi lightly brushed the back of his hand against his wife’s soft hand.
A mere flicker of lightheartedness sent ripples across the tranquil surface of their hushed autumn evening’s clarity.

“Why don’t you try some persimmon rice?”

“Did they come from the temple?”
“Let’s try eating them.”

“If they’re truly not astringent, that would be quite strange.”

Otoki eagerly stood up and went to the kitchen, then brought back the four persimmons set on the lacquered tray with a knife placed beside them.
The glossy skin of the fruit gleamed with an unclouded hue under the light.
Smoothly, from between Otoki’s gleaming fingers adorned with rings, a long, thin peel dangled down, and the juicy flesh lay exposed.
Cutting it into four pieces, she offered some to Shinkichi and put a piece into her own mouth.
Having been told repeatedly how astringent they were, they initially pressed their teeth cautiously, but immediately the sweet juice soaked their tongues.

“How is it?
“It’s not astringent at all.”

“Delicious. A fine sweetness.”

While savoring the cold sweetness that seeped into their teeth, they exchanged smiles.

“After all, she thought we would steal and eat them, so she deliberately claimed they were astringent persimmons, didn’t she?”

Moving beyond resenting the Priest’s Wife’s absurd petty cunning, they felt unclouded amusement.

“So good…”

Without responding to that, Shinkichi took the knife himself and began peeling another one.
The four persimmons had completely turned into peels and seeds.
On their tongues lingered the refreshing taste unique to fruit.
It was a moment of complete satisfaction.
Perhaps it was the fact of her pregnancy playing on his mind, but lately he had begun to think his wife’s figure had taken on a sudden voluptuousness—and now that sensation struck him with renewed intensity.
Shinkichi lightly gripped his wife’s hands over the hibachi.
Due to the heat from the hibachi, their palms quickly grew damp with sweat, but on this night that promised frost, their backs and knees were cold.

In the town below the cliff, dogs had been barking incessantly, but when their noise ceased, only the sensation of the moon pressing against the silent storm shutters remained.
From somewhere came the sound of a cricket that seemed to have caught cold.
It was a night when they wanted to lay out as one the two futons always spread side by side in this room.
When Shinkichi yawned, Otoki—inevitably drawn in—strove not to open her mouth too wide but finally succumbed.
Reddening around her eyes, she looked at her husband’s face, tilted her head, and smiled.