Pathway to Japanese Literature

My heart smolders in darkness, guarded against wind and rain, and doth suppress unassertive thoughts. Flowers should be picked; the moon should be gazed upon. What shall I do with thoughts that have no form? Is it love? No. Is it hope? No…

Chogyū

Part 1: Dressing Room of the Heart The sky directly above the entertainment district—visible beyond the window of my desolate workroom on the third floor of the apartment building—hung dark and thickly overcast.

Under the naked lightbulb I’d rigged up near the window with a makeshift string, I’d positioned a small desk facing the glass, but there I sat before it—hunched over, doing nothing at all like some fool. With my chest constricted and elbows planted on the desk in a posture that seemed to suppress my breath, I pressed my palms together, rested my chin atop the protruding tips of my thumbs, and gazed at the turbid sky. To say I was staring at the sky might be more accurate than to say there was a sky. In the sky, there was nothing to be seen, and my eyes seemed to see nothing at all. But as I did so, something uncanny—it was akin to how, when you occasionally clean a long-neglected room, black dust resembling bacterial shapes with trailing tails might float up unexpectedly—caught my eye: strange debris-like forms flitting through the sky beyond, clouded by ceaselessly rising dust from the entertainment district. The debris had clustered chaotically like microbes, but as I watched, they elongated into slender arcs forming a "he" character.

They were wild geese.—I feared readers might laugh at my clumsy fabrication or dismiss my description of those skyborne geese as resembling refuse, deeming it an exaggeration. To dispel such misunderstandings, there was likely no recourse but to have readers witness the actual scene I had seen—and how vexing it was that even this wish remained impossible. Unless one saw them firsthand, one could never comprehend how debris-like their strangeness appeared—so absurdly, so dumbfoundingly high were those geese flying. Do wild geese always fly like that? ——Whether I had ever seen wild geese flying before then, or whether I had only ever seen them in pictures—that point remained unclear. Therefore, whether wild geese always flew at such an astonishing height, I could not say. Therefore——I had been struck by two powerful impressions from the figure of wild geese I chanced to see from my room near Asakusa’s entertainment district: both the recognition of “Ah, wild geese!” and astonishment at their location. Something I had since forgotten—it felt like a heart-constricting sensation, as though I’d stumbled upon a nostalgic dream from the past that had long since departed from me.—A dream flying across distant skies. A height beyond reach—beyond grasp. Dreams departed coldly, vanishing before my eyes.

I leaned over the desk and followed the wild geese’s flight with my eyes. Finally, I left the desk and stood by the window. The wild geese flew toward the upper reaches of the Sumida River. For a long time, I stood rigidly by the window.

—Autumn, too, was already nearing its end. It was around the time spring was ending when I rented this six-tatami room for twelve yen in this Asakusa apartment. I had packed into a passenger car all my meager belongings—a small desk with one zabuton cushion, a set of bedding (upper and lower), a washbasin, and then inkwells, ashtrays, cups, hand towels, tea canisters that fit inside a trunk—items so few they could be listed without effort—transporting them from my home in Omori to here. But since it was approaching summer at the time, I hadn’t brought anything to prepare for cold seasons. However—when the wild geese had receded far into the distance and become as small as fleas (until then I had kept watching them), as if they were heralds of dusk—suddenly the dusk descended from the sky, and with it came a cold that pierced to the bone.

I closed the window and returned to my desk. I put both hands into my pockets and hunched my body. It was cold. It might not have been truly that cold, but the lack of preparations against the cold must have psychosomatically summoned the chill. For what one lacks, the heart grows all the more eager. —I sat there steeped in terrible misery. It wasn’t as though anyone had ordered me to be there. It was my own doing. In other words, there was no particular reason I had to be sitting like that—yet I sat motionless. And then,

“Why must I sit here all alone in this desolate room?” I posed the unanswerable question to myself. It was a room I had rented as a workspace. Therefore, in theory, I sat there to work. But I couldn’t bring myself to start working at all, and even if I sat motionless waiting, I had resigned myself to there being virtually no chance my mind would rally itself to confront the task. Then going out should have been the better option. The primary reason I had rented a room near the entertainment district was part of a strategy—to thrust my muddled self, if left unattended, into the midst of bustling crowds, jolting my nerves to drive me toward work—and also because this routine had at some point become an ingrained habit. Therefore by all rights, instead of sitting here when work seemed impossible, I should have gone to the entertainment district—since if it seemed impossible, I needed to make it possible. That was what I could not do. Because I knew full well that even if I went to the entertainment district, I wouldn’t attain the mental condition needed to work—on the contrary, my heart would grow thoroughly disordered and my spirit utterly disarrayed.

To put it with some exaggeration, I feared going out for reasons beyond mere futility. Yet even staying in the room offered no prospect of mental coherence. If both remaining indoors and venturing out proved futile, returning home seemed the logical course. Better to go home than sit miserably in this chill-seeped room. At home—unlike this apartment—a request for fire would bring instant warmth to both hearth and heart. Yet again I couldn’t bring myself to leave. I still wanted to remain in Asakusa where she was.

The "she" in question was Koyanagi Masako, a dancer at Levius. Seventeen.…… “What do you mean by ‘she’s good’?” “Do you mean she’s skilled at dancing?” “Or do you mean you like that girl…?” I had once said, “Koyanagi Masako is something else,” and been questioned in that way by a Levius fan friend.

“Well… how should I put it,” I stammered.

Another time, a Levius playwright friend of mine said to me, "A child like that—you," he said. "She's just a kid—what can you do?" "What do you mean, 'what can you do'?"

“She’s just a kid—a kid who doesn’t know anything yet!” Though he spoke reproachfully, I cut him off—“No—” —then, crimson with shame, stammered, “No—I’m not… I’m not… doing anything…” I—well, since Koyanagi Masako will eventually make her charming appearance in this story, I shall save a full account of her for when she properly enters the narrative. For now, let me return to my pitiable self, hunched over in this apartment room. Just to add one more thing—earlier I mentioned feeling afraid to go outside, but this applies only when there’s no proper purpose for going out. For instance, if I could convince myself of a clear objective—like heading somewhere specific for a meal—that would be different. But when I step out aimlessly for a stroll with no destination in mind, my feet inevitably turn toward Levius Theater, where she danced, as though pulled by some invisible, utterly irresistible thread. Before I knew it, I found myself standing before Levius Theater like a sleepwalker. And then, much as a snake effortlessly swallows a foolish frog swaying slender and wavering before it, the theater swallowed foolish me whole.…

Whether from associations stirred by seeing wild geese pass overhead, I recalled a story about a foreigner I had heard the day before from a painter friend visiting Asakusa. The man was said to be a rather renowned poet who had left his homeland years prior, abandoned poetry, and embarked on an aimless journey that eventually brought him to Japan. "My friend became his interpreter—and told me this story," said the painter friend. "It happened when they took him to Hakone." The foreigner and interpreter had gone out for a walk. As they strolled along a deserted path to pass the time, the interpreter asked, "What is your purpose for traveling?" The foreigner gave no answer. When someone inquired whether his wanderings aimed to enrich his poetic inspiration, he clearly replied: "—No." When asked if it was mere curiosity-driven globetrotting, he again stated plainly: "—No."

“—Then what is it?” “I don’t know.” Even he himself did not know why he traveled from sea to sea through unknown countries as if pursued. But he knew that in doing so he was seeking "something" in his heart—yet what that "something" was, he did not know. In other words, it was as though he wandered to make himself understand that unknown "something." The blue-eyed poet said this with an unexpectedly calm voice.

The two of them then walked on in complete silence. The foreigner’s face was deathly pale, as if after a violent fight, with red blotches sunk beneath his skin.

Suddenly, from a side street came the bright, exuberant laughter of a young man and woman. At the bright, bold voices that seemed to revel purely in youthful joy, the foreigner showed an expression as though a stone had been hurled at his cheek—but before that face strode a young couple arm-in-arm with vigor: the man twenty-two or twenty-three with glossy skin, his stature rivaling the foreigner’s in slender height and athlete’s broad shoulders like a college student; the woman eighteen or nineteen and equally robust, her limbs fresh with youthful suppleness—the pair approached unhesitatingly, exuding an overflowing vitality of young life. And there before the foreigner, who stood frozen in bewilderment, they turned their backs with a flourish and walked down the sun-drenched path, laughing merrily once more as radiant light bathed them. The wandering poet stood watching their departure, his demeanor struck by profound emotion and sorrow. The interpreter tried to speak. Then the poet hid his face, spun on his heel, and darted back down the path without a word—dashing away as though he might collapse.

When the interpreter chased after him and returned to the hotel, he found the man lying face down on the bed, thrashing violently amid wailing that seemed like madness.

“Is that person old?”

I interrupted in the middle of the story. I couldn’t help but ask.

“No, he’s still young—seems to be about the same age as us.” “Around thirty-three or thirty-four…”

The painter friend said this in a somber voice and peered into my eyes. I had tried to convey to my friend—or rather, to myself—the unbearable state I’d been in lately: my heart parched and starved, drifting in a hollow, gutless daze yet simultaneously burning with a frantic, stinging craving for something unnamed. But then the painter friend began telling me that story about the foreigner.

“So he’s the same age as us?” “Hmm,” I nodded.

After a period of silence, the friend continued. “As soon as the foreigner’s fit of wailing subsided, he immediately checked out of the hotel, returned to Tokyo, and then promptly left Japan.” “He went to France, but the foreigner was wealthy—and took along the friend who had served as his interpreter.”

“Even if we’re the same age, the fact that he’s wealthy—that’s where we differ, huh?” I—so to speak—had been the one to initiate this conversation, yet now found myself unable to endure its oppressive atmosphere and spoke those words as if to sweep it all away.

“Now, there’s another interesting part to this.” “As for how my friend came to go to France…” To explain that, there was such a story—so it went. When the interpreter paid the lodging fee upon checking out of the Hakone hotel, the innkeeper secretly returned a portion of it to his hand. When he asked what this was about, they explained it was a token of gratitude for bringing in foreign tourists. When he refused, the hotel staff said it was their custom to refund commissions to guides. “So that means you’ve inflated the lodging rates by that amount,” he said. “I don’t need any commission—just lower the rate accordingly and rewrite the bill.” When he insisted, they replied that wasn’t possible. “There’s no reason you can’t do it!” Amidst this back-and-forth argument, the foreigner appeared and demanded to know what they were disputing. The money he had refused—now lying discarded on the table—had already caught the foreigner’s eye, leaving the interpreter no choice but to explain the situation. After hearing this, the foreigner silently withdrew, only to later tell him: “Name your wish—anything at all. If it’s within my power, I’ll grant it.”

“It’s like something straight out of a fairy-tale god,” the painter friend told me. “The friend was an eccentric sort—he said he felt this flash of irritation at hearing a human speak like some deity.” “So when he said he was leaving Japan right away, he asked where he planned to go.” “When he got ‘I don’t know’ for an answer, he suggested France.” “Why?” asked the foreigner. “If you’re going to France, take me with you.” “That was his wish—half convinced it wouldn’t work, mind you. He said it partly to throw down an impossible demand out of spite, but half-serious too—he’d genuinely wanted to study painting in Paris. But then—‘Very well,’ came the reply.” “The foreigner apparently looked truly pleased too—said having his destination settled made him happy—and offered a hearty handshake.”

Hearing this story, I felt envy, jealousy, and resentment toward that foreigner’s affluent position—one that allowed him to immediately take someone along to Paris if he wished to go—(and this summoned pain within me.) “It’s certainly an interesting story, but I find it a bit unpleasant,” I said. The pure, poignant sadness that the earlier story—about the foreigner weeping upon seeing the young man and woman—had instilled in me seemed to fade because of this. However, it seemed that as the speaker, he had added such a story with the aim of casting a bright light upon that desolate autumn scene.

―When I came to my senses, the room was pitch dark. I stood up listlessly and, reaching my hand through the half-opened door to the switch beside it on the outside of the room, gave it a click. As I was about to return to my desk, I suddenly noticed a red-rusted gas heater in the corner of the room. The room had gas installed to allow for cooking. I thought—ah, right—this thing could serve as a substitute for a hibachi. Laughing at my own carelessness for not having noticed it until now, I promptly lit the fire to test its effectiveness. Over the blue flame that had flared up with a vigorous pop, I smugly held out my hand—though of course I kept it at a prudent distance—it was hot. I tried shielding my hand from the side, but the gas heater must have been designed that way from the start—it emitted practically no heat to the sides. To receive heat, I still had to place my hand directly over the flame. And yet, even at a considerable distance above, it was hot. And when I moved my hand up and down to test it, the heat shifted abruptly from scalding areas to cold ones without transition, leaving no moderately warm zone that might have felt comfortable in between. Disheartened by this unreliable substitute, I nevertheless kept diligently flipping my hands over the heat until eventually my own emaciated hands—all bone and skin—began to look pitifully like dried squid legs being scorched by flames, filling me with revulsion.

I longed for the hibachi’s fire. “Ah—right.” “I should go to the okonomiyaki shop.”

In a section of Tajima-cho behind Honganji Temple—where rows of houses packed with entertainers stood—there existed my regular okonomiyaki shop. To that place in the direction opposite Rokku, I set out. That area was what they called "Okonomi Yokocho"—the Okonomiyaki Alley. The entrance to the alley—where a Levius actor’s house stood at the corner—was barely wide enough for a single person to pass through, and within that alley three ordinary tenant houses operating as okonomiyaki shops faced each other. Of those three houses, the okonomiyaki shop opened by the wife of Morike Horetarou—a comic storyteller—after her husband had been drafted into military service was my regular haunt. When I opened the glass entrance door bearing the shop name *Elegant Okonomiyaki—Horetarou*, which repurposed his stage name as its signboard, the narrow earthen entryway was crammed with an assortment of rather shoddy geta sandals, leaving no space to step.

“Well now, what an esteemed customer we have!” As I stood overwhelmed at the entrance, the wife’s voice called from within—“Do come in”—and with it came a wave of warm air thick with the smells of lard, scorched sauce, and all those distinctive okonomiyaki shop odors. Yet mingled with this was a peculiar commotion—not quite the usual bustle of customers—that drifted to my nostrils.—In the three-tatami room beside the entryway lay the wife’s three-year-old child, sleeping serenely as if continuing an afternoon nap, utterly unperturbed by the racket from the inner six-tatami room—though “inner” merely meant two rooms away.

Now, there—if we were to liken this to a play—the curtain on our story would at last rise. Then, what had all that previous chatter been about? I had allowed a peek into the dressing room of my heart—though upon reflection, that might have been unnecessary.

Part 2: Elegant Okonomiyaki

Imagine a large hibachi like those often found in school janitors’ rooms—and when I say “janitors’ rooms,” please picture one of those unremarkable hibachi—with a big, glossy black iron plate placed atop it. Around this setup crowded men and women who could be recognized at a glance as not being high-class entertainers—though there was only one woman present—each casually cooking their own okonomiyaki. Generally, the customers who frequented Elegant Okonomiyaki—Horetarou were mostly entertainers due to Horetarou’s connection as a park vaudeville performer, and since they were always the same small group of regulars—not particularly numerous—I had come to recognize all their faces; however, that day’s patrons were all unfamiliar to me. Their faces were all dull, withered, and lifeless, as if stained by the grime of some wretched existence—and though they were eating okonomiyaki sizzling with pork lard, almost as if consuming pure lard itself, not a single face showed any trace of greasiness. And beneath those faces, they wore gaudy, vulgar-colored neckties and shirts—flimsy things that looked like cheap goods left on display—which served splendidly to make their very owners appear as shelf-worn bargains themselves.—Ah yes—such descriptions of mine may convey to readers that my eyes were filled with scorn and disdain when I saw those people, but in truth, the opposite was the case. In my eyes—no, the moment I saw those people, an indescribable affection and a gentle repose of heart welled up within me—the emotions they brought must have been shining vividly.

As if driven from behind by that emotion, I went up into the room even though I knew I couldn't squeeze in front of the hibachi. Then, one of that desolate group tightly packed around the hibachi—a young man with a somewhat handsome face, a delicate-looking physique, and an artificial silk muffler wrapped around his neck like a woman's accessory—glanced up at me from below.

“――Excuse me.” he said. “It’ll be free soon—excuse me.” The way he hunched his narrow chest in a bow went beyond mere polite deference into something pitifully servile, and his voice too was sadly servile.

“Please take your time.” I too—forcing my voice into what I hoped would be a servility that wouldn’t lose to his, something that might spare his already wounded heart—spoke those words, then sat down in the corner of the room with similarly deliberate posture.

The young man was eating his rice with "gyuten"—doused recklessly in sauce—as a side dish. Those thin lips, vivid red like fresh blood, appeared to my eyes as some ill-fated omen gnawing at his youth, momentarily making me imagine he might be harboring an illness in his chest—yet into that very mouth he kept violently cramming white rice. Though he ate with wolfish vigor, he simultaneously gave the impression of someone forcing down unappetizing food without any real appetite. Having emptied the bowl in an instant,

“Mii-chan.” “Sorry.” After calling out to the kitchen like that, he raised the rice bowl overhead. The young woman called Mii-chan—wearing a green Western-style dress—promptly came flying out from the kitchen while irritably disentangling yellow Chinese noodles from her fingers. I was acquainted with this woman called Mii-chan. When she saw me, she bowed with a jerk, almost masculine in its brusqueness, “—What a performance.”

she said, as if angry. “It’s quite a situation,” I said, at the exact moment the young man—passing over the bowl with slender, feminine hands—replied, “Sorry about that.” Then Mii-chan snapped in an older sister’s tone, “There—quit saying ‘sorry, sorry’ already.” “But...” “I hate that. And you call yourself a man.” “—Excuse me.” This time he said it playfully, but even in jest, his voice evoked a thin metal wire—delicate, with a faint quiver.

“That’s way too hot to handle!”—a shrill voice laced with vulgarity rose from the crowd. Was there something between Mii-chan and that young man? Even I, unaware of the circumstances, could tell from that voice they were putting on some sort of act. But Mii-chan retreated to the kitchen with an utterly unperturbed expression—where the wife was clattering small plates while busily portioning out ingredients for the ordered okonomiyaki. The young man, as if masking his embarrassment,

“It’s already cooked, isn’t it?” he said, pointing at the Chinese soba being prepared by the actress-like woman beside him. “How enviable,” someone immediately remarked.

――Now, here—I should say a bit about Mii-chan. The first time I came to this okonomiyaki shop and met Mii-chan, seeing her act like a customer yet diligently help out with every little thing as in this situation, I wondered what this girl was all about. When I quietly asked the Levius author who had brought me there about it, he told me she was Mine Misako—a dancer who had previously been with the T Theater dancing team before moving to O Hall—and that she no longer performed on park stages. He didn’t know anything beyond that.

The stages of Asakusa demanded grueling labor, and when dancers left those stages, they suddenly put on weight. Misako too exhibited that peculiar plumpness—as if her body had puffed up the moment she removed the constricting hoop that had once bound it. Though still young, she now carried a vaguely unseemly softness reminiscent of a middle-aged woman’s flab: sagging visibly around the jawline and, even where not seen, unmistakably around the waist. I fixed her with a look that said, *I see…* Her face—with eyelids swollen like bee stings that vanished when she laughed, a nose verging on bulbous, and a lower lip thrust forward—had never been particularly charming even before being afflicted by this current puffiness. But her voice—how should I put it? Ah yes—it was a voice that imparted a peculiar kind of refreshing sensation, akin to that sharp tickle at the back of one’s nose when tasting something laced with potent wasabi. To me, at least, it held no small measure of allure.

After that, I—drawn by what should I call it, that down-and-out atmosphere of the okonomiyaki shop—began frequenting the place regularly, and on each visit, Mii-chan—that is, Misako—was usually there. And always, while seeming like a customer, she would help out with an attentiveness that went beyond what one would expect from a patron.—Misako would affectionately call the wife here—a spirited woman just past thirty in age, slender and tall—"Older Sister." (This “Older Sister” involved placing a strong accent on the *ne* syllable, with *san* pronounced as a sound somewhere between *san* and *sun*—an indescribable sweetness that words alone cannot convey.) Misako, when left silent, exuded an overbearing impression—so intense it evoked a bold, ink-drenched “woman” character written with a thick brushstroke, making her appear as nothing but a strong-willed woman who refused to acknowledge men as men—yet at times, within those sweet words of hers... (she would radiate a tenderness so sudden it startled.)—The wife here called Misako “Mii-chan” like a younger sister (or perhaps like addressing a beloved cat).

The young dancers at Levius would call men they were close to “brother” in an endearingly friendly tone. Every time I heard Misako say “Older Sister,” I would quietly capture that sweetness that stirred my heart and substitute the word “brother” in its place. I closed my eyes, secretly emulating that sweet tone,

“Brother” There were times I would mutter it under my breath. In my heart, I envisioned the beautiful sweet face and beautiful sweet figure of the dancer I longed for. Ah, when would she—when would that dear Koyanagi Masako ever call me “brother”? How I had waited for that day to come. Yet at the same time, there was something frightening about its arrival. And somehow too, I found myself wishing those days would never come.…

Returning to Misako—though shifting abruptly from romantic longing to food might seem awkward—it concerned the okonomiyaki "beefsteak." This "beefsteak" required not just frying but a complex procedure of skillfully adding honey, sake, pepper, MSG, sauce and such while cooking—a task I entrusted to Misako. My requests phrased as "May I ask a favor?" stemmed both from my culinary ineptitude and her palpable eagerness to take charge. To disregard such obvious desire and cook nonchalantly myself went against my nature. Yet okonomiyaki's true appeal lies in self-preparation; merely eating it loses most enjoyment. I bore this deprivation and let Misako cook. She must have understood this dynamic too, making it seem like I sought her willing compliance. Though I found no personal need to secure her consent—partly due to my disposition—I sensed her culinary zeal sprang not from wanting culinary glory or selfish enjoyment, but deeper motives. She wanted to cook delicious meals for a man—to feed him. This hidden yearning for domesticity, this feminine thirst to serve a man—such sorrows I perceived in her. Perhaps Misako herself remained unaware of this sadness I discerned. Outwardly she wore an expression of practical assistance—"It's difficult so let me cook"—but given her strong-willed nature, she might have genuinely believed this pretext.

On one such occasion, I asked in a casual tone,

“Why did you quit the stage?” I asked.

In front of the brazier, there were only Misako and I. It was an unusually quiet evening with no customers. Usually, small children would be lingering around the brazier, clinging to any customer they came across, but tonight they were conspicuously absent. “Because it’s boring.” “Hmm.”

Having left the cooking to Misako and finding myself with nothing to do, I tapped the edge of the brazier with a brass scraper. “When you say it’s boring…” “Did you get tired of the stage?” She cut me off in a wifely tone, “Could you pass me the honey?” I let out a flustered “Right away!” and reached out to take the honey container. She drizzled the honey over the meat—which only shriveled and curled tighter with each sizzle as it cooked—while,

“At my age, I can’t very well keep dancing alongside sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girls.” Having said that, she set it down with a clatter, as if striking the container against something. The phrase “sixteen or seventeen” made me recall Koyanagi Masako. I compared the delicate fragility of her seventeen-year-old body—always sharply etched in my mind—with the greasy softness of Misako’s figure before me (to put it somewhat exaggeratedly). These two dancing side by side would indeed make an absurd spectacle. No—it would be cruel to call it absurd. I needed no imagination—I had actually witnessed such mismatched dancers perform. Amidst vibrant bodies—the aged dancer with her deteriorating physique—how wretched she looked! Not only did the contrast heighten the grotesqueness, but the defeated state of that figure made one want to avert their eyes…

“At your age—sorry if I’m being rude—” “Now that’s truly rude.”

She stared with eyes brimming unconscious allure—almost glaringly. I drank my lukewarm tea and,

“Speaking of which, the dancers in the park are always just kids, aren’t they? When they grow up, they quit one after another—and then new children take their place.” Over those past few years, I had been made to think about the truly numerous Levius dancers who burst into bloom like flowers upon the park’s stage, only to scatter like blossoms and disappear somewhere. A lonely feeling welled up in my heart. “Why do they quit, I wonder?”

“But even if they kept dancing, it wouldn’t make any difference.”

“Well, if you say there’s no helping it…” “—Done. Plate.” While passing her a plate with a “Here you go,” “So you did grow tired of the stage after all?” Without answering, she deftly transferred the meat—already portioned into four pieces—onto a small plate with practiced hands, then skillfully used a flat scraper to collect the reddish-brown juices sizzling and bubbling on the griddle, transferring them to the plate, “This broth is delicious, isn’t it?” Having said that, she handed me the plate with a “Here,”

“It’s not like I got tired of it or anything.” She murmured.

Then why did she quit? I started to ask but, thinking it too intrusive, held back and reached for the sake decanter. “Shall I pour for you?” “—No, thank you.” She took the decanter and poured for me. Her white, fine-grained hand showed dimples at the base of her fingers.

“Well, you see...” She started to speak abruptly but then fell silent. “Huh?” I said.

“No, about what we were discussing earlier...” “Ah, right,” I nodded, and—

“Well, there might be some who quit out of boredom, but I don’t think most people quit for that reason.” I silently tilted my cup. “How should I put it? They naturally end up having to quit, you see.” “That’s what I think.” Having suddenly uttered those final words with force, she nodded to herself, and—

“Maybe I’ll have a drink too.”

“Can you handle it?” Apologizing that he hadn’t known—(he’d never seen her drink there before)—he hurriedly drained his cup. And as he tried to pass it to her, he suddenly reconsidered that this might seem overly familiar, “Take this cup.” “I can’t drink much though.” Perhaps due to hesitation, she didn’t move—so—

“Auntie—a cup, please.” I called out to the kitchen. “No, I—”

He stood up and turned to the shop owner, “Older Sister—I’ll have a drink.”

Her voice sounded imploring. “Oh my, oh my, Mii-chan.” “Are you all right?” “What’s with ‘all right’?”

“I don’t really know why.” “I’m all right.”

The shop owner came back holding a sake cup,

“Older Sister, you’re not coming over here either. Won’t you drink with me?”

“That’s rough.” The shop owner said in a dismissive tone, “Please don’t get too carried away.” “I might get wild.”

Having said it like a man, she then turned serious—though not in a tone meant to be heard— “I… I don’t know why, but I suddenly want to see Tajima.” “Your lover?” And here, I interjected in a playful tone. “My husband,” she stated bluntly. “Your husband—right—go see him.” Making a face that said ‘Really?’, I poured from the sake decanter. She sniffled vaguely and didn’t play along with my fooling around. Narrowing her eyes but with a bitter twist to her mouth, she tilted the cup back in one gulp, and—

“But you see, it’s not so simple to see him.” “Why?” “Because he’s not in Tokyo.” Her words gradually grew rougher yet remained tinged with affection.

“That’s rough.” “Where is he?”

“Shizuoka.” “Shizuoka, huh…”

He refrained from asking why they were separated. In their world, male-female relationships showed a kind of disorder that defied common sense, and I often heard conversations like this: “How’s A-kun doing?” “He seems to be rotting away.” This much was fine. This was an ordinary conversation you could hear anywhere. But then, without fail, the following words would be tacked on: “Is A-kun still with B-ko?” “Somehow, they still seem to be together.” Their being together had a tone as if it were strange.

I had inadvertently begun to ask—then held back, thinking it might concern a separation she found difficult to discuss—but because I stayed silent, she wound up being the one to say it. “He went back to his hometown because of illness.”

“Hmm.” “This guy’s not worth engaging with.” When I offered her some meat, “Because I’ll get fat…”

She shook her head. It was a refusal without hesitation; under normal circumstances, there should have been some joking remark like "If I get any fatter, it'll be a problem," but...

Silence fell. Because I was pouring sake over the iron plate, some occasionally spilled onto the heated metal and sizzled with an anxious sound. The air hung heavy. As if to dispel it,

“I see, got it.” I put on the most clownish voice I could muster, “So you quit the stage because you ended up with that husband of yours, right?”

After saying it, I realized it wasn’t a particularly clever line. "No," she shook her head.

“Marriage and the stage are different things.” “Both are important.” “Well, some people do quit after getting married, but—”

When she said that, she suddenly became as if intoxicated, grew remarkably talkative, and began explaining why she had left the stage. Her way of telling it was a mess—bringing up things better saved for later first, putting parts that would clarify the story earlier if mentioned sooner into the latter half—so to present it with some semblance of order: Levius Theater in the park generally divided its productions into two categories—plays and dances. And the “executives” mainly handled plays—in other words, the actors in plays monopolized the executive positions, while those in dance were primarily rank-and-file members. The women of the Dancing Team, no matter how many years they spent in the theater, as long as they danced onstage—that is, as long as they remained specialists in dance without switching to plays—were doomed to be permanent rank-and-file members with no hope of promotion, unable to rise to executive positions. “There’s no bigger joke than this ridiculous nonsense. When I first joined, I thought—front row, I mean the front row in dance, what you’d call executives in the Dancing Team—I danced hoping for that. But after years of grinding, when I finally made it to the front row? Nothing changed.” “And that’s it”—you couldn’t get promoted to executive unless you switched over to plays. “And even if you wanted to switch over, that place was already packed with people, making it nearly impossible to break in.” “Those who were good at dancing but bad at acting rotted away as they aged and ended up quitting.” “The moment someone quit, young girls came in, and if they happened to be pretty, they instantly got popular. Those kids—even though they couldn’t dance properly—got cocky from the attention and started looking down on us older seniors. And when it was time to dance, they were up there onstage counting ‘One two three four, two two three four’ loud enough for the audience to hear. Dancing next to that? It was so idiotic and infuriating you ended up thinking, ‘—Just quit already.’” “Even if promotion was impossible, even if you wanted to keep dancing what you loved—those things made you want to quit anyway.”

“There’s someone in T Theater’s literary department who called us stage consumables.” I had frequently attended Levius performances and maintained various acquaintances at Levius Theater, but until that moment I had always regarded its dancers through a lens of sweet, dreamlike yearning—as if observing something exotic—making this my first exposure to such grim realities. I said, averting my eyes.

“So you’re saying—though it’s an affected way to put it—that even now, you haven’t lost your passion for the stage?” “I’d want to dance my whole life if I could.”

Silence came again. “Mii-chan, you’re putting on quite a show,” said the wife as she emerged from the kitchen. Misako changed the subject, “And you—Mr. Takase—what do you do for a living?” At these words, I broke into a smile—relieved from the oppressive weight that had been pressing down on me. There, I went by the name Takase. It began when the Levius author who first brought me there jokingly called me Takase. On the way there, that friend teased me, saying that whenever I happened to goggle my eyes wide, I looked exactly like a certain comedian named Takase. Following that, when we arrived there, my friend called me “Takase-kun.” That ended up becoming my name there.

“Well now, what could it be?”

I feigned ignorance,

“Isn’t it the same line of work as Mr. Tajima’s?” The wife said to Misako while wiping the grease-blackened grill. “Mr. Tajima is someone who...” When I asked, “He was writing books,” answered the wife. The “books” were scripts.

“Well, it’s a similar line of work.”

At that moment, Pon-tan—one of the regulars here, a manzai comedian—came in noisily with a "Good evening!" ("Tsuru-ya Anpon" was this "Kame-ya Pontan’s" partner, but Anpon had never shown his face there.)

“It’s ready, Dosakan.” In the kitchen was the stairway leading to the second floor. Someone shouted from the top of the staircase. On the second floor, from the moment I entered, there were clattering noises—several people muttering under their breath—then suddenly voices shouting, laughing, and crying. “Right away!”

It was the usual young man who had responded. Dosakan? It was undoubtedly a nickname, but thinking how peculiar it was, I cast a gaze at the young man’s retreating back as he hurriedly stood up—a gaze that seemed to search for its meaning. Later I learned that “Dosa” came from traveling performers, and “Kan” from Kan’ichi of *The Golden Demon*—that this nickname, mockingly given by someone who said, “He’d never be a leading man in Tokyo, but in some rural troupe he might pass as their Kan’ichi-type heartthrob,” had quickly spread among his companions.

As Dosakan’s seat had opened up, they urged, “Please,” but I felt somewhat hesitant and couldn’t bring myself to take it. Instead, I stepped back and leaned my back against the paper sliding door. And though I found myself awkwardly at a loss for what to do next, muttering “That’s how it is,” I stealthily pulled out from my coat pocket a peculiar notebook—one with a russet cover bearing “ALGEBRA” on one side and “TIMETABLE” on the other, complete with a printed schedule, likely meant for elementary students but bought cheaply for jotting notes, too embarrassing to show anyone—and began copying down the okonomiyaki menu items, thinking they might serve as reference material should I ever write a novel set in this okonomiyaki shop, an idea I’d long harbored. Here, I transcribed them from that notebook and presented them to the reader. However, while the actual menu posted on the okonomiyaki shop’s wall was laid out horizontally in a neat row, arranging them horizontally here would have been both wasteful of paper and impractical, so I presented them vertically.

Fried noodles. Squid tempura. Shrimp tempura. Sweet bean paste tempura. Mochi tempura. Sweet bean paste roll. Bean sprouts. Apricot roll. Hotpot. Beef tempura. Cabbage balls. Shumai. (All of the above have "5 sen" written below as their price.) (From there, the prices go up). Teki, twenty sen. Okonomiyaki, fifteen sen. Mihara-yaki, fifteen sen. Fried rice, ten sen. Cutlet, fifteen sen. Omelette, fifteen sen.

Shimbashi-yaki, fifteen sen. Five-ingredient okonomiyaki, ten sen. Egg omelette, market price. I didn’t quite like this “sen” character. Thinking “Why not just use ‘sen’?” I later mentioned this offhandedly to the wife, and she explained that 「仙」 was composed of “person” and “mountain”—“They say ‘person’ plus ‘mountain’ makes for good luck.”

―In the midst of transcribing, a newcomer came down from the second floor. Then one of those gathered around the hibachi shouted in a loud voice to the descending figure: “Did XX-kun die?”

“Nah, he ain’t been killed yet.—But he’ll be killed soon, I tell ya.”

“I see.” “In that case, we’d better hurry up and eat!”

—It was a play rehearsal. They had formed a troupe and prepared a performance they meant to market as an attraction for movie theaters. One of the actors had been renting the second floor of the okonomiyaki shop; though far too cramped to serve as a proper rehearsal space, they’d chosen it precisely because no seating fees were charged. The actor upstairs was named Suehiro Harukichi, and I knew him from the hibachi downstairs. Though he lived in Asakusa, he was an unfortunate actor with no connection to the park’s stages. Such actors—men and women of all ages—lay scattered in uncountable numbers around the park.…

Like a receding wave—yes, with the same sensation as those pitch-black waves at Ōmori Coast retreating while carrying a surface layer of filthy debris: old geta sandals, cat carcasses, rubber products—the group upstairs finished their rehearsal and departed. Inside the room were evaporated lard fumes, gasified scorch marks from sauce and other substances, tobacco smoke, carbon dioxide exhaled from assorted lungs, and an immense amount of dust shed from every part of the group’s bodies—all packed densely together. Overwhelmed by that suffocating air, I felt nauseous despite my stomach being utterly empty at the time. But having endured this much only to leave without eating anything seemed improper, so I declined their offer to hurry and ordered an “omelette.”

Then Misako promptly prepared a plate, came out from the kitchen, and plopped down directly across from me.

“What a commotion.” Too lethargic to speak, I silently nodded while slowly scrubbing the filth-caked griddle with a large scraper. When I casually looked up, Misako was staring fixedly at my face. As our eyes met, she flusteredly averted her swollen eyes but immediately defiantly returned them forward. “You’re Mr. Kurahashi, they say.” Kurahashi was my real name. With a wry smile, I—

“―Who said that?” With those words, I had effectively acknowledged being Kurahashi.

“So you really are Mr. Kurahashi.” I nodded deeply. “The novelist Mr. Kurahashi.” She pressed further. Being called a novelist made me oddly self-conscious for some reason, so I nodded while scratching my forehead relentlessly, “Mr. Kurahashi… you split up with your wife before… and that wife became an actress after leaving you…” “That Mr. Kurahashi.” It was an excruciating way to confirm. Thoroughly embarrassed, I rubbed my greasy, grimy face all over.

“I just heard that you’re Mr. Kurahashi—I’m so surprised.” “You just found out?” “Dosakan-chan told me.” Now that she mentioned it, the two of them had been stealing glances in my direction while whispering conspiratorially about something in the corner of the kitchen. I had been connecting that to how the group at the gathering had teased them and interpreting it that way.

“Dosakan-kun?”

Cutting off his attempt to continue, she pressed urgently.

“Well...” (This “Well...” slightly resembled that comical yet detestable “Well...” which had been the trademark of a certain Takase.) —“I’d been interacting with you all this time without knowing you were Mr. Kurahashi—but truth be told, there’s this strange bond between us.”

In Misako’s eyes burned a light—something akin to hatred—that startled me.

“When you say connection…” I felt uneasy.

“—I’ll tell you eventually.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense.”

I pressed her, but she pursed her lips tightly, averted her face with a sternness she'd never before shown me, and refused to engage...

I forced the omelette down my throat and, no longer able to endure the stagnant air for another moment, stood up. When Misako asked where I was going and I replied I would wander about the area, “Shall I come along?” “Is that all right?”

“―Please do.” Thinking I might draw out from her while walking that story of connection she’d raised yet left unspoken, I pressed more actively to go. Misako proposed heading to Rokku. ―And thus we eventually reached a place bearing scenery like an illustration on the following page―but as for its precise location and what words we exchanged there―regrettably, with the page count allotted for this story’s second installment now spent―these matters must yield to the next.

Part 3: Winter Fountain

On the bridge over Hyoutan Pond, beneath a wisteria trellis, we stood. Mine Misako and I had reached the front of K Theater—facing Hyoutan Pond in the cinema district—when suddenly, as if by unspoken agreement, we both turned at a right angle and hurriedly veered toward the dark pond with steps that seemed to flee something.—Why did we turn away? As for me—my Koyanagi Masako (People, laugh at my presumption if you will!)—was inside K Theater. That was why. Had I been alone then, my feet would inevitably have been sucked into that theater. Whenever I came before K Theater, it was already over. This sprang from my own foolish—no, merely calling it foolish would be inadequate—utterly unmanageable, indescribably foolish longing born of such idiocy; yet to me, it felt as though some external, irresistible, invisible violence bore down upon me, thrusting me bodily into K Theater. But having Misako beside me then granted unexpected strength to withstand this violence with a heave. Yet this very strength’s unforeseen recoil seemed to hurl me perpendicularly away from K Theater—the true reason I’d fled toward Hyoutan Pond as if escaping. Ah, what a tedious explanation. Couldn’t I phrase it more directly? Though I thought this myself, being incapable of doing so left me no choice but to beg the reader’s indulgence.

And what about Misako? The fact that Misako too walked as if fleeing! The reason Misako had invited me to Rokku was—I perceived—nostalgia for Rokku from which she was now separated against her will, and her unsevered yet futile longing for its stage; that was the cause. Misako had uttered words along the way that made this perception unmistakable. Yet when we arrived, we were assailed by pain akin to insects lured into flames. To escape that agony, we seemed to have veered toward the dark pond.

We came onto the bridge and felt relieved. That unintentionally kept our feet rooted there. Embarrassed by my own pitiable state, I turned my eyes to the neon signs of “Bikkuri Zenzai” and “Daizen” glowing large and beautiful like staged fireworks over the river beyond the pond, and said, “Hmm, that’s pretty.” That served as my pretext for staying rooted. Going straight through the movie theater district to its end, veering slightly right onto the street leading directly to Senzoku—commonly called “Yonekyu-dori” for its namesake restaurant though officially “Hisago-dori”—at one entrance stood “Bikkuri Zenzai,” its red neon displaying the split characters for *bikkuri* within a double circle. Opposite it, “Daizen” featured a red-line tuna with oversized fins swimming toward that circle beneath a blue “Daizen” sign and undulating wave patterns rendered through flashing bulbs. When viewed under the wisteria trellis, this gaudy spectacle faced us directly, its vivid reflection staining the black pond’s surface—a surface that held something like a submerged pleasure quarter in its depths, leaking an eerie beauty through that captured light. “It’s beautiful.” Misako’s tone too seemed to mask embarrassment. Though no wind stirred, crepe-like ripples appeared to tremble across the pond, thinning the reflections’ quiver. No—it was from those quivering reflections that I deduced ripples must exist, yet all water visible from the bridge lay perfectly smooth under an oily black sheen, wrinkleless.

Both of them remained silent and stood rigidly for a while. As we stood there, an inexplicable restlessness began smoldering within me, and I sensed that something equally restless had started smoldering within Misako as well. Misako suddenly snapped.

“Why are you wandering around Asakusa, Mr. Kurahashi?” “—Well…” Finding it too bothersome to explain directly, I evaded the question. “Gathering material?” “That’s not it.” I said this clearly. “Then what?”

“—Because Asakusa’s interesting.” I blurted out a spur-of-the-moment lie. Then Misako frowned. Her frown was clearly visible even in the dark. In a harsh tone, she said, “Are you wandering around Asakusa out of some morbid curiosity?” When I first heard “morbid curiosity,” I didn’t grasp its meaning at all—huh? I tilted my head in confusion, but upon realizing—“Ah, that”—the novelty of encountering such an unusual phrase summoned a smile, and I smiled silently. Misako tapped her shoe tips click-clack,

“Tajima hated people who viewed Asakusa with morbid curiosity,” she said.

When Misako mentioned Tajima, it struck me as so abrupt that I said, "Hmm." "Mr. Tajima, you know," I added. (Through repeated encounters with such abruptness over time, I grew accustomed to it and stopped finding it jarring. Simultaneously, I realized that Misako's abruptness stemmed from how Tajima would invade her thoughts at every turn—how he had settled within her unnoticed.)

“Yes, Tajima really hated such people.” Misako spoke bluntly, her tone making it clear she felt the same way.

“If Tajima were here in Asakusa and met you, if he knew about your morbid curiosity, he’d surely fly into a rage.”

When told that, I panicked. There, I denied having come to Asakusa out of so-called morbid curiosity—yet while I maintained that renting an apartment here was for work, I couldn’t claim my eyes held no trace of morbidity when viewing it. Precisely for this reason, being told this—now that half a year had passed since first coming to Asakusa—as someone who felt halfway an insider, I couldn’t pretend not to understand Tajima’s fury and hatred toward those outsiders who viewed Asakusa with morbid curiosity. But putting on a look of incomprehension, I asked Misako, “Why would Mr. Tajima get angry?” I found myself growing increasingly intrigued by this Tajima. Though I could guess his reasons for anger, more than that, I wanted to hear from Misako about Tajima’s character.

Misako’s reply was ambiguous and unsatisfactory. The ambiguity stemmed from her inability to express herself properly. She grew frustrated at being unable to articulate herself, and the more frustrated she became, the less she could express—yet the meaning was understood. Even having grasped the meaning, my desire to know Tajima as a person remained unsatisfied.

When people peer at the life we're living so seriously from the outside with some kind of voyeuristic interest, isn't it only natural to get angry? To put it simply, that was what she meant—but her inability to articulate this properly only made the already sullen Misako grow even more sullen. Such was Misako; yet when I tried to leave the okonomiyaki shop, she who had said "Shall I come with you? Is that okay?" and followed me remained entirely separate entities in my heart that refused to coalesce.

But this was because I remained unaware of the strange connection between us that Misako had mentioned. And—or rather—because of that, I couldn't grasp what feelings had compelled her to follow me, nor what emotions had driven her to so bluntly call out my morbid curiosity. —

I would soon come to hear of this connection (albeit only a small part of it).

We stopped by a tea shop called "Omasa" immediately to the right after crossing the bridge. During summer, I had often eaten vinegared tokoroten jelly there—though I'd forgotten about it as the weather cooled—but just then, with my chest burning from the forcefully crammed okonomiyaki, I thought of eating it and invited Misako. “—It’s cold, isn’t it?” Misako said, though she didn’t object. On Hyoutan Pond’s island, besides Omasa, there was another such shop to the left; this one faced toward the neon lights we’d been gazing at from the bridge, while Omasa had benches lined up facing the opposite direction where the fountain stood. When I sat down on the summer-style bench ill-suited for the season, Hyoutan Pond appeared almost like a private pond belonging to this shop. Misako ordered tokoroten jelly too.

Now, regarding the story of our connection—since I was curious—I said with uncharacteristic forcefulness and a demanding tone. The way Misako had spoken so bluntly, implying something about me, reflexively stiffened my resolve. —Misako pursed her lips into a suction-cup shape and slurped the tokoroten smoothly.

“I don’t know what it’s about, but—I want you to tell me.”

Misako placed the hand holding the plate on her knee and, “Will you be meeting your ex-wife?” “What’s she doing now?” There was a sarcastic edge to her politeness. “—She’s in Shanghai.” “In Shanghai?” She didn’t voice it, but her face looked like she wanted to ask why she had gone to Shanghai. I, however, remained silent. I found myself gazing at the pond’s fountain—which, unlike in summer when it drew crowds—now spraying its cold water with diligent faithfulness yet forlornly, and with a touch of indignation, despite being utterly ignored by all.

—My former wife Ayuko was at a bar in Shanghai. The Ginza bar where she used to work had opened a new branch there. She had been called over. —One of my friends, hearing about her move to Shanghai, said this to me: “Now, I shouldn’t say this, but—when you hear other women are going to Shanghai, well, Shanghai—it makes you go ‘hmm.’ But with Ayuko, it just slips right in naturally.” “Like it’s finally clicked into place—Ayuko and Shanghai really do fit perfectly together, don’t they?”

I gave a wry smile and nodded without saying anything. As for Ayuko going to Shanghai—it being so like her, one couldn’t be surprised even upon hearing it—I agreed with that sentiment, but my friend’s words carried the added implication that Ayuko had finally fallen to where she belonged. I could not agree with that. Not out of sympathy or pity for Ayuko, but because her move to Shanghai gave me no sense whatsoever that she had fallen to where she belonged.

Ayuko’s life in these past few years since leaving me had been one of constant upheaval—whenever I heard rumors from others or met Ayuko myself in Ginza and listened to her talk, I was always informed of some new state of affairs different from before, and—I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. It felt as though no words other than those could capture the true nature of that existence. However, while I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, there was something vividly cutting through those phenomena. There was a single thread-like thing that alone stood clearly discernible. It was a matter of abundant vitality in living. Ayuko had always lived with truly vigorous vitality. She lived boldly and spiritedly. —And precisely because I felt the meagerness of my own vitality (it was due to this meagerness that Ayuko had left me), Ayuko’s vigorous way of living struck me all the more vividly. Even upon hearing about her move to Shanghai, the first thing I felt was astonishment—astonishment that her vigorous life had stretched its tentacles all the way to Shanghai.

A few days ago, I had received a letter from Ayuko in Shanghai. In it was written about how Ayuko had met in Shanghai with N-kun, a writer I was close with who had joined the military writer corps and gone to China, along with her earnest recommendation that you must somehow arrange to come here at least once. Something to the effect that your damp personality and damp novels would surely be recast into something strong was written in her spirited handwriting.—

“Speaking of Shanghai… what happened with Mr. Ooya Goro?” Misako’s face at that moment was—to borrow my friend’s words—one that seemed to murmur, “Shanghai, you know… hmm.” “Well—” The relationship between Ayuko and Ooya Goro was such that—no sooner had I heard they’d broken up than there’d be talk of them getting back together, and just when I thought they were together, I’d be told they’d split—again, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Ooya Goro was a Levius singer in the Shinkawa Rokuba Troupe; though Ayuko was a year younger in age, she called him “Goro-chan” with an air of seniority. I first heard about their cohabitation roughly two years ago.

“—Do you know Goro-chan?”

When I said,

“What do you mean ‘know’…”

Misako snorted with a sneering expression, “—Ooya Goro...” This time, she dropped the honorific, “My sister’s…”

Whether she had been about to say “husband” or “lover”—she twisted her lips as if struggling to voice it, then skipped over the word entirely,

“—This was before your ex-wife got involved with him.” “Huh.”

This was the first I’d heard of it. A truly strange twist of fate. I was surprised. Had Misako not worn that strangely contorted—no, that grave expression which laid bare the story’s truth to my eyes at that moment, I might have thought it all a fabrication. Such doubts might have arisen. That was how taken aback I was. Yes, even in reality, this story feels fabricated. All the more so—given that it’s being told in novel form—readers will surely take this strange twist of fate as my fictional contrivance. But were it a fictional contrivance, I—incompetent novelist though I may be—would never craft such an obviously artificial fabrication. I would present you with one that feels more plausible.—(Furthermore, though I later learned of yet another fabrication involving Koyanagi Masako—one even more contrived than this—I shall refrain from speaking of it now.)

“So, was your sister also involved with Levius?”

I said, rubbing my hands together. The area around the pond was growing cold. “Yes, she was at T Theatre alongside me.” “At that time, Mr. Ooya Goro was also at T Theatre…” “So, your sister now…” “...She’s dead.”

She blurted out in a startlingly loud voice, then turned her face away sharply.

For a while, we were silent.

I was vacantly gazing across the pond. There—speaking from the perspective of the movie theater district—it corresponded to the backside of O Hall, though I hadn’t noticed it at all until now: five shops clustered together, each displaying nearly identical signs facing the pond that read “Oyakodon, Sushi, Tendon.” “As for the name—what was it?”

Misako remained silent. But, before long,

“Ichikawa Reiko.”

It was a low, trembling voice.

—And with that, the story of the strange relationship between Misako and me was cut short. But that alone had merely revealed its outermost contours. Therefore, even with that, matters such as what feelings had driven Misako to follow me—as I wrote at the end of the previous section—still remained unclear to me. Later, when I had come to know the entirety of the story, I was finally able to perceive it—but now does not seem to be the time to speak of it.

Now, there at the pondside where we were—just behind the movie theater district and so close you could almost reach out and touch the people on the street—the lively clamor from the thoroughfare reached us as something like an unbelievably distant noise, an uncertainty that made me doubt my own ears, perhaps because of how tightly packed night stalls along the pond’s edge formed a wall-like barrier. That made this cold, forsaken place feel even more lonely. It also made my mood there desolate and left me with a certain loneliness…

**Part Four: Downfall**

That night—feeling strangely exhausted and hollowed-out—I found myself reluctant to return to Ōmori’s house and decided to stay at the apartment. It was not yet midnight when I pulled the futon completely over my head, only to lie there with mind painfully alert and unable to sleep. Soon came the creak-creak of someone ascending the stairs to the third floor—footsteps that halted outside my room. “Oh, you’re here.” I’d left the lights on in my room and my slippers out in the hallway; those things betrayed my presence. (The lights—originally meant to ward off those lawless bugs that would materialize from nowhere to bite me if I darkened the room—had become unnecessary after letting those creatures feast their fill on my blood once. Whether due to that or simply the colder weather, they’d largely stopped appearing by then.)

When I stuck my head out from the futon like a turtle, outside the room, “Mr. Kurahashi—working?”

By that voice—hoarse to the point of sounding forcibly enunciated, hurling each phrase rapid-fire—I knew it was Asano Mitsuo.

“Oh, Asano.” “Please, come in.”

Asano opened the door. “Oh, you’re already in bed?” “Have you been staying here lately?” And without waiting for my reply, “Before, even when I came at night, you were never here.” “But lately, I had given up coming here altogether.” Asano’s face, flushed with drink, glowed even brighter with the satisfaction and joy of a hunter who has caught his prey. “You must be here during the day, but I hesitated to visit for fear of disturbing your work.”

I had never once visited Asano, who lived in Asakusa, yet I was suddenly made to feel ashamed. When I tried to offer what sounded like an excuse, Asano seemed intent on not letting me open my mouth as he said, “Mr. Kurahashi’s Asakusa life has finally become full-fledged with you staying over like this, hasn’t it?”

he said.

Not knowing how to greet him, I couldn’t find the right words, and while wearing an ambiguous smile, I adjusted the front of the kimono I had on over my sleepwear. Then Asano, “—I’m not particularly impressed,” he said. This was a remark that left me at an even greater loss for words. “How is your work coming along?” He pressed on. With a sensation like being strafed by machine-gun fire—rat-a-tat— “—It’s no good.” I said, and sat down on the futon as if collapsing.

By saying “It’s no good,” I—though interrupted by Asano’s arrival—now revived the thoughts that had been circling in my head while lying there, bringing them back once more. To put it in a word—it was that I wanted to write a robust, powerful novel. But immediately after that wish—chasing after it—a reflection would come to me: that even if I thought that way, in the end I couldn’t write it. I had been making them go around in grand circles.

In my mind, the words of the French writer Montherlant are etched and refuse to fade. “—In literary work, there inevitably comes the shameful whining of defeated losers attached to it, making one grow sick of it.” In sports, there is no whining. “The one who jumps fifty centimeters less than their opponent never comes afterward to complain,” Montherlant says. When I read that, given how my novels in particular overflow with nothing but “the shameful whining of defeated losers”—and since I myself had at last come to want to write proper novels, ones that would invigorate readers’ spirits, make them healthy, noble, and bold; novels that could stir within them a fierce desire for life and robust mental fortitude (for that is what I mean by “robust, powerful novels”)—I felt the sharp sting of a whip. Many of my novels are the kind that fretfully and tearfully complain after the fact to those who jumped fifty centimeters farther. I wanted to write a novel that would refreshingly and robustly soar fifty meters.

This wish had arisen within me along with the outbreak. Rather than something demanded from outside, for me, it was more like a kind of instinctual urge that had arisen spontaneously within. But try as I might, I simply couldn’t write such novels. Futilely, desires would surge up within me, yet I couldn’t concretize them into a novel. As a result, that desire remained unfulfilled and accumulated within me, until I had fallen into a sort of hysterical state.

I thought that if I went to the battlefield, I might be saved from that hysteria-like state. But for me, going to where my compatriots were risking their lives in battle—I, a Category C unfit for combat—felt exactly like going as a "spectator," an idea that made me deeply self-conscious. Even if the battlefield did not look at me with such eyes, here on my end, I was filled with guilt. While fully acknowledging myself as a spectator—as if walking around with a sign pasted to my forehead declaring "spectator of safe living"—I felt inexcusably guilty toward the soldiers sacrificing their lives in battle. On one occasion, when a senior critic who had already made two trips to the frontlines asked me, "Aren’t you going to the battlefield?", I replied, "—I do want to go," and explained these feelings. Then, the critic,

“You…” he glared at me, then slammed the table and said, “You’re no good. That’s why you’re no good.” The critic didn’t explain why I was no good, but I came to realize those feelings of mine were trivial. I thought that if I went to the battlefield, those trivial personal feelings would be blown away—and with them, I’d surely gain something precious unattainable otherwise. I thought going to the battlefield meant standing on a grander plane where such petty emotions meant nothing. But even so, those feelings persisted stubbornly in my heart, refusing to be swept away.

And yet—despite all that—I wandered through Asakusa, leading an idle life that appeared, at a glance, like an affront to everyone. The reason I rented a room in an Asakusa apartment was as I mentioned earlier. But while there were various entertainment districts, I had not explained why I specifically chose Asakusa. Until then, I had loved Ginza as an entertainment district, but I came to feel intensifying disgust toward Ginza and all things Ginza-esque—including the Ginza-esque within myself—while simultaneously being drawn to Asakusa by the hazy (half-baked) notion of it being a people’s entertainment district; that was why I came to Asakusa. I wanted to immerse myself among the crowds of people there. (This too was a vague, half-baked concept.)—By grinding my nerves raw against the simplicity, honesty, resilience, and such that the people possessed, I wanted to cure my hysteria. But…

But no—if I let myself go on like this, I had to cut off this endless prattle right here. "—I told Asano my work wasn't going well." Then Asano's face lit up as if I'd voiced his exact thoughts, "The air of Asakusa is no good for us." He bit into the words with particular emphasis on "us," resolute as teeth sinking into flesh. "Asakusa makes people shiftless—it's no good. Here you can just drift along and still scrape by." "This is what's no good." I understood now what he'd meant about my full-fledged Asakusa life being unwise. "—I'm the perfect specimen." "Truly, the ideal example." "A first-rate specimen of Asakusa poisoning—thoroughly ruined by its atmosphere, I tell you."

Asano bared his tobacco-stained, blackened teeth in a laugh. Asano used to write good novels but had published nothing in recent years. (No—he wrote trivial pieces under different pseudonyms each time and made a living that way.) (He earned only enough for bare subsistence and never attempted to write anything beyond that.) Asano blamed this—though I couldn’t verify the truth of it—on having moved to Asakusa and sunk into its depths. And so, while cursing Asakusa—that which sapped people’s vitality—Asano made no attempt to leave.

“The other day, when I read *Sanin*—there’s a secondary protagonist named Yurii.” “A weak man in contrast to Sanin—there was this line in Yurii’s words.” “‘My friend…’ says Yurii, you know.” “‘My life is didactic,’ he says.” “‘In other words, it means people shouldn’t live this way…’ he says—but I too am precisely such a didactic existence.” “‘How Asakusa corrupts people…’”

I found it difficult to listen to Asano speak of himself as if he were a defeated remnant and hurriedly tried to change the subject. (The reason I didn’t feel like visiting him was that going to see him felt like going specifically to hear those defeated-remnant words.)

“Oh right—” I struck my knee. “Mr. Asano, don’t you know someone called Tajima?” “He was writing scripts or something in Asakusa, they say…” While thinking there was no way he would know—I had said it as a convenient way to change the subject. However, “Tajima showed up in Asakusa? — Did you meet him?”

Asano’s eyes gleamed. “No—I haven’t exactly met him, though.” “That’s right—Tajima is Yurii.” Asano interrupted. “—Even the ex-leftist part matches perfectly.” “Ex-leftist?”

“That’s right—I dislike leftists, so I don’t know much about that side of things, but Tajima apparently was involved in leftist theater. At that time, Tajima was still a student.” “In the end, Tajima apparently quit school and moved from theater to political movements.” “And then, when the leftists collapsed, Tajima tumbled into Asakusa, I tell you.” “From Tajima’s perspective, he must have intended to carve out a new life for himself.”

Asano clenched the pipe between his teeth, “Well, ex-leftists—that’s right, such terms aren’t in fashion these days, I suppose.” “They’ve fallen out of use.” “Is it ‘converts’ they call them now?” “Somehow, among that lot, there’s an awful lot of guys with strangely strong vitality.” “I dislike leftists—they rub me the wrong way.” “But Tajima—that fellow, despite being an ex-leftist, is utterly useless.” “He has absolutely no vitality.” “It’s not that he doesn’t have it—he lost it here in Asakusa.” “He likely came intending to revitalize his vitality, but no—instead, he was rendered listless and ended up ruining even his body.” “Tajima is one of those intellectuals ruined by Asakusa’s air—as expected.”

The interest in Tajima that Misako had planted in me grew more intense. Asano kept talking by himself. "In that sense, I'm the type who pities fellow sufferers—I feel affection for Tajima—but just a bit... he's a strange one." Asano's eyes searched the darkness like someone tracking shadows. "Tajima himself is completely useless, yet he's got this peculiar thing—call it power, influence, or effect—that oddly energizes the life force of people around him in Asakusa..." (His voice quivered with some indescribable emotion stirred by his own words.) "He's truly bizarre, I tell you." "He doesn't seem to do it consciously." "He's worthless himself, but isn't he trying to make others stand firm? Like..." "For instance—say there's a guy here planning something rotten." "Say there's a man trying to sweet-talk some idle Asakusa dancers out of work—talk them into being sold off to some godforsaken hole." "Let's say he's not a real villain—just someone wavering." "'Should I do it? No, wait'—that sort of back-and-forth." "In that moment, if he meets Tajima—right—just looking at Tajima's face..." "Even if Tajima says nothing—meeting him makes you instantly think 'screw it'." "That's what Tajima's like." "This actually happened, mind you." "I heard it straight from that small-time crook." "Tajima's that kind of weirdo." "He fancies himself a moralist." "But only in words."

“So that’s probably why such things happen, but in any case, Tajima the moralist would never tell that petty villain to go sell off women.” “But when you meet Tajima, you resolve to go sell them off.—Hearing this story, you realize Tajima isn’t consciously trying to influence those around him.—And that uncanny effect of his isn’t limited to inciting misdeeds, of course.” “Such things invigorate reprehensible vitality, but they also invigorate vitality in a good sense.” “Motivating rotten actors to get their act together, making some noisy upstart who’s been on the rise lately open an oden shop with proper resolve—Tajima might just be one hell of a guy, someone extraordinary who’s not like regular people, maybe even carrying something monstrous within him.”

He had spoken in one breath, but—or so it seemed—his hoarse voice when uttering those final words trembled with a strange blend of awe resembling terror and revulsion akin to hatred. But immediately, Asano shook his head as if to dispel a nightmare, “No—that’s not it.” he said in a loud voice, grimacing at his own volume—then, as if trying to correct that stiffened grimace, “Mr. Kurahashi.” “Won’t you have a smoke?”

Suddenly saying this, he relaxed his brow. "I think I will." "—Kurahashi."

"I don't have any money on me—do you?" "Yes, I have some." I felt ashamed, as though I had been the one to utter those words myself. And Asano wore a face that looked exactly like mine.

I immediately tried to stand up. Then Asano, as if to restrain me, “As for Tajima, you see—” he said. “It might not be that Tajima is the reason, you see. In other words, he’s the only intellectual here, while the people around him in Asakusa are different kinds of people altogether. So those people hold Tajima in high regard. They respect him. They listen to what Tajima says. From that very point, even though Tajima himself isn’t doing anything in particular, this thing called Tajima’s effect might be arising.” (Nodding as if to convince himself) “Right. That must be it. Tajima is always saying this, you know. ‘Live robustly,’ he says. This is his trademark phrase. A rather affected line, though. Live robustly. The one saying this isn’t the least bit robust himself, so it’s an utter farce—(he twisted his livid lips into a venomous sneer)—well, let’s just call it a hollow slogan. This hollow slogan—the people around Tajima have had it drilled into their heads, hearing it from him at every turn. So when people see Tajima’s face, that slogan must immediately come to mind—that petty villain from before surely felt the same way, I bet. When they see Tajima’s face, they resolve to live robustly.”

“This clicked,” he said. “So just meeting Tajima—even without him saying a word—solidified their resolve to go through with it.” “That must be it.” “Tajima’s empty slogan of ‘Live robustly’ probably wasn’t meant to incite such malice, but petty villains can’t grasp what an intellectual like him truly means by those words.” “They take it as ‘Just do it—no matter what—push forward,’ interpreting it through their petty villain lens.” “So seeing Tajima stirred up their malicious intent.” “That’s how it must be.—Yes, exactly.” “It’s nothing significant.” “There’s nothing surprising about it at all.”

Asano himself conjured up Tajima’s uncanny image before me, only to shatter it with his own hands. While destroying it, Asano’s eyes gleamed with his characteristic self-contemptuous delight, his entire body brimming with ferocious vitality—but the moment he finished, his body seemed to abruptly shrink and shrivel with a clatter, leaving him with a forlorn, heartrending expression.

And then, muttering in a hushed voice, he added this—in a tone like gathering fragments of a shattered statue: “However, Tajima certainly does have a strange way of attracting people.—Everyone still talks about Tajima constantly and wants to see him.—Though Tajima isn’t in Asakusa anymore, he still exists in everyone’s hearts. That’s about the size of it.” Having said that, he sucked down the cigarette until it seemed his lips might burn, then extended his neck and took a few sharp puffs with a smacking sound before stubbing it out in the ashtray,

“Well, shall we go?”

And while standing up—as if suddenly noticing something—he asked, “Mr. Kurahashi, how do you know Tajima?” (Asano’s legs were so disproportionately short that he appeared grotesquely shaped. His torso was alarmingly long—to exaggerate slightly, his standing height scarcely differed from when seated.) “Through his wife… and becoming acquainted at the okonomiyaki shop in Tajima-cho—” “Horetarou—isn’t that right?”

Asano interjected. "The okonomiyaki shop called Horetarou, right?" "At Horetarou," I said, "I still hadn't met you." "Mr. Asano, you go there—" "I haven't been going there lately..."

We left the room. Asano descended the steep staircase first, “That okonomiyaki shop—now, this one might be called Tajima’s… work, perhaps.” “That was opened by the wife after her husband Horetarou went off to war—she started it at home, you see.” “It was Tajima who persuaded the wife to start it.”

We descended the stairs and stood in a dim kitchen where a brownish electric light drifted. It was the apartment residents' shared cooking area. In that corner stood an apartment entrance—unlike any proper apartment entrance, resembling more a kitchen doorway (which it undoubtedly was). The first floor facing the main street housed shops—a hardware store, a dried bonito shop—while the second and third floors were apartments, with the entrance located in the back alley. There, we stepped down onto the earthen floor cluttered with dirty geta, in the manner of second-floor tenants timidly exiting through the kitchen. Beside the entrance was a toilet—a flush toilet that somehow seemed incongruous—and just then came the terrifying roar of water rushing violently through the pipes.

“Where shall we go?”

When we went outside, I said. The moon hung over the alley. Only on that night, as if it had flown far away, it appeared terribly distant and small.

“How about some awamori?” “I’ve got two or three yen on me, but…” “Right.” “Shall we go to the okonomiyaki shop?” “No, no.” Asano shook his head. “Awamori tastes better than bad liquor.” Near the apartment was an awamori bar where patrons who entered by twelve o’clock wouldn’t be driven out even if they lingered a little late. (This was Asano’s remark.) Until we got there, Asano—though he had been ranting alone in the apartment like someone in a feverish delirium—or perhaps because of that, now sullenly fell silent and walked briskly ahead of me. His raised shoulders—whether that was their natural posture or he was deliberately hunching them—jutted out starkly through the faded, flimsy layers of his kimono, all skin and bone with not an ounce of flesh to them. Asano carried the air of his downfall pitifully upon his shoulders—yes, he bore that sense of ruin with care atop his bones, not allowing even a tremor as though it must never slip away—and glided his body forward like a specter. What distinguished him from a ghost was the rhythmic *shu-shu* sound, oddly comforting, emanating from his worn-down *geta* that resembled frayed straw sandals. That sound and that way of walking—Asano was enjoying them, and seemed to cherish them.

The awamori bar was a narrow shop that would be packed with just five or six people lined up at the counter, managed single-handedly by a plump old woman. She had married her daughter off to a film actor—though this son-in-law now languished in obscurity, he had once shown flashes of promise. Perhaps owing to that connection, a noren curtain gifted by Takada Minoru hung there, its colors long since faded. Most patrons had ties to the park's concession stalls. The place dealt in authentic Ryukyuan awamori, bottles labeled “Port Tax Paid—Naha Tax Office” littering the entrance. The Asakusa crowd drank counterfeit liquors with casual relish—not out of ignorance, but with full awareness of the sham. When it came to discerning true awamori through taste alone, even seasoned merchants couldn’t match them. Asano numbered among these connoisseurs. He and the old woman shared the kind of rapport where he’d announce “Here I am!” and she’d retort “Oh, look who’s here—Mr. Rowdy himself!” The old woman likely considered this sharp tongue part of her business acumen, addressing customers with a brusqueness that bordered on disregard.

When the awamori went down, Asano’s tongue came alive again. He began talking about Horetarou. “Old man Horetarou—that guy’s actually quite the impressive performer, you know. Even now, he’s just languishing as an okonomiyaki shop proprietor.” “Something about him not being able to go on stage due to war injuries…” “Well now, that’s precisely the thing. The part about him not performing isn’t entirely a lie, mind you.—They say he got hit in Baoding. He was a military engineer—you’ve heard this story before? No? Then listen up. It’s quite something. Apparently he was genuinely brave. He’ll tell you a proper tale—in exhaustive detail too. Of course, you’ve got to approach it right—wait for when he’s in good spirits and draw it out of him. He’s an odd one, won’t volunteer it himself. The thigh, you see. So they sent him home—though having stayed in hospital all that time, he must’ve returned once healed. At a glance there’s nothing wrong, but when he stands on stage—stays standing too long—it starts aching or going numb. He says he still can’t return for a while yet, but deep down I wonder if he doesn’t want to perform manzai anymore—if he’s come to hate the stage itself. Not that he’s content being just an okonomiyaki shop proprietor either…”

Asano put the thick glass to his mouth. "Has he gotten sick of being an entertainer?" I lifted my own heavy cup. The rim felt unnaturally smooth against my lips—an unsettling sensation—as I took a sip of the clear, fiery liquid before gulping water. "No, that's not it." As he spoke, Asano—his overgrown nails crusted with black filth—dragged the grimy back of his hand across his lips in a slovenly swipe (he looked every bit the awamori-soaked barfly, disgustingly grubby).

“He’s a proper performer, you see,” “Can’t stand today’s stages crawling with worthless amateur hacks.” “Those damn amateur manzai acts putting on airs—no, I get how he feels.” Asano glared at me with bulging eyes—(You amateur scribbler!) —that’s what his look seemed to say. “That man—” (here his tone shifted) “—shouldn’t be doing manzai at all. He once told me—” “A real performer stands alone on the yose platform, faces a crowd without flinching. Duo manzai clowns aren’t artists.” “Said that while laughing—how becoming a manzai guy made him no true performer anymore. Started at yose theaters himself.” “Long time back now—yose went under, so he switched to manzai. More like fell into it.” “Joined Moriya Horedanji’s troupe as Moriya Horetarou—but Horedanji himself had jumped from rakugo to manzai when yose died.” “Horetarou—” (Asano rephrased) “—was mainly Kiyomoto school. Mother was a natori from Enju’s lineage.” “Shamisen drilled into him since childhood—full apprenticeship served.” “Father was some big-shot contractor—proper business background. So why’d he turn performer?” “Dunno that part—misfortune of art becoming your meal ticket, I’d say.” “Hey granny—refill!”

Asano emptied his glass in an instant. While intently watching the old woman pour,

“Well, you see, all sorts of performers come to the okonomiyaki shop.” “But even with that variety—given how filthy the place is—no one of any real caliber shows up.” “It’s just those worthless amateur manzai types the old man hates—those hacks lounging about the place, carrying on with their ‘Oh, what a swanky gig we had tonight!’ or ‘How much we raked in!’ or ‘We’d need ten bodies to keep up with this!’ That’s why he finds it all the more intolerable.”

And so, Asano said that even though Horetarou's wife was busy working alone, he was always out walking around. In this story, while I had been describing "The Cultured Okonomiyaki Chef—Horetarou," I had yet to actually introduce Horetarou himself even once. It would have been more appropriate had I presented Horetarou first—before relating Asano's account of this nature—or so it now seemed to me. But this wasn't due to my negligence—it wasn't that I hadn't attempted to depict him, but rather that Horetarou simply wouldn't appear. Whenever I reached a scene where I meant to introduce "Horetarou," he was invariably absent from home. When I asked his wife about it, she said he seemed to be visiting his war comrades. "He must miss them terribly, it seems." "And his war comrades come visit our home too."

By the way, Asano’s remark about amateur manzai performers using "Horetarou" to boast brought Kameya Pontan to my mind. Pontan had been an itinerant actor until very recently. Still a youth under twenty—a thoroughly lower-tier actor—he had partnered with Tsuruya Anpon, whom he called "brother," to become a manzai comedian. When he first started out, being tested at various venues kept him exceedingly busy. During that period, I often encountered him at Horetarou’s place, where he radiated raw ambition. He’d even boasted of earning several hundred yen a month (though surely exaggerated)—and I thought it natural he’d crow about rising from destitute actor to sudden prosperity. Yet even in this manzai heyday, the idea that one could simply mount a stage and earn a living struck me as frankly alarming. If even I—a mere layman—found it alarming, how galling must Horetarou have felt? Yet back then, I knew nothing of what brewed in Horetarou’s heart.

"—And this is something of a digression—but eventually the comedy duo of Tsuruiya Anpon and Kameya Pontan managed to enter Hall E of the park’s ‘Manzai Permanent Hall’." Though they were amateurs, they must have been skilled. Or perhaps it was the ‘freshness’ of their amateur status that appealed to the audience. Thus, while securing a spot at a small theater in Asakusa—a prestigious stage for them—was an achievement, as novices their monthly salary came to sixty yen. The sixty yen was allocated per pair, meaning each received thirty yen.

Now, Tsuruya Anpon—unlike Pontan, who came from an acting background—had no prior connection to the stage, having formerly been an assistant stationmaster at a certain station in Kyushu. He became infatuated with a geisha, neglected obligations across all fronts to secure her release and marry her, got fired from his job—following that standard script—and so the two of them came to Tokyo. As for how this former railway official came to be a manzai performer—I will omit that explanation for now—his wife, the former geisha, also became a manzai performer at the same time. That is, originally they had worked as a married couple, but upon partnering with Kameya Pontan in hopes of advancement, they began something called "three-dimensional manzai" (—not that it was particularly innovative—it was just a label; the content was no different from regular manzai). When they began performing, his wife formed a separate partnership with someone else. And since his wife earned separately through another avenue, Anpon could manage even with his thirty-yen income—but Pontan, being single and lacking such supplementary earnings, couldn’t get by on thirty yen alone, even with the minimal expenses of a single man’s rented life. There, he would say to “Brother”—“Let’s work at some rundown theater and earn money; if we don’t earn, we’ll starve”—but Anpon would refuse, saying, “That would lower our standing. This is where we must endure.”

―This was the story I heard from Horetarou’s wife.

“Mr. Pontan was so full of life until just recently, but now he’s lost all his spirit, poor thing—manzai isn’t something you can make a living at alone, you know.” Pontan in his days of high spirits would say whenever he saw me: “Don’t you have any funny material?” “Please tell me one.” “I just can’t come up with any good closing gags.” But lately he had stopped saying such things altogether. He would sit silently eating Gosen’s yakisoba, taking an exceedingly long time to finish.

“Isn’t it the same with novels too?” Asano leaned against the counter, propping his chin in his hand with a look of contempt as he spoke. “Rather than novels of true artistry, it’s those amateur works that hook readers with cheap tricks that dominate these days—I suppose I share Horetarou’s sentiments.” “Tch!” “Makes me sick to my stomach!” His voice carried a confrontational edge. But he immediately withdrew his hand from his chin, let his head drop sharply, and suddenly adopted a feeble, ingratiating tone.

“No—it’s not that I don’t write novels—it’s that I can’t write them.—I’m no good.” “Ah, don’t say anything…” “I’m no good.”

――I became intoxicated.

When I became intoxicated, Koyanagi Masako's delicate form began whirling wildly inside my head. I could no longer keep Koyanagi Masako's name from rising to my lips.

“Koyanagi from K Theater?”

“Koyanagi from K Theater?” said Asano. “If it’s K Theater, that’s my territory.” “How dare you encroach on my territory!”

It seemed like a joke, yet also serious. Such was Asano—he seemed drunk, yet also not drunk at all.

“Whether I’ve encroached or not—I haven’t even exchanged a single word with her yet…”

“I haven’t even spoken a single word to her yet,” I said. My own words caught in my throat, and I wondered—had I become the sort of drunk who turns maudlin? “I’ve only been watching her dance from a corner of the audience seats, letting my heart race... nothing more.” “Well now,”

Asano cut in. “What’s this now? And that?” With a derisive smile, “Well then, let’s go to the dressing room together tomorrow. Let’s have Kurahashi meet Koyanagi Masako. Then we’ll go out and have tea or something.”

“……” I wasn’t without acquaintances at Levius in Asakusa—had I asked, I could have obtained such opportunities—but something about pleading felt impossible, and thus I had never been blessed with those chances until now. And then that time finally came. ——But something held me back.

However, Asano decided on his own, "You'll be at your apartment tomorrow. I'll come to get you in the evening." When Asano firmly settled the matter, I finally faced head-on the joy of meeting Koyanagi Masako whom I'd longed for. Whether from joy or liquor, my heart kept pounding. "Leave everything about Asakusa to me..." Having declared this boldly (-It was here I first saw Asano being resolute), he slapped his bony exposed chest with a thump and staggered from his own momentum.

Part Five: Beautiful Skin

This peculiar novel of mine had already reached its fifth installment. It had been seven months since I began writing (the discrepancy between five and seven months being due to a two-month hiatus—and why did I take that break? Ah, who cares!), and in those seven months, what I'd written amounted to nothing more than a single day's story. Naturally, the narrative showed no progress whatsoever. Had this been the work of a competent writer, they might have developed a tale spanning five or even seven tumultuous years in that time. Even I heard myself saying, "I need to do something about this." I had to find some way to quicken the story's tempo.

*

As promised, Asano Mitsuo came to visit my apartment, and I left with him. At the corner leading out to Kokusai-dori Avenue (the street with the Kokusai Theater), there was a bicycle parking area. Asano said: "It's quite common—people leave their bikes here and never come back to retrieve them." "An errand boy or something like that, I suppose." "They park their bikes while out on deliveries, planning to catch a quick picture show, but end up fooling around until they can't face returning to their masters." "Then they ditch the bicycles and run away." "Bikes like that are here all the time, they say." Just as the night before, Asano was talkative.

When we emerged onto Kokusai-dori Avenue, it seemed the matinee performance of the Shochiku Girls’ Revue at Kokusai Theater had just let out, and a brilliant crowd of young girls—likely the audience—filled the sidewalk to overflowing, streaming away toward Tawaramachi. Vividly making us sense something distinctly different from Asakusa’s usual atmosphere, that resplendent stream flowed straight toward Tawaramachi’s train, bus, and subway stations. The Shochiku Girls’ Revue was born in Asakusa and still performs at the Kokusai Theater there, but its current patrons turned their backs on Asakusa with a mix of disgust, contempt, and even a touch of fear—moving briskly and directly between the station and theater without so much as a glance toward Rokku, never venturing to set foot in that direction. A sign at the Tawaramachi subway exit reads, "Please proceed straight to Kokusai Theater," and indeed, they arrive straight and depart straight. Faced with that briskly flowing crowd, I had long felt—how should I put it?—that is to say, though I was neither a restaurant owner expecting young patrons to stray toward Rokku and spend money there, nor someone connected to a notions shop catering to young women, I found myself stirred by a frustration and irritation akin to what one feels toward those brimming with confidence—and at that moment, confronted by what you might call confidence scented with perfume, we—oh, how utterly devoid of confidence we were in all things! We—who took pride in our very lack of confidence, having no other pride to speak of—were utterly overwhelmed and spilled out toward the roadway. Yet for Asano, ever the chatterbox, this was precisely where he felt compelled to interject another remark. Or rather, here he was—the lips that had vowed to quicken the story’s pace were still moist—reduced to this pitiable state. Let’s hurry on.

We went to the stage door of K Theater. Asano walked briskly inside with the air of a backstage insider. His back radiated the same resolute brilliance as when he had thumped his chest the night before while declaring, "Leave everything about Asakusa to me..." When entering, Asano said to me, "—Well…," but since it felt ambiguously like an invitation—and I was thoroughly intimidated—I remained outside alone.

In that alley before the stage door, there was also a bicycle parking area. Next to it lay the back of T Hall—a manzai theater facing Kokusai-dori Avenue—from which intermission music drifted out. In sync with that rhythm, my heart throbbed. “What’s the matter now?” Asano thrust his face through the door and spoke. I gulped down saliva.

—The Dancing Team’s dressing room was on the third floor of the dark backstage area. Nearly missing my footing on the steep bare iron staircase, I climbed to the third floor. Of course, I hadn’t been able to stride confidently into that dressing room—but setting aside such tedious psychological details, now came the question: should I describe this dressing room scene here in meticulous detail or not? This is where I want to write. Someone of my shallow disposition—having long nursed a voyeuristic fascination for that dressing room spectacle I’d yearned to glimpse with perverse eagerness—would naturally presume you share this morbid curiosity. Worse still, wallowing in the idiotic pride of being sole witness to such secrets, I’d want to babble on with boastful glee—but let’s omit this too.

Omitting this wasn't solely for maintaining the promised tempo. To tell the truth, at that moment—there I was, forcibly seated (?) by Asano at the center of that narrow room flanked by dancers on both sides—no, truly, it was like some deep-sea fish with feeble eyes being hauled up to a garish spot under a blazing sun; not a single thing registered clearly in my sight. So—true enough, this later became the reason I occasionally visited dressing rooms, each time brushing away some fragment of their scenery to store in my mind, and though I've now accumulated enough to describe them if I wished—but at that initial moment when I first entered one, how could I possibly flaunt some ostentatious depiction? Honoring my state at that time, I concluded writing nothing was more realistic (?), and thus omitted it.

—I was introduced to Koyanagi Masako. “Koyanagi.” “This is Mr. Kurahashi—a novelist.”

Asano sat cross-legged in the center of the dressing room and said in an exaggeratedly pompous tone: “This is Mr. Kurahashi—a novelist of some renown.” He declared this so loudly that all the dancers turned toward us. I flushed crimson and stammered, “The pleasure’s mine…” Whereupon Asano shot me a look implying it was unseemly for someone addressed as “Sensei” to act so timidly, attempting to halt my bowing—

“Sensei—”

Adopting an even sterner tone, he began to say—

“Asano…” I interrupted. (Please stop calling me Sensei like that.) It felt like mockery, so unbearable that I tried to voice this, but my nerves had frozen my mouth shut.

Koyanagi Masako turned her knees toward us and sat up properly, constantly tugging at her skirt to prevent her bare knees from showing while wearing an expression of someone being humiliated. She hunched her body as if shrinking into herself, keeping her head bowed without saying anything else. She still had a body like that of a child. When seen on stage, though possessing a lovely fragile beauty and being fully professional—she seemed like an entirely different girl. Her neck was painfully slender, her chest like a boy's.

I felt my own heart ache with the sense that I too was somehow humiliating and tormenting her—this girl who still seemed like a child—when one of the dancers nearby,

“Hey, Mr. Asano.”

When she said that, I felt a sense of relief. “Last night—no, wait, it’s already today—this morning—Mr. X and the others came to my place, you know.” “No—not last night. It’s already this morning.” “—Said they wanted to go drinking in Yoshiwara,” she continued in a masculine tone. “Everyone was already drunk, insisting I come along.” “When I said no, they insisted I at least serve them tea, so I let them in—and then they just plopped down, started talking, and didn’t leave until morning.”

“Mr. X and who?”

“When I asked who was with whom—‘I’m really in a fix!’” The dancer—with her flat nose and lips that protruded as if compensating—began this exchange with Asano while vigorously scratching her bare legs that she’d carelessly stretched out. Koyanagi Masako and I sat rigidly silent.

Before long, Asano—

“Saa-chan, let me introduce you,” he said.

The dancer called Saa-chan kept her legs extended, “Nice to meet you…”

With her familiar, uninhibited manner, I felt at ease. “This person’s family runs a broom shop in Senzoku,” Asano said. “When you try to hurry along guests like last night’s by covering a broom with a hand towel—the superstition to make them leave—the whole place is so crammed with brooms you can’t choose which one…” “Oh, come on, Mr. Asano…” “But it’s true, isn’t it?” “It’s true about being overrun with brooms.” “Didn’t you yourself bring up that hand towel story once before?” “Oh—now that you mention it, I suppose I did.”

Saa-chan laughed cheerfully.

——It was before the show began.

After the show ended, it was decided that we would go out for tea during intermission with Saa-chan and Koyanagi Masako, so we waited in the basement beneath the stage until the show was over. In the basement were a costume room and such, and in its narrow corridor, dancers in provocative outfits wandered restlessly, waiting for their turn to go on. I wanted to go around to the audience seats and watch the show, but Asano— “There’s no point in watching something like the show.”

He made a witty remark, his eyes seeming to say he preferred the raw immediacy here. To the point of making a rare witty remark for Asano, he wore a buoyant expression—in such high spirits, “—Bin-kun,” he called out to a tall man holding a guitar. “Oh, Mr. Asano.” That was Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe, one of the four vaudevillians in the group called “The Cheerful Four.” Asano exchanged idle chatter with Binokuchi, and then—

“Let me introduce you.—This is Mr. Kurahashi, the novelist.”

Then Binokuchi— “Well, well…” —being a stage performer through and through, made an exaggerated gesture of respect,

“I always make sure to read your works.” I felt embarrassed, “Oh—uh, thanks.” “Last month’s—was it Kōdan Sekai?—there was one of your works that I found quite entertaining…”

I have never once written for a mass magazine called Kōdan Sekai.

I was utterly flustered, "Oh—uh, thanks…"

In Metro Alley, there was a coffee shop called "Bon Jour" that felt unusually Ginza-like for Asakusa. Ginza-style—come to think of it, Ginza-style coffee shops couldn't penetrate what you might call Asakusa's interior, instead proliferating like a scaly rash on its outer edges—places like Metro Alley and International Street, which were akin to its very skin.

From that perspective, Metro Alley was Asakusa's Ginza-like street—yes, that's right. I had a memory.

How many years ago was it now? Back when Ayuko had left me and was working as an actress for S Movie, I once came across her walking along Ginza Street with another actress from the same studio, and the three of us ended up visiting Asakusa on a whim. We went into this Ginza-style coffee shop in Metro Alley. It was winter. As we stepped out and were about to head toward the subway, the two actresses in gaudy outfits abruptly stopped walking and started murmuring something. They whispered conspiratorially while their eyes kept flickering toward the hardware store's display window beside them.

“What’s...? What’s wrong?” I turned around and said. “No, well… it’s this person here.” Ayuko said, turning to look at another actress—this one with a high nose that perhaps gave her a prim-and-proper air, her face bearing a porcelain-like rigidity. “...she’s saying she wants to buy a hot water bottle, so...” “A hot water bottle?” The prim-and-proper actress and the hot water bottle. It was an exceedingly strange sensation.—When I looked, several egg-shaped hot water bottles hung linked together at the front of the hardware store, their appearance equally peculiar.

Would an actress ever get the idea to buy a hot water bottle on Ginza Street? That alley may have been a Ginza-like street within Asakusa, but after all, it was not Ginza.

In a corner of that alley’s “Bon Jour,” Asano and I sat facing Koyanagi Masako and Saa-chan across from us. ——At last, I had met Koyanagi Masako, the object of my longing. Here I was, finally able to gaze upon her bare face and figure up close as much as I desired—finally in a state where I could speak of anything. What joy. ——But along with that joy came a deep sorrow I had not anticipated until that moment.

What was I supposed to do now that we’d met? I asked myself. “…………”

What was I supposed to talk about now that we'd met? I had nothing to say.

Even so, trying to start a conversation, I searched for words, but my heart was empty.

——Asano alone was talking. “Koyanagi-kun is going to China with K Theater’s entertainment troupe this time, I hear.” “…Yes.” She answered in a bashfully small voice, wearing a smile that seemed to compensate for her quietness. “When are you leaving?” “Meiji Festival Day.” “From where—Tokyo Station? Hmm.” “Will anyone see you off? What time?” “…Three o’clock.” She looked embarrassed, still speaking in that faint voice.

“How many people are going in total?” Under the barrage of questions—blinking like a small bird battered to the ground, fluttering its wings in sorrow—she turned a pleading face toward Saa-chan.

“There’s five of us,” Saa-chan answered instead. Following this, Masako nodded two or three times with a smile that seemed to require great effort. Masako seemed to smile in place of words—she wouldn’t speak unless questioned, and even when she did, her utterances were barely a few words. Such was Masako—whether due to her dewy, or rather, pallid skin from lack of sun exposure—that she gave the impression of a delicate potted plant. It was the loveliness of a small plant blooming quietly and ephemerally. It was a heartrending thing—her existence stirred not so much affection as compassion in a man’s heart.

“Where do you live, Koyanagi-kun?” To Asano’s question, “Terajima, you know,” Saa-chan answered instead. “Terajima?” Asano pressed. “Hirokoji district,” Saa-chan clarified. “On rehearsal nights—do you go home or stay over?” “We sleep in the dressing room,” she said. “My place is close enough to walk back even at one or two AM.” “But you can’t walk from Terajima, can you?” (Then turning to me) “They all stay at that dressing room we saw earlier—only get two rehearsal-free days out of ten before starting prep for the next show. Those from distant homes practically live there.” “Meaning they spend nearly the whole month backstage,” he continued. “Remarkable endurance.” “Between performances and rehearsals—crammed into that dusty room like sardines in a tin—it’s a wonder they don’t collapse.” “Youth,” he concluded. “Youth lets them withstand it.”

I recalled Mine Misako’s words—how a literary club member from T Theater had told her that Asakusa dancers were expendable stage props.

“Mr. Asano, comparing us to canned sardines—that’s such a cruel thing to say!” “But that’s how it is, isn’t it? If over twenty people slept in such a cramped dressing room—” “Sardines… Yeah, now that you mention it, we dancers really are just like sardines, aren’t we?” “Now don’t go getting all bitter like that.” “Of course I’d get bitter.” “But sardines taste better than mediocre sea bream. No need to belittle yourself.” (With tobacco-stained teeth bared in an unsettling grin directed at me) “Especially if you eat nothing but sea bream, you start craving sardines. But when you actually eat them, sardines are way tastier than any sea bream.”

“Oh, come on—that’s…” Asano— “It’s nothing. “Anyway, the point is—don’t get angry if they call you sardines.” Having had such a conversation, I suddenly grew hungry.

That became the impetus, and we went to eat kama-meshi.

Since the location had changed, I thought to shift the mood entirely and try exchanging words with Masako as well—but there she was, picking up some scrap of paper that had been lying in the corner of the room, placing it on her lap, and staring fixedly at it— “What’s that—show me, please,” I said. Masako silently smiled and handed it over. She didn’t offer any explanation at all. It was a kind of sad docility, how she handed it over as told. When I looked—what do you know—this was an utterly ridiculous thing. It was a cosmetic product leaflet. Someone had bought cosmetics here, opened the package, and likely discarded just this part before leaving. Had it not been the docile Masako before me, I would have taken offense at what felt like mockery. In any case, this wouldn’t serve as material for conversation with Masako. Absurd and disappointing though it was, I couldn’t just toss it aside and made a troubled face. As I hesitated, the mysterious phrase “Plant-Based Beauty Essence Formula” caught my eye. “Shokubutsusei, Bi...” I muttered.

“Bi... Bihadaso... Haigou...” I placed the paper on the table. The table was sticky with liquor. “How do you read this?” Bihadaso—what’s the pronunciation for 'hada'? What sound does it make? “What was I saying?” With a look that asked what nonsense I was spouting now, Asano— “Skin?” “The sound of skin?” “Yeah.”

“Skin—well now…” “The ‘hada’ in ‘hifu’ (skin), you see.” “Ah, right—what’s the term for it? Wait—it’s *hada*, isn’t it.” “One receives this body *Hafu* (hair and skin) from one’s parents…” “that you mustn’t damage your hair and *Hada*.” “*Hafu*.” “*Hatsu* is hair, and—wasn’t *Hada* supposed to be *Pu*?” “Nah, that’s not it.” “So ‘pu’ comes from the ‘fu’ in ‘hifu’ (skin)?”

Masako pressed the back of her hand against her flushed cheeks and laughed. Her peach-colored little pinky looked so adorably edible. "Skin—now that you mention it, Koyanagi does have nice skin." Asano narrowed his eyes as he took a sip of liquor. "A real beauty of complexion." With that remark, he casually crumpled the leaflet in his hand into a ball. Whether due to the paper quality or not, it made an absurdly loud crinkling noise. "Maa-chan's skin's gorgeous though."

Saa-chan said while idly sticking her finger into her nostril, “She’s lovely when she’s naked.” “Snow-white and smooth…” This was unbearable.

“Even a woman like me gets all smitten.” Masako’s face flushed red, but without any particular protest, she cupped both cheeks with her hands and lowered her eyes to the table. I too looked down. “You know, I always wash Maa-chan’s back in the dressing room bath.” “I really love washing Maa-chan’s body.” “You have such a beautiful body after all.”

Then suddenly,

“Kurahashi-kun.” Asano cut in with a hoarse voice. “Mr. Kurahashi, do you know the garden of Denbō-in?”

He said something completely out of left field. But I felt I somehow understood the sentiment behind Asano abruptly cutting off Saa-chan’s story out of nowhere.

“The garden of Denbō-in...” “It’s a garden.” “A garden...” “The one in front of the ward office...” “Ah, that place? I haven’t... yet.” “Haven’t you been inside? That’s no good.” “……” “It’s quite nice. You know nothing about Asakusa, Mr. Kurahashi—they say Kobori Enshū designed that garden as a strolling garden, the same style as Kyoto’s Katsura Imperial Villa.” (This, I later learned, is clearly written at the garden’s entrance.)

“The place in front of Tamaki-za, the one surrounded by a wall…”

Saa-chan interjected.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve never been inside either.” “I’ve heard stories about it though.” Asano gave a wry smile. “Is it a nice garden?” “Sure, it’s nice.” Straining unnervingly, “It’s perfect for a rendezvous. “How about it?” “Mr. Kurahashi, how about going on a rendezvous with Koyanagi-kun?” Having said that—in a hurried, forceful voice as if trying to retract those words— “It’s truly a fine garden that exudes an Edo-period atmosphere, but…” “From the back near Noguchi Shokudo, these bizarre pop song records blare gratingly—this really ruins the atmosphere.” “Moreover, beyond the garden steeped in Edo-period ambiance, these terribly modern ward office siren loudspeakers tower over everything, and such things feel rather incongruous, don’t you think?”

The kamameshi rice was brought in. “Here you go.” Asano said,

“Oh, where’s the hanpen soup?” This was addressed to the waitress— The hanpen soup had been ordered. “Yes, right away.” The shop was packed to bursting with chaotic commotion. We were sitting in a corner on the second floor. When the waitress left,

“Having the soup come out later like this is so annoying,” he said while already lifting the pot lid, plunging his chopsticks into the rising steam and promptly taking a bite. “Hot!” His eyes rolled wildly. Like a starving dog at a loss with a hard bone—the ridiculous, wretched shape of his mouth— “Oh, how funny!” Saa-chan put her hands on Masako’s knees and shook them, guffawing. Masako twisted her body as if tickled and laughed.

Though young in age, these dancers were already fully capable adults leading independent lives. But as they held hands and laughed uproariously together, the two looked like innocent children. It was innocent laughter, like that of children who knew nothing of life's realities. Asano, however, seemed to take offense at their laughter,

“I’m being cast as the clown here,” came the voice directed at me. “...while Mr. Kurahashi gets to play the leading man...” Beside us sat an elderly couple who seemed to have come from Yamanote to visit Asakusa—their clothes modest but their demeanor gentle and kind. Though sharing a table for two where one might expect them to sit facing each other, they instead pressed close together at the table’s corner, sitting neatly with their bodies nearly touching. “Grandpa,” “Granny,” they murmured affectionately, their mouths working steadily even as they leaned close to whisper cheerfully about this and that. As they chatted, the grandmother would take oysters from her own pot and transfer them to the grandfather’s—and there alone, amidst the surrounding clamor, a tranquil quiet seemed to linger undisturbed. I envied that peace.

At Asano’s words, Masako stifled her laughter, but Saa-chan kept on laughing. “Mr. Asano, if you do comic relief, you’ll definitely be a hit!” she said.

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Asano said. “By the way, Mr. Kurahashi.” Hissing through his teeth, he continued: “Lately, they’ve built archery ranges here and there in the park.” “Oh?” “‘Oh?’ you say—and you haven’t noticed, Mr. Kurahashi? That’s no good at all.” Masako had tentatively lifted the pot lid as if nervous, peering inside, but at Asano’s sharp tone she snapped it shut. “Hurry up and eat. And for me too—once it cools, it won’t taste good. I wonder if it’s the effects of the war.”

“Huh?” “About archery ranges… I think they’ll definitely multiply.” "They’re bound to become popular." “Archery ranges have always been an Asakusa specialty—though of course the old shooting galleries and today’s archery halls differ—but well, you might call it a revival of sorts.”

“I see.” Masako was picking small scallops from the pot and putting them into her mouth one by one. Though likely no longer scalding hot, she pursed her thin-skinned, tender lips—lips so delicate they might blister from even slight warmth—to clamp the morsel between her teeth. Those teeth held a translucent whiteness faintly tinged with blue, while her lips bore only a whisper of rouge on their outer surface. When she pursed them, the unadorned inner flesh peeked through—a beautiful pale pink—and the vivid wet hue between crimson rouge and white teeth pressed against my vision with an inexpressible, tormenting allure. I felt as though the sensuality I had desperately concealed had been effortlessly uncovered and precisely pierced, leaving me with a sensation both shameful and sorrowful. That’s right. The way Masako pursed her lips in that tormenting manner—though I thought she likely wasn’t conscious of creating such an alluring impression—was undeniably a coquettish gesture. From that coquettish gesture, Asano, as if trying to divert my gaze,

“Writers of old apparently frequented the archery ranges in Asakusa quite a bit, didn’t they?”

he continued. “Myōbōsai caused scandals with women at the archery ranges—and the story goes that it was Kōda Rohan who taught him how to frequent those places. But when it came to skill in patronizing not just archery ranges but also the so-called reputable sake shops that sprang up afterward, they say even Myōbōsai couldn’t hold a candle to Rohan as a playboy—something unimaginable from the Rohan we know today, isn’t it?” “I see.”

“How about it? Wouldn’t that make for decent essay material? Don’t you dare steal it—no, actually, I don’t mind if you write it.”

“…………” I wanted to talk to Masako! But as Asano continued his solo rant about such (for me) nonsensical matters, time passed with startling swiftness.

As time pressed on—I hurriedly escorted Masako and the others to the dressing room entrance, where we parted ways.

It felt utterly anticlimactic. Perhaps because of that anticlimactic feeling, when I parted with Masako, I was relentlessly pressed by a sorrow—a sorrow as though I had lost something, though I knew not what. That's right. Even while we were together, my heart raced with excitement even as I was unbearably sad—yet now sorrow alone claimed my heart. I was dreadfully, unspeakably weary.

Ah, how fervently—no, how downright foolishly—I had poured my heart into Koyanagi Masako. To think I had finally met Koyanagi Masako, only for it to end like this—this heartrending sorrow, this desolate exhaustion—what on earth did it all mean? Amidst the bustling crowds of the movie theater district at its peak hour, I stood there tilting my head with a vacant, dazed expression. Never before had I felt so clearly—and with such unwitting pain—the loneliness within the bustle, the solitude within the crowd, that I had secretly cherished.

Asano’s presence had completely vanished from my mind. He too sat wrapped in heavy silence. But suddenly, Asano spoke to me in a voice dripping with malice, as though springing an attack. “Koyanagi Masako—really now, Mr. Kurahashi. She’s just a child, isn’t she? Flimsy and dull.” “Or perhaps making a habit of plucking unripe fruit appeals to you?” “Plucking? That’s—I never—” Asano steamrolled over my protest. “—She puts on that childish act, but I’d wager she’s quite the practiced innocent...”

“Playing innocent?” “You’re quite the expert at playing innocent yourself, aren’t you?” “What do you mean by ‘playing innocent’?”

Asano floated a faint smirk across his sallow face and swept his hand down over it, “When you grow tired of sea bream, you develop a taste for strange sardines.” “But hiding such true intentions from others and saying ‘It’s not like I want to eat’—that’s what we call playing innocent, you see.” It was Asano who had eagerly and kindly introduced Masako to me, even proudly—yet now he clearly expressed through his words that he regretted it, that he detested and cursed my “poisonous fangs.”

Before long, I parted ways with Asano.

Alone, I scrutinized myself anew—the man Asano had labeled as "grown tired of sea bream and now craving sardines." I certainly don't recall growing tired of sea bream—but when I rigorously examined whether my feelings for Koyanagi Masako truly contained no trace of ambition, I couldn't definitively say they did not. But considering myself someone who couldn't definitively say so was deeply shameful. And that Asano thought of me as such a man was deeply shameful—a deeply humiliating sensation.

Perhaps Masako too saw me as that kind of man. Perhaps? No—indeed, they must have seen me that way. Thinking that, I found it unbearable. Saa-chan must have seen me that way too. That’s right—the dancers in the dressing room must have all seen me that way. Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe must have seen me that way too. Unaware of this, I had been shamelessly parading my face around the dressing room. How wretched, how defiled, how brazen my face must have appeared.

I felt like my whole body was burning with shame.

I recalled Mine Misako’s words to me—asking if I was wandering around Asakusa with some morbid curiosity. Misako too had seen me as a man searching for "sardines".

If that were the case—Dosakan must have seen me that way too. Morike Horetarou’s wife must have seen me that way too.

Kameya Pontan too, Suematsu Harukichi too… I felt those eyes strictly directed at me lashing sharply like a whip.

In those eyes, I saw even the eyes of Tajima Shigeru—whom I had not yet met.

That one, for some reason, was shining the brightest.— Those eyes were, so to speak, the eyes of Asakusa. I could no longer endure being in Asakusa.

I returned to the house in Ōmori as if fleeing.

……

Part Six: There’s a Head Under the Hat

How many days had it been since I distanced myself from Asakusa? Within me, a nostalgic sentiment toward Asakusa had finally begun to accumulate. Once again, I found myself wanting to go back. At first, it was a vague thought like "I kinda want to go to Asakusa," but soon that feeling developed into concrete desires—specific things I wanted to do there. It resembled how an expatriate might feel nostalgia through specific cravings—like yearning for tea-soaked rice with crispy takuan pickles that crackle between the teeth—yet since Asakusa was conversely foreign territory to me, the whole sensation felt peculiar. In other words, this might better be called longing rather than nostalgia. But in terms of my actual feelings, it was something far closer to nostalgia than longing.

—For instance, I found myself desperately longing for those cheap Asakusa diner bowls where rice towered in mountainous heaps. While eating “proper meals” from my own home’s dainty little bowls, I began craving grimy, robust “mess.” One might call it a sort of decadent whim. That’s right—a friend of mine who lived alone in an apartment and took three meals a day (or perhaps two) at cheap diners once said,

“I want to sit down and eat a proper meal.”

He had said such a thing before, but if one were to let that friend speak, my feelings would surely be deemed utterly preposterous.

That friend, though this is a different story, also said the following to us. “I’ve had enough of love affairs with women who are like cheap single-item dishes. I want to experience a love affair with a first-class woman who feels as rich and varied as an extravagant table d’hôte where different dishes keep coming one after another.” The expression was so brilliant that we burst out laughing at its cleverness. That had also perfectly captured all of our feelings. The women we knew—or rather, the women within the scope of our daily, easy interactions—were utterly like single-item dishes whose entire contents could be grasped at a single glance: spiritually impoverished, shallow, emaciated “third-rate” women. We knew no women who seemed to grow richer the more we associated with them.

By the way, when that friend said he wanted to sit down and eat a proper meal, we would burst out laughing with our mouths agape. It wasn’t a funny story—which was precisely why we must have laughed that way. First of all, the very person who’d said it was the first to guffaw, laughing the hardest of all. My longing—or perhaps nostalgia—for donburi meals seemed laughably shameful and trivial when compared to that friend’s heartfelt yearning for home-cooked family dinners. But mine wasn’t like Asano’s supposed predicament of growing tired of sea bream and craving sardines. Meals at home were by no means “sea bream,” nor did I desire “sea bream”-like meals outside. So what did it mean that I longed for donburi? Was this some strange taste for savoring a decadent mood? That’s it. Was it simply a matter of taste? Or else...

＊

It was an unseasonably mild afternoon one day. I opened the second-floor shoji screens, slid back the glass doors beyond them, and sat down to write at the desk facing outward. My mind kept scattering among various thoughts, and the manuscript refused to progress. Across the street from where I sat stood a two-story house with its windows shut tight, though I spent more time staring blankly at them than working. To break this unproductive mood, I got up and went to the bathroom. After spending considerable time there and returning to my desk upstairs, I discovered—the window opposite had been opened at some point, and a girl of fourteen or fifteen now leaned against its frame. Her dark gloomy eyes—eyes that seemed steeped in melancholy contemplation—stared outward.

Our gazes met. Both of us averted our eyes simultaneously. I kept my face turned toward the desk but eventually stole a glance—since we were fully visible to each other in this exposed position, I assumed the girl must have withdrawn from the window with an “Ugh, how dreadful!” Yet she too—she too held her ground. Her profile betrayed awareness of my gaze. Every girl her age tumbles into that strange transitional ugliness between bud and blossom, but hers stood out—a pallid face erupting with pimples, flaunting its awkwardness with shameless composure. That profile seemed both genuinely lost in thought and deliberately performing melancholy for my benefit. Catching a furtive glimpse of a girl privately brooding might stir pity, but having her parade that sadness before me—even a fourteen-year-old—provoked visceral revulsion. Childish behavior inviting mockery, yet undeniably repulsive. Though her facial flaws amplified this effect, my irritation stemmed from deeper sources. I couldn’t write a damned word of this manuscript.

At first, I stole glances, but before long I suddenly jerked up my face and glared. I didn’t take my glaring eyes off the girl’s face. Fully aware of this, she wore an expression that calmly savored her melancholy mood—and by displaying this attitude of sorrow to me, her face seemed to revel all the more in it. Defeated, I slammed the shoji shut. In that instant, I realized my novel was precisely like that unpleasant girl. I particularly favored writing novels that peddled sentiments like “I am sad—” to readers—

“—What the hell is this?” I didn’t know what meaning it held or how it became the catalyst, but that day, taking that as my cue, I went to Asakusa.

On Kokusai-dori stood a milk hall called Sakata that had the air of a rest stop for the shack people of Rokku. (The place had been beautifully renovated that year—December 1938—and though its sign had previously read "Milk Hall," it was now renamed "Milk Parlor.") I went there to drink milk coffee.

I didn’t want to meet anyone—or rather, I was afraid of meeting anyone—but there I encountered Dosakan.

Dosakan and I had only met at Horetarō's place before, but perhaps because I'd heard from Misako that Dosakan knew about me, I fell into a false sense of familiarity and greeted him with a casual "Hey." When Dosakan blinked in surprise like a startled rabbit, I realized my mistake. By then I was already sitting in the chair facing him. Feeling compelled to break the awkwardness, "How did that act go?" I asked. "The one you were rehearsing upstairs at Horetarō's place the other day?"

“How did that attraction you were rehearsing the other day on Horetarō’s second floor turn out?” I said. Dosakan wore a friendly yet thoroughly timid-looking smile and replied in a somber voice that their promotion wasn’t going well—they’d only rehearsed it and hadn’t performed it even once. “That’s quite a predicament.” With that, the conversation died abruptly. Dosakan and I averted our faces at the same time. “Hey, hey—milk coffee over here.” I called to the waitress wearing Western clothes and geta. On the long narrow table lay a plate piled with boiled eggs, a jar containing bagged butter peanuts, and a glass confectionery box filled with items like donuts, waffles, cream puffs, and swirl castella. I stared at the confectionery box when suddenly a greedy urge took hold,

“Hey, hey—give me this one. The Siberia.” I said to the waitress dragging her worn-down geta with a shuffling sound. The waitress’s bare feet were bumpy with insect bite marks. Dosakan and I sat turned away from each other. But before long—I couldn’t tell how much time had passed—we found ourselves exchanging familiar words as if we had been acquaintances all along. On one hand, I was terribly shy around people; yet strangely, I also had such a disposition, and Dosakan seemed to share the same disposition as me.

And then Dosakan proceeded to tell me the following story.

“I heard your ex-wife went to Shanghai.” “Yes—Mii-chan told me about it.” “What happened with Goro-chan... Ooya Goro?” “Did they break up?” “I always thought they would eventually split anyway—but if they had to break up, I wish Reiko-chan could’ve stayed with Ooya Goro instead.—Yes.” “Ichikawa Reiko—she was Mii-chan’s sister.” “She used to be with Goro-chan.” “Poor thing died.” “It was because Ooya Goro abandoned her.” “She’d always had a weak chest.” “Because of that—she was such a timid but sweet girl—it really was pitiful what happened.” “Not long after splitting with Ooya Goro—it must’ve destroyed her—she coughed up blood during rehearsal one night.—After that she was hospitalized but never recovered.—They say Ooya Goro’s scum.” “Yes—he’s scum.” “But if I say that... well—your ex-wife isn’t innocent either.” “Your ex-wife’s worse.” “She was an actress at S Movie.” “Back then—Ooya Goro was performing at T Theater—and next door was S Movie’s premiere venue.” “That’s where Ayuko-san—your ex-wife was Ayuko-san?—showed up.” “Ayuko-san did some live performance there and met Ooya Goro.” “He was their leading man.”

“Ayuko-san fell head over heels for Goro-chan and kept coming to Asakusa every day even after her live performance ended, holing up in T Theater’s dressing room.” “She didn’t care about being seen at all, you know.” “It caused quite a stir back then.” “Ooya Goro had someone named Reiko-chan—she was appearing in the same T Theater.” “Ayuko-san might not have known that at first, but once she started frequenting the dressing room, there’s no way it wouldn’t have reached her ears.” “But Ms. Ayuko kept swaggering into the dressing room—and Reiko-chan ended up shrinking back instead, I tell you.” “Even if someone indignant told Reiko-chan that we couldn’t just stay silent and watch, she would only tear up, murmuring, ‘But…’” “Before long, Ooya Goro brought up the breakup with Reiko-chan.” “He apparently said this.” “Ms. Ayuko has a very wealthy, kind patron attached to her, and that patron has said he’ll give her a substantial sum of money when she properly settles down in marriage,” he apparently said. “So Ms. Ayuko says she wants to break up with her patron and marry me—that once we’re married, she’ll use the money she got from the patron to put me through school.” “She says she wants to make me a top singer and settle down to reform herself.” “This is my big chance to rise up from Asakusa and make something of myself—so break up with me,” he apparently said. “And then Rei-chan—I truly think that Reiko-chan, the one who died, was a tragic child of Asakusa.” “‘If it’s for Goro-chan’s success… I’ll step aside even if it hurts,’ she apparently said like that.” “Poor Reiko-chan really did love Ooya Goro, you know.—‘Once I cough up blood and go to the hospital, I won’t make it.’” “‘Before I die, let me see Goro-chan one last time,’ she tearfully begged Mii-chan, it’s said.” “Mii-chan was indignant at that bastard Ooya Goro and scolded her, saying she shouldn’t say she wanted to see such a man, but Rei-chan wouldn’t listen, it’s said.” In the end, she apparently took pity after all and went to Ooya Goro to reluctantly ask him to meet with her. “It’s like a Shinpa tragedy come to life—unbelievable, really—but Asakusa is littered with such Shinpa-like tragedies.”

“That may be Asakusa’s charm, but it’s also its downfall.” “It’s because bad people take advantage of that—of Asakusa’s very virtues. Like when Goro-chan came to visit—that’s what I mean.” “Goro-chan came to the hospital with Ms. Ayuko.” “They marched right up to Reiko-chan’s bedside together—and get this, Ms. Ayuko brought this absurdly expensive bouquet as a ‘get-well gift.’ Later, Mii-chan fumed—‘What idiot brings such useless flowers?’—I tell you.” “‘If they were gonna bring anything at all, eggs or something practical would’ve been better,’ she said.” “‘Cause she’d been scrambling to scrape together hospital money.” “Mii-chan apparently chucked that bouquet out the window once Goro-chan left.” “And then—not long after—Reiko-chan died calling ‘Goro-chan… Goro-chan…’”

Dosakan twisted his blood-red lips and plaintively stroked his chest—which seemed to harbor the same illness as Reiko’s—while...

“It’s a full-blown Shinpa tragedy, isn’t it?” “How utterly infuriating! There’s nothing more maddening!” “Urk—” I let out a stifled scream.

How astonished I was by this story! The fact that such a Shinpa-like tragedy had occurred in reality—the fact that something seemingly impossible had occurred in reality—the horror of that struck me.

And I—though through what exact mechanism (there must have been some connection, though I myself couldn’t grasp it)—amid the storm of violent emotions, suddenly conjured up an image of Koyanagi Masako’s heartrending figure.

“I, and then—”

Dosakan continued. "—The truth is, I've known your face from before—though I shouldn't say it like this—but I kept wondering what sort of man could have been Ms. Ayuko's husband..."

“Urk—”

Once more, I let out a stifled scream.

Beside me, a man who seemed to be a traveling actor recruiter and another who appeared to be an actor were negotiating salary through finger gestures, each thrusting both hands into one sleeve of their kimono. “Please give me another one. Come on.”

A thug-like man with a gourd-shaped face and darkened under his eyes bent forward, pleading persistently.

“Times are hard.” the other man said.

The two of them were so absorbed in this that they didn't even glance our way.

Outside on Kokusai-dori, an extra edition seller rang his bell and hurriedly ran off.……

⁂

…………

I was standing in the darkness at the very back of K Theater’s auditorium.

The movie was about to end. K Theater featured both films and shows; those associated with Levius in Rokku viewed the films as side attractions, but the film people considered their movies the main event and the shows mere services for moviegoers. (This situation resembled how a writer from pure literature backgrounds—complying with journalistic demands—might vigorously write popular novels alongside their literary works, leading some to view them as purely commercial writers while others still consider them literary authors.) The film—based on an essay by a schoolgirl from Koto Ward that had been strangely sensationalized by journalists, with the girl even being hailed as a genius and her essay adapted for modern theater—was something I had already seen at a Marunouchi cinema after being invited by a friend. My reason for watching it again at K Theater wasn’t because the film held such appeal. For me, the films here always felt like mere supplements—even masterpieces—compared to what I truly wanted to see: the shows, specifically those featuring Koyanagi Masako. Yet entering solely for the show felt awkwardly embarrassing before the now-familiar ticket-taker girls, so I would arrive early before the showtime and thus watch this already-viewed film with an unenthusiastic face.

The scene showed the tin shop worker—the father of the schoolgirl who wrote the essay—who, despite it being New Year’s Eve, hadn’t been paid by his boss and had to face the New Year penniless. The good-natured father, upon returning home and confronting his family, was driven mad by anguish and began rampaging through the house. The scene had reached this point, but in contrast to the chaotic commotion on screen, the auditorium was deadly silent—and I thought, Huh? When I had seen it in Marunouchi, the audience there had burst out laughing at this very moment. Take salarymen who’d never known debt collection struggles, students who could idle away waiting for parental remittances even when broke, rentiers who’d surely never glimpsed Koto Ward’s tenements since birth—such Marunouchi patrons took one look at this New Year’s tragedy and roared with laughter: “Wahahaha!” True enough, even I had chuckled some then, for the actor playing the tin worker’s frenzied performance did carry a comedic edge—yet at that same humor, the Asakusa crowd never laughed. Far from laughing—when I looked—the woman before me, likely some craftsman’s wife, was wiping her eyes with a shawl, heedless of her soot-streaked disheveled hair tumbling across her face. Sobs rippled through the darkness.

(Oh, Asakusa.)

While my chest tightened with emotion, I wanted to reach out to Asakusa—though its true nature eluded me, something vague—to reach out to Asakusa. I was reaching out. (It’s Asakusa after all.) I involuntarily muttered those words in my mind. What could save me, adrift and floundering uselessly in midair, was Asakusa. Yes, coming to Asakusa had been the right choice—this conviction settled into me with quiet intensity. I wanted to cry. I was happy—I had been crying. But I had been crying at the movie alongside Asakusa’s audience. I had wanted to shed tears for Asakusa itself. I had been—merely floating aimlessly—but at last I collided with something, clung to it. What that something was, I still couldn’t grasp—whether it was truly something worth clinging to, or something that might save me if I clung to it long enough. Even without knowing, if I pressed onward while clinging to it, yes, I felt that perhaps I could “place a hat upon my head.” It was a strange phrase, but if I were to explain its origin: once a drunkard had picked up a hat he dropped on the road, placed it on his head, and bellowed, “There’s a head under the hat!” Since only that fragment reached my ears as a passerby, I never learned what he’d been saying before. There must have been more context, but that peculiar phrase alone sufficed to seize my interest and seep into my mind.

“There’s a head under the hat.……” There might be a song like this or something. It might be a meaningless joke of a phrase, but to me, it resonated with profound significance. “There’s a head under the hat.”

"There's a human inside the clothing." I had once muttered that to myself. A hat should rest upon one's head. Hats ought to be worn by humans; they should exist for human heads. But a head existing for the sake of a hat—do such people not exist? Hats—this was an intriguing symbol. "There's a head under the hat." This phrase fascinated me. Just as I was savoring its oddness, the lash of those words struck me sharply. Yes—had I not been precisely that sort of person myself? One who kept a head beneath his hat? Had there not frequently been such instances?……

The movie ended. Now it was finally time for the show.

But I discovered there a self different from the one who had entered K Theater to see the show. For instance, I had been in a mood to look upward as if admiring flowers, but now found myself gazing downward at the ground beneath my feet. That being said, the longing I felt toward Koyanagi Masako was not merely romantic infatuation—it must have been one manifestation of my heart's wandering search for something to cling to—and in that regard, there was indeed something we shared.

When I came to my senses, the orchestra resounded, and the curtain rose smoothly.

From both stage right and stage left, the dancing team swiftly dashed onto the stage. The dancers all wore identical costumes, performed the same dance moves, and shared similar makeup and physiques, making them nearly indistinguishable when they appeared together as a group. Yet to my eyes, Masako alone stood out radiantly, and I could spot her instantly without even needing to search. Her legs were completely bare. The white skin that Saa-chan had said—though a woman herself—made one smitten was dazzling to me.

If it’s dazzling we’re talking about—what in the world was this? Before meeting Masako, even when her radiance dazzled me, I could fix my gaze steadily upon her—but after meeting her, I felt inexplicably awkward. To repeat: once I had seen Masako properly clothed, her exposed hands and legs became unbearably dazzling. To repeat further: once Masako had come to know my face, it felt as though she too could see me staring at her bare legs with gleaming eyes—though in reality, there was no way she could notice me in the darkness. Yet this conviction persisted, leaving me unable to look directly at her anymore. I shifted my gaze to Saa-chan. Then my eyes met Saa-chan’s—or rather, since Saa-chan couldn’t have known I was in the audience or noticed my presence at all, it wasn’t a true meeting of gazes but merely my own arbitrary perception of her absentmindedly glancing in my direction. Even so, I still felt a pang of embarrassment and averted my eyes.

Eventually, the dancing team withdrew to the rear of the stage, and the tap dancer emerged with a flourish. There before the dancers, he performed a tap dance as if to flaunt himself before them—but I felt such intense envy toward that man. It might be more accurate to call it jealousy. At the same time, I even felt jealous of the orchestra members—they were so aloof. The radiance that filled my eyes was nowhere to be seen in any of theirs. It was precisely because they were like that—because of that very aloofness—that I felt even more jealous.

I quietly cast a glance toward Masako. Masako stood aligned with Saa-chan, their legs side by side—those dewy, lustrous, truly unblemished, plump legs (forgive me, readers, for this verbose description). Immature as I was, I could only fret uselessly over how I might convey the multitude of alluring elements those legs so abundantly possessed, finding no concise and precise expression. (Since I’m already being verbose, let me add—) those legs that seemed too slippery to grasp even if one tried to pinch them, yet paradoxically appeared so delicate that touching anything slightly firm might tear the skin and send pale crimson translucent blood splattering—Masako shyly twisted them sideways. Ah, what bewitching curves! But at the same time, I was—to put it slightly dramatically—startled by the shame those beautiful lines revealed. Perhaps this too was just my imagination, a result of having met Masako—but when I first visited the dressing room a few days prior and saw her repeatedly tugging at her skirt to hide her bare knees, what I sensed now was something different from the shame she had shown then—something unpleasant. Unpleasant—for me, it was a painful sensation.

But immediately the dancing team split into two and rushed to the edge of the stage, Masako vanished from my line of sight, and in their place "The Cheerful Quartet" appeared onstage, strumming their guitars as they went.

I exited K Theater,

"I want to see Masako. But I can’t go backstage alone. I guess I still can’t do it without Mr. Asano..." When I muttered this to myself, Asano’s face suddenly loomed in my mind—that hateful glare of his. Then Misako’s face appeared too—the way she’d snapped, “Why are you wandering around Asakusa?”... In that moment, I felt as though I could see Asakusa itself watching me. The face of Asakusa that would not accept my outstretched hand. I began to reconsider whether even the emotions I had felt at K Theater were nothing but shallow impressions.

I was walking through the dark backstreets of the movie theater district. And when I came out in front of the bright Koen Gekijo,

Special Offer Bear Hot Pot Bear from ○○ Zoo Disposal A strange poster plastered so conspicuously caught my eye. Disposed by the zoo? There must have been customers drawn in by the poster—delighted at this offering—indeed, that’s why they flaunted such advertisements—but when I pictured that bear in my mind, its fur worn thin and ragged, aged beyond its years, listlessly pacing its cramped zoo cage with a melancholic persistence that only amplified its pitiful squalor, the thought of eating it—even under threat—seemed utterly impossible. Not only was it pitiable—merely imagining such bear meat made me sick to my stomach. But there were those in this world with exotic tastes who would smack their lips at such fare. I too had considered myself no less adventurous than others in culinary matters, but this...

(No—wait, maybe if I eat some too—it’ll beat my fragile nerves back into shape.) I felt as though some secret method to become robust lay hidden there. If I endured eating something revolting, my nerves might grow resilient—I might even write a resilient, robust novel—that’s how it began to feel. It was what you’d call a popular beef hot pot joint. That summer, whenever I passed by its side alley, I’d often spot a woman out back cutting edamame—one who practically wore her recent arrival from the sticks on her sleeve. She’d cram her red, swollen fingers into ill-fitting scissors and snip through a mountainous pile of pods with listless, sluggish motions—plink plink—and whenever the shop girls’ boisterous coquettish voices drifted out front, she’d turn that longing gaze their way. Her face seemed to plead—"Get me out of this backroom drudgery and up front already"—an expression that stayed etched in my mind.

(I wonder if that woman is working out front now.)

No sooner had I drawn my face near the noren than— “Come on in!”

Their voices—as if about to pounce—indeed befitting an establishment that served bear hot pot, were utterly beast-like. Struck with terror, I leaped back. In other words, I had failed to beat my fragile nerves back into shape.

＊

That's right. Speaking of food, at the beginning of this chapter, I wrote about the meals at the diner. The Asakusa eateries I frequent varied—there was no fixed routine. In other words, when in a hurry, I went to a place near my apartment on Kappabashi-dori; when taking a leisurely stroll, I would head through the park to Umamichi and visit one of the eateries around there.

The eateries within the area commonly called Asakusa—sandwiched between Umamichi and Kokusai-dori, between Hirokoji-dori and Kototoi-dori—were dining spots meant for visitors coming to Asakusa from elsewhere. Those affordable places with an insider vibe, intended for people working within Asakusa though not strictly limited to them, clustered instead on the periphery of this district. Umamichi, Kokusai-dori, Hirokoji-dori, Kototoi-dori—there you found quintessential, no-frills eateries that embodied the very idea of a casual dining spot.

At Umamichi’s "Daikokuya," facing an umbrella seller—these sellers being an Asakusa-specific trade where men appear in the Sixth District during rain to sell oil-paper umbrellas—I gradually became acquainted with one such man through occasional encounters at this Daikokuya. He would initiate conversations, telling me about the old woman handling umbrella wholesaling and how she’d recently raised the wholesale prices, cursing her as "that damn hag." As I ate my thirteen-sen meal—(miso soup three sen, vegetable plate five sen, bowl of rice called shiro five sen— Total: thirteen sen. (By the way, when wanting a bit more rice, there was a small bowl called han for three sen.)—Given that the umbrella seller was waiting there drinking shochu, likely due to the suspicious-looking sky, I stepped outside and strolled toward Azumabashi, where I unexpectedly ran into Pontan hurriedly emerging from the Tobu train exit at Matsuya. It was the day after the events of the previous section.

“Good morning…” Pontan had a strangely pale face. When I asked if he lived along the Tobu Railway line, he squinted his oddly bloodshot eyes and— “Well, last night I just dropped by Terajima-cho…” Grinning slyly,

“Terajima-cho?” I had heard Koyanagi Masako’s house was in Terajima Hirokoji. The memory of Masako surfaced. Then, directed at my earnest—or rather, socially inept—expression, “Oh now, really—” Pontan made a gesture mimicking a shoulder tap,

"I just went to that woman’s place for a bit… you know." "To her place in Terajima-cho…" “……?” I still didn’t understand.

“Sleepy, sleepy.” This was in Osaka dialect.

“Well then—how about we go together sometime?” By the time I realized—Ah, so he’d gone to that den of iniquity—Pontan was already crossing the roadway, swaying his coat-clad shoulders in a feminine manner. Now, I ate my thirteen-sen meal and went to drink twenty-sen coffee, but (Bon-Jour feels stale. I should try somewhere new.) So I pushed open the door of “Maromi”—a shop near Kaminarimon at Azumabashi I’d never entered before. Just as I ordered coffee and lit a cigarette, Saa-chan walked in unexpectedly. She seemed to have arranged a meeting here—darting her eyes around the shop before noticing me, she flushed crimson. When her contact failed to appear, Saa-chan approached my side,

“Thank you for treating me the other day.” She stood fidgeting as she said this, “Oh, do sit down.” I said. The shop was crowded with couples. Saa-chan’s eyes were strangely red too. They looked just like Pontan’s. “……?” At my gaze—she had taken the seat across from me—Saa-chan flushed red again,

“They look strange, don’t they… my eyes…” Her voice was flustered. Her voice and the way she kept blushing for no reason—neither felt like Saa-chan at all. “I ended up crying.” “You cried?” “Yes, I was just bawling my eyes out a moment ago.” “My eyes are red, aren’t they?” Having seemingly regained her composure, “Don-chan, you know—the girl who was sitting right next to you when you came to the dressing room the other day.”

She said this in a friendly voice and paused as if waiting for my nod. When I had gone to the dressing room—in fact, I’d been so nervous I had no recollection of it at all—I nodded emphatically. "That person suddenly had to leave the troupe, and today’s her final performance, you know." "She doesn’t want to quit herself." "But her father’s going to Manchuria, so she’s being taken along with him." "So earlier, even on stage she was making this half-crying face, and when she went into the dressing room, she suddenly burst into tears…"

Saa-chan spoke in a jumble of polite and rough language, but even as she talked, she kept glancing toward the door. “Then, Sensei, this time the dancer who left O Hall and joined our troupe came into the dressing room carrying a trunk and sniffling.” “She’d just finished bawling her eyes out saying goodbye to everyone at O Hall.” “When she came here, Don-chan was already wailing away over here.” “So then she got sad again, threw down her trunk, and started wailing too.” “Don-chan and her hugged each other, wailing and wailing.” “Then we all got sad and started crying along with them, until the whole dressing room was wailing and wailing.” “It was such a huge commotion.”

“Hmm.” “And then my eyes turned bright red.” That story didn’t seem to be a lie, yet Saa-chan’s crimson eyes appeared reddened by more than just that. Having finished speaking, she said in a fidgety voice, “Hey, Sensei...” Hesitating, “Oh, never mind.” “Has Mr. Binokuchi come here?” “Well, I’ve only just arrived myself...”

As if to prove this, the coffee we had ordered arrived. Saa-chan flushed red once more. Binokuchi never showed himself in the end.……

Seventh Chapter: A Chapter Composed of Diaries and Annotations

(—For some reason, whenever I try to get into the main plot, my pen sticks.) (This time, to prevent such stagnation there, I intend to advance the plot by extracting passages from my diary at the time and adding annotations to them.) *

X/X.

I went to Horetarou. In my pocket lay Malraux’s *The Royal Way*, half-read. With no customers present, I read before the iron griddle. (Note 1) I want to go on a journey. “Do you know what they call men they deem ≪perverts≫?...They say ≪intellectuals≫...” (From *The Royal Way*)

* When I casually remarked to the wife that I heard Asano used to come here often, I was informed—that Asano had been racking up a hefty tab for okonomiyaki and running around avoiding payment. “From what people say, there’s also someone who’s come down with a terrible case of syphilis and is furious about it.” The wife said spitefully.

Suematsu Harukichi said that since the attractions weren’t going well, he was thinking of switching to manzai.

At night, I wrote cloyingly sentimental popular fiction. I returned to Omori.

(Note 1) As I was reading *The Royal Way* alone, Suematsu Harukichi returned with an utterly exhausted pale face—likely from having run all over town negotiating attractions.

“How did it go? Haru-san,” called the wife from the kitchen.

“—Nope,” he said. He slumped down in front of the griddle as if his spine had turned into konjac jelly, yet his voice retained an incongruously cheerful levity. Was this his inherent nature? A cultivated habit? Or rather—since nature and habit cannot truly be disentangled—the dissonance between his palpable exhaustion and that forced buoyancy felt unnerving and pitiable. (But this was because I remained ignorant of these Asakusa-entrenched artists’ weed-like tenacity. They never despaired regardless of circumstance. Even when fretting over their next meal’s provenance, they sang with artificial cheer.—And how I wallowed in my own cultivated despondency by contrast!)

"I met Dosakan yesterday," I said. "I'm thinking of teaming up with Dosakan." "Hmm." "But apparently Mii-chan is stopping him, saying it won't do. So he went to consult Mr. Tajima about what to do—in other words, he's seeking advice." "Seems he's sent a letter to Great Deity Tajima for guidance." "Why is she stopping him? Is it because his health is bad..." "No—" Suematsu shot a sidelong glance toward the kitchen where the wife was and lowered his voice. "Because he'd fall from grace." "Once you fall, you can never rise again—that's what Mii-chan says." "Well, that may be true enough, but..."

Suematsu Harukichi had once been part of a Levius troupe, sharing equal standing with Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe—one of "The Cheerful Four"—though they occupied a large communal dressing room. Now Binokuchi (who hadn’t used that stage name before) had risen to become a top performer in Enko, while Suematsu had fallen into obscurity—hiding away in the two-mat room on Horetarou’s second floor. Though Suematsu’s words must have carried genuine weight, his cheerful tone betrayed none of it.

Suematsu went on to say that Mii-chan—no, Misako—was concerned about Dosakan falling because she was in love with him. Dosakan was also in love with Misako, and Suematsu said, “If I had to say which one, he’s the one who’s way more smitten.” “And so for Ms. Misako’s husband Mr. Tajima to be the one he’s… seeking guidance from is rather strange.” “To consult the husband of the woman he’s illicitly in love with about such a thing…”

“Illicit love was just fine. “Hyeh-heh-heh…”

And Suematsu let out a strange laugh—whether it was something native to him or a staged laugh for performance, I couldn’t tell—and did nothing but laugh without saying a word.

That day, Misako was unusually absent, though I had previously written that she was almost always at Horetarou, helping out as if it were her role. That day, I asked Suematsu if there was some special connection to this place. "When Mii-chan and Mr. Tajima first set up a household together, they rented the second floor here." "Since Mii-chan received so much help from the auntie here, whenever she’s free, well, she comes by to help out like this."

That was Suematsu’s answer. “So where is Ms. Misako living now?” “She’s gone back to her parents’ home.” “Mr. Tajima got sick and went back to his hometown…” “Her family home is around here…” “No—it’s near Tamanoi.”

I let it pass without reaction. I had heard that Koyanagi Masako's house was in Terajima too, but that hadn't occurred to me at the time.

Month ×, Day ×.

In the morning, I write a column essay for Newspaper A at home. (※二)

In the afternoon, I went to Asakusa.

* Despite this cold, aiyu jelly is still being sold. I am surprised there are people inside. (※三)

*

Dogs and Children (※四)

A quote from Chekhov in Bunin’s memoir: “Suppose there are a big dog and a small dog here.” “However, the small dog must not let its courage be crushed by the presence of a big dog.—And it must bark with the voice God gave…” *

In the evening, I visited Asano’s boarding house.

“How unusual. … You’ve got that look about you like you want me to arrange a meeting with Koyanagi Masako.”

Bullseye. But I did not meet Masako. (※五)

Asano once again called me "a man who’s grown tired of sea bream and now wants sardines." If you keep saying that so persistently, I’ll really become that.

"If you tell a villain three or four times a day that he is the very embodiment of honesty, it is certain that he will at least become a complete 'champion of justice.' However, if you persistently brand an honest man a villain, he will develop a perverse desire to prove he isn't entirely un-villainous" (Edgar Allan Poe).

I was never an “honest man” to begin with.

(Note 2) The Kakomi critical essay was as follows.

"When reading biographies of people who have done great work, there invariably appears a section on 'humanity'." What is great work? It is the maximum exertion of human ability. And what is humanity? At times, under the "beautiful name" of humanity, those who have exerted their human abilities to the utmost are dragged down to a lowly, petty level where one lives at the minimum exertion of human ability. And human weaknesses at that level are listed, and that comes to be called humanity. When speaking of humans, from the so-called modern view of humanity that insists they must have weaknesses, it becomes a mere quirk. If it were merely a matter of charm, that would be acceptable—but taken too far, people end up ignoring even the fact that the fullest exertion of human capability occurs not through so-called deficiencies in humanity, but rather precisely through humanity elevated to its highest level."

Literature had adhered to such a view of humanity. Literature constitutes the work of human exploration. Therefore, among humans who become literature's subjects are both those who have exerted their capabilities to the utmost and those who have lived at their minimum. Yet literature had fixated more intensely upon the latter. For there, that so-called humanity lies abundantly exposed. —Such literature now faced war. War represents a grand endeavor wherein human capabilities find their ultimate exertion. Though a human undertaking, it achieves realization not through deficiencies in humanity but through the exaltation of elevated spirit. "Such solemn facts have generally fostered anticipation for literature that portrays humanity's maximum exertion within humanity raised to commensurate heights."

I myself wanted to write such novels. The desire to write was genuine, but desire and reality did not align. My emotions raced ahead, as if they were a wild horse galloping on heedless that I had fallen from the saddle, and I felt myself being dragged along the ground, clinging to the reins so as not to let go.

(Note 3) Aiyu Jelly was a yellowish agar-like substance said to be made by mashing Taiwanese figs; diced into cubes and served with sugar water and ice poured over them. It resembled shaved ice with sweet red beans but used this gelatinous substance instead of beans, priced at five sen per bowl. (The following year it rose to seven sen.) In this bitter cold where shaved ice with red beans couldn’t be found anywhere else in Tokyo, Asakusa still defiantly sold aiyu jelly topped with ice. I’d assumed it was strictly a summer business—how surprised I was—but there they remained through midwinter, their shopfront exposed to ice-covered streets without any protective barriers. Customers were scarce, true, yet occasionally you’d spot someone wrapped in double-layered scarves sitting on the same wooden benches used in summer, right there in the unshielded storefront, crunching ice with that characteristic shari-shari sound. In other words, Asakusa made people eat ice year-round. Enko must be something heated.

(Note 4)

Something I saw while wandering aimlessly through the alleyways near my apartment—

A visibly pitiful-looking emaciated little dog, clearly intimidated by a visibly ferocious large plump one, fled yelping shrilly. Feeling sorry for it, I sympathized with the tiny creature. Yet there were several children present who, upon seeing this, began pelting stones at the dog while shouting "Hey! You!"—but their target wasn’t that detestable brute of a dog; rather, it was directed at the small one fleeing desperately with its tail between its legs, scrambling pathetically across the dirt in its escape.

I felt sickened.

That ferocious dog must have been familiar to the children, while the pitiful puppy was likely a stray that had wandered into the area—one with no connection to them whatsoever. Did this mean the children sided with the vicious dog that needed no help, bullying the weak little creature that did? Even so, was there any need to throw stones at something already fleeing? As I watched these thoughts unfold, the large dog eventually sauntered off with an air of satisfaction, and the children’s lack of response made it clear they held no particular bond with it. What became evident was that the children had thrown stones purely out of cruel inclination—momentarily gripped by the base pleasure of tormenting weakness and an instinctive loathing for wretchedness.

I hated the hearts of those children. But when I—being such a person—reflected on whether I was any different, I remembered something. I recalled a dream. Since it was a dream I had seen immediately after parting with Ayuko—something from long ago—the fact that I still remembered it so clearly proved just how unpleasant it must have been. This was around the time when the film Under the Roofs of Paris premiered, leaving a deep impression on me. The dream borrowed and expanded upon a scene from that film—a fight by railroad tracks. There were tracks near my house then; perhaps because I walked that path morning and evening, there I found myself in the dream—my feeble self surrounded by several muscular men in the pitch-dark gloom beside the rails, utterly powerless against their numbers despite being alone. It was a dream—if only I could have dreamed of sending those men flying with satisfying thuds! But no—how spineless of me. I was kicked and trampled without mercy. Yet this pitiful dream merely embodied my bitter frustration at having been abandoned by Ayuko. That Ayuko left me—she must have had her reasons, but I could never accept it. It felt like nothing but an unjust, irrational act. “I’ve lost all love for you,” she said. “Let’s part ways.” Hearing this, I couldn’t discard my love for her as easily as one might toss aside an old hat—even if I tried saying “Then I’ll do the same.” Pleading “This is unbearable—I still love you, I don’t want to lose you,” or rather weeping and begging—none of it stopped her from leaving. There I lay—beaten by arms of overwhelming strength, choking on bitter tears of frustration at my own powerlessness—forced to watch silently as she walked calmly away. That dream had given concrete form to this irrepressible bitterness.

But then— As I was being mercilessly beaten by a mob of thugs, I suddenly realized—with the absurd logic of dreams—that I had somehow become one of those very assailants. And I felt an inexpressible hatred and fury toward the spineless wretch writhing pathetically on the ground. Intoxicated by the pleasure of tormenting that miserable creature—whether it was unjust or not—I grew frenzied with the urge to keep trampling and kicking him.

And when I approached that figure—oh God—it was me after all! My eyes snapped open with a start. My pillow lay drenched in tears. An indescribable revulsion filled me. That every detail down to the railroad embankment remained etched in my mind only deepened the disgust. Then—in the very next instant—the thought that this dream could be material for fiction crossed my mind, and this wretched self-awareness intensified the nausea further.…

(Note 5) Before meeting Koyanagi Masako, I hadn't realized—through the painful bitterness of longing that followed our encounter—that this sorrowful, lonely yearning had been something both melancholic and sweet. What exactly constituted this longing for Koyanagi Masako? Once again, I found myself forced to contemplate this. Wasn't it merely one manifestation of some parched thirst within my heart? Yet when I actually met Koyanagi Masako—until then, this longing had floated like an ethereal cloud or haze in the sky, an elusive thing I could gaze upon with bittersweet pleasure like spring mists or summer clouds—suddenly, to use Asano's phrase, it felt as though a vulgar club proclaiming "grown tired of sea bream and now chasing sardines" had thrust itself through that cloud. I hated that club, but through hating it, returning it to vapor had become impossible.

And yet, I wanted to see her. The thought that Masako must see me as "the man trying to eat sardines" was unbearable, yet I still wanted to meet her—and having met her once, I could no longer endure merely watching her on stage from the distant audience seats. I hated Asano for calling me "the man trying to eat sardines," but to meet Masako, I still had to rely on him. To the dressing room, I could not go alone.

Asano was renting a room on the second floor of a small general store in Senzoku-cho.

“Is Mr. Asano in?” When I asked the squint-eyed landlady,

“He’s here.” Her voice turned brusque—perhaps annoyed I wasn’t a customer. Though she pretended not to recognize me, “Is he in?” When I repeated the question in an awkward mumble instead of asking her to call him down, she snapped, “Go around back and up.” I passed through a malodorous alley, circled to the kitchen entrance, and wrestled open a stubborn glass door that refused to budge unless yanked outward. There sat what looked like Asano’s frayed geta sandals. A tightly coiled strand of reddish hair—likely the landlady’s—lay atop the jet-black wooden clogs.

“Asano.” When I called out from the foot of the dark staircase, “Oh!” There was a flustered, overturning-like noise, and Asano abruptly thrust his face out. Perhaps because it was dark, his eyes were shining eerily like a cat’s. “Oh, Asano.” As I tried to ascend the stairs,

“Let’s go out.” “—Wait a moment.” His manner was desperately flustered, as though physically blocking my ascent up the stairs.

—When we went outside,

“Well, this is a rare visit to my place. —You’ve got that ‘let me meet Koyanagi Masako’ look on your face.”

I stayed silent, smirking. Before long, I went to the back of K Theater, but as I approached the stage door, my legs suddenly froze.

“Going to the dressing room—I think I’ll pass.”

“—Why?” “…”

“I see. Well then…” He said tersely. Then, clattering his geta past me, he briskly walked away. We went to BON JŪRU. There, Asano proposed that they start an Asakusa association. He intended to gather literary figures and journalists who held some affection for or interest in Asakusa and form something like an Asakusa Lovers’ Association.

“Why don’t we invite the theater folks from Rokku to join us one by one?” “It’d make for an interesting gathering.” “For our first meeting, K Theater would be best, I suppose. Where your Koyanagi Masako is…” Asano strained alone.

X/X. I met Suematsu Harukichi and went together to comedy theater E Hall. (Note 6) I thought about originality. At Bontarō, I met Misako. (Note 7)

I stayed at the apartment. A female guest came to the apartment next door and was talking loudly.

“A detective-like person came from over there. There’s nothing shady going on here, so…” “Suspicious, don’t you think?” “Oh, right.” He overheard such a conversation. It was like witnessing an actual comedy routine. They say truth is stranger than fiction, but perhaps reality is stranger than comedy. A few days prior, when I went to the apartment kitchen during daytime, a drunkard was shouting outside: “Even grasshoppers have their own houses!” He was cursing at the apartment residents. I couldn’t fathom why he was so enraged, but I admired his clever phrasing about grasshoppers. Had he picked up that line from comedy acts, or was it a drunkard’s original creation?

“Even a grasshopper has a house of its own!” He was berating the apartment residents. I couldn’t fathom why he was so enraged, but I found his “grasshopper” analogy rather ingenious. Had he lifted it from some comedy routine, or was it the drunkard’s own invention? I read Stendhal’s *Lord Byron*. A passage gave me pause: “In being perpetually haunted by himself and obsessing over how others perceived him, Lord Byron’s temperament bore remarkable similarity to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s. No poet was as inept at theater as Lord Byron. He could never become another character. This explains his particular aversion to Shakespeare. Moreover, his contempt for Shakespeare likely stemmed from how the Bard could transform himself into both Shylock—Venice’s disreputable Jew—and John Cade, that despicable rebel leader deserving only of scorn.”

(Note 6)

When he met Suematsu Harukichi on Kokusai Street, Suematsu said he was on his way to E Hall to see Kameya Pontan. "I'm steadily making the switch to comedy." Suematsu Harukichi wore an oddly short overcoat that didn't suit his frame at all, looking thoroughly uncomfortable. "Do you have any good stage names?"

“Well...” “Please think of one for me. “Something related to current affairs...”

“Current affairs…” “Yes, I heard something like this the other day. ‘Protect the country.’ Split it into two parts to make ‘Kuniwo’ and ‘Mamoru.’ They came up with a damn good name—I was impressed, you know. This one’s from someone who just recently switched from acting to comedy too…”

I decided to go to E Hall and started walking with him. “Oh right, Mii-chan was at Bontarō and said she wondered if you weren’t around.” “Did she have some business…?” “It didn’t seem like she had any particular business, though.” “Let’s go check it out later.” When we arrived at E Hall, they said Kameya Pontan was just about to go on stage. Suematsu went backstage; I entered the audience seating. They had positioned this cramped booth so close to the stage that one could clearly see every audience member’s face from corner to corner. Being tall and wearing high geta at the time, my head ended up jutting out above the standing spectators—the moment I entered, Pontan on stage and I abruptly locked eyes.

“Oh—” Pontan made a face as if to say. His expression was clearly visible. I nodded back in a way that seemed to say “Oh—” too. “Hoh! So ‘ton’ means English now?” Pontan said in a mock-naive voice while looking straight at me. “—It’s English.” This was Tsuruiya Anpon—Pontan’s so-called “brother.” He stood slightly taller than Pontan but leaner, with the handsome features of a leading man. Both wore double-breasted suits—and zori sandals.

“Now, in German, what do you call a pig...” “German, huh? In German, it’s Ham, see?” “Ah, I see!” “Now don’t you forget that!” “Now, in French...” “Sausage, see?”

I had heard this routine at performances by so-called "top-tier" comedians before. It wasn't exactly identical, but followed the same comic formula—manzai consists of combining several independent short jokes. This meant they could slip one or two borrowed elements into their original works, but I found myself unable to suppress my discomfort and contempt. I despised not just that particular manzai act, but the very nature of comedy that allowed such effortless borrowing. Yet when I considered it—even in so-called "highbrow" cultural fields—there existed works similar to this, no, works where borrowed elements comprised seventy percent and original parts a mere thirty percent, that nevertheless paraded themselves about with brazen claims to originality. They're all just manzai acts anyway.

(Note 7) When I went to Bontarō, Misako wasn't there. "She went out for some banquet work or something," said the wife. Two young male customers had come in; scooping up udon flour with spoons and pouring it out, they wrote what seemed to be their names in Roman letters on the iron griddle while exclaiming things like "Got it right this time!" in their amusement. The udon flour proved stubbornly uncooperative, making the rhythm difficult. Drawn by their apparent enjoyment, I too received some anko-ten. After carefully mixing the red bean paste into the flour, I prepared to write my own name—then hesitated. What if I wrote someone else's name instead?—I nodded to myself.

I first wrote a K. Indeed, it was difficult. On the head of the pillar where I had first plopped down the udon flour, a large tumor had formed. Next an o —— next a y —— Koyanagi Masako It was an unbearably clumsy result. With the spatula, I haphazardly mashed it all together.

Once again—this time approaching it carefully—I managed something halfway presentable. Leaving that as it was—(Right, I thought—maybe try Japanese characters this time)—the previous customers called out, “Auntie, we’re off.”

I was left alone. I sat up straight and began to write "Ko..."—but for some reason, my chest was suddenly gripped by a piercingly aching emotion. I was already desperately longing for Koyanagi Masako. That this hadn't happened when I used Roman letters—was it because Roman script lacked that raw immediacy to convey such feelings? Or was it because there had been customers present at the time?

Sighing, I moved the spoon. Koyanagi Masako. ——The characters had taken shape—terribly wide and bloated, swollen beyond recognition. These ugly, corpulent letters differed completely from the slender real Koyanagi Masako, their very grotesqueness repelling me—yet as I kept staring, within that revulsion arose a different, far more intense disgust. Though their form bore no resemblance to the actual woman, those characters were undeniably her full name. To mercilessly place them on the iron griddle and burn them began feeling like conducting some accursed ritual akin to a midnight pilgrimage.

(—This won’t do.)

The udon flour was gradually burning from its thin outer edges, its color changing. I muttered No good, no good in my heart, yet continued to watch the change unfold.

Then, at that moment,

“—Brr, it’s cold.” Misako roughly flung open the door. “Oh, Mr. Kurahashi.” “Evening.” Misako took off her shoes while standing and stepped into the room.

“—Oh,” She shifted her gaze from the characters on the griddle to me, “Did you—write that, Mr. Kurahashi?” “Yeah.” “You know Masako?” “—My lover.”

“Your lover?” At her strange exclamation, “No—I’m joking,” “She’s just a girl I really like.” “...!” Misako, still standing rigidly, glared at me. I looked away and popped the “ko” letter into my mouth. “Ah... Hot!”

Misako plopped down right in front of me. Working my mouth open and shut, “You know Ms. Koyanagi? —Well, if you’re in Asakusa, of course you’d know her.” Flustered, I kept talking by myself.

“More importantly—you! The other day I met Do...sa...kan-kun—ah! It’s hard to say—and heard something shocking.” “I was shocked.—Why did you only tell me half of it? Why didn’t you tell me everything?” At that moment Horetarou—the owner of Horetarou—returned from outside and cut their conversation short.

“It’s damn cold out—welcome.” “It’s freezing outside.” “——The little one’s... (peeking into the 3-tatami room) fast asleep. ——Maybe I’ll slip out to the baths to warm up a bit.”

Part 8: Call to the Journey

…………………

…………………

It was a cold night—no, rather, it was cold season, so the chill should have been expected—but with no warmth beyond the lamp dangling by my pillow, the cold pierced psychologically sharper. In that apartment room, I lay burrowed under the futon reading a book. Taking one hand from beneath the futon to prop the book above my eyes, that hand would quickly turn cold, the chill growing painful until I brought out the other hand—the one being warmed under the futon—to switch places. Yet by nature’s law, the warmed hand cooled faster outside than the chilled hand regained warmth within. Before long I found myself forced to swap them again before the withdrawn hand had fully recovered, each exchange growing hastier until, with the futon-enclosed hand showing no revival and the exposed one growing intolerably cold, both hands ended up chilled beyond recovery by any slight effort. Reluctantly enduring the agony of interrupting my reading for such external reasons, I placed the book atop my forehead—shaped like an ice pack laid upon my aching head—as if trying to soothe the throbbing pain of interruption itself through that frozen metaphor. Thus inserting both hands under the futon and thrusting them near my thighs to warm faster, I yelped “Brr!” at the coldness like crushed ice while muttering that staying in this apartment had become unbearable now winter tightened its grip. Yet truthfully, it was precisely this cold that kept me there—the prospect of trudging all the way back to Omori through freezing darkness felt infinitely more daunting than enduring the chill.

It was already past one o'clock—or rather, in that apartment building during summer nights, the liveliest hour would stretch from half past midnight to around one-thirty. At such times, hostesses would clatter up the stairs with unsteady steps, slurring soliloquies like "I ain't drunk," and even after returning alone to their rooms—still buzzing from the bar's excitement—they would make a racket by themselves or sometimes drag equally plastered colleagues inside to shriek like animals, eventually erupting into fights or tears—a truly chaotic spectacle. Yet now, though these noisy residents still staggered about no differently than in summer, the cold seemed to have sapped their spirits, leaving the building hushed with sleep. It was utterly quiet. Inside and outside—. That's right. In summer, until around three o'clock—or with slight exaggeration all night long—the apartment's main street never lacked pedestrian traffic. Among the footsteps resounding by my pillow, though unpleasant were the sounds dragging like Asano Mitsuo's worn-down geta teeth, there was something rather pleasant about the brisk clatter of hiyori geta with their thin teeth—a sound that conjured alluring footsteps. But now, the street lay in hushed silence, and from afar came the lonely-sounding bark of a dog. That it sounded forlorn might have been a projection of my own desolate heart—but then again, I found myself thinking—perhaps that detestable big dog I once saw bullying a smaller one had encountered some misfortune of its own, leaving it utterly dejected as it let out those pitiful barks. And with that thought, my lonesome heart found a measure of solace.

As I strained my ears—a phenomenon that sometimes occurs on nights when rain clouds hang low—the faint, booming sound of a steam whistle reached me from the distant vicinity of Ueno Station. (I want to travel.) Suddenly, I felt it acutely. But this desire to journey forth had been burning within me all along. That’s right. Hadn’t my coming to Asakusa been a kind of journey? It was then that I realized this for the first time.

I had written earlier that my room’s only source of warmth was the electric lamp, but in my case, even without such warmth, I at least had a winter-ready futon. This reminded me of a story I’d heard from Suematsu Harukichi—about his unemployed actor friend who, after pawning everything he owned, was left with nothing but a thin futon on winter nights, truly enduring the cold by relying on the heat from an electric lamp. He would crawl into the closet, wrap himself in a cracker-like futon on the sealed upper shelf, drag an electric lamp onto the lower shelf, screw in an absurdly large bulb he’d procured from somewhere, and bask in its blazing light for warmth—or so the story went. Whether this actually provided any warmth, I cannot vouch for, never having tried it myself. But according to Suematsu Harukichi, the man dubbed this preposterous contraption his “New-Invention Electric Stove,” laughing as he called him “one clueless bastard.” I laughed too—it was a truly funny story, yet one where sadness seeped steadily from beneath the humor. I know that this sad humor is difficult to convey without writing it descriptively, but in truth, I had already written that story as a short piece, so I refrained from doing so to avoid redundancy. At that time, I had not yet written that story as a short piece, and while harboring a feeling that I could write this, I was vaguely recalling that tale. Now, the reason I had been vaguely recalling such a story was simply this: though my hands had grown considerably warm, whereas earlier it had been so agonizing to interrupt reading in order to warm them, now I found myself reluctant to even reach out to resume reading. The book I’d placed on my forehead had slid off to the back of my head as I shifted my neck lazily. In other words, having warmed my hands, I found myself growing drowsy.

Just then, sudden hurried footsteps echoed outside—voices shouting something indistinct—and soon the area beneath the apartment grew restless. Straining to hear, I caught a voice below the stairs: "Where's the fire?" I bolted upright. Though if I’m being honest, it was more out of curiosity than alarm— I threw open the window. Toward Kaminarimon—(oh, what sacrilegious instinct)—but truthfully, in that moment, flames rose with an almost inviting warmth.

When I suddenly noticed, I had layered a kimono over my nightclothes and thrown on a short coat—so much so that it would be more accurate to say I had dressed myself with remarkable agility. Logically, I should have found myself dashing toward Kaminarimon Gate in that moment of realization, but for reasons unknown, I instead calmly reached for the leftover inarizushi on my desk. To borrow that earlier composure in description: this particular inarizushi came from Momotarou—a shop at the alleyway exit onto Kokusai Street near my apartment, its noren curtain bearing the legend “Famed Old-Style Dango”—and while I make no advertisement for the establishment, it was said to be exceptionally delicious, indeed famously so. Yet as previously noted, the night’s cold—so bitter it chilled even hands coursing with warm blood—had turned the rice of this inherently cool inarizushi ice-like in its frigidity, that coldness piercingly seeping into my teeth. I shivered with a chattering click of my lips as I stepped out of the apartment. (I was raised in Tokyo’s Yamanote district, and as a child, there would be inarizushi vendors who walked around at night calling “Oinaaa-risaaan”—never showing themselves by day, only appearing deep into the night when foot traffic died down. From some unknown direction, that peculiar voice would draw near—though I never heard the footsteps of its owner—and my younger self would grow frightened, imagining kidnappers or some such menace.) Nowadays, I don’t know much about Shitamachi anymore, but in Yamanote, those vendors’ calls—“Oinaaa-risaaan,” “Karin, Karin,” “Nabeya aki, udon”—and even the reedy trill of Chinese noodle vendors’ flutes have nearly vanished. Yet when I think about it, inarizushi carries such fond memories for me, and each time I eat it, those memories come flooding back. Whether it was that or the childlike excitement of fire-watching, I found myself slipping into an intensely childish mood……)

The fire was behind the Meiji Seika shop at Kaminarimon Gate, but I went as far as Chinya’s front and watched it there. And this was no figure of speech—truly, when I suddenly noticed, I was surrounded entirely by women of varying ages, all likely food stall workers roused mid-slumber and having rushed out just as they were, their appearances disheveled. _Huh?_ With that thought, when I turned around, even in several half-opened armored doors of Chinya—where during the day one would see all the lively butcher shop women—now with their makeup completely removed, their faces—so embarrassingly plain, unsightly, horribly sallow—were layered one upon another and thrust outward, creating a kind of spectacular yet somehow ghastly sight. I shifted my gaze to Hirokoji Avenue, overflowing with onlookers. There too—though to say it was all women would be a lie—there really were an extraordinary number of women. In the sight of such an astounding number of women, I felt as though I had made some grave discovery about Asakusa—a sensation that filled me with no small solemnity. Most of those women appeared to be food stall workers. I had never noticed before, but the thought that so many women were crammed into cramped rooms somewhere in the park’s food stalls, each packed to the brim as they slept, struck me as eerie and uncanny—and as that eeriness intensified, it took on a solemn quality instead.

(—Wait. Koyanagi Masako might be among these women.) The realization made me gasp and hold my breath. If Koyanagi Masako—who spent most nights sleeping in dressing rooms—had come out to see the fire, I might naturally encounter her here. The thought brought such surging joy that I regretted not considering this possibility sooner. Now watching the fire seemed utterly foolish; I turned my back to the flames and began searching for Koyanagi Masako.

Before I had gone far, instead of finding the crucial Koyanagi Masako, I spotted Suematsu Harukichi—who served no purpose—in the crowd, and at the very moment I noticed him, he too became aware of me,

“Oh— Heading back?” “It’s cold.” When I tried to lie my way out, “Cold indeed.—Well then, I’ll head back too. Let’s go together.”

By the time I thought Oh dear, it was already too late—he was walking shoulder to shoulder with me,

“Years with three Tori no Ichi festivals are said to have many fires—seems true enough, eh?” He gave a violent shudder. “Can’t take this—completely frozen through. No chance of sleeping like this. What d’you say, boss? Shall we head to Paiichi?”

"I see..." I said vaguely while letting my gaze dart restlessly through the crowd. Koyanagi Masako was nowhere to be found. Somehow feeling this was Suematsu Harukichi's fault, I snapped brusquely, "Where's Paiichi open? Is there even a place available?" Then immediately softening into an apologetic tone, I added gently, "--I'll just go fetch my wallet from the apartment."

I had Suematsu wait on the outer street while I went to my apartment, and when I returned, he was chatting with a short elderly man who seemed to be returning from watching the fire. When Suematsu saw me, he parted ways with the shabbily dressed man, and we set off down Kokusai Street toward Kokusai Theater. “Do you know the old Asakusa?” Suematsu said. “The man we’re talking about now is Tenchuken Tokoton—he made a name for himself long ago with Egawa’s ball-riding…”

In my childhood, I have a memory of once seeing either Egawa’s ball-riding or Aoki’s ball-riding—I can’t recall which—but I don’t remember the performer’s name. “He was truly famous back in the day, but now he’s done for…” When I asked what he did now, the reply came that he was still performing ball-riding—stubbornly clinging to the art, with his entire family engaged in ball-riding together. Taken aback, I asked, "Does ball-riding even still exist nowadays?" to which he replied, "Well, there's occasional work at yose theaters or banquets..." “Usually, it’s all about pasting paper bags—from early morning till late at night, they’re all hands on deck, you see, with Mr. Tokoton leading the charge, his wife, son, daughter—the whole family pasting away with gusto.” “Hmm, how unfortunate,” I said. “Well—it’s not exactly pitiable.” “But you see, Mr. Tokoton has saved up a ton of money.” "And to struggling performers and such, he lends money out of genuine kindness, they say." Thanks to that chivalrous spirit, numerous performers in dire straits have been saved, they say. Suematsu continued: —He’s quite the eccentric old man. "Even earlier, he was wearing a tattered quilted jacket, you know." “It’s not that he’s wearing something awful because it’s his nightclothes—he dresses like a beggar even on regular days.” "The whole family’s like that." "His daughter wears such shabby kimonos and goes about completely unbothered—walking around like that, she even comes to Horetarou’s in that state to collect leftover wheat flour, so unfamiliar customers often mistake her for a beggar’s daughter.—The wheat flour is used as paste for pasting paper bags." At the bottom of the container, some wheat flour remains. “Horetarou’s wife saves it for Mr. Tokoton’s sake—even though it must be quite a hassle—and does this for his daughter who comes to collect it every day.” Working like that, pasting paper bags, he even contributed fifty yen from the money they’d saved up the other day.

“Well, that’s quite impressive,” I said. “Quite impressive indeed,” Suematsu parroted back—then added, “Speaking of which, when sending off conscripted soldiers, Old Man Tokoton shows such fervent enthusiasm that his excessive zeal actually ends up causing trouble for those around him.” According to Suematsu Harukichi’s account of how he caused trouble—every time a conscripted man left the neighborhood, he would make splendid farewell flags, and once the used flags accumulated, he would fashion them into clothing. He would don that kimono—boldly emblazoned across the back with phrases like “Celebrating the Departure of So-and-So”—and take his place at the head of the farewell procession. Yet as his excitement grew, his stubby little frame would scurry several yards ahead of the crowd, stop short, and raise his hands in repeated banzai cheers to welcome the approaching procession. As the procession drew near, he would dash ahead again and shout, “Banzai! Banzai!” While one could appreciate his sincerity and fervor, the combination of his flag-made kimono—so outlandish it resembled a festive troupe member’s garb—and the way he scurried about, his posture perhaps oddly contorted from years of ball-riding, created such a bizarrely comical spectacle. Yet people found themselves unable to laugh at its absurdity, which was precisely what made the whole situation so awkward, or so it was said.

“Since he’s dead serious, you can’t exactly tell him to quit wearing that ridiculous kimono and scurrying about with those absurd antics.” “Truth is, Old Man Tokoton means every word—he’s always going on about how we owe our peaceful lives to those going off to war in our place. Like when you spot someone with a red sash on the train...” “When that happens, he’ll shove through the crowd, march right up to them, bow like he’s meeting the emperor, and declare in that grave voice of his—” “‘Thanks to you fine folks, we’re able to live safe and sound like this.’” “‘I’m eternally grateful,’ he says.” “You might sympathize with his feelings, but it’s all so sudden—and given how he’s always dressed like a beggar...” “The whole thing feels downright unhinged, leaves people flustered about how to respond.” “When you’re stuck with Old Man Tokoton in those situations, everyone stares—makes you want to crawl in a hole. Even Horetarou’s old man complained about it once.” “And mind you, Horetarou’s father was one of those conscripts Tokoton thanked back when he got drafted himself.”

We entered an all-night diner on Kototoi-dori that catered to automobile drivers. Moved by Tenchuken Tokoton's sincere emotions and feeling grateful to Suematsu Harukichi for sharing such a fine story, even my frustration at having failed to meet Koyanagi Masako had now completely vanished from my heart. We drank sake with yudofu and cod roe as accompaniments, but perhaps because there was a blue line around the neck of the sake bottle—making it look like it wore a headband—whenever I said to the woman, "More sake," she would call out, "Right away! Maki, a refill!"

“Mii-chan was rather indignant with you the other day.” “Indignant—or rather, how should I put it—” Suematsu clicked his tongue and drank his sake. “Apparently, she had some sort of run-in with you once.” “She mentioned that too.” “A run-in?” “What’s that about?” Judging from the taste, the sake seemed to be some variety of Atapin—Kurobai Taka (not Shirotaka) or Bokushiro Haku (not Kurobai)—so I was drinking cautiously.

“It’s something about Mii-chan’s dead sister…” “Ah.” I realized it was about that time I’d gone to Omasa at Hyoutan Pond. In a corner of this shop sat a thin middle-aged man with the bearing of an old samurai yet dressed in shabby clothes. Whether out of pride or habit, he sat rigidly upright, drinking leisurely with an expressionless face as if it were water rather than sake. While stealing glances at him, I found myself wondering—with one part of my mind—what thoughts occupied that man as he drank, and though I couldn’t begin to imagine them, I felt something akin to inexplicable irritation. Yes—it goes without saying that we cannot peer into others’ minds as we see their faces, yet this obvious truth carried an uncanny eeriness when examined. All this I pondered vaguely with half my mind while the other half sifted through memories of that time at Omasa, belatedly realizing whether Misako had truly confronted me during our visit.

“Mii-chan used to say she liked you before, but somehow the winds shifted—she’s been terribly indignant lately.” “...even dragging her dead sister into it…” I recalled how Misako had confronted me at Hyoutan Pond, demanding to know what I’d come to Asakusa for. After those accusatory words, she’d spoken of a strange connection between us—some peculiar bond linking her deceased sister Ichikawa Reiko to my former wife Ayuko. Though she’d said no more then, I later learned from Dosakan the gravity of it: how Ayuko had appeared suddenly in Asakusa and, on some flirtatious whim, stolen Ooya Goro from Reiko—thereby stealing Reiko’s life too. That Misako hadn’t spoken of this herself made me sense the depth of her resentment toward Ayuko. When outsiders like Ayuko descended on Asakusa to play their pranks—like tossing stones into ponds without caring which frogs they killed—Misako nursed this bitterness on Reiko’s behalf. She must have seen me as another such prankster when she demanded, “What did you come here for?” That’s how I read her heart that day. As I considered that this likely fueled her indignation—

“Did she really say she liked me?” I could not definitively claim to be someone who never plays pranks, and because I was flustered by Misako’s indignation, I spoke in that teasing manner to conceal my disarray. (In truth, Misako had not been vaguely indignant as I thought.) As I wrote previously, it was through the okonomiyaki incident that Misako learned of my infatuation with Koyanagi Masako. It was specifically due to Koyanagi Masako that Misako had become indignant—though this became clear only later—so why had Misako become indignant particularly because of Koyanagi Masako? (It seems it is not yet the time to speak of that.)

Suematsu also said in a teasing tone, imitating Misako’s voice.

“Mr. Kurahashi seems like such a lonely person.” “I like lonely-looking people like that.” “Mii-chan once said that to me, you see.” Seeming to grow drunker, he began gesturing animatedly,

"And then I—well, I told her, 'After all, I'm a lively person,' you know." "That's right—back then, you weren't going by Mr. Kurahashi but by Mr. Takase." "What's that about…" Finding it too troublesome to explain, I claimed it was a mistake and poured sake into Suematsu's cup,

“By the way, Dosakan—ah, it’s hard to say—Do, Sa, Kan—Mr. Dosakan—what’s become of him?” “He’s so wishy-washy, it’s a real problem.” “Ugh,” he burped, “like this, I can’t even make it through the year.” “Is Levius better, I wonder? That person was appearing at O Hall, I heard.”

“Well now... Poor thing had his sweetheart dancer snatched away by that troupe leader.” “So he went wild and picked a fight with the leader—ended up getting booted out.” “Looks meek as a lamb but’s got a mule’s stubbornness in him.” “Oh right—Sensei here was aiming to be a novelist once upon a time.” “Might still be nursing those writerly notions even now.” “I’ve been reading your stories proper-like.—Oh mercy, flask’s gone dry already?”

“Maki，another round，” I said to the owner.

*

The first Tori festival of that year fell on November 1st, but since I had neither faith nor particular interest, I did not go to O-Tori-sama.

November 3rd. Meiji Festival Day. On this day, Koyanagi Masako joined a comfort troupe and departed for China from Tokyo Station at three o'clock. Since she probably wouldn’t return for about a month, I had wanted without fail to meet her before her departure and share a meal together, but in the end I was unable to obtain that opportunity. From my seat in the audience I had secretly said to her on stage, “Go safely,” but...

November 3rd was rainy, and though I considered going to Tokyo Station to see her off, imagining my shabby appearance amid the crowd of well-wishers made it utterly impossible—so at that hour I found myself gazing out my apartment window. The Jintan advertisement light in Tahara-cho—even during daytime when unlit, such lights already looked dejected—stood drenched in cold rain, appearing lonely and pitiable as it caught my eye; amidst the desolate view outside my window where only rooftops were visible, that alone remained the sole thing to draw my attention.

Even if it was trivial, I tried to occupy my mind with some thought or another to drive away these frivolous feelings toward Koyanagi Masako—and ended up coming up with something truly inconsequential. As for what that was—I had been asked by Suematsu Harukichi to come up with a stage name for him. The matter of that stage name suddenly came to mind—perhaps an association from Jintan—how about something like House of Nosin or House of Terin? Our comedy acts would be in the vein of curing the audience’s headaches like Nosin or Terin... If we use such medicine names, perhaps we could get money from the manufacturers for promotional purposes. Two birds with one stone. Wait—House of Adalin, House of Calmotin... those have a nice ring to them. No—but if that’s the case, then having Suematsu Harukichi’s comedy act end up inducing sleep like Adalin or Calmotin would be problematic. Then how about House of Aspirin and House of Tokkapin? —But Suematsu-kun had mentioned wanting a current-events-style stage name. Borrowing medicine names might not work after all…

Several days later, I met Asano Mitsuo, and when Asano saw my face, “Ah, Kurahashi-kun. On the evening of the recent first Tori festival, Koyanagi Masako’s support group held a farewell party for her since she was going to China, you know. They had it on the second floor of Shuuraku. You should’ve gone. Koyanagi Masako would’ve been delighted.” I had no idea such a farewell party had taken place. Asano had never mentioned the existence of such a support group to me, nor had he informed me of that farewell party.

“Oh, so there’s a support group?” I said to Asano with lingering dissatisfaction toward his belated mention of this matter—though Asano himself seemed to be making such remarks precisely because he found amusement in imagining my disappointment. “A positively grand support group it was.”

Asano bared his dirty teeth in a grin, "The members? Shoemakers' apprentices, fishmongers' sons, tonkatsu shop lads, soba delivery boys, round-taxi assistants, electroplating factory workers—what a crew." "When they hold meetings, they come decked out in their Sunday best, gather around Koyanagi Masako, put on solemn faces, and start debating Miss Koyanagi's artistic style—now that's a real spectacle." "This would make fine novel material. What a shame—you should've come along, Kurahashi-kun..."

He laughed maliciously, “By the way, regarding that Asakusa Society we discussed the other day—I thought we’d start with K Theater, so when I mentioned it to Bin-chan, he was absolutely delighted to do it, you know.” “We could even talk to the publicity department and have them cover the expenses for the meeting.—What do you think?” “Let’s do it.”

I nodded ambiguously, “If we’re going to do it, it’s better if we each pay our own fees.” “Well then, if the publicity department puts up the money, we could redirect that to liquor.—Anyway, why don’t we go take a look at K Theater’s dressing room? Since Koyanagi Masako is away, I suppose you’ve no interest in going?”

Contrary to that, I actually felt I could enter the dressing room precisely because Koyanagi Masako was away. To the dressing room of K Theater—a place I’d previously longed to enter but could never bring myself to step through when the moment came—I now walked in without hesitation, straightforwardly, alongside Asano.

Chapter Nine: This Wan Scenery

Ah, how—O traveler—this wan scenery must reflect your own wan self. Verlaine

As I wrote a bit earlier, the dressing room was located on the third floor backstage. To reach it, I climbed the dark, steep stairs and had just arrived at the narrow landing between the second and third floors—Asano, who had gone ahead of me, had already disappeared onto the third floor—when suddenly, as if a light had flashed through the dim stairwell, a group of dancers materialized above me. Their costumes—what fabric was that? White and translucent, billowy enough on their own to seem provocatively alluring—had floral frills at the shoulders and decorative pouches like garlands along the hem where the skirt parted at the front. Holding up their hems, they appeared abruptly overhead. The show was about to begin. Startled, I pressed myself into a corner of the landing just as stage shoes came clattering down the stairs. But given the steepness of the steps and the cramped landing, those red shoes were nearly at my nose when that same billowy costume brushed past my cheek—teasingly grazing some hidden corner of my heart as it went by. To put it with some exaggeration, my eyes darted wildly. Leaving aside the hems themselves, the indescribable breeze they stirred up did indeed sweep mercilessly across my cheek. Suddenly it struck me—if liquor was called madness water, then this wind must be madness wind.

I couldn't tell how many dancers had come down in my excitement, but even amidst that fluster, I could at least discern that after several had descended, it wasn't the entire dancing team—only a portion. Thinking that if I kept dithering more would come down from above—an unbearable prospect (though by no means an unpleasant feeling; rather, so diametrically opposed that it became painful)—I dashed up the stairs. In my haste to climb them quickly, I ended up holding up the hem of my double-layered kimono with my hand—an exact mirror of the dancers lifting their own hems. But what a difference there was between the dancers and me—I couldn't help but smile wryly at myself.

To the immediate left after climbing the stairs was the shoe removal area, and beyond that stretched the dancing team’s narrow dressing room. Just as I had anticipated, the remaining dancers came pouring out from there in a surge—but in my excitement-dazed state, I could grasp nothing beyond the overwhelming sensation of their eruption, let alone register any individual faces among them. From within that tumult, "Oh—Mr. Kurahashi." a voice called out. When I focused my eyes toward the sound, it was Saa-chan.

Unaccustomed to such situations, no suitable words came to mind in the moment, so I shook my head with a few vague "Ah, ah"s— "Mr. Kurahashi, your 'Ma' isn't here." "The 'Ma' character?" Thinking I was feigning ignorance, Saa-chan descended the stairs, leaving behind a meaningful smile. Afterward, I realized that "Ma" referred to Koyanagi Masako. The dressing room, now that the dancers had all left, stood completely empty. Amidst the haphazardly discarded practice clothes, Asano sat alone, serenely composed. "Well now, aren't you coming in?"

His tone suggested he might as well have been in his own room, but given that Asano never allowed me into his actual room above the sundries shop, it made the moment feel all the more peculiar. Be that as it may, taking advantage of its emptiness, I entered and was able to take in the dressing room's interior for the first time to fully appreciate it. On both sides of the narrow room, mirror stands were lined up in rows, many of them small oval-shaped red ones. The north-facing side had windows that let in meager light, while above the mirror stands, electric lights were lined up in rows like shopping district street lamps. As I wrote previously about using electric lights for warmth, the heat from those lights seemed to play no small role in the stifling atmosphere of that room, heavy with its complex odors. Above those lights hung what was unmistakably a clothesline strung across, from which dangled laundered socks—many in that carrot hue I so disliked that had become fashionable lately—along with mouse-gray undergarments, all likely being dried by the electric heat.

Merely describing this laundry-draped scene would already conjure an image of the room's sordid allure, yet shifting one's gaze beneath the mirror stands revealed grime-embedded nightclothes rolled into balls, practice uniforms bundled with dance shoes, and face towels scattered across borderless reddish tatami—a sight akin to peering into a slovenly woman's closet crammed indiscriminately with soiled garments—where squalor struck the eye more forcefully than any sensuality. If written this way, it might seem I aim to convey disillusionment; however, this was a space where young dancers resided nearly round-the-clock—not just by day but often overnight—making it practically their perpetual dwelling. Thus, filthy though it was, within that grime one could discern the poignantly transient efforts of dream-prone young women striving to fashion it into as joyful a living space as possible—efforts that significantly mitigated the squalid impression. For instance, on walls where peony-shaped brushes might have hung now dangled utterly charmless oval sponges, alongside photos of handsome foreign actors clipped from film magazines; occasionally, though women themselves, they'd pasted up images of beautiful actresses too. Beside the mirror stands, next to upright rouge brushes, lay small dolls and ornamental charms inscribed with phrases like "To So-and-so"—likely fan gifts—alongside other girlish trinkets arranged as cherished objects. Viewed in isolation—how each girl strove to build joyous lives within that cramped space—the fragile beauty of their endeavors couldn't help but strike the observer.

And so, I never once frowned upon the squalor there. But nor did I secretly smirk at its sensuality. I grew somewhat melancholy. Even when Asano spoke to me, I did not respond animatedly. Then, Asano, “Are you going to use this dressing room scene as material right away?” He must have taken my silence to mean I was brooding over using it as material. “Or else—” Asano continued. “Are you feeling gloomy because Koyanagi Masako isn’t here?”

After a short show, the dancers soon came clamoring back into the dressing room. And before my eyes, they casually removed those feather-like costumes—or rather, even if not casually, they couldn’t hide from my shameless gaze in that exposed room—and the dancers, sweating despite winter’s chill, nearly half-naked (thereby laying bare how intensely physical their dancing labor was), began crowding shoulder-to-shoulder before mirrors to wipe off makeup. One plopped onto a forgotten pillow with knees raised like a man’s, neck craned toward her mirror stand. If we speak of man-like traits—her bare legs bristled with hair like a man’s shins. As for bare feet—some soles had turned pitch-black from sitting cross-legged. These details proved slightly disillusioning.

Now, while these dancers were of course of varying ages, with most being under twenty, when viewed from the audience seats they appeared considerably older. Thus, when seen in the dressing room, they gave a completely different impression; yet even within that same dressing room, those with makeup and those without appeared utterly distinct from one another.

When they removed their thick Doran makeup, a smooth face emerged—like a peeled boiled egg, though not eggshell white but rather sallow and yellowish, whether from exhaustion or lack of sun—and that face, devoid of eyebrows or any defining features, made you think: Huh? It was so childlike—or rather, so infantile—that one couldn’t help being startled. The character for "makeup" is written as "disguise-adorn," and it truly transforms. (Once, an actress with decades of experience told me—when I put on stage makeup, it feels like wearing a mask; courage wells up, my mood shifts, and that’s how I can perform. But bare-faced? Impossible. Even after all these years onstage, even considering myself thoroughly shameless—still impossible—she had said.)

Saa-chan turned that smooth bare face toward me, “Mr. Asano, are you having some kind of party?” “Oh… Who did you hear that from?” “From Mr. Binokuchi.” Despite Saa-chan and Koyanagi Masako bearing no resemblance to each other, whenever I looked at Saa-chan’s face, I would strangely find myself vividly conjuring Koyanagi Masako’s features there. “Mr. Binokuchi said this—that you’re inviting us to your party to make us play geisha and pour drinks for you, Mr. Asano! Ugh.” “You’re really going to make us do some geisha imitation thing like that?”

“I never said anything like that!”

However, Asano was clearly flustered.

Later, I met Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe at the dressing room entrance. He wore a stylish Western suit and gleaming shoes—my grimy straw sandals and soiled double-layered kimono appearing all the more wretched before him—when Binokuchi tapped my shoulder with the familiarity of a decade-old acquaintance. “Hey, Sensei.” “Ha...” In that world, most people were addressed as Sensei. While literary club members and choreographers might still merit the title, even former enka singers and voice actors turned manzai comedians were called Sensei in the theater as senior members. I had already learned by then not to be startled by this honorific, yet still found myself blushing and rubbing my face.

“Hey, Sensei,” Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe said with an ingratiating smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hear you’re hosting a party.” His gleaming shoes tapped an impatient rhythm against the dressing room floor as he leaned closer. “Please—we’re at a critical juncture here.” The smell of hair pomade clung to him like cheap theater greasepaint. “If we’re to make our big leap forward, we desperately need backing from esteemed Senseis like yourself.” “Well…” I rubbed at a stain on my frayed obi, acutely aware of how his tailored suit made my layered kimono look like a dishrag. “Now, now—don’t be modest!” His gloved hand landed on my shoulder with practiced camaraderie. “Take us under your wing, won’t you? Let us shine!” The flattery should have curdled in my gut. Instead—damn my lax nature—it spread through me like warm awamori. Even knowing his words were grease for ambition’s wheels, having this polished creature beg favor from a shabby novelist felt... not unpleasant. My mind drifted to Suematsu Harukichi—that lumbering bear of a man who’d shared Binokuchi’s stage years ago. Where Suematsu fumbled with sincerity, Binokuchi scratched precisely at the itch of vanity I kept buried like a shameful rash. I preferred Suematsu’s authenticity amid okonomiyaki shop grime, yet couldn’t deny the dark thrill of Binokuchi’s calculated fire—a conflagration I knew would consume us both once fed.

“Oh my, oh my—what dreadful shabbiness!” Binokuchi went so far as to brush off the back of my double-layered kimono, “Koyanagi Maa-chan will return at the beginning of December, but as for the party—well, I suppose it’ll be after Maa-chan comes back.” He chuckled and tapped my shoulder. Whether it was Saa-chan’s remarks or Binokuchi’s words, my infatuation with Koyanagi Masako seemed to have already become “famous” throughout the entire theater. You must have spread the rumors—when I directed such a gaze at Asano, he turned his back sharply on me,

“Binokuchi’s really—no, absolutely brimming with enthusiasm, isn’t he?”

Then Binokuchi clapped his gloved hands vigorously— “If I don’t give it my all now, there’ll never be a time to!” “It’s because he’s been gaining popularity now, you know.” “We’ve got to push forward here…” “That’s right, that’s right.” They were spirited words, but delivered in a hollow voice. Asano had once told me, “Asakusa won’t let people stay idle,” and while the district’s atmosphere did carry that languid quality, seeing figures like Binokuchi made me realize how beneath this idle veneer churned a fierce struggle for survival—a realization that stirred and exhilarated my own indolent spirit.

“I’ve got to get fired up too!” As usual, Asano and I went to Bon Jour in the subway alleyway, but along the way on Shin-Nakamise Street, I happened to run into one of those so-called coffee girls—an acquaintance from a certain “special café” in Ginza’s backstreets where I used to loiter before coming to Asakusa. I hadn’t visited that establishment in ages, but they apparently still remembered me—when she spotted me in the bustling crowd, she averted her face with an expression that screamed Ugh, of all people to run into.

There was a man beside the woman, but the way she averted her face made clear what kind of significance he held for her. That’s right. I had not written about this until now, but encountering Ginza women using Asakusa for their rendezvous in this manner was not the first time for me. And for both the woman and me, experiencing such awkwardness in situations like this—how many times had it been by now? And thus I came to understand that the Ginza women had chosen Asakusa as their rendezvous spot under the assumption that here, they would not encounter customers from their establishments nor have to worry about running into those who might come to their shops and stir up troublesome gossip—yet my very presence cast an unpleasant shadow over that assurance, and through having my face averted, I was forced to recognize that I too was now seen as one of those trivial patrons apt to spread trivial rumors. Now, to shift topics—it was curious that while Ginza women came to Asakusa, the café women of Asakusa’s subway alley would head to Ginza on their days off. This was not necessarily for rendezvous but simply to enjoy movie-viewing; yet though they could easily watch films nearby in Rokku, they made a point of going all the way to Marunouchi. Once, when I told one of the women that it was strange,

“But I mean… it just doesn’t have the right vibe.” She answered with a flourish. I nodded in a way that suggested both comprehension and confusion, then, upon being informed that the movies they watched also had to be foreign films to “have the right vibe,” I nodded again with the same mixture of understanding and bewilderment.

Indeed, I had not spoken until now of those I met in Asakusa who were not of Asakusa themselves, but I would take this opportunity to shift the conversation to them.

＊

―From the road before my apartment in Tajima-cho—not heading toward Rokku but in the opposite direction, that is, toward where “Horatarou” stood—if you continued straight to emerge at Kikuya Bridge’s tram street, that thoroughfare formed a somewhat peculiar shopping district. Namely, if I were to introduce the signboard of one of those shops: Restaurant Equipment for All Establishments Pickle and Sushi Shop Utensils

It was written in two lines like this. Next to it hung a sign reading “Display Bottle Shop,” and peering inside, one would see—for instance—the kind of lantern-shaped bottles containing rice crackers that you might observe at a mochi shop’s storefront, or the square jars holding tobacco at a cigarette shop, or even the small acorn-shaped bottles used by cafés to showcase their coffee beans with declarations like “We use this premium blend here.” Every conceivable type of display bottle—and nothing else—lined the shop floor, crammed from wall to wall. Next door, there was a shop selling nothing but Western-style plates, Chinese soba bowls, and large teacups for sushi shops—but crossing the tram tracks to explore further would reveal another store offering exclusively commercial-grade chairs, from flimsy stools for cheap diners to stately lounge seats befitting upscale cafés. In this way, the entire district operated as a shopping street of unparalleled convenience: should you suddenly decide to open a tonkatsu restaurant tomorrow, a single visit here would furnish everything from backroom tools like meat cleavers and oil pots to front-of-house fixtures—tables and chairs—all in one go. When it came to tools for eateries, there wasn’t a single thing they didn’t sell. Disposable chopstick specialty shops, various condiment container specialty shops, and then… Ah, I should stop here.

If I ever can’t write novels anymore, maybe I’ll gather some cheap tools there and set up a stall or something. While lost in such not very pleasant fantasies, I was walking through that area one day. As I walked, I found myself drawn into such fantasies, but with only the eyes of my sullen face shining as if amused, peering into shop after shop, I had reached beyond the Kappabashi tram stop when—

“Hey, look who it is!” he called out. When I looked, it was the bartender from the Omori café I used to frequent. “Fancy meeting you here—” With a surprised look, he continued, “What brings you all the way from Omori to a place like this…” “I came to buy Christmas decorations…” She was holding something of the sort under her arm. “Ah, I see,” I thought. A shop specializing in selling such things indeed existed there.

I was in a somewhat reluctant mood, but since the bartender's persistently curious expression showed no sign of fading, I briefly explained why I happened to be strolling through such an area. When he mentioned he was returning via Rokku, we turned toward Shibasaki-cho together—a place that, when approached from Asakusa Park, lay behind the International Theater and formed yet another peculiar corner of the district. The street was colloquially called Confectioners’ Lane, its entire stretch crammed with confectionery shops—an area densely clustered with houses dedicated to sweet-making. For years I’d stubbornly assumed this “Confectioners’ Lane” was simply a slurred pronunciation of “Confectioners’ New Street,” but much later I learned it literally meant “the street of confectioners” (confectionery shops).

If I had continued straight, I would have reached Kokusai Street, but turning right on a whim midway, I emerged onto Kappabashi-dori. "Is everyone well?" I asked the bartender. "I've completely neglected to stay in touch, but is Eiko-chan still doing alright?" Eiko-chan was the name of one of the café girls there. Though to be fair, there were only two girls working there. "Eiko-chan quit." "She quit?" "It's more like she was driven out by Yurippe..."

“Oh.” At the café, Eiko had been senior staff when Yuriko first joined, and I once overheard them having this very conversation. The memory suddenly resurfaced. “Looking back must’ve been my mistake.” “I thought it was dangerous and ducked under the eaves—but then the bicycle swerved right where I moved! Bam!” “You’re mocking me.”

Yuriko kicked the floor with her shoe’s heel resentfully. It was said to have occurred in a narrow alley called Nomihei Yokocho near Omori Station, alongside the railway tracks. “It hurt.” Eiko wore a kimono. “That sort of thing happens to us all the time, doesn’t it? When you try to avoid a bicycle, you end up moving right into its path instead. That bicycle rider must have done the same thing. Because I turned around and panicked trying to dodge them, I startled and ended up making them crash into me instead.”

“Don’t be absurd. That might’ve been deliberate.” “You should’ve shouted ‘Watch out!’” “What did you even say back then?”

Eiko giggled. “You’re such a strange one, Ms. Eiko.” “Because even I find myself strange when I think about it.” “I just blurted out ‘I’m sorry’ without thinking.”

“Well…” “It’s strange, but—you understand, don’t you?”

“I don’t understand,” said Yuriko. She clicked her teeth coldly. “You understand, don’t you?”

I interjected. Even someone like me—if someone steps on my foot, I’d feel it was my fault for leaving it in the way, and when the other person says “Excuse me,” I’d habitually shrink back with “No, no.” Now, I don’t know the exact circumstances, but it seems Eiko had quit as if driven out by Yuriko, the newcomer. Why? Even without asking, the idea that Yuriko had pushed her out slipped effortlessly into my mind as entirely plausible. I prayed she might have found a better place somewhere, but women like Eiko would only have life’s rough waves crash upon them all the more fiercely, while women like Yuriko—shouting “Watch out!” at those same waves—would likely live on selfishly, forcefully, and contentedly of their own making.

“Eiko-chan was a good kid, though.” “She was certainly a good woman in her own way.” “But for the shop—when it comes to choosing between Eiko and Yuriko if they fought—Yurippe handles customers better, you see.” “Eiko-chan was seniority-wise the veteran, and I did pity her, but still…”

There I was again,

“Well, well.”

I was called out to. At Dosakan, I had just passed through the black noren inscribed with “Dojo Iida.” “Hey—o”

Since I had company, I tried to keep moving with just a greeting,

“Mr. Kurahashi.”

Dosakan chased after me. “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” he said. There was something startling about his hardened expression.

I was remiss in mentioning—though the reader had likely already surmised from our coming to buy Christmas decorations—that it was already mid-December by then. In other words, about a month had passed between this point and the previous section...... It may seem as though I'd been writing nothing but ostentatious details, but persisting in that vein: at the left corner where Kappabashi-dori meets Kokusai-dori stands Imahan, with a bathhouse on the building's second floor. Its entrance faces Kappabashi-dori, bearing a second-floor sign reading "Japan Government-Registered Longines Precision Bath—Garasu-yu"—though "Garasu-yu" doesn't mean the bathtubs were glass-made. Rather—the glass factory behind it having long vanished—the name derived from their practice of piping water used at that factory into the bathhouse, or so they say. Second-floor bathhouses exist in parks too and aren't uncommon, but the name Garasu-yu remains somewhat distinctive.

Beneath that bathhouse were Tokiwaya Shokudo and Maruyo Kajuten. Then there were three establishments—including a Western-style restaurant famous among the people of the Kawakane shack—and furthermore, in the basement was a billiard hall called Hanatsuki. Just as we reached that spot, from the slightly opened window of Garasu-yu—despite it being midwinter—came the pleasantly rhythmic patting sound of a bath attendant massaging shoulders. It was a refreshingly un-winter-like sound, but such sounds reached my ears precisely because we—with me in the center, flanked by the bartender on one side and Dosakan on the other—were all walking in silence. And—though I risk belaboring the point—we walked wordlessly because Dosakan wore a grim expression, while the bartender—unaware of Dosakan’s background—assumed an equally severe look that seemed to mutter *This Enko troublemaker*, and I myself—though privy to Dosakan’s history—found myself tongue-tied under that eerie tension, my face hardening into a scowl.

Part 10: Before and After the Day of the Rooster If one were to cross Kokusai Street and continue straight along the avenue where Juraku (until just recently the Kannon Theater) stood on the left corner and Koyoken on the right,

“Let’s go this way.” Dosakan pointed toward Koyoken. “If we run into those O Theater bastards, it’ll be trouble...” At the street’s end came into view the O Theater of Levius where Dosakan had once belonged.

We veered to the right as Dosakan directed, but after going a short way, we encountered a waitress from Koyoken. “Good day. —And thank you for the other time.” We were greeted. “Chic, isn’t she?” “Is she an actress or something?” As if trying to dispel the heavy air, the bartender said. “She’s a waitress at Koyoken, you know.” “Ah, that corner.” “That’s an old café, isn’t it?” He looked back. “A café waitress, huh?” “She’s a beautiful woman.” “She doesn’t look like a waitress at all.”

“She was an actress until just recently.” “Ah, I see now.”

The bartender nodded approvingly (on his neck was a scar, perhaps from scrofula). "They say that place is run by Moulin Rouge people.—Mr. Kurahashi, are you a regular at that café?" “No—I’ve only been once, just the other day for the first time.” Though the waitress greeted me cordially enough that I might have seemed a regular, if you had seen the flustered, startled look on my face at that moment, you would have known my words were not a lie. I had been invited by an acquaintance and, though I had long known of its name and reputation, had never once set foot in—nor felt any temptation to enter—that establishment until just a few days prior for the first time. This acquaintance—though Okinu-san, who once reigned there, is now gone—was someone who had deliberately frequented Asakusa from Yamanote during Okinu-san’s heyday, which coincided with Ochika-san’s prominence at Ginza’s Lion café (to be precise, slightly after Ochika-san’s time). Though I casually refer to him as an acquaintance, he was over a generation older than me, and while his past as a café habitué carried a vaguely disreputable air, he now stood as an executive at a certain company—the sort who, post-Incident, had flown back and forth to the continent several times with the same nonchalance that I commuted between Omori and Asakusa on Ministry Line trains. On the day we met—some days after his return from Beijing—when he asked, “Where do you spend your time these days?” and I replied, “In Asakusa,” he said—

“It’s been a while. Let’s go—to Koyoken.” For that person, Asakusa meant Koyoken—this seemed to be their fixed association. Just as some might equate Ginza with “Lion,” though that “Lion” had since vanished, today’s Koyoken still retained something of that era’s café atmosphere—albeit somewhat altered—and I thought its mere continued existence must feel like a blessing to them, even without Okinu-san there. My own lack of attraction to the establishment likely stemmed from having missed café culture’s so-called golden age—though I’d heard rumors of it, those belonged to my more straitlaced student days—and because my own history of “dissipation” only began later, in the Ginza bars that had supplanted such cafés. Cafés simply didn’t resonate with this “new era” version of myself. Moreover, the place’s atmosphere—discernible even from outside—felt less distinctly Asakusa than Ginza-like, or rather a Ginza essence adulterated with some percentage of local Asakusa flavor, which likewise sat ill with me. Led inside by that acquaintance, I entered—and indeed, true to its reputation, the waitresses were all beauties, refined as if they were young ladies of good breeding from Yamanote (and from bygone days at that). Standing beside my acquaintance—both of us outsiders to Asakusa—I somehow felt myself an ill-fitting local here, while observing how perfectly suited that executive from a certain company was to the establishment.

The waitress who had greeted me so amiably was a girl still under twenty who until just recently had performed on stages in Shinjuku—a beautiful girl whose youth shone with such radiant vitality that it was no wonder the bartender had exclaimed, “What a lovely woman!” During her stage career, she had been someone from whom great things were expected—her potential celebrated by theater insiders, her name appearing multiple times in newspaper reviews, with praise still being published even as she prepared to quit—so why abandon it all? From Levius’s stage had already emerged several movie stars and recording artists; the theater itself was touted as a star incubator. Had she left acting in despair to become a waitress, that would make sense—but to discard such promising prospects at their peak defied understanding. No—if I claimed not to understand, then I didn’t—but it must have been about money. Waitressing paid better. There must have been other circumstances too, though. Gazing at that beautiful girl, these cheerless thoughts filled my mind—that my lack of enjoyment at that café might have stemmed partly from such considerations. I had digressed unexpectedly, but—

“Speaking of Koyoken—its predecessor Juraku...” the bartender continued. “The expansion of Sudacho Shokudo is truly remarkable.”

I had known that the Juraku restaurants scattered about were managed by Sudacho Shokudo, but “I hear they’re buying Hanayashiki this time.” Though I spent nearly every day in Asakusa, it was from a bartender at an Omori café that I first learned of such developments. The way of the snake belongs to snakes—this truth struck me anew.

“Hmm. Hanayashiki, huh?” The once-celebrated attractions now resembled ruins. Speaking of ruins, Asakusa’s aquarium—that birthplace of Levius—remained a derelict husk, its condition so wretched that ghost stories spread of tap-dancing footsteps echoing from its rooftop late at night. (This structure was demolished not long after. The former devotees of Casino Folie had lost even the vestiges of their dreams.)

In my possession was a copy of the Tokyo City-compiled *Tokyo Guide* published in Meiji 40 (1907)—and since Meiji 40 happened to be my birth year, this book held special significance for me—which contained a map of Asakusa Park in its section on the ward. Looking through it, I saw that most major eateries listed there still remained today—Tawaramachi's eel restaurant "Yakko," Hirokoji's beef house "Chinya," tempura shop "Tentei," Nakamise's sweet bean soup parlor "Umezono," Umamichi's poultry restaurant "Kaneda," the high-class establishment "Ikkō" behind Hanayashiki, "Kusatsu" in Senzokuchō, and beef specialist "Yonekyu," among others—but when it came to entertainment venues, not only their substance but even their names had almost entirely changed.

Even from this alone, I could grasp a sort of remarkable tenacity inherent to eateries. That Sudacho Shokudo was acquiring Hanayashiki was surely nothing more than another manifestation of that tenacity.

To demonstrate the intensity of vicissitudes in the entertainment sector, I shall now present here the Sixth District article from the same book. As for the Sixth District, it may be called the central hub of park attractions, and divides the ward into four numbered districts. Though these attractions frequently changed and were difficult to fix definitively, if we record them here as they stood in Meiji 39 (1906), they are as follows. First District [between the present-day Egawa News Theater and Taishōkan] Attractions: Taishōkan (Egawa Tamanojo) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen) Seiyūkan (Naniwa Dance) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen)

Kyōseikan (Shōnen Bidan) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen); Kyōseikan (Aoki Tamanojō) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen). There was also a monkey show. (The rest omitted) Second District [the corner where the Opera Hall now stands] Attractions included: Nihonkan (Maidens' Capital Dance) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen); Nomi (Swordsmanship) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen). (The rest omitted) Third District [between the present-day Chiyodakan and Kinryūkan] Attractions included: Seimeikan (Sword Dance) (Adults 2 sen, Children 1 sen 5 rin); Meijikan (Great Kagura) (Adults 3 sen, Children 2 sen); Denkikan (Motion Pictures) (Adults 5 sen, Children 2 sen).

Tokiwa-za Theater (Admission 6 sen); Kinsha Yose (Admission 6 sen) were present. (The rest omitted) Fourth District [where the present-day Fuji-kan and Teikoku-kan stand] Attractions: Japan Panorama (Adults 10 sen, Children 5 sen); Wonder World (Adults 5 sen, Children 3 sen); Mokubakan (5 sen); S School’s New Theater Asahi (Adults 2 sen, Children 1 sen 5 rin) were present. (The rest omitted)

“Are they buying Hanayashiki to turn it into a restaurant? But it’s too large for that—or are they planning to revive Hanayashiki?” I said these things and, as if to verify the rumor’s true worth, turned toward Dosakan’s figure—the one I had been ignoring until then.

“Mr. Kurahashi.” It was Dosakan’s harsh voice telling me to quit the senseless chatter. I suddenly recalled how obsequious he had sounded when we first met at Horetarou—that “We’ll have a table free soon… my apologies” he’d uttered then. What a stark contrast.

I had come to the front of Shochiku-za. A popular female swordplay drama was showing, and before the theater stood an eccentric billboard depicting its swordswoman actress striking a dramatic pose with her thighs bared. “About Mii-chan...” “Stop spreading those weird rumors about her.”

It came with a sharp finality—yes, abruptly—though from his own perspective, perhaps it hadn't been abrupt at all. "What rumors are you talking about?" I had no idea what he meant. Dosakan seemed about to speak when a sudden gust blew straight at us, sending him into a hacking cough. It was a cough that eerily revealed to my ears how far his chest illness had progressed.

We veered off toward Nihonkan,

“On the Third Day of the Rooster Festival, with Mii-chan…” Dosakan said in a feeble voice, perhaps due to his coughing,

“Yeah, we stayed up all night…”

I nodded and, with the sleeves of my double-layered overcoat that had tangled around my hand, absentmindedly wiped the side of my nose. A white grease stain clung thickly to the black wool fabric with startling vividness, and in that moment of disgust—as I recalled Asano’s own filth, his double-layered collar perpetually dusted with dandruff—I frowned, thinking how thoroughly I too had become steeped in Asakusa’s atmosphere. The grease wouldn’t come off even when I brushed at it. When I lived at the Omori house, my face would become parched and flaky in winter, never growing this oily.—Having an oily sheen—or rather, acknowledging the oiliness—wasn’t such an unpleasant feeling. Compared to that desiccated sensation, this felt almost healthy—and even such trivial physical changes weighed heavily on me, affecting my psyche immediately.

To the left came into view the Aiyu Jelly Stall; as I had written before, the block of ice boldly displayed out front despite winter sat imposingly with an air of confidence that it must surely be alluring to passersby.

“The person before you…” Dosakan said of Ayuko, “Please don’t pull the same kind of stunt that person did—snatching Ooya Goro away from Reiko-chan.” Now his voice held an entreating quality. I later learned that kona o kakeru—yes, though it’s fallen out of fashion now—had been common backstage jargon meaning to make advances. I had met that same Ooya Goro in Ginza several days prior.

“Oh, Mr. Kurahashi.” “Oh, Goro-chan.” This was our form of greeting. One might easily imagine from such base language—though I myself felt nothing base about it—that we stood poised to clap each other on the shoulders. Indeed, when watching foreign films, one sees scenes where close friends reunite after long separation and suddenly embrace, patting each other’s backs like lovers. Had we been born abroad, we might have clung together in that manner, laying bare our affection.

Goro-chan was currently the husband (or lover) of my ex-wife Ayuko—or more precisely, the lover (or husband) of the woman who had left me—so some might have thought it strange that we behaved so familiarly with each other. No—we were indeed strange men. In the past, when Ayuko introduced him with "This is Goro-chan" and we drank together, I had initially found even sharing a drink somewhat peculiar. But he was such an amusing companion that we quickly—or rather I too might have been seen as an amusing companion by Goro-chan—became thoroughly close in no time, until that sense of peculiarity vanished entirely. Looking back, it seemed we had grown closer precisely because of our peculiar relationship. It was indeed an abnormal closeness.

In keeping with my usual habits, I had expressed this abnormal affection through words and expressions—then froze. Dosakan’s words flashed through my mind with intense agony. ("You’re the bastard who killed Ichikawa Reiko.") I contorted my face. When I tried to voice this, Goro-chan spoke first: “Have you seen Ayu-chan?” (Ayuko would be the normal name to use, but Goro-chan called her that, and Ayuko too referred to Ooya Goro as Goro-chan in public.)

“No,” I shook my head. “—Has she returned from Shanghai?” “She’s been back for over half a month now…”

“Is it cold today? Or is it hot?” he muttered strangely, then suddenly burst into a hushed “la-la-la,” complete with theatrical gestures even amidst the crowd— “Lately, I haven’t been going to Ginza.”

“La-la-laan... She’s wearing this tremendously extravagant astrakhan coat or something—it’s quite something, I tell you.” He swept his hands briskly along both sides of his body as if brushing off dust—an over-the-top affectation—then shook his shoulders and put on a mincing, swaying walk for show.

I sensed something peculiar in Goro-chan’s tone as I asked, “So—is she with you now, Goro-chan?” “Why’d you ask?” He roared this in a violently loud voice, bringing a hand before his face as if plucking something from the air—no sooner had he done this than—

“Snap!” With a strange cry—as though flinging something he’d pinched between his fingers at my face—he snapped his hand open. “What the hell? You’re disgusting.” I was startled—not just by that “Snap!”, but by what lay beneath Goro-chan’s usual antics. Though his tone remained playful as ever, I sensed something chillingly desolate lurking there. It felt like something hard and solid thudding within all that softness.

“Heh heh heh”

Goro-chan laughed with a guttural rasp. When I looked, his face wasn’t smiling. “……?”

But the next instant, Goro-chan—his hand still raised in the clumsy posture of someone ordered to raise their hands—swung it inward and pressed it flat against his own face, then dragged it downward with such violence it might have peeled off his skin. And with a blotchy face, “Hey, Mr. Kurahashi... Do I seem a little crazy to you?” “Crazy?”

“They keep calling me crazy—flipping between ‘I’ this and ‘I’ that—and when they say that, I do sometimes think I might be a little off myself.”

“Pull yourself together.” “Goro-chan.” “What’s gotten into you?” “I can’t make heads or tails of what you’re saying.” He had always been the type to casually toss out abrupt, disconnected remarks mid-conversation or do similarly unexpected things, making interactions with him exhausting for the unaccustomed—but this was a bit too much.

Goro-chan bared his teeth and laughed clearly this time, “Gorilla.” No sooner had he said that than— “It’s just me following in your footsteps, Mr. Kurahashi. Tehe.” He tapped his forehead. A loud sound rang out. And perhaps because of that—his tapered tokkuri-shaped trousers making his footing look precarious from the start—he began to stagger unsteadily.

“Goro-chan...” Before I knew it, I exclaimed— “Why’s that?” The strange Levius actor nodded to himself, “That’s what makes it fun,” and clapped his hands sharply. “What does?” Without answering, “When I looked and realized—don’t be shocked—there was nothing there. Then *poof!*” “What wasn’t there?”

“A tool. Ayuko-chan’s tool. She’s a clever woman, that one. That woman’s got some extravagant tools, huh—” “You should’ve told me from the start.”

Then he stared at me blankly for a moment before— “Were you lonely?” “That’s what she says.” “Hmm... After coming back from Shanghai—” “Ah, I was lonely.” (Though these should have been Goro-chan’s words, he spoke them in a woman’s voice) “But get this—don’t be shocked, everyone! No, wait—prepare to be utterly astonished! She found some man in Shanghai and came back holding his hand, but never showed a hint of it. So I had no idea. Then Ayuko-chan started moving her things out of the apartment one by one—until one day I looked around and everything was gone. And just like that... she vanished from my life.”

“When you say ‘when I realized,’ that’s strange, isn’t it?” “Is that strange?” he asked, tilting his head slightly. “It’s strange. If you were living together... That’s... If you were living together...” When Ayuko had vanished from my place, she’d—while I was away and without consulting me—hired a truck to haul away all her belongings in one go, simultaneously removing herself from our shared domestic life.

“When you say that...”

Goro-chan blinked his eyes in surprise and said, “It’s a bit strange.” “This isn’t a joke!”

“So, like I said earlier,” “there are times even I think I’m a bit off my rocker.”

“Goro-chan!” I felt myself growing strangely unsettled. A pitiful sentiment and an infuriating one tangled together within me. “Did everyone start calling you crazy after Ayuko-chan vanished? Or was it even before…?” “Or was it even before…?” “It was after she vanished.” He strained unnaturally, “So they go around saying I’ve gone completely off the deep end, but—” “And Goro-chan—what about the hut?” (Will he even manage like this?)

“I quit,” he declared with utmost cheerfulness. While thinking he must have been fired, “And what are you doing now?” I asked. “Mainly this…” Bringing his finger, curled into the shape of a cup, to his mouth,

“Glug-glug, like this.”

“Money?” While I couldn’t bring myself to ask, “Ayuko-chan’s got her good points, see—” “She’s the one supporting me now.” In the end, I parted from Goro-chan without telling him what I’d heard from Dosakan. He mimed tilting a cup with glug-glug motions—then, as if further inflamed by the pantomime—licked his lips and said, “How ’bout a drink?” When I refused with “Work to do,” he airily tossed out the very farewell I should’ve given—“Take care now”—before tangling those unsteady legs of his in that familiar stagger of his, now worsened into a truly lurching gait, disappearing into Ginza’s evening crowds. But I couldn’t say it—so startled was I by Goro-chan’s sheer strangeness, so consumed by the encounter—that too kept me silent. Even after we parted, I remained caught in that mental vertigo for some time.

Goro-chan had gone off the deep end.

Even as I said that, I felt like I was losing my mind. Yet amidst that turmoil, there was something piercing through it with a single vivid thread. It was a surprise bordering on admiration toward Ayuko’s conduct that I had heard about from Goro-chan. The fact that she had taken up with a man in Shanghai gave the distinct impression that Ayuko was persisting as the same self she had been back in Japan even after moving to China—I had always marveled at her particular brand of tenacity, but now I found myself astonished anew by her sheer audacity.

Part 11: On Reality's Assault Once More

Returning to the matter at hand—Dosakan had told me not to imitate Ayuko's act of snatching Ooya Goro away from Misako's sister—which undoubtedly meant I shouldn't harbor improper feelings toward Misako, but to me, those words made no sense at all. But on the Third Day of the Rooster Festival, I had stayed up all night with Misako. All I understood was that Dosakan seemed to have misunderstood something about it. I said it was an outrageous misunderstanding. It felt almost absurd to even have to say it.

“Misunderstanding?” As Dosakan fixed his eyes—glaring at me with the whites showing all around—

“Yeah.” I shook my head hard, but Dosakan stayed silent, his head bobbing in quick little nods. It wasn’t agreement—more like he was picking apart my words. The unease got to me. “Speaking of Ooya Goro—you know how he got dumped by Ayuko this time? Pitifully clear-cut...”

I said this to divert the conversation, but Dosakan still said nothing. To escape that silent pressure, I continued, "Goro-chan, well—I met him the other day, and he seems a bit off." "Weird?"

Dosakan finally spoke.

“Yeah, somehow… like he’s been… y’know… his head doesn’t seem right…”

We came in front of café Hatoya. Thinking we should go in, I remarked—not particularly to Dosakan or the bartender—and peered through the noren curtain to find it packed. There was never a time when this place wasn’t crowded, but most customers were people from Rokku district’s theaters—some catching their breath over five-sen cups of coffee, others munching on “curry dogs” stuffed with curry rice instead of sausages—so the cramped shop was filled to bursting.

Abandoning that idea, we started walking, but when we came in front of Park Theater— “Well, I’ll take my leave here…” the bartender gestured toward Tanuki Alley and,

“There’s a place I need to drop by, so…”

He wore an expression that seemed troubled about leaving me alone, but—

I was left alone with Dosakan.

The Third Day of the Rooster Festival fell on November 25th. (The first day was the First Rooster, the thirteenth the Second Rooster—) On the evening of the 24th, I met Misako at Horetarou as she was returning from a banquet job. "I’m so fed up. When I thought I’d just dance and go home, they told me to serve drinks while I was at it. …It’s just like being some dance geisha!" Misako’s eyes reddened at the rims as she slumped listlessly before the iron grill. "Mii-chan, so you went ahead and served them?"

As she placed clams still in their shells before the iron grill and snapped the aluminum lid shut over the rice steamer, there was indeed a faint indignation in Morike Horetarou’s wife’s voice as she spoke. “But you see—just when I thought they were mocking me and tried to leave, those maids from their so-called ‘outing’—like how geishas have engagements—kept coaxing ‘Come on, just a bit longer’ until I gave in.” “When the customer insisted that way, they told me I had to do them this favor.”

“The customer?” “What kind of customer do you mean?” The wife’s voice turned sharply indignant, as if she herself had been insulted. “What sort of banquet was it? Where?” “And that banquet room—where exactly?” “XX’s YY Villa.” Misako tapped the iron plate with her spatula—lightly, yet with a reckless edge— “They seemed to be factory gentlemen.” “Using the military boom as their excuse—disgusting customers.”

Beside them, a child was playing quietly alone with a toy tank despite the late hour. “Mii-chan…” After sprinkling aonori seaweed over the small purple dish and setting it before me, the wife folded her hands on her lap and fixed her gaze on Misako,

“From now on, at times like that, Mii-chan, you have to clearly refuse.” “That’s right.” “You were invited to dance for the banquet’s entertainment.” “You didn’t go there to serve customers drinks—right?”

She turned her face toward the kitchen. In the kitchen, Horetarou hunched his back and held his hands over the briquettes. "Hey now," she urged again, as if prompting him to chime in—but he, the demobbed soldier who had sustained his wounds in Baoding, merely rested his hand gently on what appeared to be his injured thigh and offered a faint smile, making no move to say anything further. It was a gentle smile, yet I felt something sharply piercing my chest.

“That’s not how it is,” And she continued on her own.

“Some dancers have become geisha.” “So those customers probably think they’re practically the same thing.” “But…” With a clink, the clam snapped open the aluminum lid. The clam’s juices hissed against the iron plate. “Even if you say you’ve left the stage, you’re still an entertainer.” “Entertainers need only sell their art.” “Just because the maids asked you to doesn’t mean you have to serve drinks or anything—don’t let those military boom profiteers make fools of Asakusa’s entertainers like that.”

“Older Sister.” Misako interjected. A hand ungloved, reddened by the cold outside, pressed flat against the counter, “I’m sorry… I…” “There’s nothing to apologize for.” “When I imagine how awful Mii-chan must have felt, I get so angry myself…” “I know how strong-willed you are, Mii-chan.” “When I think how much you must’ve agonized, even I get furious.—Did they force that much drink on you?” “You looked like you were suffering.”

“Mii-chan. Want some water?”

Horetarou, who had been silent until then, suddenly spoke. “I’m sorry.” “There, there.” It was a consoling voice. From within the gushing sound of the faucet,

“Military boom, huh?”

Horetarou’s mutter was heard.

It was one such evening. Once twelve o'clock passed that night, it became the 25th, and the Third Rooster Festival began. From before midnight, people were crowding into Washi Shrine.

Without either inviting the other, Misako and I went out to the Rooster Festival. On the night of the Rooster Festival, the food stalls in the park were permitted to operate until two o'clock. When we reached the front of Juraku, a truck piled high with bedding quilts was parked there—likely preparing to accommodate staff members who couldn’t return home due to the two o’clock closing time. Being some sort of spectacle, I involuntarily stopped in my tracks, “Ah, that’s ten sen per set,” Misako said. “—What?”

“It’s ten sen to rent for a night.” “—I see.” The man who had climbed onto the truck was dropping what appeared to be thin rental futons directly onto the pavement with heavy thuds, handling them as carelessly as straw mats. “—Even backstage lodgings seem fun when I look back now.” “………” “If I end up dancing at banquets and get told ‘Hey Modern-san, pour me a drink too,’ that’ll be the end of me. Maybe next year I should just go on a trip, I wonder.”

That day hadn't been particularly cold during daylight hours, but as midnight approached, the temperature plummeted abruptly. The quick, shuffling footsteps of people hurrying along the pavement with their heads tucked in rustled and swirled across the coldly glimmering surface of Kokusai Street—a black river appearing even wider and more desolate in the darkness. The sound did not rise into the sky but seemed to crawl low along the ground.

“...Or maybe I should just marry Mr. Suematsu and start a comedy duo or something.” “Married couple?”

“Yes, teaming up with Mr. Suehiro…” At the front of the horse meat shop—its straw-mat awning hung with several lanterns bearing names—young men were assembling a platform to store festival rakes. “Tajima said he’s coming to Tokyo for New Year’s.” “The other day, by letter—.” "I wrote to Tajima about you in a letter." “Then Tajima said that when he comes here, he wants to meet Mr. Kurahashi...” “Oh?” I had wanted to meet Tajima. But whenever I tried to broach the subject, Misako would deflect it,

“They say festival rakes come in departing-ship and arriving-ship types.” “Hmm.” “Geisha houses take the departing ships, restaurants the arriving ones…”

“—I see.”

I sneezed once and said, "Which kind are we?" "In terms of manuscripts being produced in great numbers, it’s a departing ship; but in terms of money coming in, it’s an arriving ship." As I was about to speak, I recalled how once—when someone had jokingly likened receiving a manuscript request from a magazine company to being summoned for a banquet by a certain company—I had felt an unpleasant twinge at writers being compared to geisha. Buying a departing ship rake meant considering oneself a geisha.

At this, I said: "—After all, it's an arriving ship." "No matter how many manuscripts go out, unpaid ones are useless.—So which type are you and your group anyway?"

Damn it. Hadn’t Horetarou’s wife just said that entertainers should maintain pride worthy of their craft and refrain from acting like geisha?

At this, I

“That’s right. “For young women getting married—especially those with distant prospects—buying a departing ship rake would be advisable. “For those wanting to receive a groom quickly, the arriving ship type…” In the past, it seemed only those in nightlife and hospitality trades bought Tori Festival rakes, but now even ordinary people purchased them.—Though I must admit it was a clever observation of mine, being an auspicious charm tied to money, it ultimately held no real significance. “You wouldn’t happen to know, would you?”

“They say festival rakes come in arriving ship and departing ship varieties,” I said to Dosakan. “What defines an arriving ship and what defines a departing ship…” We were walking along Shin-Nakamise Street, already permeated with year-end bustle. An awkward silence had persisted between us—those words had been my attempt to break it. The distinction between arriving and departing ships was something we’d discussed with Misako during that Tori Festival evening. She’d only known they existed—nothing more.

The rakes were decorated with treasure ships, target arrows, jeweled stalks, gold boxes, rice bales, Otafuku masks, and Ebisu and Daikoku figures, but these varied so widely that one couldn’t tell at a glance which was an arriving ship and which a departing ship. One could buy a festival rake and ask, but I felt too self-conscious to purchase even a small one from a newly opened shop. "Perhaps there’s some distinction in the treasure ships," I muttered. "Maybe they distinguish them by whether the bow was facing left or right," and walked right past without stopping. However, among festival rakes, some of the smaller ones didn’t even have treasure ships attached—and even when they did bear them, no such distinction could be discerned—so in the end, we never did figure it out. In place of a festival rake, I bought bamboo branches with skewered sweet potatoes and sliced Japanese pepper as a souvenir for Misako, while the rakes were purchased individually at Washinomiya Shrine.

“I bought this same festival rake last year too.” “I really should be buying twice as much, but…” “I’m the same way.” Looking back, the previous year we had come to the Tori Festival with Ayuko and Ooya Goro, along with a few others from that crowd. Ayuko had been working at a bar in Ginza, and though I never bothered to clarify whether she had broken up with Ooya Goro or was about to—during the Tori Festival, the two of them had been in high spirits, playfully saying things like “Oh, stop it!” and “Quit that!” while slapping each other’s shoulders.

Passing by Yoshiwara Hospital, we entered Yoshiwara. Nakanocho was teeming with people heading to the Tori Festival and those returning from it. Amateur women, seizing this moment to gawk, mingled with heckling men and filed through Suminoe’s front garden. Being someone who habitually aligns my heart with the wretched in such situations—when I considered the anguish of a woman who, though born female through some twist of fate, had to sink into misery through no fault of her own, now being gawked at by carefree women of her own sex—I found this spectacle far from pleasant.

“Shall we go somewhere for a drink, Mr. Kurahashi?”

“Hmm,” I said. Though her tone was brusque, her eyes shone with a seductive gleam. “Well, should I?”

“If you’re drinking，I’ll join you． I’ll drink too．”

“If that’s the case, I suppose we could stop by Kikuyā.” A shop known for its beautiful sisters was located at the corner of Edo-machi. “I have something to discuss with you, Mr. Kurahashi.” “Well…”

“I don’t know,” Dosakan replied in an icy tone.

Silence fell again. We reached Nakamise. Ordinarily I would have briskly crossed through that bustling crowd—once we arrived there, going to 'Bon Jour' in the subway alleyway would have been inevitable. But at that moment, finding myself sitting face-to-face with Dosakan in a coffee shop felt unbearable, so I turned left instead. Though I had rented a room in Asakusa for over half a year now, through some peculiar disposition I had scarcely walked through places like Nakamise, the precincts of Kannon Temple, or the Sixth District's movie theater quarter (though there were reasons for this as I'd written before)—in short, I had rarely ventured into what might be called Asakusa's public face. My wanderings mostly took me through backstreets resembling a back's armpits or spaces between fingers—areas that might at times evoke... something else entirely. Heading toward Nio Gate while striding boldly(?) through Nakamise—Asakusa's kabuki-style flower path—was an unusual occurrence for me.

“It seems you have some misunderstanding—though it appears the misunderstanding hasn’t cleared up,” I said, sniffling back snot and stammering slightly. “If it’s just a misunderstanding, fine.” Dosakan kicked a cobblestone with his heel. “But if it’s true—if you ever try to seduce Mii-chan from now on, I’ll—” “You—” I reflexively interrupted in a harsh tone. Then immediately dissolving into a flippant manner, I added, “Feels like I’m being threatened here.”

“Yes, I am threatening you.” With words that should have been absurd yet instead carried menace, he said, “I am seriously threatening you.”

“...” “It’s not just Mii-chan,” he said. “Don’t lay hands on any women in Asakusa.” “…………” The thought of Koyanagi Masako rose in my mind. Where Masako was concerned, I told myself I had no intention of laying hands on her—and yet...

“We talked about Reiko-chan who died some time ago, didn’t we? Abandoned by Ooya Goro, her illness suddenly worsened, and she died coughing up blood on stage… Just like a Shinpa tragedy… But most women in Asakusa have something of Shinpa tragedy protagonists about them, you see. Well, there are some terrible ones among them. There are some who aren’t inferior to your previous woman, but…” Dosakan twisted his blood-red lips and laughed—a vile sound like crushing matter beneath stone. That laugh resembled an object: a sponge oozing foul liquid. Yet rather than soft absorption, I felt a hard rock cracking against my cheek—a stone meant for Ayuko that somehow struck my own face instead. Seething anger kindled within me.

“Well, if you say Ayuko’s a bad woman, she is, but—” I had no intention of defending Ayuko. But in doing so, I was venting my anger. “She’s undoubtedly a bad woman, but then again—it’s that men are fools.” “Hopeless.” “I’m one of them too—” “And other women too—they’re fools.” “Hopeless.” “I think that’s also part of what makes Ayuko a bad woman.” “—The women of Asakusa are fools, aren’t they?”

Dosakan snapped as if biting. "But isn't that foolishness what's good about them?"

“That may be so, but…” I felt somehow foolish and fell silent.

I couldn't understand why Dosakan had suddenly begun adopting that threatening attitude toward me—the very sort he himself had described. I turned my head toward him. What I did grasp was his apparent infatuation with Misako. Because of that...?

But when you get down to it, this was such an absurd story—I ought to drop this affected way of writing. I later learned that Misako had apparently goaded Dosakan. Misako, who knew Dosakan was infatuated with her, exploited that very point to incite him. Had Misako outright lied to Dosakan—claiming I was trying to seduce her—to provoke him? Or had Dosakan, smitten with Misako, interpreted some vague remark of hers through jealous lenses? The particulars eluded me. Yet there was justification in how Misako spurred Dosakan to chastise me. So why had Misako done such a thing?

Misako had apparently tried to speak up herself on the night of the Rooster Festival. She had tried to take me to task herself. The talk that Misako had wanted to have with me when she said, "—I need to speak with you," must have been about that matter. But in the end, Misako never brought up that talk. Instead, she had egged Dosakan on and made him do it in her place. Why had Misako tried to reprimand me?...

We had circled around Kannon Hall and come to the back on the right side. The liveliness and bustle before Kannon Hall veered off to the left, leaving its backside deceptively quiet. It was a desolate place where the bustling Nakamise Arcade we had just passed through—right there, right now—seemed like a dream. There stood a statue of the Ninth Danjūrō in Shibaraku, for which Mori Ōgai had written the commemorative inscription. Beyond that stood the modern residence of the monks, and at the corner under the ginkgo tree, a public telephone stood alone—seemingly out of place in such a desolate spot. Just then, a stylish woman who seemed to be returning from a visit to Hikan Inari emerged from that direction. She paused before it, her hesitant feet coming to a halt as she cast her eyes down at the fallen ginkgo leaves at her feet, then swiftly turned and stepped into the public telephone booth. Whether due to her alluring demeanor—abnormally conspicuous against the desolate surroundings—or the very fact of this unnoticed public telephone in such a lonely place, it was imagined with strange accuracy: she must be calling—no, she was undoubtedly calling—a man she loved. A yearning for Koyanagi Masako welled up within me. As I looked up at Danjūrō’s blackened face tinged with verdigris,

“You told me earlier not to lay hands on Asakusa women—but to avoid misunderstandings, let me make one thing clear to you. Among the dancers, there’s one person I care for. I just like her—it’s not like I intend to do anything about it. But since even my saying I like her might reach your ears in some strange way, I’m telling you this now.” “Who is it?” “Koyanagi Masako from K Theater.” “Maa-chan?”

“Yeah, Maa-chan.” “W-wait.” Dosakan stopped and said, “That—you—Mr. Kurahashi, you knew about it? “That’s Mii-chan’s sister—” “Sister?” I also stopped. “A sister? —Then the one called Rei-chan who died…” “Rei-chan’s the middle one, Maa-chan’s the youngest sister.” “You—is that true?” “What’s the point in lying?” “But come on—no matter how you look at it, Ms. Misako’s sister…” “Ms. Misako has never mentioned anything like that…” “Ms. Misako must know that I’m a fan of Koyanagi Masako.” “And yet Mii-chan never said a word about any of that...”

“She doesn’t say… doesn’t let it show at all.”

“She doesn’t let it show at all.” “…………” “You’re not being taken in by that, are you?” “That’s…” “—I’m shocked.” I let out a sigh. Just then, Dosakan, who had looked toward Hikan Inari,

“Oh?”

I also looked that way and, with a surprised “Oh?”, widened my eyes— “Isn’t that Saa-chan?” “—That’s right. Saa-chan’s in the same K Theater as Maa-chan, so you knew about that, huh?” Along the wall of the monks’ residence stood a line of various stone monuments—Santōan Kyōden’s monument commemorating his writing desk, Nakahara Kōchō’s brush memorial mound, a stone monument engraved with Namiki Gohei’s verse: “Tsukihana no tawamigokoro ya yuki no take,” and others. Beyond that stands Hikan Inari, where stylish people often make their wishes. At the sacred lantern’s lattice, Saa-chan was tying an omikuji. A dancer in gaudy Western clothes and an old-fashioned omikuji.

“It must’ve been a bad fortune.”

Dosakan muttered as if to himself. “That girl—there’s someone named Binokuchi at K Theater. She’s involved with him, but…” “Hmm.” (Normally, I’d go “Huh?!”) “Binokuchi has all sorts of women around…” “Hmm.” (Under normal circumstances, I’d say “Well!”) Dosakan suggested that Saa-chan drawing omikuji might be due to her relationship with Binokuchi turning sour, but my mind was entirely consumed by the newly revealed, almost unbelievable fact that Koyanagi Masako was Misako’s sister. My “hmm”s were absentminded. Like a lie—yes, I may be a poor novelist, but even I couldn’t write such an unbelievable plot. Yet reality wrote it boldly. The audacity of reality, nonchalantly unfolding the kind of absurd, pretentious, despicable things a novelist couldn’t possibly write—the sheer brazen terror of it all—left my fragile novelist’s nerves mercilessly crushed. Yes. Though I had been continually struck by reality’s strangeness—if one could call it that—this very immediacy held tremendous power to flatten me. I—perhaps from having been battered by reality for so long—had resolved to maintain humility before it. I had made every effort to avoid presumptuous acts like dissecting reality through fiction—acts that might provoke its wrath. Yet what grudge did reality hold to strike such a merciless blow? The pain I felt wasn’t merely the shock of discovering Koyanagi Masako was Mine Misako’s sister!

When we arrived before Hikan Inari, Saa-chan—unaware of us—hurried toward Asakusa Shrine, and neither Dosakan nor I attempted to stop her. Before the shrine stood a stone torii said to have been donated by Shinmon Tatsugoro, its pillar carved with "Shinmon," inside which sat a small wooden sacred lantern. The omikuji fastened to its well-like lattice shone stark white in the gathering dusk.

Part 12: Finale

(The dancers of Asakusa call out to nullify the finale.)

The discussion between Asano Mitsuo and me about starting something called the Asakusa Lovers' Association took place in October, which, when I think back on it, was still before Koyanagi Masako joined K Theater's entertainment troupe and left for China. It dragged on, and the plan finally took concrete form around the time mid-January had passed after the new year began. One mid-January morning—though "morning" is stretching it, as it was nearly noon—I was asleep in the apartment I rarely stayed at anymore (come to think of it, I hadn't been coming to Asakusa much either) when Asano's visit awakened me.

When I raised my head, it throbbed sharply. This was a hangover. Last night at that awamori bar Asano-kun recommended—yes—I'd drunk too much... For someone habitually despondent like me, it was rare to have drunk so excessively during a heated argument with a friend. Or perhaps I'd argued so fiercely because I'd overindulged—in any case, I'd ended up staying at the apartment due to the drinking. "A hangover demands morning-after drinks," Asano said cheerfully.

Asano bared his black teeth in apparent delight. "You really ought to have a morning drink"—Was his blatant delight because he was pleased to have successfully met me? Or was it because he wanted us to have a morning drink together? Following his lead, I eventually went to Iida, a loach restaurant on Kappabashi Street where Dosakan had once appeared. "Catfish boosts your stamina, you know." As Asano kept urging me insistently and I had no particular reason to object, I complied with his suggestion,

“Then I’ll have whale,” Asano interjected, boisterously summoning the waitress. “One zū-nabe, one kawa-nabe.”

“Right away! “One zū-nabe, one kawa-nabe!” the waitress called out to the kitchen. “And sake.” “Right away~! And one bottle of sake.” “And one bottle of sake.”

The only difference between Asano’s words and the waitress’s was that she had specified one bottle of sake. The interior of the shop, crowded with standing customers, was divided equally between an earthen floor and tatami areas. Nearly all the patrons seated on the earthen floor were eating rice with miso soup. Loach soup, whale soup, clam soup, aomi soup (vegetable-based), tofu soup, leek soup—all five sen each; rice was ten sen, and a full meal with rice cost fifteen sen. They could eat without the slightest shame at the modesty of fifteen sen—the atmosphere of their enjoyment, this Asakusa air—soothed my heart. I wanted to join the folks on the earthen floor and eat loach soup, without going up to the tatami area to bother with complicated things like zū or kawa.

Asano took out about fifty return postcards from his pocket—an invitation to the Asakusa Lovers’ Association printed via mimeograph. The first meeting would proceed as planned by inviting the K Theater troupe. He alone had negotiated with the theater management and secured both venue and logistics. “I’ll bring these out now,” said the waitress. The postcards, handled by theater staff and printed on the literature club’s mimeograph, bore ink too dense, leaving them smudged. Their gaudiness faintly recalled the garish spectacle of Asakusa’s back-alley theaters.

“I’m terribly sorry for not doing anything at all.”

I wasn’t in the mood. Ever since hearing that unexpected story from Dosakan, I had been keeping my distance from K Theater—and also from "Horetarou," through whom I might encounter Misako. The small pot, neatly heaped with burning charcoal, arrived first. Asano promptly placed his hands over it,

“Hey, where’s the sake?” “Right away!” When the sake arrived, he hurriedly poured into my cup, and the moment he finished pouring—without a moment’s delay—clinked the bottle against the cup already readied in his left hand. He slurped with a sharp inhale, “This morning something unpleasant happened—woke up too early. Can’t go on without drink…” He kept gripping the sake bottle. A whale hotpot crowned with quivering gelatin arrived. “Went to piss at dawn—found mail with my returned manuscript. “Happens every time, sure—but this one I’d banked on. Knocked me flat. “Tried sleeping again—no use.—Hey Zū! What’s the holdup?”

“Right away!” “It’s a humorous novel, you see.” “This kind of story.” “I’ll refrain from naming names, but I had some business at a certain small theater dancer’s home.” “It was—a cold night.” “A true story.” “When I arrived, unfortunately the girl hadn’t returned yet—just an old woman sleeping alone.” “Might’ve been her mother—anyway this elderly woman gets up from this threadbare futon right there in the entryway, saying ‘Come up! She’ll be back soon! It’s wretched but make yourself at home!’” “Truly wretched place—when I went up: ‘Must be cold out,’ she says.” “‘I’ll make hot tea now…’” “Putting on this grand show of hospitality.” “‘Please don’t trouble yourself,’ I said—but she lays out these proper teacups unlike that ratty futon—stands up—I think she’s going to boil water—but no!—she shoves her hand into that futon!” “And what does she pull out? A hot-water bottle.” “Wrapped in filthy rags.” “Heaves it up with a grunt and plops down before me.” “I’m thinking ‘What now?’ when she peels back the rags—starts unscrewing the cap—” “Huh?” “Then—wide-eyed—she presses that bottle’s spout against the teapot! Can you believe it? Starts pouring out water she’d been warming her feet with—” “I was speechless! Utterly revolted!” “But that old hag just pours tea made from foot-water—‘Here!’”

“I said ‘Haa,’ but inside I was going ‘Ugh!’” The old woman poured that revolting tea into her own teacup too.—“Drink it before it cools.” Having said that, she calmly took her teacup, gulped it down with a *glug*, and exclaimed how delicious it was. “Ah, delicious’—that part’s my invention, you know.” “So, what do you think of this story?”

“Hmm.”

The Zū-nabe arrived. The blood-soaked chunks of meat from a live catfish that had been diced including the head were still twitching in the pot. “It’s interesting, but that material was hard to write, you know.” As he spoke, Asano tilted a wooden box shaped like a hibachi’s ash drawer and dumped its contents of green onions into the whale hotpot with abandon. The finely chopped condiment green onions formed a towering mound in the pot.

“Must be hard to write, huh?”

“I finally wrote that piece,” I said. “Earlier I claimed confidence, but it was more struggle than confidence. Having it rejected after such effort was utterly galling…” The catfish in the pot abruptly twitched its barbels. Startled, I watched it go limp moments later, sinking into broth that should’ve been scalding by now. A vague unease settled over me. “They said it’s not funny at all—that it fails as humor,” Asano continued. “Those editors can’t grasp its essence.”

Asano had already emptied the sake bottle.

“I’ll pay, I will!” Asano was spoiling for a fight. When we left there and reached Kokusai Street, “Perhaps I’ll stop by K Theater for a bit.” I stroked my face, which had flushed crimson from the morning-after drink,

“What kind of impression would we make going there drunk in broad daylight?” “Who cares?” “But...”

He crossed to the opposite side and proceeded toward T Hall, the comedy hall. K Theater’s stage door was at its back.

“Let’s go take a look, shall we?” “Well…” To my hesitating eyes appeared the figure of Suematsu Harukichi approaching from the opposite direction, wearing Western clothes with geta. Suematsu also noticed me immediately, stopping before T Hall and offering a nod that seemed to say, “Well, well.” “Oh,” I said aloud, and went over to Suematsu’s side,

“How’s it going?”

When I looked up at T Hall’s signboard, it read: “Military *Manzai*” Edo no Sukesuke, Edo no Kakusuke – “Rōkyoku *Manzai*” Tachibanaya Koen, Yoshiharaya Shimehachi – “Japanese-Western Ensemble *Manzai*” Among names like Ukifukai Ginko and Dewasan written in small print were: Humorous: Kameya Pontan *Manzai*: Usagiya Hyoutan These lines alone loomed disproportionately large through my drink-clouded eyes. “Well now! Hyoutanbokkuriko at your service!” Though I couldn’t fathom its meaning—perhaps even Suematsu himself didn’t—he delivered the line while smacking the back of his head and laughing, so I too opened my mouth in silent imitation of mirth. Usagiya Hyoutan was none other than Suematsu’s stage name. He’d finally become a *manzai* comedian. I’d previously written about how Kameya Pontan—unable to survive on thirty yen a month—had asked his senior Tsuruya Anpon about working at an outlying theater, only for his “boss” to forbid it as beneath their station, leaving him destitute. Whether due to this or not, they’d soon “divorced” like a married couple splitting up. This coincided with Suematsu—or as I’d phrased it, being “steadily converted to *manzai*”—struggling after Dosakan refused to join his transition. Thus Suematsu and Pontan formed a new duo. In *manzai* hierarchy, Pontan became boss to Usagiya Hyoutan—Suematsu Harukichi—despite being younger.

“How’s it going?”

“How’s the stage work going?” I asked again. “Oh, well, can’t complain,” he replied. Suematsu—or rather, Usagiya Hyoutan—already wore the comical hand-rubbing mannerisms of a seasoned manzai performer. “It’s re~ally, re~ally rough out here,” he drawled. “Say, Mr. Kurahashi—what d’you think of this bit? Here, listen up.” He clapped his hands once. “So I’ve been savin’ up like mad to donate a plane, see? That’s my opener.” He hunched forward conspiratorially. “‘Just gotta make it to a hundred yen!’ Then my partner cuts in—” His voice jumped an octave for the straight-man role: “‘Think you can buy a plane with a hundred yen?’ ‘Can’t ya?’ ‘Don’t be daft!’ ‘That expensive?’ ‘Five hundred yen minimum, pal!’”

“Ha ha ha.” When I laughed, “Isn’t it funny?” He put on an angry face and said, “It’s supposed to be funny, but this doesn’t get a big laugh. “They just won’t laugh!”

“Hmm.” “Maybe they actually think you can buy a plane with five hundred yen.” “No—it’s really quite difficult, I must say.” He made a face that was half laugh, half sob. I sensed something that shared a common thread with Asano’s story. When heard as a story, the material seemed amusing, but when presented to an audience, it might end up rather dull. Just then, a woman who seemed exactly like the old lady from Asano’s stories—though she wasn’t actually of an age to be called an old woman—yet who nonetheless gave off an old woman’s air came clattering in worn-down wooden clogs, exchanged greetings with Suematsu, and hurriedly disappeared into T Hall.

“That’s Tenchuken Tokoton’s wife…” “Oh.”

“She’s working the local circuit now.” “The local circuit?” I asked what he meant. “Yes,” he nodded. “It’s only been since just the other day…” “Is Tokoton-san still well?” “He’s just the same as ever.”

“Still pasting paper bags…” “And then scurrying around…” Asano used to frequent “Horetarou” often, so he must have known Suematsu—yet he passed by pretending not to recognize him; and Suematsu must have known Asano too, yet he never mentioned him to me.

In the end, without going to K Theater, we headed straight toward Taharamachi and came out onto Hirokoji Avenue. The Hirokoji Avenue running east-west had sunlight only on its south-facing side near the park, while the other side remained entirely in shadow. On that bleak, dimly lit side—dim even at midday—it felt as if all the winter’s cold had gathered there, while the sunlit side, mercifully free of wind, offered a comfort that made one want to curl up like a cat sunbathing—hunching its back, crouching low, and narrowing its eyes. While feeling like a plant starved of sunlight within myself, I blinked my bleary eyes and suddenly recalled a scene I had witnessed when I ventured out for a stroll to Yoshiwara at the end of last year. It was a scene that seared itself into my eyes. It was a quiet hour just before noon, when the entire neighborhood seemed to take a collective breath—a street in either Edo-machi or Kado-machi—and like this Hirokoji Avenue, only one side of it was bathed in sunlight. The street that would be filled with people’s bustle at night was now utterly still at that hour. Perhaps because it contrasted with the night’s impression, there was an unnervingly vivid stillness, and perhaps because of that stillness, even the sunlight illuminating one side of the road felt pure, truly radiant, and bountiful.

“You know about this, don’t you, Asano-kun? A vendor who only circulated within the brothel district, dealing with courtesans. Dusters, rice bowls, dolls to decorate rooms—they’d load their cart with things like that and come sell them in the brothel district. ……It had just come to a stop there on the street, bathed in warm, radiant sunlight……” I had been telling Asano. The drunkenness made me immediately voice what had come to mind. And furthermore, owing to the drink, my tone had taken on a somewhat sentimental quality.

"When I looked, the courtesans were gathered around the cart buying something," I said. Wondering what they were buying, I approached to take a look. When I drew near—since they hadn't yet applied their makeup—even those courtesans who appeared beautiful at night now had sallow, swollen faces. That complexion—it was truly an unpleasant color. Was it from lack of sunlight, or perhaps... No—that didn't matter. "The courtesans were basking in the sun while gathered around the cart," I continued. "'Too expensive,' they'd tell the vendor, haggling with 'Can't you lower it?' but never actually buying anything." From what I could gather, they seemed to have come outside under the pretext of the vendor's arrival just to soak up some sun... "But eventually one of them bought a cheap toothpick holder," I went on. Several others basking nearby turned toward the shop when one of them called out something in country dialect—"Ain't gonna buy nothin'." Then when I casually glanced toward the establishment—there at the entranceway's wooden floor where sunlight barely reached—courtesans had brought out dressing tables and were doing their hair. "Even while styling their hair, they were trying to catch whatever sunlight they could," I explained. It made me realize—this was what sunlight truly meant, its preciousness dawning on me for the first time. "And when I looked outside," I added, "there were bonsai trees lined up before the shop." Trees that spent all day confined inside sunless rooms. "They'd brought them out to soak up some light," I said. "Those bonsai looked like they were relishing every moment of that meager blessing from the sun."

“In those bonsai trees, I sensed the courtesans.” “At the same time—though it’s the same thing—I saw wretched bonsai trees in those courtesans, you see. Ever since then, I’ve come to hate what they call bonsai.” “Calling the bonsai hobby something refined like ‘austere simplicity’ is a lie.” “Isn’t it downright cruel?”

“You could write about that scene.” “That scene…”

I nodded deeply. “Speaking of Yoshiwara, I hear Binokuchi Kurosukehyoe from K Theater is the son of a hikite tea house owner.” Asano nodded deeply and stared intently at my face. “What is it?” “No—” Asano turned away. “Mr. Kurahashi—you refused to go to K Theater earlier...” “Originally, whenever someone suggested going, you’d say you didn’t want to, but...” He had been muttering until now—“Then and now—how does it compare? Is it from the same state of mind?” “Or...”

He said this while blowing alcohol-tinged breath on me.

“Feelings?” *I didn’t understand what he meant.* “Is your reluctance today the same as your reluctance before?” He slurred his words, but perhaps infuriated by his own slurring, continued without waiting for my reply in a tone that said *To hell with subtlety—spit it out*, “Mr. Kurahashi… about the rumors between Binokuchi and Koyanagi Masako…?” Now that I’ve said it—do you know? *Enough pretense—out with it*, his face pressed closer to mine with that look—

“There’s a rumor that Koyanagi Masako was taken advantage of by Binokuchi.” It was an underworld term I didn’t know, but the meaning struck me. It pierced my heart. “There’s talk that someone made a wish with Gorigan, but—Koyanagi Masako’s one hell of a hypocrite. “I hear she’s been putting on airs with all that refined elegance, isn’t that right?”

Gorigan was an underworld term meaning... This I had heard and known. When I went backstage that time, Binokuchi—fully aware of my obsession with Koyanagi Masako—had said things like, "The meeting will be after Maa-chan returns, right?" Yet that same Binokuchi had already set his sights on Koyanagi Masako by then. Ah, my Koyanagi Masako. (People, laugh at me!) My Koyanagi Masako had finally been lost to me.

No—wait—was I trying to violate Masako... I didn't want to use such an abhorrent word. How should I put it—had I been trying to do something about Masako? That couldn't have been my true feeling. Then there was nothing to lose or not lose.—So what exactly was this yearning of mine? Hadn't I always known a day like this would come? My poor yearning. “Well—shall we still hold the meeting then?”

As Asano spoke, I merely nodded. I stared intently at the delicate image of Koyanagi Masako concealed within me—as though trying to shield it from vanishing.

O Koyanagi Masako.

But the Koyanagi Masako within me was receding swiftly and coldly, like geese I had once seen in the distant sky. She was disappearing. Yet strangely, this yearning alone remained within me—like a nest abandoned by birds—refusing to vanish.

…………………

*

Hirokoji Street in Asakusa, much like Yoshiwara, changes its countenance entirely between daytime and nighttime. When night fell—on the same side where tranquil sunlight had shone during the day—food stalls lined up in rows. Behind their noren curtains selling warm fare, every stall was packed with people whose faces stayed hidden while their legs remained fully visible below. At their feet, dogs with gleaming eyes prowled about, having appeared from who-knows-where, presenting a scene of truly indescribable bustle. A few days after walking along Hirokoji Street with Asano during daylight hours, I encountered Dosakan there at night. He wore a mask that obscured his face, but I recognized him immediately as Dosakan. I was heading to a beef rice stall when I called out, "How about it—want to grab some beef rice?"

"How about joining me for some kamechabo?" So I invited Dosakan. When we passed through the noren of Tanakaya—the beef rice shop favored by the theater crowd—and Dosakan removed his mask, I was startled. I wondered if it was just the lighting, but his haggardness went beyond that—his face looked like a corpse's. Dosakan pressed a hand to his cheek as if hiding his face (that hand, pale and slender like a woman's, held the grace of a female impersonator, carrying an odd allure).

“Have you come to meet Mii-chan?” “No—” After a moment, “Are you here to see Maa-chan?” “No—” The food stalls were packed with men in jackets and boisterous customers. Amidst the bustle, the stall owner scooped broth into a small dish to taste. To those somewhat affected movements, we found ourselves absently watching. Eventually, Dosakan— “I hear Mr. Tajima is coming.” “Oh.”

While faces were steamed by the heat rising from pots, feet were exposed to the cold wind—an odd combination. "I suppose I'll go back home instead." "Instead of...?" Dosakan turned aside with an ugly cough and didn't answer. "Mii-chan's joined Hanayashiki." "Hanayashiki?" "They say Hanayashiki's being revived this time." "Apparently it'll be called Asakusa Rakutenchi." "I ended up joining the show there."

“That’s good.” "But you know—being a dancer in some sideshow troupe—what sort of life is that?" “Mii-chan invited me too, but I turned her down.” “Here you go! Sorry to keep you waiting,” came the call as a bowl of beef rice scattered with bits of meat and onion was placed before us. Dosakan split his chopsticks, rubbed them together with vigorous scraping sounds, clearly ravenous as he brought the bowl to his mouth—but perhaps from haste, he choked on the rice’s steam and began coughing painfully. Reluctantly setting down the bowl, he hunched his chest to suppress the cough, but it refused to cease. In the midst of this, he threw down his chopsticks and staggered out through the curtain.

Thinking he would stop coughing outside and come back, I kept eating my beef rice alone, though not without concern. Given how unpleasant the coughing was, even after he had left, the customers behind the curtain kept staring this way with disgusted looks—looks I alone had to endure. In the midst of this unbearable anguish, as Dosakan showed no sign of returning, I said "Excuse me" to the old man and stepped outside. Dosakan was crouched motionless in the dark shadow between the cars—parked in rows along the roadway that served as a parking lot—and the food stalls. He was no longer coughing, but he was breathing with his shoulders in a pained manner.

“What’s wrong?” At my voice, Dosakan looked up as if startled, but with that rayon muffler of his—the one resembling a woman’s—covering his mouth, and with the darkness there besides, his expression remained unreadable. “Are you okay?” When I tried to place my hand on his shoulder, I saw something like blood smeared thickly in the gutter before Dosakan—spat out.

"—!" I averted my eyes as if I had seen something forbidden. Thus I couldn't be certain whether it was truly blood—when I reached toward Dosakan's shoulder, he staggered upright as though evading my touch. Because of this, there remained a part of me that couldn't look back at the gutter.

Dosakan stood up, and from under his muffler— “Excuse me.” he said. His voice was so muffled as to be nearly inaudible, but this time, clearly, “Well then, Mr. Kurahashi, stay well…”

Having said that, he slipped between the cars and tried to leave. At his retreating figure, which was like a shadow, “Wait.” “Let’s go together.” “I’ll just go settle the bill.” I called out to stop him, ran to the stall, hurriedly paid, and returned—but Dosakan was nowhere to be seen. A wind that stung the skin flapped the stall’s curtain with its clumsy counterweights noisily.

I had once described what lay between Dosakan and Misako as an illicit love. Dosakan had indeed appeared to be in love. But on Misako's part, she seemed to feel something like a sisterly affection—as though protecting the frail Dosakan...

*

The Asakusa Society’s venue was Sanshuya on Kokusai Street. That day coincided with K Theater’s opening night—since there were no rehearsals on opening days, once their performance ended, the troupe members could enjoy themselves afterward unlike on ordinary days. This being why they could attend the meeting too, that day had been specially selected. I hadn’t gone to Asakusa at all until that day either, and when I left my house in Omori at the appointed time to head there, Asano was standing before Sanshuya; spotting me, he came dashing over—

“Mr. Kurahashi, it’s terrible!” He had apparently been waiting for me with bated breath, for he suddenly snapped. “It’s a complete mess, Mr. Kurahashi.” He seemed fairly drunk. “What’s wrong?” As I stepped back and said,

“What’s done is done—damn it all! You should’ve been here in Asakusa when it counted.” “I’m sorry. I was working,” I said. “Working? Don’t you work at the apartment? Didn’t you rent it as your workplace? Did you take it for some other purpose?” As he kept on nagging, I grew sullen and stayed silent.

Perhaps due to the wind’s direction, from T Hall directly across the street, the lively strains of festival music faintly drifted over. A lively—yet somehow lonely sound. I wondered what Suematsu Harukichi was up to. He might have become a comedian with the strange name Toushiya Hyoutan, but when he tried to make the audience laugh and failed, wasn’t he just laughing all by himself with a forced “hee-hee-hee”? “Well, what are we supposed to do now?”

Then Asano said in a suddenly dejected voice, "The main members of K Theater have been wholesale poached by Kyoto's S Production—with this, K Theater's in no shape to host any sort of meeting."

“What?!” I too was immediately flustered. Asano, seeing my flustered state, regained his vigor, “There’s no one left. They’ve all bolted to Kyoto. If there’s no one left, how can we even hold a meeting?” “No one at all?” “Just the dregs remain. The folks we wanted at tonight’s meeting—whether you take The Merry Quartet or anyone else—they’re all gone. And it being just one day off? Makes your blood boil, doesn’t it? They were right here till last night—but with today being opening day, it was perfect for skipping town. Seems after finishing last night’s show, they sneaked out and hopped the night train.”

“Hmm.” I merely groaned.

“Just now we got an apology postcard from Binokuchi that he apparently scribbled at the station, but there’s no use getting something like that.”

“Binokuchi…” “Koyanagi Masako’s gone off to Kyoto with them too, of course,” he spat out.

“What about Saa-chan?” “Saa-chan stayed.” “Hmm.”

At any rate, we went up to the second floor of Sanshuya. In the corner of a room lined with low, small tables, my two close literary friends sat quietly—the only ones there. “What are we to do? Is no one coming from K Theater?” I said to Asano in a pleading voice, “No one’s coming. They’re in no state for that—I got chewed out by some PR guy earlier. K Theater’s in complete chaos.”

he said coldly and dismissively.

"What am I to do?" The organizers were listed under three names: myself, Asano, and my friend T whose name we had borrowed. If everyone we'd sent invitations to actually showed up—how would I apologize? The shame of having used T's name made me feel my life shortening with every passing moment. Each time footsteps echoed on the stairs, my already gaunt frame seemed to wither further. The appointed time had slipped by nearly an hour. Yet only a handful of attendees remained. Let this already be over—I pressed my hands together in silent prayer,

“Let me explain the situation, and then let’s start.”

I said to Asano. I wanted a drink soon. I couldn’t stand being sober. “They won’t come anymore,” he said, hoping they wouldn’t. “This is a problem, though.” Asano shrugged his bony shoulders.

“We told Sanshuya to expect around thirty people, but...” “I wonder if they’re not coming anymore. “Mr. Kurahashi, your face isn’t half as useful as I’d expected, is it?” “……?” “I thought they’d come flocking at the sight of Mr. Kurahashi’s face.” Asano, like me, should have been relieved at the small number of attendees, yet he said such things. Or rather, having been relieved, he must have found the energy to make spiteful remarks. As for me—or rather, my despondency—it felt as though it had finally hit rock bottom with Asano’s blow, and paradoxically, a strange energy began to well up within me. This wasn’t some fleeting burst of energy. This was a grateful, reliable, genuine-seeming energy—the kind that might finally lift me from the slump I’d been stuck in for about half a year.

“In this state, if the K Theater group had come in full force, that would’ve been another embarrassment in its own right.”

This remark of Asano’s was spot-on.

“Well then, shall we begin?” Asano started rising to address the waitress, “Actually today I met Tajima on Kappabashi Street.” “I thought perhaps that guy might come to this meeting...”

“Oh, Tajima Shigeru, huh?”

“His wife seems to have called him back to Tokyo.”

“She called him back?”

“Tajima said that.” Asano stared intently at my face, “It seems she sought help from Tajima.” “I had no idea, but apparently Mr. Kurahashi was making advances on his wife too—isn’t that something?” he said with added force, “Well, making advances on both sisters at once—quite the skillful one, aren’t you?”

“Mr. Asano.” “Did my words overstep?” “Though it seems—Mr. Kurahashi—that Mine Misako was rather the one who fell for you.” “……………” “So she grew frightened of herself and hastily summoned Tajima, it appears.”

“Did Mr. Tajima tell you such things…” “I wouldn’t say that exactly,” “But something along those lines…?” To my sputtering words, Asano grinned slyly, “No, that’s my own invention.” “I’ve written novels too, you know—when I heard Tajima had been called up to Tokyo, well, I engaged in some creative speculation.” He licked his lips, “But Mr. Kurahashi, weren’t you getting rather cozy with Mine Misako in Yoshiwara on the Rooster Festival night?”

“……” ――Misako had said she wanted to talk to me in Yoshiwara—that talk, to borrow Asano’s words, was an attempt to condemn me for reaching out tentacles toward her sister Koyanagi Masako. That had been the “cozying up” scene orchestrated for that very purpose. This was the same Misako who, even before she knew of my obsession with her sister Masako, had already condemned my—to borrow her own words—“morbid curiosity” stemming from that strange entanglement with Ichikawa Reiko. Having learned this “morbid curiosity” was now directed at her sister Masako, Mine Misako had likely tried to condemn me to protect her—just as she had incited Dosakan for the same defensive purpose—or so I interpreted—… And that was indeed the case, but—

Then why hadn't Misako tried to tell me herself on the night of the Rooster Festival? That was what I couldn't grasp. (Was it because Misako had feelings for me?) Hearing Asano's words—and precisely because he presented this about Misako as his own fabrication—it instead felt not like an invented falsehood but like truth, and I abruptly found myself thinking this, but—

(–No way)

I denied it vehemently. The notion that Misako had fallen for me—it wasn’t just unthinkable; I didn’t want to consider it.

At that moment, “Hey—” With that, the unexpected Ooya Goro popped in. “Oh, Mr. Kurahashi!” No sooner had he let out a shrill voice than he suddenly turned toward Asano—who had faced him—

“Bam!” It was his signature gesture. Asano leapt back in surprise. “Step right up!” Having said that, he snapped his splayed left hand downward like a mechanical automaton, then brought his right hand over it and began pantomiming kneading dumplings. “That’s not how it’s done.” The people in the room roared with laughter. Until then, a wake-like heaviness had hung over the room, but his appearance swept away such air in an instant.

“Goro-chan!”

“If you call me Goro-chan, I’ll answer as Mr. Kura.”

Goro-chan came walking toward me, his legs tangling in his tokkyuuri trousers, and said, “I just wanted to see you, Mr. Kura—” “Thank you.” “When I heard there was a meeting here today, I thought if I came here I could meet you...” Though Goro-chan acted like a madman, there was an air of sanity in how he spoke these words. But then in a strange voice: “Could I have some sa…” This was Ayuko’s way of speaking. Perhaps Goro-chan had latched onto that idea too,

“Ayuko flew off to Shanghai.” “—What a surprise.” “Did she go to Shanghai again?”

“A complete surprise. Sniff-sniff.” Asano looked down at Goro-chan with a bitterly contorted face, remaining standing at the threshold. Just then, the sound of a trumpet playing the Patriotic March reached us. Though poorly performed, this very lack of skill lent the familiar fanfare a solemn quality—it evoked the image of townspeople processing to shrine worship, conscripts leading the way. That ball-balancing old man must have been part of that procession too.

Before long, I rose unsteadily to announce the commencement of this peculiar gathering.