Pathway to Japanese Literature

Streetcar to the Town To reach that “Town,” there was a single streetcar. There were several other roads to take, but the streetcar only ran along one route—a route without rails or overhead wires, without even a proper body, and with no crew except the driver alone. Passengers could not ride it. In short, that streetcar—save for its driver named Rokuchan and some equipment—was, by any objective measure, entirely fictional.

Rokuchan the driver was not a resident of the “Town.”

In Nakadori—a modest shopping district—he lived with his mother Okuni-san, just the two of them. There was no father. Whether he had died or left, no one knew his whereabouts—in any case, no one had seen the father. Okuni-san ran a tempura shop by herself and lived with Rokuchan in strained circumstances. —I should clarify that while it’s called a “tempura” shop, it actually serves vegetarian tempura.

Okuni-san was around forty, and both her face and body were stout. Her eyes brimmed with distrust and suspicion toward all things; her mouth was clamped shut like a clam; her somewhat brownish hair was tied back tightly without a trace of oil. She would wear either an old Ise-striped kimono or a cotton-padded one; in summer, a faded yukata with a white cooking apron. Year-round, she kept a hand towel around her collar, silently frying tempura or attending to customers. The hand towel around her collar and the white cooking apron made her movements as she handled food appear impeccably clean.

Okuni-san was taciturn. She offered no unnecessary courtesies to customers, her demeanor flickering with the pride that her tempura’s flavor should speak for itself. ――In truth, it was not so; within that head of hers—with its somewhat brownish hair tied back tightly without oil—ceaseless worry over Rokuchan clashed endlessly with thoughts of the Bodhisattva’s divine favors, miracles, and rumors of newly effective miracle workers.

After finishing the day’s business, closing the shop, and preparing for bed, Okuni-san opened the Buddhist altar to offer a ritual lamp and incense, then took the toy-like fan-shaped drum and sat down beside Rokuchan. She would have preferred a standard-sized fan-shaped drum, but out of consideration for the neighbors (since many customers who bought her tempura lived nearby), and thinking that surely the Bodhisattva’s disposition wouldn’t depend on the drum’s size, she made do with the small one while nursing a faint sense of inadequacy.

“Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” As soon as he sat down, Rokuchan bowed toward the altar and made his plea before his mother could begin: “O-Bodhisattva—it’s the same as always—please make Mom’s mind better. I humbly ask this of you.” “Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” Then Okuni-san struck the toy-like fan-shaped drum and began chanting the Buddhist invocation. It went without saying that Okuni-san’s prayers were for her own child, Rokuchan. Yet within this dynamic—where invocations to the Buddhist chant and Bodhisattva primarily involved Rokuchan pleading for his mother’s restoration—there lingered something akin to an imbalance in the scales.

Rokuchan was not joking; nor was he acting out of spite or irony. He understood how Mom felt ashamed before others because of her situation—how she prayed to O-Bodhisattva on his behalf performed incantations invited all manner of prayer masters. There was no need—Mom had no reason at all to worry like that.

“Why do you worry so much, Mom? What’s even missing?” Rokuchan had asked countless times. “That’s right, we’re not lacking anything at all—I’m not worried one bit,” Okuni-san would always reply, yet the shadow of sorrow resembling extinguished hope that showed on her face neither faded nor weakened. It weighed on Rokuchan—this mother wearing herself out despite their life lacking nothing, this pitiable mother he kept wishing with all his heart to somehow make whole again.

“I humbly ask, O-Bodhisattva.” Amid Okuni-san’s chanted invocations, Rokuchan prayed from the depths of his heart: “You might grow weary of hearing this same plea each time, but I entrust Mom’s well-being to you. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” Okuni-san’s chest tightened with sorrow. Though she had performed this same observance unfailingly for years now, each time she heard her child’s prayer—each and every time—that chest constricted anew, tears brimming at her eyelids.

This child was so devoted to his parent, so articulate—he would surely regain his sanity soon. Okuni-san tried to believe this. Rokuchan watched his mother’s face with a look of pity and, much like a mother soothing a frightened child, told her: “I’m perfectly fine. There’s nothing to worry about. Everything’s going smoothly, isn’t it? Just relax.”

The ones Rokuchan liked were only Mom, Hansuke—a resident of the "town"—and Hansuke’s pet cat Tora. Conversely, it was only these two people and one cat who liked Rokuchan in return. Rokuchan did not like the other people. They would tease Rokuchan, speak ill of him, and interfere with the streetcar he operated. Especially since there were many who interfered with the streetcar’s operation, Rokuchan could never find peace of mind.

It was a rather senseless affair, but the people in the neighborhood—especially the children—called Rokuchan the "streetcar fool." That might be so; objectively, it might be accurate. But subjectively, Rokuchan was the most diligent and conscientious streetcar driver.

In the morning—as soon as he woke up—Rokuchan conducted an inspection of the streetcar. The streetcar was in the garage, and the garage was in the alley beside the house. In a corner of the cramped kitchen’s frying nook sat an old mandarin orange box, inside which a chipped soy sauce pourer, pliers, a screwdriver, oil-stained work gloves, and ragged cloths were neatly arranged. These existed objectively as well, but there—subjectively—also existed a controller’s handle, a name tag, a wristwatch, a conductor’s cap, and suchlike. The chipped soy sauce pourer was, subjectively, an oil can.

Rokuchan took the oil can, screwdriver, and pliers to the garage and inspected the streetcar he operated. Objectively nothing existed there, but within Rokuchan’s subjective perception it seemed clearly visible. He circled around the streetcar—frowning as if scrutinizing some intricate detail—occasionally clicking his tongue or stroking his chin with one hand. He knocked on the body with his hand, crouched down, and peered at the axles beneath the chassis and the engine linkages.

“Ah, hell.” Rokuchan shook his head and muttered, “What the hell are the maintenance guys doing? Haven’t done a damn thing!”

He used a screwdriver to fix something, used pliers to fix something else, and gave the bearing a kick with his foot. He gave it another kick, tilted his head and clicked his tongue, then clicked it again with evident dissatisfaction.

“This thing’s getting old too.” Rokuchan conceded to the lazy maintenance crew and muttered, “No use lecturing them anyway.” After washing his face and finishing breakfast, it was time to leave for work; however, on days when Okuni-san went out to buy ingredients for the shop, he had to wait until she returned. The shopping was usually done every other day, but there were times when it happened daily, and on those days Rokuchan would grow restless and complain that such continued lateness would affect his performance record.

When leaving for work, he would head to the kitchen. He took the conductor’s cap from the usual mandarin orange box and put it on, pulled on the oil-stained work gloves, and picked up the controller handle and name tag. Of these items, only the work gloves existed in reality; the fact that the other three were objectively fictional had been noted previously. Rokuchan boarded the streetcar, first inserted the name tag into its holder, and fitted the handle into the controller’s knob. Then, with his right hand, he grabbed the brake handle, turned it clatteringly to the left before clatteringly to the right, confirming that the brake was in working order. These actions were performed daily in an unwavering sequence, and on Rokuchan’s face appeared an expression so keenly sharp and utterly serious that it surpassed even the most skilled drivers.

“Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s depart.” He clatteringly loosened the brake—a motion requiring only that he release the handle gripped in his right hand and raise that arm slightly. Then the brake clatteringly rewound itself.

People called Rokuchan the "streetcar fool."

Rokuchan was not a fool. It may seem to contradict public opinion, but through examinations by multiple specialists, it had been repeatedly proven that he was neither an idiot nor a mentally deficient child. He had graduated from elementary school. But because he never studied a single thing from start to finish, he received neither completion certificates for each grade nor a diploma. When he reached school age, he entered elementary school and, after attending for six years, indeed left it. He did not learn a single academic subject, and he did not participate in gymnastics or games. From the very first time he entered the classroom, he did nothing but draw streetcars; for six years, he drew only streetcar pictures, and when at home, he devoted himself to operating the streetcar.

Just as people called him a fool, Rokuchan’s streetcar undeniably did not exist in reality, and every operation involved—from starting it up, driving it, and finally storing it in the garage after the last run—was entirely imaginary.

But then, what of those who actually drove real streetcars? ——Heading north along Nakadori Avenue, crossing the bridge, and passing one alleyway brought you to Hondori Avenue, where streetcars, buses, and all manner of vehicles came and went. They were all operated by real drivers in reality—a fact beyond doubt—but could one really believe it as it was? There was a driver operating the streetcar there now. But his mind wasn’t present. After last night’s argument with his wife and subsequent humiliation at a neighborhood bar, he’d sunk into deep cynicism, his emotions frayed raw. In his mind’s eye, he viciously cursed his wife and repeatedly beat the customer who’d insulted him—then damned his very profession itself, reasoning that driving streetcars had brought him this misery. In this state, he blew past a stop where passengers waited until the conductor—scolded by those trying to disembark—rang the halt gong, leaving him fuming at his own panicked braking.

Of course, there were likely similar examples among people in other professions. Most people seem dissatisfied with their occupations; no matter what they may claim, it appears that not a few individuals inwardly dislike, despise, or even loathe their professions. Comparing these people and Rokuchan may not be a fair assessment. However, Rokuchan was undeniably—both mentally and physically—devoted to operating the streetcar, and felt passion, pride, and joy in doing so.

And now, Rokuchan proceeded along Nakadori Avenue. He raised the left-hand controller from Low to Second, gripped the brake handle firmly with his right hand, and mimicked the clatter of wheels.

"Click-clack, click-clack" He would begin with a slow, deliberate *click-clack... click-clack*, gradually quickening the rhythm. In other words, it was an onomatopoeic representation of wheels passing over rail joints, and when reaching an intersection, it would change as follows.

“Clickety-clack, clickety-clack, click-clack” This was the sound of the streetcar’s front four sets of wheels and rear four wheels crossing the four-point rail joints at the intersection.

Suddenly, a careless pedestrian appeared ahead. Rokuchan stopped his feet and, while tapping the ground with his right toes, rang the warning gong: "Clang-clang-clang!" The careless pedestrian didn’t notice. They came straight along the tracks toward him. These were almost always people from other towns, who knew nothing of Rokuchan and could not see the streetcar he was driving or its tracks. Rokuchan startled, his face turning bright red, and flustered, he frantically began braking procedures.

“Watch out!” Rokuchan shouted as he clanged the controller to zero with his left hand, spun the brake handle round and round with all his might using his right, and leaned his upper body back with a grunt to tighten it. With his mouth, he mimicked the screech of the brake tightening, and the streetcar barely came to a stop. “That’s dangerous!” Rokuchan stuck his head out from the streetcar window and scolded the careless pedestrian with a flushed and contorted face.

“You’ll get hit by the streetcar! If you get hit by the streetcar, there’ll be nothing anyone can do!” He then glared with intense eyes. “Walking on the tracks is a violation! You country bumpkin—don’t you even know that? Honestly, you need to be more careful!”

The careless pedestrian opened their mouth, saw Rokuchan’s fierce expression, and hurriedly stepped aside. Rokuchan glared at their retreating back with scornful eyes and muttered what an idiot they were.

“What an idiot,” Rokuchan said. “You don’t even know where you’re walking, you country bumpkin.” Then, raising his right elbow to clatteringly release the brake, shifting the controller to second, gripping the now-loosened brake handle to stop it, he increased speed with his left hand and proceeded forward with a *click-clack*.

The townspeople no longer took an interest in Rokuchan. Rokuchan had indeed blended into the very fabric of the town. Rokuchan himself was indifferent to them as well, and even when children teased or mocked him maliciously, he would merely glare at them briefly and pay no attention whatsoever. After making three round trips along Nakadori Avenue, Rokuchan would return home to rest; then he would make another three round trips and rest again until it was time for the last run. The time of the last run varied depending on his mood that day, but if he encountered Hansuke’s pet cat Tora along the way, he would stop the streetcar, pick him up, and deliver him to the “town” where Hansuke lived.

Tora was a male calico cat with a blackish tinge, remarkably large. Its face was nearly the size of a football, round and thick, and its body was robustly plump. Though Hansuke had only kept him for seven years, those knowledgeable about cats claimed he was at least twelve or thirteen years old; however, there was no mistaking that Tora reigned as the top boss in this neighborhood.

“What’s wrong, Tora?” Rokuchan spoke to Tora as he held him aloft. “What did you stop today? A truck? Or a streetcar?” Tora answered with a silent meow. No voice came out; his mouth opened as if to let out a “meow,” but he made no sound. Due to overusing his vocal cords during mating season and daily conflicts, he seemed to take care not to vocalize unless absolutely necessary.

“How many did you stop?” Rokuchan asked again, “Three or five? Did you eat the tempura?” This time too, the cat opened its mouth as if to meow, narrowed its eyes, and purred. The tempura in question wasn’t from Rokuchan’s house but rather from Tenmatsu—a proper tempura shop located on Shinmichi Avenue across the main road. As for the relationship between Tora and the tempura, that story would be saved for later. “You’re heading home, huh?” Rokuchan said as he changed the streetcar’s direction, “All right all right, if the supervisor catches us breaking the rules he’ll throw a fit, but I’ll give you a ride on my streetcar. Hold on tight—I’m speeding up now. Here we go—click-clack, click-clack.”

Because the streetcar was old, it could sometimes keep going as it was, but there were also times when it broke down. When a breakdown occurred, Rokuchan would click his tongue, stop the streetcar, and step down from the driver’s seat. While calming the cat perched on his shoulder, Rokuchan slowly circled around inspecting the streetcar. With a stern expression suggesting scrutiny, he tapped the vehicle body, peered underneath to examine the engine linkage, kicked the shaft bearing with his foot, then looked up at the sky to check contact between the overhead wire and pole.

These movements were astonishingly realistic; to someone seeing them for the first time, it must have been impossible to believe they were merely products of imagination. The lengths of each side of the rectangle he traced during his inspections not only created a realistic three-dimensional presence of a vehicle body there but also carried such realism when he tapped certain spots or kicked them with his foot that one could almost hear the resulting sounds. “Just look at this, maintenance crew!”

Rokuchan muttered, “Just ’cause this old thing’s ancient doesn’t mean you can slack off on maintenance. Once it’s back in the garage, I’ll give you hell—mark my words.” Rokuchan returned to the driver’s seat and started up the streetcar.

“Alright, let’s pick up speed!” Rokuchan said to the cat on his shoulder, “Click-clack, click-clack.”

To the south of Nakadori Avenue stood a greengrocer known as Yasuppa-ya. It was said to sell its goods about thirty percent cheaper than other stores, attracting customers from quite far away, which seemed to be how that nickname had spread. The sign read "Yao Tatsu."

Between that greengrocer and a small shoe repair shop lay an alley, from which stretched a hundred-meter-long road heading west, uneven and puddled. On both sides of the road extended rows of small, aged houses that seemed forgotten by time; passing through them led out into a vast wasteland.

That place was neither grassland nor wasteland. The reddish-brown earth mixed with ocher soil grew sporadic patches of grass resembling the balding flank of an aged dog. Scattered among rocks, chipped bowls, empty cans, and paper scraps stood five or six gnarled oak trees clustered together, while thickets of shrubs flanked a drainage ditch roughly two meters wide—yet the entire view conveyed nothing but desolation.

Rokuchan crossed the vacant lot. The trodden path through sparsely growing grass was eventually blocked by a drainage ditch. It lay near the center of the wasteland, roughly one and a half meters deep. Peering through the weeds and shrubs overhanging both banks revealed stagnant water slick with oil and blue-green algae, cluttered with chipped bowls, cracked plates, broken chopsticks, buckets riddled with holes—every manner of discarded utensil—and often, the corpses of dogs and cats. Year-round, it emitted a stench so foul it made the world itself seem loathsome.

Rokuchan jumped over the drainage ditch. That place was a kind of boundary. The east side of the drainage ditch belonged to Nakadori Avenue’s bustling shopping district, while the area west of it fell under the domain of the “town”—and neither side’s people ever crossed that boundary. This was not because the residents of the “town”—being exceedingly poor, with over ninety percent lacking steady work, where immorality was openly practiced and ex-convicts, vagrants, gamblers, even beggars dwelled—were shunned for these reasons, but rather because to those on the east side, both the “town” and its people seemed to belong to another world, things that did not truly exist in reality.

As soon as he passed by the usual gnarled oak tree, our “town” came into view. Seven tenement buildings; five standalone houses resembling dilapidated storage sheds. Not clustered together in a single mass, they stood irregularly—some huddled close, others scattered apart—all precariously built. Behind these structures rose a cliff roughly fifteen meters high, atop which lay Saiganji Temple’s cemetery—though the graves themselves remained hidden beneath bamboo groves and tangled woods. Only the sheer height of the cliff, its bare rock face exposed, loomed over the scene with an overbearing mass and expanse that seemed to accentuate the “town’s” wretched landscape.

Rokuchan had Tora perched on his shoulder as he approached that place. In the wasteland, children were playing, but they never saw Rokuchan. In the wasteland, there were not only children but also elderly men splitting, drying, or bundling things for piecework, and old women and housewives toiling at miscellaneous jobs for meager wages—yet these people, like the children, made no effort to look at Rokuchan.

They could not see Rokuchan. For the people east of the drainage ditch, the residents here were beings of another world—entities that did not truly exist in reality. And in all likelihood, this same perception applied in reverse to those here as well. This was not meant to imply anything profound; it was simply a reflection of what we experience daily. On crowded streets, in theaters, movie theaters, and company offices, people only acknowledge another’s existence when they have a concrete connection; at all other times, no matter how many others surround them, they remain beings from separate worlds—as if they did not exist in reality.

“Almost there now.” Rokuchan said to Tora, “Look—that’s your place right there.”

He entered the alley. The alley was flanked by two-story tenement buildings—though unlike ordinary ones, their ridges were low-pitched, and the second floors were more akin to attics where one couldn’t stand upright. Not only were the shingled roofs warped irregularly, but the eaves and overhangs also undulated in waves, and the entire structures leaned precariously. The tenement buildings weren’t uniformly leaning in one direction—some sections tilted forward while others tilted backward. As a result, when viewed from the alley’s entrance, parts of the structures on either side appeared to amicably huddle close under shared eaves, while elsewhere they seemed to recoil from one another as if harboring mutual hostility.

From Rokuchan’s shoulder, Tora slumped down to the ground and slipped into the half-open lattice entrance of a house. The lattice wasn’t left open—it simply couldn’t be closed. It couldn’t be opened any further, nor could it be closed, and so it had remained exactly as it was for a very long time. “I’ve brought Tora.”

When Rokuchan said that at the entrance, the patched-up shoji slid open about two inches, and a gaunt man around fifty peered out with half his face. That was Hansuke—peering out in an extremely cautious manner, like some timid, suspicious creature stealthily checking from its hole whether what lay outside was a harmless presence or a dangerous foe. “Rokuchan.” “You brought Tora here for me, huh?” Hansuke said in a low voice.

“Brought Tora over for you.” “Always troubling you.” Hansuke put on an obliging smile. “Thanks.” But the shoji he had opened about two inches remained as it was, and he showed no sign of inviting him in. Rokuchan removed the hat—nonexistent—he was wearing and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Still keeping up with your devotions?” Hansuke asked in an ingratiating tone, “Still keeping up your devotions late every night without fail?”

“Yeah.” “I do my devotions late every night,” Rokuchan answered. Hansuke let out a sigh. “Your mom must be having a hard time too.”

“It’s okay—no need to worry. I’m here with her.” “Yeah, that’s right.” Hansuke timidly averted his eyes from Rokuchan. Rokuchan—wearing the imaginary regulation cap—stroked its visor; then he asked Hansuke: “Uncle, how’s your work going?” “It’s… manageable.” Hansuke smiled with his eyes. “Not exactly thriving, but not failing either. Just… plodding along.”

Rokuchan said through his nose, “Hmm.” Tora poked its face out from beside Hansuke, looked at Rokuchan, and opened its mouth wide. It must have tried to cry out, but no sound came forth, and it simply retreated behind Hansuke.

“Well—” Hansuke said this and stroked the side of his nose with a finger. Then, as though it were an agreed-upon signal for parting, Rokuchan put on his hat, waved one hand, and stepped away from the entrance. “Thanks.” Hansuke said, “Give my regards to your mom.” Rokuchan left the alley in silence.

When night came and they had prepared for bed, Okuni-san sat before the Buddhist altar with Rokuchan. A ritual lamp burned on the Buddhist altar, and incense smoke swayed. When Okuni-san took the small fan-shaped drum in her hands, Rokuchan pressed his palms together and bowed first, then prayed for his mother.

“Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” He clasped his hands and addressed the altar with a look of pure familiarity and deep conviction, as though the Buddha himself were enshrined within. “I know I might be a bother with my constant requests, but please, please help Mom’s mind stay clear. Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō.” Then, when Okuni-san began chanting the Buddhist invocation and beating the fan-shaped drum, Rokuchan bowed once more and spoke to the Buddhist altar.

“Mom, even Uncle from Tora’s place is worried about you.” Okuni-san stopped both the drum and the chant, looking quizzically at Rokuchan. Rokuchan nodded reassuringly to his mother and said.

“You don’t need to worry, Mom. Worrying’s the worst thing for your mind. It’s okay, Mom.”

Okuni-san turned back and began chanting the Buddhist invocation.

My Wife

Mr. Shima’s left leg was short. It seemed about three inches shorter than the right. Naturally, when walking, he limped quite conspicuously. Mr. Shima had grown a mustache. With his well-defined eyebrows, beautiful eyes, and refined features, he didn’t seem like the sort of person who would live in such a “street.” Within less than half a year of moving there, he had become acquainted with nearly all of the residents, interacting with everyone without distinction, and through his always amiable smiles and cheerful manner of speaking, he came to be well-liked by all.

Yes, I'm quite satisfied—no complaints whatsoever, I must say.

Watching Mr. Shima’s demeanor, one could almost imagine him declaring—this world is wonderful, and isn’t living in it simply marvelous, eh? “The only problem,” the neighbors whispered among themselves, “is that facial condition of his. The leg was one thing, but that face—they simply couldn’t get used to it.” Mr. Shima suffered from a peculiar ailment. One might call it a facial tic—at irregular intervals, fine tremors would ripple across his face. Simultaneously, something would surge up from deep within his throat, crawl its way upward, and escape through his nose as a nasal *kekekefun* sound.

When facing him, first one eyebrow would rise, and his eyes would blink rapidly. This was the precursor to the onset of his spasms, but at first, most people felt as though they were being winked at and would become flustered. “I was so flustered,” said Oda Takizō, the antique dealer. “When those eyes went blink-blink at me, I thought it must be some kinda code for ‘Lend me your wife tonight’ or somethin’.”

Following this wink, his left and right eyebrows, eyes, and mouth would each begin twitching independently; his very nose would start writhing, until whatever had welled up from his throat came bursting out through his nostrils as a *kekekefun*. These delicate spasms occurred entirely irregularly. They might go silent for two hours or repeat every ten minutes. When drunk, things were often safe—but the moment he became aware, violent spasms would strike.

Mr. Shima had a wife. She was about ten centimeters taller than Mr. Shima and likely weighed ten kilograms more. Her hips were thick with fat, her shoulders square-set; her hands and feet were large, and her chest was as ample as a dairy cow’s. "It’s true," the tenement wives whispered among themselves. "When that wife walks by, our houses shake so hard that things tumble off the shelves."

The hair was brown and thin; eyes were steady; lips thick—a blue bruise marked the left cheek. It was impossible to guess her age—Mr. Shima claimed to be thirty-four, and while she could appear around the same, there were times she looked forty-five or forty-six. She was always silent, did not interact with neighbors, and did not even exchange morning or evening greetings.

Shima’s wife was not merely disliked by people—if anything, she seemed actively detested.

She was haughty as a sullen boulder, said to look down on people from the lower right corner of her eyes when regarding them. Moreover, as the left corner of her lips twisted leftward at the same time, even the most ill-natured souls remarked that “nobody could make such a petty-faced expression,” or so it went. The residents’ interactions revolved chiefly around borrowing and lending goods while swapping complaints. The saying “to cling weeping to others” seemed their sole reliance—nearly their article of faith. What passed for borrowing and lending amounted to trifles: a saucer of soy sauce, a pinch of salt, a bowlful of rice. Yet those doing the lending would think *Things must be hard at Gen-san’s place*, savoring a faint sense of fortitude and superiority—that their own household still had some margin to spare. This act often became an expression of neighborly love—borrowing an unneeded pinch of salt precisely to let the other party relish such feelings.

Mr. Shima’s wife did not do such things. In this “street” too there were a greengrocer and a fishmonger—both had only enough goods to line a single plank; the fishmonger sold nothing but meager salted items and fish scraps while the greengrocer offered only wilted vegetables devoid of color or moisture. It was said both shops gathered discarded scraps from the market yet even so residents managed well enough with these two establishments. But Mr. Shima’s wife did not even turn around; for shopping she always crossed the vacant lot all the way to Nakadori.

“That wife is quite a piece of work.” The tenement wives exchanged stories like this: “So when she went to buy cabbage at that discount greengrocer the other day, she starts ripping off the outer leaves—all wilted and bruised, she says—must’ve torn off six or seven leaves! Then she hands what’s left to the shopkeeper and goes, ‘Weigh this for me.’ But cabbages are priced per head there, not by weight! When the shopkeeper tells her that, she shrieks loud enough to be heard blocks away—‘You call this a discount store? Charging for rotten leaves? You’re just sucking the blood of us poor folks!’”

Customers were scared off and left, people would gather, and the shopkeeper must have grown desperate. “Then I’ll give it to you for free—take it away,” he said, but that had been a mistake. Shima’s wife defiantly composed herself and snapped back with a man-like retort—“I’m no beggar!”—until finally, the shopkeeper apologized, weighed the cabbage, and set the price. “But get this—after paying and leaving, that wife gathered up all the cabbage leaves she’d peeled off and thrown away, bundled them with the cabbage she bought, and walked out like it was nothing!”

There was also the story about her at the fishmonger’s, but just like with the cabbage incident, it was unclear how much of it was true. The tenement wives spreading rumors were not seeking facts; they were content to enjoy their shared resentment toward Shima’s wife, and so they did not question the stories’ veracity. Mr. Shima, upon moving to this "street," immediately called Oda Takizō, the antique dealer, and had him dispose of items. To sell one’s household goods and leave the land. There are cases where one closes up a household, but examples of selling off household goods immediately upon moving in are rare—and moreover, those items appeared to be still new and seemingly expensive. An iron kettle, a large iron pot, a Nanbu iron teakettle, Nanbu iron fire tongs with gold and silver inlay. With the mulberry wood tea cabinet, solid paulownia long brazier, dressing stand, Shunkei-nuri table, and other items, Oda Takizō’s eyes bulged.

“When it comes to items like these…” Oda Takizō hesitated out of reverence and said, “I’m afraid I can’t handle this alone. There’s an expert at the market—would it be all right to have them come?” Mr. Shima replied, “That’s acceptable.”

“Hey—this is a huge score!” Oda Takizō returned home and, breathless with excitement, told his wife, “A massive household clearance—no, wait, they just moved in. What do you even call this?” The expert summoned from the marketplace—true to his reputation—maintained the composure of a seasoned appraiser, showing not the slightest hesitation as he inspected the items. First he surveyed everything with a sweeping look; then, deliberately, he picked up what appeared to be promising pieces—though these numbered merely two or three—before turning away as if wholly disinterested in the remainder and lighting a cigarette.

“It’s cold for April.” “At this rate, even the blossoms will be delayed,” the expert muttered to no one in particular.

Oda Takizō was surprised by the expert’s demeanor and scrutinized Mr. Shima’s expression. Mr. Shima, appearing carefree, laughed brightly as he nodded along to the expert, who abruptly changed the subject. “Sir, at what price do you intend to sell these?” “The higher the better, I suppose.” Mr. Shima smirked. “These are all items with a history—it’s a shame to part with them. Truly, especially that kettle over there.” Then, as he began elaborating on each item’s lineage, provenance, and secret histories in meticulous detail—unfolding an atmosphere like a family feud drama—Oda Takizō found himself mesmerized. But the expert, puffing on his cigarette, wore an expression that seemed to say it was still far too cold for April.

“Stories are just stories,” the expert said at last. “But sir, what exactly do you plan to pay for these?”

When Shima stated the amount, the expert shook his head. "That won’t do." Crushing his cigarette in the ashtray, the expert said, "This isn’t worth discussing—the numbers are orders of magnitude apart. I’m not in this business for show. Come on, Takizō-san—we’ll take our leave."

And with that, he left together with Oda Takizō.

Oda Takizō, bewildered because he couldn’t understand the reason, once outside, hurriedly asked for an explanation. The expert snorted and declared—using the jargon of his trade—that all those items were counterfeit. He explained that the paulownia wood of the long brazier was veneered, that the mulberry wood tea cabinet and Shunkei-nuri table had been painted to mimic their supposed colors and grain patterns, and that the Nanbu iron fire tongs weren’t inlaid with gold and silver but plated with brass and nickel. The pots and kettles had holes in their bottoms and were only worth scrap iron. “Not a single one of these items is genuine. If you carelessly get involved with such things, you’ll end up in real trouble,” the expert cautioned.

Oda Takizō scratched his head and apologized repeatedly, saying he hadn’t known about such things and was terribly sorry for wasting their valuable time. “Growing a damn mustache like that—” the expert said with a scoff, “what a joke of a man.” Mr.Shim called in another antique dealer and apparently disposed of those items. According to Mr.and Mrs.Tomikawa next door, on the night after Oda Takizō had been summoned, sounds of objects being moved and hushed voices haggling over prices could be heard from Mr.Shim’s house past nine o’clock.

“That hit close to home,” Mr. Tomikawa said. “They’d just moved in, you see—I thought they were already closing up shop again so soon after arriving.”

Of course, it was a misunderstanding, and a few days later, Mr. Shima invited the neighbors over for drinks. “Please come by after dinner.” Mr. Shima went around saying, “There’s nothing special—please think of it as just a formality.”

He went around saying this to fourteen or fifteen households, but only five guests actually came. The majority of those who did not come had either gone out to work to earn tomorrow’s food or were occupied with nighttime side jobs. Among the five guests was a man in his fifties whom everyone called Sensei. He stood about one meter fifty in height, was thin and white-haired, yet sported a jet-black mustache that stood stiffly upright and an equally jet-black beard. His eyebrows were thick and black, and beneath them sat eyes of extraordinary size that gleamed menacingly—whether he was looking at someone or even smiling—as if issuing a threat. He wore striped pants with rounded protrusions at the knees over a worn, threadbare morning coat closer to reddish-brown than black, yet went barefoot without socks.

“Pardon me,” Sensei said at the entrance, “I have come in response to your invitation—a ronin scholar by the name of Kantō Seikyō. Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Seeing Sensei’s archaic “Pardon me,” his antiquated attire, and those glaring eyes—did Mr. Shima feel nothing at all? He smiled amiably, baring white teeth as if meeting a decade-old confidant, and waved his hand in invitation. Sensei did not immediately step inside. Instead, he produced an oversized business card from his morning coat’s breast pocket and handed it to Mr. Shima. The card—three times larger than standard—bore the inscription “Kantō Seikyō, Head of the Yūkokujuku Academy” in bold print. It appeared well-used, smudged with hand oils, its four corners curled upward.

As he read “Kantō Seikyō,” he noticed that Professor Kantō had extended one hand.

“Ah, thank you,” said Mr. Shima. “I’m currently having my business cards reprinted—I threw out the old ones, so I must apologize.”

“That’s quite all right,” Professor Kantō said, though he made no move to withdraw his hand. Mr. Shima immediately noticed this and returned the professor’s business card to him. At this, Professor Kantō carefully returned it to its original pocket, removed his worn-out geta, and stepped inside.

There, the antique dealer Oda Takizō, Tomikawa Jūsō from the house to the right, and old man Tanba had already arrived. Exchanging greetings with one another, Professor Kantō went to the back of the room and sat down. After that, Okada Tatsuya arrived, but with his high-collared jacket and close-cropped buzzcut, he appeared to Mr. Shima as nothing more than a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy; since they were drinking alcohol, Mr. Shima politely declined, suggesting a child should refrain from joining. “I am not a child,” Okada Tatsuya replied. “I am the head of this household.”

“Indeed, that was rude of me, but it’s your misunderstanding, Mr. Shima,” said Professor Kantō. “The boy Okada Tatsuya may be nineteen years old, but he is the head of a five-person household and manages his life admirably. He can drink alcohol.” Just as he was about to say “Come in,” Mr. Shima’s delicate chronic condition began acting up, startling Okada Tatsuya into a defensive stance. Following the first wink, every feature of his face began convulsing independently, and something started growling deep in Mr. Shima’s throat—apparently interpreting this as a vehement rejection along the lines of “Get out!”

Mr. Shima gestured to restrain the boy Okada Tatsuya; then, as whatever had crawled up his throat escaped through his nose with a *kekekefun*, he smiled and said—

“Come in.”

Realizing no more guests would come, Mr. Shima brought out the sake.

The room measured just six tatami mats with a single tokonoma alcove. For a dining table, he had stacked empty crates topped with two stretching boards and covered them with a laundered cloth that hid the makeshift construction—though should anyone lean an elbow or shift their weight, it would collapse instantly. This was why Mr. Shima had issued emphatic warnings beforehand.

The room contained only an old scarred chest of drawers, a mirror stand with cracked glass, a wicker trunk, and a Seto brazier—no other notable furnishings could be seen. Yet the six-tatami space remained unchanged in size, leaving no room to move once the host and guests surrounded the dining table. A two-liter bottle half-filled with sake and another fully packed with shochu appeared, accompanied by a large donburi bowl—one side piled with simmered tiny shrimp, the other with daikon radish salad—both portions mounded high, served with a single pair of communal chopsticks. Instead of sake cups stood six teacups mismatched in size and shape—three borrowed from Mr. Tomikawa next door.

“Let’s skip the formal greetings,” said Mr. Shima, giving a quick bow. “I’m Shima Yukichi—pleased to make your acquaintance.” “That’s your stock phrase,” said Professor Kantō, taking a teacup and pouring shochu into it, “but even if you say ‘pleased to meet you,’ there isn’t a single person among the residents here capable of looking after others—and you aren’t thinking of doing such a thing yourself, are you?”

“Ouch,” Mr. Shima pressed his chest. “Even in pretense,” Professor Kantō said, “a man should not utter words he does not hold in his heart.” Then raising the teacup he held, he declared “I shall partake,” and drained it in one gulp. “Now then, everyone.” Mr. Shima turned to the four others with a bright smile and said, “Please take the appetizers directly with your hands. In ancient Rome, even emperors and nobles ate everything with their bare hands. Here I’d like to say—let us drink to mock ill-gotten wealth and pretense—but...”

“If we’re imitating emperors and nobles,” the boy Okada Tatsuya said, “we can’t very well mock wealth and pretense.”

Professor Kantō let out a foolish laugh, and Mr. Shima clutched his chest as if in pain and said— “Et tu, Brute?” “Freedom! Liberation!” the boy Okada Tatsuya said. “Tyranny has crumbled!”

Mr. Shima opened his eyes wide as if slapped across the cheek, whereupon that delicate seizure of his occurred. The boy Okada Tatsuya had just experienced it himself, while Mr. Tomikawa next door and Oda Takizō were already familiar with this affliction. Yet for Kantō Seikyō and old man Tanba—witnessing it for the first time—their initial shock soon gave way to keen fascination as they closely watched the progression of disordered, or rather chaotic, nervous convulsions manifesting across Mr. Shima’s face.

Was Mr. Shima accustomed to being observed? He calmly surrendered himself to the seizure until the usual thing had traveled from his throat out through his nose, and when it ended, he laughed boldly.

“This is a surprise,” Mr. Shima said to the boy Okada Tatsuya. “You know Shakespeare, don’t you?”

“The boy Okada Tatsuya is an English genius,” Professor Kantō answered for him. “By day he works at a major newspaper company, and by evening attends night classes at Seisoku English School—a man destined to become a great English scholar.” “What boundless prospects lie before you, Okada-kun,” said Mr. Shima, thrusting out his right hand. “Let us shake hands.”

Then the sake began to make its rounds, and Professor Kantō said, “Where’s your wife?” “I’d like your wife to pour me a drink—there’s no rule that says a household’s mistress can’t show her face when receiving guests,” he insisted, but Mr. Shima merely replied, “She’s out on an errand—she’ll be back soon.” Mr. Shima’s wife—as it later became known—never appeared before guests. She avoided even basic neighborly interactions—no matter how close a friend came to visit Mr. Shima, she wouldn’t so much as offer a greeting, let alone a cup of tea. The wives of this “street” claimed it was because they didn’t want the bruises on their faces to be seen—but her husband, Mr. Shima, seemed to know full well that it didn’t stem from such feminine modesty.

“Let me ask everyone something,” Mr. Shima abruptly said in a solemn tone, “Have any of you ever plundered rice for free from a rice shop?” “If it’s defaulting on loans,” Professor Kantō answered, “I am a master of that field.”

“No—it’s not borrowing but plundering, and doing it openly at that. What do you think, everyone?” No one responded, nor did they even show curiosity. The residents of this “street,” as a whole, did not believe in too-good-to-be-true offers. They had been betrayed countless times because they leaped at too-good-to-be-true offers. For them, the very notion that there could be such a thing as a too-good-to-be-true offer in this world had become utterly impossible to believe.

“In that case, I’ll tell you.” said Mr. Shima. First wet the inside of an iron pot with water, then go to an unfamiliar rice shop and have them measure out two kilograms of rice into it. The reason it must be neither more nor less than two kilograms involves applied psychology—which I’ll skip explaining here—but once two kilograms had been measured into the pot, you were to ask if you could borrow it. Since you’d be a stranger they’d likely refuse; if refused you’d put on a disappointed look say “Well maybe next time” and pour back the rice from the pot. Because the pot’s interior was damp about one portion’s worth of grains would stick and remain.

When Mr. Shima had spoken that far, Okada Tatsuya, the boy, cut in. "That's a rakugo story," said the boy Okada Tatsuya. "Yes, there's definitely a rakugo where they do something similar using a bamboo basket—I heard it on the radio." "No, that's not it," Mr. Shima smiled faintly. "Those rakugo guys often get carried away and spout nonsense—using a bamboo basket would never work."

The boy Okada fell silent, and the other four turned their attention to Mr. Shima for the first time.

“You see,” Mr. Shima continued, “if this were a bamboo basket and you turned it upside down to tap the bottom, all the rice would get knocked out clean. Understand?”

The other four besides the boy Okada Tatsuya nodded slightly. "Now, in that case," Mr. Shima said, "an iron pot doesn't work that way—the bottom has soot on it, and it's heavy itself, so you can't just turn it upside down and tap it out." "That's not all."

Mr. Shima intensified his tone there. "When ions in the iron's composition make contact with rice grains, they trigger a chemical reaction that generates a type of alkaloid substance, you see."

“Alkaloid?” The boy Okada exclaimed in surprise. “Well,” Mr. Shima faltered, “no—aldehyde? No, I think it was alkaloid after all. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there—the point is, when iron comes into contact with rice grains, a chemical reaction occurs that makes the grains stick together.” Therefore, an amount incomparable to that of a bamboo basket would remain stuck to the pot. By doing this at two or three shops, about five hundred grams of rice could reliably be collected—or so he claimed.

“If you don’t even know something like this,” Mr. Shima concluded, “I’d say you still don’t know what real poverty is.”

“Well, this is embarrassing,” said Oda Takizō, “but I’ve never used an iron pot before. You see, we’ve had an earthen one since my parents’ time.” “What does that matter? Rice tastes best when cooked in an earthen pot,” Professor Kantō declared. “In any case, it’s absurd for men to rack their brains over something like cooking rice. Shima-kun—what’s your take on the current political world? Let’s hear your opinion, shall we?”

Oda Takizō was sipping watery sake and thinking that, for when things finally reached a critical point, he absolutely had to ask Tanuki no Keisan once whether Mr. Shima’s method of plundering rice was a lie or the truth. The boy Okada chose his moment to pour sake into Old Man Tanba’s bowl, and the old man responded with a faint smile and a nod. Silently, yet with evident enjoyment, he sipped little by little as he listened to everyone’s conversation with an air of careful consideration.

Professor Kantō dragged Mr. Shima into political issues and tried to pin him down there. Mr. Shima clearly seemed to dislike the topic and, trying to escape from it, appeared to be attempting every trick he had. "That's right, that's right," Mr. Shima finally said. "You're the spitting image of Prime Minister Ryger."

Mr. Shima finally realized he had discovered an escape route from the political issues. He put a nose ring on the ferocious bull.

Professor Kantō’s expression softened, his mouth stretching tightly into a straight horizontal line. “I always thought you resembled someone,” said Mr. Shima. “Yes—without question, Prime Minister Ryger. That mouth of yours is the very image of his. Wouldn’t you all agree?” As Tomikawa Jūsō asked for the first time, “What’s a Ryger?” and Mr. Shima explained it was a one-generation hybrid born from a lion and tiger’s coupling—with no successors possible—Professor Kantō’s mouth spread wider and wider sideways, as though he were Prime Minister Ryger incarnate, while a distinct bulge formed in his upper lip.

“Yes, people ought to be nurtured,” Professor Kantō said cautiously, without letting his expression falter. “Back when he was languishing as a certain ministry’s vice-minister, I was the social affairs editor of the Ōyū Newspaper. I saw potential in him, so I overruled the director’s objections and often wrote front-page articles for him.” “Hmm, people ought to be nurtured,” said Professor Kantō, twisting his large mustache and nodding with apparent profundity as he continued, “That man who was languishing as a mere vice-minister has now risen to become Prime Minister Ryger, the head of the nation’s government.”

"He really does resemble him—I can’t fathom why I never noticed it before," Mr. Tomikawa said for the first time.

“Stop it, Seishuku!” Professor Kantō shouted. “You all may say that, but I’m not pleased—what’s with comparing me to the likes of Hamauchi?”

And he raised his fist and struck the table vigorously. Mr. Shima tried to stop him but was too late—the contraption beneath the tablecloth came apart with a clamorous crash, sending sake bottles, teacups, rice bowls, and other dishes tumbling down as one side of the stretched board sprang upward, causing Professor Kantō to lurch forward with excessive momentum. In short, that marked the banquet's end. Mr. Tomikawa busied himself retrieving the bowls he had lent out and verifying all three remained intact, while Professor Kantō diligently scrubbed at his morning coat's collar with an ashen-gray handkerchief. Oda Takizō dashed to the kitchen for a rag, while the boy Okada Tatsuya and Old Man Tanba stood frozen in astonishment. Meanwhile, Mr. Shima gazed at the dining table's irreparable wreckage while conceding he lacked the will to rebuild it anew—as if thinking *If only that delicate seizure would strike now*—his nose and mouth twitching incessantly.

No one knew what kind of job Mr. Shima had. To be fair, most people in this "street" were the same way, and those idle enough to pry into such matters were few enough to count.

One of those idlers was sitting to Mr. Shima’s left—Toku-san, an unmarried man who claimed a large territory across the main street under “Chikushō.” He had been secretly confiding to people that he belonged to the boss’s inner circle, likely implying he was a professional gambler. Around forty, of average build and height, he was an unremarkable and mild-mannered person. “Seems that’s what it is,” Toku-san once whispered conspiratorially. “A moneylender’s errand boy—no, not quite. Maybe a bill collector? Anyway, someone who shakes down debts—what’s the term? Well… I overheard Mr. and Mrs. Shima talking. Got a hunch it’s that sort of racket.”

“Something’s off—I just can’t quite wrap my head around it,” Toku-san whispered on one occasion. On another occasion, he whispered, “He’s not some moneylender’s lackey—seems he works at a detective agency or something like that. Yeah, I’ve got a hunch he’s a recruiter for the agency or whatever. That seems to be the most certain conclusion.” Next he speculated that Mr. Shima was a smooth-talking swindler, then suspected that he was likely hiding in such a place because he was wanted by the police in connection with some corruption.

And then again next—

All of this was information pieced together by listening through thin walls to neighbors’ conversations in the dead of night, but no one took it seriously to begin with, for they’d never had any interest in other people’s affairs. Mr. Shima usually left the house around ten o'clock, and his return time varied. There were times he returned in the evening, and times he returned at midnight.

Mr. Shima was always well-groomed. An old but seemingly custom-made suit, and a black soft hat. Though it was said he polished them himself, his shoes were also well-maintained, and he carried a walking stick on his left arm.

“Oh, good morning.” When he left the house and encountered someone, he would smile broadly across his mustached, refined face, lift his soft hat slightly with his right hand in greeting, and say, “Lovely weather, isn’t it? How’s business?”

“Oh, you’re working hard,” he would say gently when speaking to women or the elderly. “How’s the little one’s cold? Has the fever gone down?”

Even when not offering such pleasantries, he would smile broadly, give a quick bow, and never failed to greet them with a cheerful “Oh.” With his walking stick hooked over his arm, Mr. Shima would tilt his torso first to one side, then to the other, then again to one side as he walked away. Even in such a gait, he seemed to be enjoying the way he carried himself, and so people came to feel both respect and warm fondness toward him.

Mr. Shima had moved to the “street” and, about two months later, found employment at a certain credit investigation agency. He presented his new business cards to four people—antique dealer Oda Takizō, neighbor Mr. Tomikawa, Professor Kantō, and the boy Okada Tatsuya—and informed them of his new position. “Let’s have another drink sometime,” Mr. Shima said to the boy Okada Tatsuya. “How’s your English coming along? Are you properly attending night school?” The boy shook his head. “It’s not night school—the afternoon classes. I’m still attending them,” he explained briefly—his section chief at the major newspaper company where he worked had transferred him to night shifts so he could attend afternoon sessions.

The section chief at the major newspaper company where he worked had transferred him to night shifts, so he could now attend afternoon classes at school, the boy briefly explained.

“Well then, soon,” said Mr. Shima, “let’s make it a grand one with beer next time.”

However, the grand beer banquet never materialized. Mr. Shima diligently commuted to the credit investigation agency, greeted everyone he met with a bright smile, and casually chatted with anyone. However, even the neighbor Mr. Tomikawa had never once been invited over for tea.

Mr. Shima’s wife still avoided interacting with the neighbors and maintained an oblivious expression toward anyone she encountered outside. To be precise, it wasn’t that she acted superior or looked down on others—it was an indifference so absolute it couldn’t even be perceived as coldness. Hers was merely the sort of indifference a dog exhibits toward the drift of clouds across the sky, or so it could be said.

The neighborhood wives referred to her as “Mrs.” In this type of “street,” “Mrs.” was universally understood as a derogatory label—just as “Okichi-san” often served its synonym—both signifying something abnormal, something bordering on madness. “I was shocked,” said one of the wives. “At the Shimas’ place, Mr. Shima does all the cooking while that wife just stands there watching with her hands in her pockets. Can you believe such a couple exists?”

“Now, about what Toku-san said,” said one of the other wives. “The Shimas never have any guests—it’s always just the two of them right? And apparently Mr. Shima does all the talking while Mrs. Shima stays completely silent every once in a while you’ll hear her snap something like ‘You’re being noisy’ or ‘Just shut up already,’ and then it goes dead silent again.” Such backbiting knows no bounds but the two examples cited above would fall into the category of those without embellishment. Summer passed autumn passed winter came and it was late November—unusually there were guests at Mr.Shima’s house and the drinking commenced.

It was payday, and there were three guests. They were Mr. Shima’s colleagues from a certain credit investigation agency. He must have given prior notice about bringing guests; Mr. Shima, who had returned after the lights came on, called out in a cheerful voice while opening the ill-fitting lattice door.

“Hey, we’ve got guests!”

However, no reply came from inside the house.

The dim electric light cast a candle-like glow through the shoji screens, and though there was movement inside, no one offered a "Come in" or "Welcome home."

The three guests exchanged glances. “Please come in.” “This isn’t the kind of mansion worth hesitating over,” Mr. Shima said brightly. “Now, come on in.” The three guests stepped into the narrow dirt-floored entryway, removed their hats, and took off their overcoats. Then following Mr. Shima, they entered the room, bumping into each other as they went. One of the shoji screens stood open, and through it the guests caught sight of a large woman. Needless to say, this was Mr. Shima’s wife; they were looking into the kitchen, where she appeared to be tending the briquette brazier.

“Hey, we’ve got guests!” Mr. Shima said again, “Why don’t you come out and greet them?” “What a bothersome fire, tch.” Shima’s Wife clicked her tongue at the briquette brazier. “Oh, this is infuriating. Because these bastards come mooching around Shito’s place, I have to deal with all this hassle. Tch—what a wretched fire.” “The document division chief’s face today was hilarious, don’t you think, Matsui?” Mr. Shima began loudly, as if trying to drown out his wife’s muttering. “—Just like when you light a cigarette and it turns out to be a snap-pop one!”

“It was like his eyes popped out when it snapped!” said Matsui-kun. “Shima-kun, that’s spot-on—you’ve got a way with words!” “Right at the tip of his nose—snap!” said Mr. Shima. “He thought it was just a regular cigarette, but when he lit it—snap!”

The three guests laughed with mouths agape, as if to prove they found it unbearably amusing. Thereupon, Shima’s wife appeared. The guests were struck dumb by her large physique and the abnormality etched across her face—not a birthmark, but that inhuman indifference, a complete refusal to acknowledge any of the world’s affairs manifesting in her expression. “This is Ikawa-kun,” Mr. Shima introduced the guests. “And here are Nomoto-kun and Matsui-kun. Everyone, this is my wife.”

The three guests, in the order they were introduced, re-seated themselves while fussing over the knees of their trousers, stated their respective names, and greeted with “Pleased to meet you.” However, Shima’s wife seemed neither to hear nor see anything. Humming a low tune under her breath, she shoved the chabudai aside, fetched two large bowls from the kitchen—one piled high with simmered tiny shrimp and the other with pickled radish—and unceremoniously flung them onto the table. This was no exaggeration—she literally flung them down, causing the two large bowls to teeter precariously, swaying left and right two or three times, which sent a handful of pickled radish spilling out and made Matsui-kun hastily shift his knees aside.

Mr. Shima nimbly reached out to stabilize the two bowls while looking toward Matsui-kun. From one of the bowls, about a handful of pickled radish and its liquid had spilled out—which was why Matsui-kun had hurriedly shifted his knees aside. While stabilizing the two bowls, Mr. Shima tried to ask whether he had soiled his installment-plan trousers, but at that very moment his usual fit struck, and he had to wait until the “kekekefun” had escaped through his nose before he could pose the question.

“Okay, it’s fine.”

Matsui-kun answered while stroking the knees of his trousers and glared out of the corner of his eye toward the kitchen. Mr. Shima broke into a refined smile and began recounting the incident with the snap-pop cigarette. The three guests’ faces swelled like balloons stuffed with anger, yet even so, inferring what lay within Mr. Shima’s heart, they hid their disenchanted mood and nodded along to his story.

Thereupon, Shima’s wife emerged from the kitchen. In one arm she carried bath items; in the other dangled a hand towel; and between her lips hung a lit cigarette. “I’m off to the bath,” Shima’s wife said. “The fire’s lit.”

And humming a tune while swinging the hand towel she carried, she strode out with long steps. The guests exchanged glances as Mr. Shima, talking cheerfully while swaying his body, stood up and went to heat sake in the kitchen—using the gas stove—then brought over a twenty-centimeter-square board, placed it beside the chabudai, fetched the briquette brazier, and firmly set it atop the board. All through this, Mr. Shima kept talking without pause—carrying cups, small plates and chopsticks; distributing an aluminum pot filled with tofu hotpot ingredients and four small bowls of condiment broth; then bringing over a warmed two-gō sake flask—before finally returning to his seat.

“This tofu hotpot is our pride,” Mr. Shima began, then—Oh! I forgot the main pot—he started to rise, but Ikawa-kun swiftly stood up saying, “I’ll fetch it,” and went to retrieve it. The three were choking back tears in their hearts. The sight of Shima-kun—a man with a lame leg and chronic facial nerve spasms, yet cheerful and gentlemanly in appearance—single-handedly rushing around to entertain guests without reprimanding his wife’s brutish behavior, which resembled that of a sumo grand champion in both size and insensitivity, her cold-blooded arrogance—was not one that fellow men could observe with calm composure.

“Now, let’s start with Ikawa-kun.” Mr. Shima picked up the sake flask. “You’re the youngest here, aren’t you? Wait—Matsui-kun had a junior, didn’t he?”

“That’s me,” Nomoto-kun said. “Matsui-kun has been married for ten years but still has no children.”

And he sullenly clammed up. Mr. Shima looked bewildered and checked the tofu hotpot. Nomoto-kun’s words came out as if he were spitting splintered sticks from his mouth, and each of those splinters sounded barbed with thorns from his emotions. Mr. Shima worked his nose and mouth. If only that blasted fit would strike now—it’d help shift the conversation—but of course, just when he needed it most, the damn thing turned its back and refused to cooperate.

“I saw something painfully awkward this morning,” Mr. Shima said. “I left earlier than usual and was doing some work when Deputy Manager Nihira from the Foreign Department came in—you know, the one who’s always dozing off.” “That’s practically a performance art piece,” said Ikawa-kun. “Typing five letters a day at most—since the department manager takes care of all the important ones himself.”

“Manager Nakamura’s quite proficient in English,” said Matsui-kun. “He’s a night division professor at Hōmyō University, after all. Even when he speaks, his accent’s different—his *accent*, I tell you.” Mr. Shima added various ingredients to the tofu hotpot while recounting—with animated gestures—how Nihira-san had been dozing all day long, laughed politely, waited for his delicate fit to subside, and resumed his story.

“I’d spread out my work on the desk—no one from the document division had arrived yet—when the president’s secretary Kurokita-kun popped his head in—now then everyone, do take up your chopsticks.” Mr. Shima waved toward the simmering tofu hotpot, poured drinks for the three guests, and continued: “Then Nihira-san arrived—with that vacant look of his, clutching a briefcase with torn corners. In Rostand’s style you might say he walked as though shackled in lead boots. Slowly and deliberately he made his way to his desk, set down the briefcase, and let out a great yawn—the opening act of his daily routine.”

Nomoto-kun tossed simmered shrimp into his mouth and downed three cups of sake by his own hand. “Now, he opened his briefcase, took out its contents, and removed the typewriter cover—just then, the accounting department manager came hurrying into the office and, upon seeing Nihira-san, said ‘Ah—hasn’t the special delivery arrived yet?’” Mr. Shima laughed in amusement, flashing his clean white teeth. “Ah—‘Nihira-san, hasn’t the special delivery arrived yet?’ he goes, then just hurried off to accounting like that.”

“That man’s always in such a hurry,” said Matsui-kun. “Like he’s chasing after something day and night.” “I saw Nihira-san’s face change in an instant,” said Mr. Shima. “That vacant look of his tightened sharply, turned deathly pale—it was like his breath stopped for a moment. I witnessed it with my own eyes.” The young Ikawa-kun took his chopsticks, circled around the chabudai, sat beside the pot, served out portions of tofu hotpot into three small plates for himself and the others, placed two before Matsui-kun and Nomoto-kun, then started eating right away.

“I couldn’t make sense of it at all,” Mr. Shima said. “I was wondering what this ‘special delivery’ could mean when Nihira-san put back into his briefcase the things he’d just laid out on his desk, covered the typewriter, then gently stroked it over the cover—for about twenty seconds, I’d say. Soon after, he picked up his briefcase, put on that misshapen old soft hat of his, and left without a word.”

“The special delivery’s a dismissal notice,” Matsui-kun said. “The foreign department’s salaries come out on the twentieth, but I bet they made sure to wring out every last drop of work for those paychecks.” “Nihira-san—hasn’t the special delivery arrived yet?” Mr. Shima intoned with deliberate gravity. “And that was all it took. The man had worked there a dozen-odd years, yet one special delivery—all is over. When he stroked that typewriter... I suppose it was the only companion worth bidding farewell to.”

“If you’re always dozing off, you won’t make any friends,” said Matsui-kun. “He has a wife and five kids—the youngest is still in kindergarten, I hear.” Nomoto-kun drank in silence and ate nothing but simmered shrimp. The thorns that had sprouted in his emotions only grew thicker and sharper, and he seemed to be fueling their growth with simmered shrimp and alcohol.

The conversation continued with gossip about colleagues, section chiefs, department heads, and the like. It was only natural that such talk would be filled with slander and mockery. Among them, Mr. Shima’s expressions were the most scathing, and Ikawa-kun and Matsui-kun were repeatedly made to burst out laughing.

Nomoto-kun alone remained silent. He had drunk the most and turned red before anyone else, but eventually that redness faded, leaving his face pale and rigid, his eyes settling into a fixed stare.

“Shima-kun.” Nomoto-kun eventually asked in a choked voice, “—Weren’t we uninvited guests here today?”

“Why?” A fit seized Mr. Shima’s face, and his answer faltered until it drained through his nose. “Did I say something that upset you?” “You’re a good person—truly a good person. I guarantee that.”

Nomoto-kun spoke in a tone as formal as affixing a ten-yen revenue stamp to a legal document, and though he tried to steer the conversation toward its main point, he flipped through pages of memory in his mind for the simplest and most effective words—yet finding none suitable, he deliberately licked his lips.

“But what the hell is that woman?” Nomoto-kun licked his lips before blurting out abruptly: “You introduced her as ‘my wife,’ so we—*I* believed that! Precisely because I believed it, I bowed my head in greeting!” “I see. My apologies.” Mr. Shima nodded curtly and bowed, then smiled brightly, showing his teeth. “That is something I must apologize for—after all, she’s a savage and a spoiled one at that.” “There’s no need for *you* to apologize—I’m not blaming *you*,” Nomoto-kun interrupted. “You’re a good person, and I feel righteous indignation on your behalf. What the hell is that woman? Can you even call *that* a wife?”

Matsui-kun tried to intervene, but Nomoto-kun waved him off and continued, moved by his own words. “I don’t care—I don’t care about the rudeness toward us. But that treatment of you, her husband—what is that? She doesn’t even say ‘welcome back’ when her husband comes home from work! When there are guests, not only does she not greet them—she doesn’t even serve tea! On top of that, she goes off to take a bath—‘the fire’s already lit’—it’s absurd! What kind of wife does that? If it were me, I’d throw her out this instant!”

“So look, Nomoto-kun, I’ll apologize for that.” “I told you I’m not blaming you—you’re a good person, you’ve got nothing to apologize for,” Nomoto-kun said in a tearful voice. “Instead of apologizing to us, you should throw that woman out. Speaking man to man—a woman like that…”

There, the situation took a turn. Before Nomoto-kun could finish speaking, Mr. Shima stood up and lunged at him. With a speed unbelievable for someone with one short leg, he lunged at Nomoto-kun, pushed him down, and straddled him. Though Nomoto-kun wasn’t overweight, he was tall and large-boned, so when the smaller-than-average Mr. Shima straddled him, it gave an impression not so much of instability as of something unnatural.

“What are you saying? What are you saying?” While pinning down his opponent’s shoulders, Mr. Shima stammered and shouted, “If my wife had done something to you, that would be one thing! But what do you mean by ‘throw her out’ when she’s done nothing at all?” “Now, now, Shima-kun,” said Matsui-kun. “You should stop this violent behavior.”

“Just leave it be,” Nomoto-kun said, still pinned on his back. “Let’s hear Shima-kun’s side.” “That is my wife,” Mr. Shima said through clenched teeth. “She may seem worthless to you all, but she’s endured hardships for me—persevered through days with nothing to eat but water.” Matsui-kun and Ikawa-kun fell silent, and Nomoto-kun turned his face away.

“You probably don’t know this,” Mr. Shima continued, “but she stuck it out through poverty so bad we even had to try things like wetting an iron pot—the best way to beg rice off the grocer. And what do you mean, ‘throw her out’? What right do you have to say that? Huh? What right do *you* have?”

Mr. Shima pressed down on Nomoto-kun’s shoulders with each word. From the momentum of his lunge, it seemed as though he might strike or even strangle Nomoto-kun—but Mr. Shima just kept pressing down on Nomoto-kun’s shoulders with his thin arms, like a baker kneading dough, again and again.

“Alright, let’s stop,” Nomoto-kun said. “It was my slip of the tongue—I apologize.” Mr. Shima climbed off Nomoto-kun and, laboring for breath, returned to his original spot and sat down. At the same time, a spasm seized his face as something crawled up his throat and escaped through his nose—a strained, nasal sound mimicking cheerfulness. Nomoto-kun rose to adjust his necktie and jacket, Ikawa-kun peered into the tofu hotpot simmering on the stove, and Matsui-kun appeared to be racking his brain for some absurd topic to diffuse the tension. The entire interlude lasted perhaps ten seconds.

Before Matsui-kun could conjure up an outlandish topic, the ill-fitting lattice door at the front clattered open and shut, the sliding paper door slid open and closed, and Shima’s wife entered. In one hand she carried bath items, in the other she dangled a wet hand towel. The three guests swiftly darted their eyes left and right. The expressions on their faces were likely akin to those of spectators at a zoo upon hearing, “The lion has escaped its cage!” “I’ll take my leave,” Nomoto-kun said. “—Thank you for the meal.”

After hearing that, the wife went to the kitchen.

“Now, you—Nomoto-kun,” Mr. Shima raised a hand, “there’s still a bottle of sake left, the tofu hotpot remains unfinished—we’ve only just begun, haven’t we?” But Matsui-kun and Ikawa-kun too half-rose to thank him for the meal and began preparing their departure. Though all three indeed felt friendship toward Mr. Shima, there seemed some force so powerful driving them away that even friendship couldn’t hold them back. Mr. Shima saw his three guests out and returned before the low dining table—where his wife emerged from the kitchen. Her face gleamed red like a polished bronze washbasin as she stood looking down at him.

“I heard—‘my wife,’ huh?” the wife snorted. “Me? Your wife? Don’t make me laugh.” What did this mean? Mr. Shima simply remained silent and sipped the cold sake left in his cup.

Hansuke and Cat

Hansuke’s house was always hushed.

He was single, and a cat named Tora lived with him. It was unclear what livelihood he pursued; he would occasionally leave with a small furoshiki bundle and return with it enlarged. Since these were undoubtedly daily necessities or food, the bundle he carried when going out must have contained the source of his livelihood. If that were the case—since he stayed home all day, he must have been doing piecework, but no one could tell what exactly it was.

Hansuke was around fifty, his hair jet-black and thick as a young man’s, but his body emaciated like a withered loofah gourd. His small face—bloodless and earthen-walled in color, oblong in shape—had eyes that seemed perpetually cringing and timid, as if fearing someone might strike him at any moment. When he spoke to people, this quality grew even more pronounced. He always appeared to be apologizing to someone, shrinking back behind his own body as if trying to hide. Even when walking outside, he felt himself quietly trailing behind his own form from the rear.

“He acts like a man with a warrant out for his arrest,” said Izumi Shōroku, the retired detective. “Mark my words—if you knock him, dirt’ll come pouring out.” Upon hearing this, Mr. Saita (the Christian) laughed afterward. “If you knock him, dust comes out,” said Mr. Saita. “Mud’s what you force someone to cough up. That retired detective’s looking rather shady himself.” Hansuke did not engage in neighborly interactions. The only ones who occasionally visited were a boy named Rokuchan from another neighborhood and a man known as “Hut Hira-san” in this town.

Hira-san was around the same age as Hansuke and visited about once every ten days, but there didn’t seem to be any particular reason for his visits. Even when staying for nearly half a day, their voices were hardly ever heard; the only sounds that occasionally reached others were that of tea being sipped or talk about the weather and the state of the economy. No one could fathom why these visits occurred or what purpose they served.

Hansuke woke up earlier than anyone else in the town, washed his face at the well, faced the eastern sky and clapped his hands together in prayer, closed his eyes reverently and bowed his head three times while muttering something under his breath. He was likely making a wish, but what he prayed for remained unclear; he merely muttered under his breath, the words indistinct. Then he would draw water into two buckets and return home—this marked the start of his daily routine, carried out faithfully every day regardless of season or weather.

Very rarely would Hansuke encounter someone at the well.

“Good morning,” called out the other person. “You’re always early, aren’t you, Mr. Hansuke?” At this, Hansuke immediately hunched his shoulders and bowed servilely; while timidly replying as if to appease them, he hoisted the two buckets and scurried off toward his house.

Hansuke’s life was intimately bound up only with his pet cat called Tora. That being said, there was nothing particularly unusual about their relationship. Among those generally considered cat lovers or dog lovers, there are no shortage of eccentric cases that defy common sense. But compared to such people, Hansuke and Tora’s relationship was utterly ordinary—nothing more than mundane. It was only in how Hansuke, who shunned human interaction, would talk solely to Tora, share meals with him, and sleep beside him that one sensed this “intimate” connection.

Early in the morning, even during summer when it was still dark, Hansuke awoke. “Tora,” Hansuke called out, “shall we get up now?” At the edge of the coverlet, Tora—who had been sleeping curled up—opened his eyes and looked toward his owner. Hansuke stretched under the covers, scratched some part of his body while letting out a large yawn—his voice when calling to Tora barely a whisper, making no sound even when yawning. Waking up, folding the bedding, even when stowing it in the closet—he produced almost no noise. All these actions were performed with meticulous care and quietness, as though tending to a gravely ill patient sleeping beside him.—Then he changed clothes and headed to the wellside, though even Hansuke couldn’t muffle the creaks of the ill-fitted lattice door and storm shutters as he opened them.

“Hungry?” he said while cooking rice in the shichirin. “Wait a little longer, Tora. It’s almost done.” Tora opened his jaws in a soundless meow. When the rice finished cooking in the small enamel pot, he prepared miso soup in a similar pot, took out pickles meanwhile, and set up the meal tray. It was an old-fashioned lidded box-style tray—now rare even in rural areas—containing dishes inside; flipping the lid over onto the box created an instant dining setup. When finished, he wiped the dishes with a dishcloth and returned them to the box as they were, sparing himself kitchen cleanup. Though fastidious, Hansuke sometimes contented himself with merely washing the dishcloth.

Tora did not leave Hansuke’s side. In the kitchen or the room, he followed him around, rubbing his body against him, pressing his cold nose against his hands or feet, and when he sat down, climbing onto his lap. Hansuke was a strict vegetarian who absolutely never ate fish or meat, except for bonito flakes used to make broth. For Tora as well, he only gave pickles finely chopped and mixed with rice. “Fish and meat, you see, are poison to the body,” Hansuke said to Tora. “Eating fish or meat only shortens your life. But if you stick to vegetables and rice, you won’t catch any diseases, and you’re guaranteed to live out your full lifespan.”

Tora mouthed a silent meow and looked up at his owner. It was as if he were saying, "You're absolutely right—those ignorant folks in the world are pitiable creatures, aren't they?" Even when eating meals, Hansuke made no sound with his bowls or chopsticks. To exaggerate, he didn't even make the sound of chewing. Therefore, his manner resembled someone stealthily pilfering food rather than eating a proper meal—there was never any instance of something catching in his throat or him coughing from choking.

After finishing breakfast, Hansuke immediately began work. Though it remained unclear what he was making, his tools consisted of a small but sturdy oak desk, small knives, various chisels, coping saws, a specially ordered hand drill, and about three types of awls, while his materials were solely high-quality ivory and lead ingots. Appearing to be extremely delicate work, he fitted a cylindrical magnifying glass—the kind used by watchmakers for repairs—over one eye, leaned over the desk, and proceeded with cautious, meticulous craftsmanship. The way he worked appeared more akin to performing a solemn ritual than engaging in any ordinary task. Even during work, he made no sound—whether using an awl, various chisels, or coping saws, almost no noise could be heard. When carving ivory with a knife, an extremely faint, soft scraping sound would arise—but even that could only be heard if one drew near and listened intently.

It must have been an extremely important—and secret—job. Even Hut Hira-san had never seen those tools. When Hira-san came, he would be shown into the room, but aside from the sturdy little desk, there was nothing particularly eye-catching that could have hidden anything. Aside from Hira-san, there was absolutely no one else he would allow into the room, and even when Rokuchan from Nakadori came, it was his usual practice to only slightly open the patched-up shoji screen and speak with half his face showing.

Every aspect of his life—suppressing sound in all actions, not even making chopstick noises during meals, living as if holding his breath in silence—seemed to be training for that work. The importance of the work, the need for secrecy, and above all, the extreme delicacy of the craftsmanship—it seemed he had conditioned even his daily movements to adapt to these demands. After confirming that his owner had begun work, Tora would either sleep beside the desk or go outside. When sleeping, he would curl up in what’s colloquially called the "incense box" posture; lying down was a rare occurrence. When he wanted to go out, he would rub his body against his owner’s knee; if his owner, absorbed in work, didn’t notice, he would faintly mouth a “meow” and wait until his owner slid open the shoji screen.

Once outside, Tora ambled leisurely along. He was a blackish calico cat with a plump, large body and a round face as big as a soccer ball. It was said that Hansuke had kept him for seven years, but there were those who claimed he was over ten years old, and others who said it was about time he transformed into a monster. Tora was Boss Number One. In diametric opposition to his owner Hansuke, who seemed to shrink quietly into his own shadow, Tora would always swagger majestically forward—his eyes declaring everything displeasing as he ambled wherever he pleased. The extent of his territory was beyond estimation. This neighborhood went without saying; it seemed his domain extended all the way from Nakadori to Hondori. Needless to say, this was territory he had secured through sheer prowess, and within these bounds, even veteran dogs who dared challenge him had ended up losing an eye or having their ears torn off—four or five such cases existed.

By now, there were no dogs left who would challenge him, and even when such a foolish one occasionally appeared, he would not resort to violence. He simply needed to stop and return a piercing glare. Even the most dim-witted quarrelsome dogs would have their tails droop at the mere sight of Tora’s glare. Their tails would naturally droop, and as if muttering, “What lousy weather again today,” they would glance up at the sky—or suddenly remember some urgent business—before dashing off in some random direction.

He resorted to violence only during mating season. Even now during that period, one could witness in reality how thoroughly he remained Boss Number One.—Suppose there existed a beautiful female cat here: first, young male cats would surround her to compete in love serenades, and once the victor of this singing contest approached her, their peculiar wrestling would commence. The more experienced cats refrained from such frivolous displays; they silently observed as these youths sang solos and grappled. Then, when the young ones had exhausted themselves through combat, they would begin asserting their own presence there. This would escalate into middleweight elimination matches until reaching the final heavyweight class, where battles were fought one-on-one or at most through three-way standoffs. Yet should Tora appear at this stage, even the heavyweight champion who had secured victory would never dare assert his championship. He would immediately relinquish his rights to Tora and set off to seek another mate.

During mating season, even quite clever cats would somewhat lose their heads, so there were some warriors among them who would challenge Tora. At that very moment, Tora would unleash the full force of the roar he usually kept reserved—the ferocity of that scream defied description, as did the dreadfulness of his bared-fang visage. Even so, there were occasionally those who still tried to persist; but they would soon be bleeding from their entire bodies, their fur torn out, limping away as they fled, regretting both their foolishness and the precious time they’d wasted.

Having left our "street," Tora crossed the wasteland and walked along Nakadori. Because he was plump and large, his gait remained ponderous yet leisurely. When extending his left forelimb, his left shoulder muscles rolled smoothly; then his right shoulder muscles followed suit with each rightward step. He hardly glanced about—he already knew everything worth knowing. Here stood a shoe repair shop followed by a hardware store; next door lived a cowardly mutt that barked insanely behind latticework until met with Tora’s glare—whereupon it yelped as if bitten and cowered in the dirt-floored entryway’s corner. Then a sallow-faced woman emerged to coo in an infant-soothing drawl.

“Yeah, he bit me right here,” he whined plaintively. “It’s him—that mean cat’s the one who bit me! He always does this!”

“There there, it’s all right,” his wife said, picking up the dog and glaring at Tora. “That Tora again—what a hateful face he’s making! Shoo! Shoo! Get out of here, you nasty stray cat!” Tora quivered his whiskers as if declaring such contempt wasn’t worth his notice and left the spot. Near Yasuya Greengrocer were two male cats, and at Kanrodō Confectionery—a shop with an ostentatious sign—there was a girl of about six who would throw stones or strike with a stick at any living creature she saw, be it cat or dog. To Tora, all of these were transparently obvious to the point of tedium—there was nothing left now that could capture his attention or pique his curiosity.

"Hmph. Same as always," he seemed to mutter. "They keep repeating these monotonous lives without any variation—how do they not grow tired of it?"

Going north along Nakadori brought you to a bridge—a stone structure spanning the moat. Crossing it and carelessly passing through the second alley led to Hondori, the main street where shops proclaiming themselves at the forefront of trends stood in rows: jewelers, clothing stores, cabarets, banks, department stores, restaurants. Streetcar tracks ran down its center while the roadway teemed with an endless stream of trucks, bicycles, and automobiles of every description.

Tora had a purpose in coming there. It was the Temmatu Shop—an authentic tempura restaurant located in the alley across this Hondori. While it was called authentic, this was in contrast to Okuni-san’s five-color fry; the reality was "inferior tempura," which was precisely why it pleased the downtown customers. The downtown customers declared that parlor-style tempura—with its pale, refined frying method—was a blunder. They would say that only tempura fried to a color slightly darker than amber-brown and crisped to perfection represented the true way—that tempura was originally rough stuff to begin with, and these days neither craftsmen nor customers knew a thing about it.

Tora was partial to the tempura at the Temmatu Shop. It wasn’t a large shop—with a frontage of three meters and a depth of about six meters, the right side of the entrance being the kitchen area and the left a narrow earthen-floored space. Five tables were arranged there, each with three-legged chairs. This was because placing four would block the pathway, and during mealtimes, customers who couldn’t get in would often wait in line outside the shop. The owner was a tall, lean man of fifty-five or fifty-six, whose features were said to closely resemble those of the fifth Danjūrō Kikugorō. Of course, this was based on the long-passed-down appraisals of older customers; by now, even photographs of the fifth Danjūrō Kikugorō were nowhere to be seen. But when told this, the customers would think, "Well, I suppose that's true." —The son was twenty-six or twenty-seven, pale and slender, with features that closely resembled his father’s, and just as taciturn as him. In addition to these two errand boys who handled deliveries and miscellaneous tasks—though what went on in the back remained unclear—the shop had no trace of female presence.

From purchasing ingredients to prepping them, frying, and serving customers, this father and son efficiently managed every task. Tora would come to the shop entrance, plop down heavily, and refuse to move until given tempura. When customers tried to enter, he would glare sharply and bare his fangs. His enormous frame—with a face nearly soccer-ball-sized—combined with those bared fangs made most people hesitate at the threshold. Shooing him away like that had no effect; he wouldn’t budge. If someone splashed water at him, he’d swiftly dodge aside only to immediately settle back at the entrance.

In the early days, when one of the apprentices pretended to strike him with a bamboo whisk, Tora twisted his body and leaped at the boy’s chest, clawing with all four sets of claws and biting. “Nooo! It’s too scary! I give up!” screamed the apprentice. When the other apprentices, the owner, his son, and others came rushing out, Tora swiftly fled.

The apprentice’s injuries were severe enough that they immediately took him to a nearby doctor. After treating the wounds, the doctor said, “There’s something called rat-bite fever, so there might be such a thing as cat-bite fever too,” and reportedly gave him some effective injection. Several days later, Tora reappeared with an expression that seemed to ask whether any of that had really happened, calmly planting himself at the shop entrance. “Oh hell—he’s back,” one apprentice muttered. The other apprentice leapt back in alarm. “Master! It’s an emergency—come quick!”

Even the owner seemed taken aback by this, but with the wisdom of age, he quickly discerned the reason for Tora’s persistent presence and ordered two or three leftover tempura pieces to be brought out for him. The apprentice said there were customer scraps in the oil drum, so those should suffice, but the owner silently glared. The owner seemed to know that once a cat had attained such authority, there was no fooling it—that its tastes and preferences were far more refined than those of the average people milling about.

Tora ate two of the three tempura pieces—the conger eel and sand borer—leaving the shrimp behind. After carefully wiping the frying oil from around his mouth and whiskers with both forelimbs, he cast a sidelong glance not at the people of Temmatu Shop but at the establishment itself, then set off at a leisurely pace and walked away.

“Whoa…” The taciturn son exclaimed in admiration as he watched Tora walk away, “That’s something else.”

This became the catalyst for Tora and Temmatu Shop to grow acquainted, and thereafter their relationship continued smoothly without issue. As long as he went to the shopfront, Tora was always able to obtain a few pieces of tempura, and with the apprentice he had attacked—though the boy had avoided contracting anything like cat-bite fever—no particular trouble arose. Although it was leftover tempura, Tora—satisfied with this authentic downtown-style fare—began his leisurely journey homeward, steeped in drowsy contentment of a meal well eaten. With a look that seemed to declare, "This time too, I won’t glance around—the world is mine," he crossed Hondori step by step. He paid no mind whatsoever to automobiles, bicycles, streetcars, or anything else. A truck came barreling down and blared its horn. His massive frame and leisurely gait were so striking that even a gravel truck driver couldn’t help but be drawn to look.

“Hey, you thieving cat!” the driver shouted while honking his horn. “Move or I’ll run you over!” Would he start running? No—instead he came to a halt and slowly turned toward the truck. With a look that said What now?, he stared fixedly at the driver. The driver, unable to actually go through with running him over, hurriedly slammed on the emergency brakes and brought the truck to a stop. Tora confirmed this, then deliberately began to cross the roadway.

The same went for the streetcar. The streetcar was granted a sort of privilege to operate along official rails, so one might assume such incidents wouldn’t occur—yet drivers possessed emotions, and thus could never bring themselves to knowingly run him over. Frantically sounding the horn, he also slammed on the emergency brakes and brought the streetcar to a halt. —Tora looked back at it. He came to a halt on the tracks, turned his large, round face, and stared with a look that said, “What now?”

After confirming that the streetcar had come to a complete stop, Tora began walking away with leisurely composure. As he moved slowly forward, one could see the flesh on both his shoulders shifting rhythmically with each step. In this manner, even toward humans, Tora refused to relinquish his authority as Boss. He always confronted reality head-on—breaking through it and prevailing.—Did Hansuke know this fact? And if he knew it, would he alter his way of living? Could he ever escape this existence of cowering in constant fear—this life spent shrinking into himself and stifling his breath as if awaiting blows?

That didn't seem likely. Even if he saw Tora stopping streetcars and buses or procuring tempura from Temmatu Shop, he would likely have no intention of changing his own way of life, nor would he even think to compare his lifestyle with Tora's. Hansuke was Hansuke, carrying life's burdens in his own way.

One day, three gentlemen suddenly came to Hansuke’s house. All three wore suits, with one sporting a hunting cap and the other two bareheaded. Since all three men were strangers, the neighbors, driven by curiosity, discreetly kept an eye on the situation. Something unusual seemed about to happen. For three suited gentlemen to suddenly visit Hansuke’s house—a man who didn’t socialize—in such a manner was no ordinary occurrence.

But this expectation was betrayed.

“Well, well, I knew it was you,” said one of the gentlemen. “We’ve been searching high and low.”

Hansuke's voice was not heard. "We're coming in," another gentleman said. "Stay put—don't make us go through extra trouble."

Then came the sound of some object being handled, but it wasn’t violent or confrontational, and Hansuke’s voice remained completely unheard. The matter didn’t seem to have been complicated; soon, the three gentlemen appeared with Hansuke. Two of the gentlemen, carrying some furoshiki bundles, escorted him away flanked on either side. Neither the gentlemen nor Hansuke so much as spoke to or even glanced at the neighbors, reportedly.

“What’s going on? What happened here?” The neighbors said to one another. “Who could those three be? Maybe they’re friends of Mr. Hansuke?” “If they were friends, we should’ve seen them around before now.” They had surmised in their hearts. For residents of this “street,” such thoughts would naturally come to mind. Soon, the gambler living next to Mr. Shima Yukichi—the renowned “Chikushō”— Toku-san, who was said to be an affiliate of the boss, endorsed their speculation.

“Those three are detectives,” Toku-san said. “Hansuke’s a master craftsman of rigged dice, I hear.”

Old Man Tanba, having heard what Toku-san had said, laughed softly in a gentle voice.

“Detectives, you say? That’s odd.” “Even if he was making rigged dice,” Old Man Tanba said, “it’s unthinkable that three detectives would come.” “If it’s true that he was making rigged dice,” the old man continued, “then those who came weren’t detectives—they were henchmen of those in that line of work.”

“In other words,” Old Man Tanba said, “either professional gamblers were completely outsmarted by rigged dice, or they came seeking Hansuke’s dice after tracking down his address—it must be one or the other.” “So what becomes of Mr. Hansuke?” “Hmm, I can’t say for sure,” Old Man Tanba answered cautiously. “Even if he’s been taken somewhere, in the latter case he’d likely remain physically unharmed—hidden away in secrecy to make rigged dice. But if it’s the former case, he won’t get off unscathed.”

If you use rigged dice in gambling, even if you aren’t killed, some part of your body will be maimed. Though Hansuke hadn’t used them, if his craftsmanship was indeed that ingenious, they might still maim some part of him to ensure he could never make such things again. “I can’t say for sure either way,” Old Man Tanba said. “Well, we’ll know in due time.” The neighbors distracted themselves with that topic for a while. Regarding rigged dice, Toku-san explained various examples—some so intricately crafted they seemed beyond human skill—casting doubt on how much was true. Yet precisely because of this, they discussed how Hansuke’s quiet, almost breath-holding daily life and his complete avoidance of social interaction had only now become clear to them.

Five or six days after Hansuke was taken away, two men wearing jumpers and pants arrived, cleared out Hansuke’s house, and left. They were different from the three men who had come earlier; without uttering a word to the neighbors, they entered the house freely, clattered about inside doing something, nailed the shutters closed, and departed whistling. What became of Tora? It is said cats grow attached to their homes—that even if their owners relocate, they cannot leave—but Tora must have cared little for such folklore. Though some reported hearing his cries around the house several times, afterward he vanished completely.

“He must’ve gone after Mr. Hansuke,” one of the neighborhood housewives said. “They say if you care for them three days, they’ll remember your kindness till death.”

“That’s dogs,” said another housewife. “Cats don’t know the first thing about gratitude—all they can do is turn into ghosts.”

Hansuke never returned.

Filial devotion “It’s your turn,” said Old Man Tanba. “I’ll jump this knight here.” Okada Tatsuya raised his eyes as though lifting a heavy stone and looked at the old single-plank shogi board. Though his complexion had never been healthy, the face that usually flashed with a glint of vitality—like a finely honed blade—now appeared swollen and drained of strength, sagging limply.

Another troublesome matter had come up. Old Man Tanba thought so, but without letting it show, he packed the half-inch tobacco stub into his kiseru's bowl and lit it using the hand warmer's flame. "This hurts..." Okada Tatsuya muttered in a voice barely above a whisper, "...This is bad."

Old Man Tanba remained silent. Even when the boy Tatsuya slowly advanced a piece, Old Man Tanba remained silent, puffing on his tobacco, and Tatsuya too stayed quiet, his gaze fixed on the board. Outside, it was raining; the sound of rain striking the old wooden-shingled roof was quite loud and unceasingly heard. “Then that won’t do,” Old Man Tanba muttered as if to himself and pointed at a piece on the board. “This knight has jumped here.” Tatsuya stared at the indicated spot, then muttered, “No—to hell with it,” and moved a different piece. Old Man Tanba let out a deep sigh and puffed on his tobacco. After some time had passed, the old man remained silent and pointed to a corner of the board.

“The bishop’s positioned here.” “Hmm... Right.” Tatsuya rubbed his fingers together, leaned over the board, and slowly surveyed the piece formations.

“What is it?” Tatsuya looked at the old man. The old man was chuckling quietly in the back of his throat. “It’s nothing—just now, I happened to recall Jisuke-san,” said Old Man Tanba, looking at the boy with gentle eyes. “That man had a habit of thinking carefully and thoroughly about everything he did. Once, he said this—” Here the old man shifted his tone of voice. “—‘I, you see, after much deliberation and resolve, decided it would be best… so I chose to eat my meal.’”

“What’s that?” “It doesn’t mean anything special.” The old man chuckled quietly in the back of his throat again. “It just means he resolved himself thoroughly even to eat a meal—that’s just how that man was.” Whether Tatsuya had been listening or not, he crossed his arms and looked up at the ceiling one moment, then turned around to stare fixedly at the wall the next.

Old Man Tanba tapped his kiseru pipe against the edge of the hand warmer and poked at the contents of its fire bowl with fire tongs. "That brother of mine's come back again," Tatsuya said. "Same as always. I've had enough."

Old Man Tanba picked up the kiseru pipe he had set down moments earlier and pulled closer an empty can containing tobacco ash, but seeming to reconsider, quietly returned the pipe to its original spot before letting out a wordless sigh. “Go on and tell me,” Old Man Tanba said. “When you’ve eaten something bad, it’s best to take castor oil and purge it. Even just feeling refreshed counts as a gain.” “He demands money—whenever he comes back, it’s always like this—but this time it’s a big one.”

The old man remained silent as he gently pushed the old single-plank shogi board aside, careful not to disturb the arrangement of pieces. "I've started losing sight of why I've lived until now," Tatsuya said, "or why I should keep living. My brother ran away when he was twelve—I was only two, so I don't remember anything—but right after the war ended and Father died, when our life hit rock bottom... he just vanished."

His father had worked at a subcontract factory for military machinery and died in October of the year of defeat due to malnutrition and overwork. Afterward, his wife, their twelve-year-old eldest son, and two-year-old second son remained—three people in total. Within seven days of their father’s death, the eldest son abruptly left home and disappeared without a trace.—Prior to this, he had been evacuated to Matsushima in Sendai as part of the wartime child relocation program. The period must have been about two years; since he had returned home at the end of September, Tatsuya had hardly any memory of his face. What daily life was like for ordinary people at that time need not be recounted here. Mother remarried in February of the 21st year.

Amid boundless social anxiety, food shortages, and a complete lack of daily necessities, it was only natural for a woman alone to find her future daunting. The man she remarried was two years younger than Mother and had been a college-educated salaryman—or so it was said—but after the war he engaged in broker-like activities. “I believed that man was my real father—I still can’t bring myself to think otherwise,” said Tatsuya. “Two younger brothers and a sister were born after me—they were Father’s children—but he doted on me more than my brothers. He did scold me when I deserved it, but even his scolding was different from how he treated them. I depended on Father more than I did Mother.”

Tatsuya was taught English from the age of five. "The Occupation forces will rule Japan semi-permanently," Father said. "So Japanese people from now on won’t be able to survive without knowing English."

When Tatsuya was twelve, the brother who had run away returned home. It happened on the night Father had gone to Osaka for work—the brother seemed to have come specifically to confirm his absence. Stout and corpulent, with bloodshot eyes, unkempt hair, a thick beard, and breath so reeking of alcohol it made one choke— Mother rushed over in tears. She told Tatsuya, "This is your real brother," but he couldn't believe it, and his younger siblings refused to approach. More than doubting their relation—to him, the man simply seemed terrifying.

He was probably twenty-two years old. However, he looked much older than his years. His eyes reddened from drink, large yellowish teeth, and greasily glistening face—with its unkempt beard and stout, corpulent build—resembled those youths said to be former kamikaze dropouts; meanwhile, the unnervingly gentle affectation in his voice as he spoke carried an eerie menace. “Mom, you shouldn’t do night work—it’ll tire you out,” Tatsuya continued tonelessly, “Let me rub your shoulders, or You’ve had it rough, or Not a night went by where I didn’t cry dreaming of you, Mom—all in this phony, clingy voice, just Mom this and Mom that over and over.”

When Tatsuya woke up the next morning，the older brother was already gone. Mother told Tatsuya and the others that because he was working somewhere in Shizuoka，he had to return immediately. But in reality，this was not the case—the older brother had somehow sweet-talked Mother into giving him money，and when Father returned from his business trip，he and Mother had their first major argument. Around that time，Father’s work seemed to have taken a turn for the worse，and his body had visibly weakened．Perhaps to mask this decline，he began drinking heavily—there were several occasions when passersby would inform them of him collapsed drunk by the roadside，requiring Mother and Tatsuya to go retrieve him.

In the winter when Tatsuya turned thirteen, his father coughed up blood and collapsed. According to the doctor’s examination, it was a recurrence of old tuberculosis, and he needed to be hospitalized immediately. They referred us to a hospital, but there were no available beds anywhere.—“It’s fine—I’m confident about TB,” Father declared forcefully. “I’ve been diagnosed with it twice before by doctors, and both times I cured myself without even taking medicine. Don’t worry.”

Only now did Mother become fervent. She continued searching earnestly for a hospital with an available bed while also visiting people who had worked with Father to gather funds for his hospitalization.—Since Tatsuya was attending the new system middle school, he was unaware of what happened while he was away; during that time, the brother had secretly summoned Mother to demand money. He must have ambushed her in town or used neighborhood children to summon her. —It became known that one of the co-managers had come to visit Father, and Mother had collected money from five partners.

Father demanded to see the money, and Mother showed it, but it amounted to less than a third of the sum Father had heard about. Father made Tatsuya grip the money in his hand and, with tears streaming down his face, said, "Don’t let go of this."

“No matter what anyone says, never hand this over. This is your money, Tatsuya.” Tatsuya paused briefly and, striving to keep his tone flat so his words wouldn’t sound sentimental, continued. Father did not blame Mother. When he heard that the missing amount had been lent to the eldest son, he stared fixedly at her face. It was a strange gaze—the kind one might direct at someone they were meeting for the very first time. But from that moment on, Father stopped speaking to Mother. Mother tried to explain, pleaded about her eldest son’s dire circumstances, and repeated that the money would surely be returned—but Father gave no sign of listening.

He kept insisting he would cure his illness himself—he’d done it twice before, so he was confident—and told them not to worry, but Father’s was said to be a malignant type called galloping consumption. He coughed up massive amounts of blood three times, and on the fourth occasion, he suffocated when it clogged his windpipe. Because school was on winter break, Tatsuya witnessed his final moments. Hiding the first blood he coughed up with the newspaper, Father shouted through gritted teeth, "I can’t die yet—I can’t die now—it’s too soon!"

“I read in some book that Natsume Sōseki said something similar when he was dying,” Tatsuya said. “Whether he didn’t want to interrupt the novel he was serializing in the newspaper, or his small children still weighed on his mind—in any case, it’s said he kept insisting he couldn’t die yet.”

Old Man Tanba did not so much as twitch a brow; with a calm face, he nodded slowly. The mother, bereaved of her husband, said that crying could wait—she disposed of the household belongings and moved to this “street”. It was Oda Takizō, the antique dealer who had been handling their disposals until then, who put in a word for them. And at the same time as they moved there, through the assistance of one of Father’s co-managers, Tatsuya was hired by his current newspaper company. Mother instructed the children that when a person falls into ruin, it’s best to fall all the way—half-measures are the worst. “Mom will show you she can even scavenge trash if she has to—so you kids had better start earning your own pocket money and school lunch fees.” That was no lie. She didn’t scavenge trash, but she took on piecework sewing jobs, laundry subcontracting, mowing lawns at Occupation houses, cleaning homes for black market nouveau riche, buying rice, potatoes, and seafood, and selling lottery tickets. In addition to countless temporary jobs she took on without any regard for appearances or reputation—now that her physical strength had perhaps weakened—she settled at home and began specializing in piecework sent from the workshop.

At the newspaper company where Tatsuya was employed as an office boy, there was a department head nicknamed "Hippo" who—without any discernible reason—began favoring him, arranging for special allowances to be issued and adjusting his schedule to allow ample commuting time when he heard Tatsuya was attending night classes at an English school. Thanks to that Hippo department head, Tatsuya’s income sometimes surpassed that of regular employees, and he was able to attend afternoon classes at his English school.—One of his brothers had found employment, another was a third-year student at a new-system middle school, and his sister was in her first year of middle school. Because Tatsuya intended to send his brothers all the way through university, he worked diligently, but just as he began to have a little breathing room, his brother would come and take even their meager savings. Since moving to this "street," this was the third time he had come, and today marked the fourth.

“I had another savings account in secret from Mother,” Tatsuya said bashfully. “It’s because… if we could find a house somewhere, I want us to leave here. When I think about my younger brothers and sisters still in school—I want us to live in a slightly better environment.”

“If possible, it would be better to do so,” Old Man Tanba murmured.

Because his brother had come, Tatsuya immediately left home. As for the money his mother had—even if it was wheedled out of her, there was nothing to be done. The existence of such siblings was not unheard of in the world, and after all, his mother could never prevail against her eldest son. "But when it comes to the savings, we absolutely can’t afford to lose them—this money alone concerns our own family’s future," Tatsuya said.

“The reason I left home is that whenever I have something hidden in my heart, it immediately shows on my face—my brother would see through it in an instant with just one look, and I know that all too well.” Old Man Tanba looked at Tatsuya and asked, “Do you have the bankbook?” “The bankbook is at home, but I’ve hidden it where no one will find it. And—since I haven’t told anyone about the savings, it’s safer than keeping it on me.”

Old Man Tanba took one of the hand-rolled cigarettes cut to about half an inch, packed it into the bowl of his kiseru pipe, lit it from the hibachi's charcoal, and puffed contentedly. "When he says 'Arrange the money,' exactly how much is he demanding?"

“I told him the amount,” Tatsuya said. “—A letter arrived three or four days ago explaining various circumstances and saying it’s absolutely necessary.” “Did he bring that up again today?” “I just greeted him, and the topic came up quietly.” “In that case, perhaps he no longer needs the money and came to inform us of that.” Tatsuya smiled coldly and shook his head from side to side. “If only he were that kind of brother.”

“I too once saw that brother of yours,” Old Man Tanba said, gazing at his tobacco smoke. “Likely because he lived a precarious life, but I sensed something sharp about him. Still, I never thought him such a bad man—he seemed more like someone with a timid, shy nature.” “It’s not just his looks—the way he acts and speaks matches that too,” Tatsuya said. “He doesn’t raise his voice or get rough. He talks softly and slowly, always claiming he’s at fault or apologizing to everyone, even crying right then and there. That’s my brother’s way.”

Old Man Tanba tapped his kiseru pipe against the edge of the hibachi, took the fire tongs, and poked out the pipe’s bowl.

“A long time ago,” Old Man Tanba said quietly, “there was a rather peculiar man among my acquaintances—the owner of a fairly large store. At one point, he had three maids and over ten employees working for him.” That man drove his workers relentlessly and never ceased his nitpicking from dawn till dusk. He would do nothing himself but go around inspecting everything from the kitchen to the inside and outside of the shop, nitpicking all the while, showing no restraint toward wife or children. It was to such an extent that one might think Kogobei from rakugo had been modeled after that man.

“There’s dust here—clean this up—put that away—the stew’s burning—the dishcloth’s sopping wet—do this with that—handle that over there!” Old Man Tanba made a swirling gesture with his kiseru pipe. “—After driving everyone like that, making them spin around in circles, the man would plop down and say: ‘Whew, I’m exhausted—my back’s killing me,’ you see.” Old Man Tanba fell silent for a moment there. Not as if checking the effect of his story, but as if trying to recall the man clearly. And then, he gave a knowing smile and shook his head very slowly.

“Everyone was dumbfounded by this,” Old Man Tanba continued. “He’d speak as though *he* were the one who’d been driven ragged all day—and in this tone dripping with sincerity too: ‘Whew, utterly spent… dead on my feet… my back’s killing me.’” Tatsuya listened without cracking a smile, his face betraying bewilderment at why Old Man Tanba had launched into this tale. “Folks cursed him rotten behind his back,” the old man went on, “calling him a tyrannical old bastard, a walking curse, saying he should croak already. But then—one day his body started acting up, and when they got a doctor to look him over, turns out it was spinal tuberculosis.”

Tatsuya opened his eyes wide in surprise. Old Man Tanba gently narrowed his eyes.

“Such things are common in the world,” the old man said with a sigh, his voice softening. “Everyone has regrets later—wishing they’d acted differently. But that’s what makes us human, isn’t it?” Old Man Tanba compared the kiseru pipe and empty can with reluctance, as if weighing whether to smoke tobacco or not.

Tatsuya returned home. Old Man Tanba’s story seemed to give him a kind of shock. Though it wasn’t clear what exactly it entailed, Tatsuya’s face abruptly took on the expression of a man who had aged several years, and his footsteps now carried an uncharacteristic force. “Yeah, that’s also true.”

He muttered pensively. "My brother must have his own reasons—during the war he was separated from our parents and lived evacuated in some distant countryside." What if Father or Mother were killed by enemy bombs—what should I do then? Such worries must never have left his mind; then came defeat, and when he returned home his father was dead. "I don't know anything." He muttered aloud: "I was still practically a baby back then—but my brother was already twelve."

In that chaotic world, I had to bear responsibility for Mother and my younger brother—though I wasn’t carrying it alone, part of that burden still fell on me. In fact, wouldn’t it be easier for Mother to manage if I weren’t around at all? Yeah, that’s right.

He bit his lip and stopped.

“That’s right,” he answered himself. “I might’ve run away too—just thinking about it must’ve been unbearable.”

I, who had been secretly saving money even from my own parents and siblings, could indeed be called a stingy egoist. The thought of escaping from this miserable ‘town’ was also egoism. Many families living here had welcomed us warmly in their own ways when they themselves had fallen into hardship and stumbled into this place. “Many of those people cannot escape from there.” Isn’t that right? Among them are those who still cannot escape even when their children’s generation comes. For us alone to break free and leave amidst them—no—that would be terrible egoism. I should hand over my savings to my brother—even if I don’t engage in such stingy saving, when the time comes, we’ll naturally find a way out. Yes, I should give my savings to my brother.

“What are you doing, English scholar?” came a lively voice from behind. “Drop your gama-guchi purse or something?”

It was Kantō Seikyō. Tatsuya became flustered and turned red. “I’m on my way home.” “What home are you going back to? You’ve already passed it!”

Professor Kantō was, as usual, dressed in a worn-out morning coat and accompanied by a single young man behind him who looked like a university cheer squad member, his appearance spirited. “This is a student of my Yūkokujuku academy—his full name is Hatta Tadaharu.” Professor Kantō said as he introduced him, “Pleased to meet you.”

The young man also said, “Pleased to meet you,” and bowed briskly. And the two of them walked off, chanting things like “Crush liberalism!”

When Okada Tatsuya returned home，his older brother was already gone. The next youngest brother had said he was going hiking with people from his workplace and left early in the morning；there had been the second youngest brother and a sister，but now it was just Mother and brother alone. Mother was doing something in the kitchen；brother was at his desk. Tatsuya went to the younger brother’s side and asked，“What happened to Aniki？” “He went back，”the younger brother answered. The younger brother seemed to be working on an English composition. The desk was cluttered with discarded papers，tattered reference books，dictionaries，and notebooks—just looking at it was enough to feel overwhelmed.

“Do something about your desk,” Tatsuya said. “It looks like you’ve overturned a wastebasket—how can you study like this?” “You’re so naggy!” the younger brother said. “I’ve told you countless times—I can’t study unless it’s like this. Just leave me alone already.”

“Tatsuya?” Mother called from the kitchen. “There’s a snack in the tea cabinet.” “It’s a souvenir from Nora-san,” the younger brother said in a low voice. “Looks like he dug it out of some G.I. slop.” Nora-san was the name that the younger brothers and sisters had given to their older brother. When Tatsuya opened the tea cabinet, there was a Western-style plate with a chipped edge, on which sat two éclair-like sweets.

“Did you eat it?” “I’m not a dog,” the younger brother answered without turning around. “I’ll pass on Ame-chan’s leftovers.” There was no longer any need to eat U.S. military leftovers. In truth, it had likely been only Mother, Tatsuya, and the next youngest brother who ate them to stave off hunger. But he—being the fourth son—still seemed to feel violent hatred at every turn, simply for having been raised on the breast milk of a mother who had eaten such things.

Tatsuya did not touch the pastries. He closed the tea cabinet door, went to his younger brother’s side, and asked in a hushed voice, "Did Aniki go back quietly?" "He was in a good mood," the younger brother answered brusquely while flipping through his dictionary. He turned to look at Tatsuya. "Just let me do my homework in peace, will you?"

When he started to say that, voices sounded outside—a woman’s saying “Yes, that’s the one,” apparently indicating their house—followed immediately by a call of “Okada-san” at the entrance. As Tatsuya responded and slid open the shoji screen, a uniformed policeman stood there.

―It had finally happened.

Tatsuya intuited that Aniki had done something and suddenly found it hard to breathe. The policeman looked at a memo-like scrap of paper and asked if he was Tatsuya Okada. When he confirmed this, the officer inquired whether he had an older brother named Nobuyasu. "Yes, he does." As he answered, Tatsuya felt his own face pale.

“I do have a brother,” Tatsuya continued hoarsely. “He doesn’t live here—he works elsewhere. Did my brother do something?” “It’s a traffic accident.” The officer said without looking up from his memo, avoiding Tatsuya’s eyes. “We received word from Main Street 1-Chōme police box—Nobuyasu-kun was hit by a compact car. The call came from them.” “What’s happened to my son?” Mother burst in.

“Please calm down.” The officer made a placating gesture with one hand. “We received a call from the Main Street 1-chōme police box—I don’t know all the details myself, but apparently he was hit by a compact car—” “Where is he? Is it serious or minor?” “Mom,” Tatsuya cut in, “you need to stay quiet.” “In any case, it was a phone report,” said the officer, keeping his eyes fixed on the memo. “The location should be near the police box, I think, but they didn’t specify how bad the injuries were over the phone. He’s been admitted to Jinzen Hospital near Nakabashi.”

“To the hospital—they say he’s been admitted.” “Mom,” Tatsuya interjected again, stopping her, and asked the officer, “You mean Nakabashi’s Jinzen Hospital?” “That’s what they said in the phone report.” The police officer looked up from the memo for the first time. Then, quickly scanning this wretched dwelling with his eyes, he hesitantly asked whether someone could go immediately. “Yes, I’ll go right away,” Tatsuya answered. “Thank you for your trouble—we appreciate your efforts.”

The police officer saluted and left. Mother burst into tears and, unable to stand from shock, sank down in a panic, calling out her eldest son’s name between sobs. “Hey, Mitsuo,” Tatsuya said to his younger brother. “You go ahead and check on him. Mom and I will bring the necessary things later, okay?”

"Is that really necessary?" The younger brother said without turning from his desk, "If he's been hospitalized, the doctors are taking care of it. Even if I hurry over, there's nothing I could do anyway." "No, I won't ask you," Tatsuya said, urging his mother. "This isn't the time for crying, Mom. You need to gather his clothes and things. And we should bring a blanket right now, shouldn't we?"

“I don’t know what to do—that child must be seriously injured.”

“But since he could give this address and name, it mustn’t be serious. Just hurry and get his clothes out.”

Carrying the furoshiki bundle himself while supporting his mother, Tatsuya went to the hospital. It was a cheaply built barracks erected after the war, its white and green slapped-on paint peeling away, the characters on the Jinzen Hospital sign mottled and faded to near illegibility.

In one corner of the narrow earthen-floored entranceway was a reception desk where a woman in her forties sat. She wore a nurse's uniform that had faded from white to mouse-gray, but her manner of speaking and moving bore no resemblance to a nurse's; she gave the impression of a haggard coupon cafeteria proprietress weathering hard times. "Please close the door properly," she first commanded before answering Tatsuya's inquiry: "Yes, we have him here. Are you family members?" "I'll check with the director now," she said again. "Probably no visitors though."

Then she glared at them with cold, pale eyes and walked to the back as if hauling a fifty-kilogram load, her movements heavy with reluctance. When she heard "no visitors," Mother clutched Tatsuya's arm. He gently tapped her hand and whispered, "Pull yourself together, Mom. It'll be okay."

“Please,” said the woman as she returned. “The hospital director will be here shortly.” Tatsuya supported his mother and stepped into the entranceway. The five pairs of slippers lay old and revoltingly filthy—torn at the seams, worn through at the soles. A two-meter-square waiting room held a varnish-peeled wooden bench and a brazier choked with cold cigarette butts. On the wall hung a clinic hours notice, one corner torn loose to dangle like a wilted leaf.

The door creaked loudly as it opened, and a surprisingly short middle-aged man hurried out. At first glance he looked almost like a child—his body and face were childishly plump, with a thick roll of flesh creasing beneath his chin. "You're Okada Nobuyasu's family, I take it," said the man, gasping breathlessly. "He's currently comatose. The officials will arrive shortly—seeing him now won't do any good. I'm Director Ōtoyo—the characters are 'toyo' for 'abundance.' Yes, there's a sign out front. Well, do sit down."

Mother asked about his condition in a panicked voice. Director Ōtoyo took out a crumpled cigarette pack from his lab coat pocket, extracted a bent cigarette, then after searching all his pockets, grabbed a lighter alongside his stethoscope and finally lit the cigarette. “First off, it’s a skull fracture, and he likely has fractures in his limbs as well. His heart’s enlarged too—probably from drinking too much—but when they brought him here, he was already unconscious. Ah, I don’t think he felt any pain. Skull fracture, you see.”

“But,” Tatsuya retorted, “wasn’t he able to give his address and name?” “That’s incorrect—completely different, ah,” said the director. “That patient was brought here unconscious, as I told you earlier. The officials may have heard something—perhaps when they rushed to the accident scene, he might still have been able to speak. But by the time he was carried here, he was unconscious and in no state to talk. To put it plainly, he was like a log tossed aside.”

“Please let me see him,” Mother said. “That is my child. Please, let me see him right now.”

“Even if you see him, you won’t recognize him—he’s in a terrible state. He’s been bandaged up, but it’s all soaked with blood. Honestly, Mom, you’re better off not looking.” “No, I will see him. No matter how terrible he looks, I won’t be shocked—he’s my child, after all.” “Now, now,” said Director Ōtoyo, looking at Tatsuya. “You said you’re the brother, correct?” Tatsuya nodded.

“It’s impossible to show him to his mother,” Director Ōtoyo said. “However, from the hospital’s standpoint, we must obtain family consent regarding emergency treatments administered to the patient and the use of expensive injectable medications. Furthermore, depending on your wishes—assuming you have the ability to pay—we could use even more expensive medications.” “In that sense,” Director Ōtoyo continued, “I’d like you to go to the hospital room.” “Yes, I’ll see him,” Tatsuya replied. He looked at his mother and added, “I’ll go first. Depending on how he looks, it might be better for you to see him too.”

“That child is going to die, isn’t he?” Mother said to the Director, “That child isn’t going to make it, is he?” Tatsuya said “Mom” and stopped her. While maintaining a physician’s dignified bearing, the Director stated that doctors were not permitted to pronounce on matters of life or death. “As long as a patient is alive, they are alive. Only when breathing and heartbeat have ceased, and their fleshly body is confirmed to have stopped living, can ‘death’ be declared,” he said.

“Jinzen Hospital isn’t some profit-driven institution,” the Director said, suddenly sounding displeased. “If we were extortionists like other places, we’d have renovated the building ages ago and stocked our pharmacy with all sorts of new drugs.” “Where is the patient room?”

Tatsuya asked. Mother slowly stood up as well, and the Director waved one hand as if dismissing a nuisance before starting back toward the door he had just come through. When Director Ōtoyo suddenly began airing his grievances—about how this hospital wasn’t profit-oriented, how they could stock their pharmacy with newer drugs if they operated like other institutions—Tatsuya noticed innumerable injection marks mottling both of the director’s wrists.

The injection marks were pale brown, as numerous as freckles, densely covering his skin up to where the white coat sleeves ended. They had likely started on his arms and spread down to his wrists. Though their purpose remained unclear, administering so many injections surely meant addictive drugs. Working at a newspaper, several prohibited substances came to Tatsuya's mind - this doctor couldn't be trusted.

The hospital room had two beds lined up. The space was so cramped that not even one more bed could fit; many of the frosted windowpanes were cracked, with paper pasted over them to keep them intact. Brother was lying on the nearer bed, his head facing the window. Because an uncovered, grime-stained blanket had been draped over him, nothing below his chest was visible, though his head—save for eyes, nose, and mouth peeking through—was entirely swathed in bandages, and both hands protruding above the blanket were likewise wrapped, stained dark by oozing blood.

“These are the patient’s belongings,” Director Ōtoyo said, pointing at the items on the side table. “You may look, but do not touch anything until the officials arrive—ah, this is by their orders.”

Tatsuya nodded. Mother rushed to Brother’s bedside and leaned over his head while calling his name in a panicked voice and speaking to him. The Director didn’t even bother with perfunctory pulse checks and instead kept muttering endlessly about how hard it was running an honest hospital without price-gouging patients—how unexpectedly high this treatment cost had been—how he wanted to try some new imported injection drug called something-or-other but was still considering it due to its exorbitant price.

Tatsuya looked at the items on the side table, his expression quietly stiffening. There lay a foreign-made fountain pen and mechanical pencil, a wristwatch, a leather-bound notebook, an oblong leather wallet, a high-quality linen handkerchief, a compact with stylish patterns engraved in nickel silver, and a comb—and beside these, he found his own bankbook and personal seal. No way—at first, he couldn't believe it. Since he had been told not to touch them, he brought his face closer for a better look and realized that both the address and name were his own, and that the personal seal was also his.

So that was how he had found out about our address.

When this thought struck him, an irrepressible surge of anger and sorrow welled up, and before he could stop himself, he turned to face his mother and demanded: "Here's my bankbook," Tatsuya said. "Why did Brother have this?" Mother kept staring down at Brother, her mouth—which had been murmuring incessantly until that moment—now clamped shut. She shrank her entire body as if bracing for catastrophe, holding her breath in frozen anticipation.

"I shouldn’t have done that," Tatsuya immediately regretted. He didn’t need to ask—he’d done something wrong, he thought.

Mother suddenly sat up and turned toward Tatsuya. It was as though she had overheard Tatsuya’s very thoughts.

“I was the one who gave him your bankbook,” Mother said in a quivering voice. “Even after I explained how desperate Brother was, you just left without a word. If your own flesh-and-blood brother hadn’t been in such dire straits, would he have come to us for help?” Tatsuya turned pale and said, “Mom.”

Director Ōtoyo left awkwardly, averting his eyes.

“And yet you didn’t even try to listen properly,” Mother continued. Her face turned pale, her eyes narrowing sharply. “You were the one sneaking around saving money, hiding it even from your own mother, hoarding it all for yourself! To you, that savings matters more than your own family, doesn’t it?” That’s not true—it wasn’t for myself. I wanted us—you and my younger brothers and me—to move to a slightly better place. Even so, I reconsidered and returned home intending to give it to Brother. "I’ve never once thought only of myself," Tatsuya pleaded in his heart. But that remained in his heart—not a single word left his lips.

“Even with Brother in this state—as long as your savings are safe, that’s exactly what you wanted, huh? That’s right, isn’t it?” Mother’s voice rose to a near-shout as tears spilled from her eyes. “Brother wasn’t heartless like you—Nobuyasu was kind, a child who cared for his parents!” Mother peered down at Brother lying speechless on the bed and said through sobs, “He was always worrying about me—‘Mom, Mom,’ he’d say, ‘if you push yourself so hard you’ll wear yourself out. Let me rub your shoulders—you need to rest or you’ll make yourself sick.’ No child has ever worried about me like he did.”

Then Mother turned to face him. “Have you ever once said anything like that to me? Have you ever once worried about me? When you were sneaking around saving money, did you ever once think about your family?” Tatsuya weakly, quietly, and silently lowered his head. “Nobuyasu. “Nobuyasu, you…” “Nobuyasu,” Mother called out to her brother in a tearful voice, “don’t die, please—say something, anything—you’re all I have left. Please, don’t die.”

Tatsuya quietly slipped out into the hallway and swiftly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

"That’s right," he thought. He tried to recall the shogi game he had been playing with Old Man Tanba. “That knight was captured at the ne square—I should have pulled back the silver. If I’d moved the silver to 4-7 first, then struck at the knight’s head next…”

His face contorted unpleasantly, and tears soaked his cheeks.

Pastoral Tone

Masuda Masuo was thirty-two years old, and his wife Katsuko was twenty-nine. Kawaguchi Hatsutarō was thirty years old, and his wife Yoshie was twenty-five. The Masuda couple lived in the east tenement, and the Kawaguchi couple lived in the north tenement. At the point where these two tenements met in a roughly T-shaped junction stood a communal water source, surrounded by vacant land. The water’s edge bustled with housewives, while the open space teemed with children—both areas alive with boisterous activity. Masuda and Kawaguchi worked as day laborers. They weren’t particularly close, yet they always went out together and not infrequently returned home drunk together.—Masuda called Kawaguchi “Hatsu-san,” and Kawaguchi called Masuda “Big Bro.”

Their wives too met daily at the communal water source and, like the other housewives, exchanged complaints, gossiped about others, traded backhanded remarks, and indulged in the pleasures of chatter over countless other topics. That said, it didn’t mean the two were particularly close.

“Come on, listen up, Yoshie—I’m only telling you this because it’s you.”

Katsuko calls out to Yoshie like this. And after revealing even intimate bedroom secrets, she stresses, "Don’t tell anyone." Her tone and expression overflow with trust and deep familiarity, creating the impression that she could confide things she couldn’t even tell her own siblings—but in reality, the listener didn’t actually need to be Yoshie. At such times, an impulse to talk arises, and as long as there was a suitable listener, she felt no hesitation whatsoever in sharing things she couldn’t tell any other housewife.

This would hold true even if Yoshie were in her position, and it would likely apply to many of the other housewives as well. If there happened to be those unlike this—those who grew particularly close with just one other person or disdained the gatherings at the water’s edge—they would find no means to escape earning scornful labels like “Oddball” or “Goody Two-Shoes.”

One night in late October, around nine o'clock, Masuda Masuo appeared drunk at Kawaguchi Hatsutarō's house.

That day, they both had work with unusually good daily wages, and on their way home, they drank together. And now, Kawaguchi was lingering over drinks with his wife Yoshie once again, so the moment he saw Masuda’s face, he perked up and raised his hand. “Big Bro!”

“Perfect timing—come on up!”

“I ain’t in such a good mood—came ’cause there’s somethin’ I gotta ask ya.”

Masuda entered and plopped down cross-legged beside the couple. His face was red, his eyes were red, and his breath reeked like a rotten overripe persimmon.

“Let’s have a drink first,” Kawaguchi said, taking a quick sip from his teacup before offering it. “Then we’ll hear what’s up—what’s going on?” “Ain’t nothin’ to do about it.” Masuda drank the sake Yoshie had poured him as if it were water, then said, “Ain’t nothin’ to be done. My whole damn family’s gone rotten—I feel like some stray dog they stuck a cap on.” “Hmm.” Kawaguchi tilted his head.

“I shouldn’t say this, but it’s like having a whole pail of sand dumped over my head while I’m trying to eat.” “Hmm.” Kawaguchi inferred Big Bro’s state of mind and, within the limits of his understanding, was deeply moved by the situation’s complexity—even if he still grasped nothing concrete—muttering, “Same as ever, Big Bro’s got it rough.” “Katsuko’s quite strong-willed too, you know.” Yoshie poured sake for Masuda while adding, “She’s good-natured at heart, but once she flies off the handle, there’s no stopping her.”

“What about the sand?” Since Yoshie tended to complicate matters whenever she started talking, Kawaguchi poured himself more sake into a different cup and pressed, “So you actually had it poured over your head?” “I didn’t pour no damn sand—was just sayin’ it felt that way, but now everything’s gone to hell,” Masuda said, downing his drink. “After we split up, I hit the bathhouse, came home, had a drink—then she starts snappin’ at me for no reason. I ask what’s wrong, she says ‘None of your business’ and turns away. I tell her, ‘If it ain’t your business, quit bitchin’ at me!’ She fires back with ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ So I go ‘Why my ass—’ and she jumps down my throat with ‘What’s wrong with why?’”

When I said, ‘Snappin’ at your husband over somethin’ that ain’t his business is downright unreasonable, ain’t it?’ she shot back with ‘Then does that mean you’re unreasonable too?’ “Why the hell am I unreasonable?” “You’re always lashin’ out at me over things that don’t even concern me—every damn time! Ain’t that right?” she fired back. “A husband’s gotta have his own sense o’ judgment, right, Hatsu-san?” “Damn straight,” Kawaguchi said, sippin’ sake from his teacup. Maybe it was just me imaginin’ things, but he drank like he was provin’ his point.

“Men got it rough out there,” Masuda continued. “Kowtowing to greenhorn kids still wet behind the ears, getting yelled at like beasts when you’re dead on your feet hauling impossible loads—soul-crushing hardships, I tell ya. So when a man finally drags himself home, ain’t it only human nature to wanna take it out on the wife?”

As if defying anyone to challenge his words, Masuda drained his sake in one gulp, and Yoshie promptly refilled his cup. "Big Bro’s right—what Big Bro says ain’t never wrong." "But that damn wife of mine—she ain’t never backed down," Masuda said, drinking his newly poured sake. "Not once since the dawn o’ time’s she admitted bein’ wrong. When men got it rough out there, women got their own miseries too—shit that feels like diggin’ out a cavity with a five-inch spike. But I’m the wife here, see? Can’t go whinin’ ‘bout this ‘n’ that to a husband dragsin’ his bones home. So I button my lip ‘n’ take it all. ‘You wouldn’t know nothin’ ‘bout that,’ she sneers at me."

Kawaguchi tried to say that made sense too but hastily closed his mouth. "If you're being so considerate to your husband," I retorted, "why not quit the snapping while you're at it?" But she came back with "I'm human too—sometimes I wanna snap!" followed by "Or did they pass some damn law saying women ain't allowed to snap?!" Masuda said. "I was boiling mad—thought about knockin' her flat, but that damn woman... If I'd stayed, the whole tenement would've been in an uproar, so I came runnin' out here. Look—my heart's still poundin' right here!"

He spread open the collar of his kimono and rhythmically patted his densely black-haired chest. Yoshie’s eyes gleamed as they caught sight of Masuda’s chest hair. A flash seemed to streak from within her eyes, settling into a three-white stare.

“Women—they’re impossible.” Kawaguchi wiped his lips with the back of his hand and said, “Things you could just laugh off—they gotta drag in principles and laws, makin’ it all complicated. Means they got too much time on their hands. Laugh it off and it’s done with—so they gotta stir up trouble to keep entertained. Right then—I’ll go talk some sense into her.”

“I’m sorry for causin’ trouble—just leave it be.” “Ain’t no way—not between you ‘n’ me, Big Bro.” Kawaguchi stood up. “You think I can just sit back ‘n’ watch? Hey—who’s we dealin’ with again?” “Quit it, you fool—can’t you see you’re dead drunk?” said Yoshie. “Plannin’ to go smooth things over at Katsuko’s? Askin’ ‘Who’s we dealin’ with?’—you won’t string two words straight even if ya go!”

“I’m fine! You think this little bit of sake’s enough to get me drunk?” “You’re drunk. If you can’t handle it, just quit already!” Yoshie’s tone didn’t sound like she was stopping him—it sounded more like she was inciting him. Of course, she had no such intention; she understood that her husband was too drunk for any intervention to be effective.

However, humans do not always act according to their own will. When Yoshie told her husband "Don’t go," it was both because she recognized he was too drunk and because she knew that stopping him in this manner would provoke his habit of obstinately asserting his own will. It would be more accurate to say she perceived this instinctively rather than through conscious understanding. Therefore, even if she had said something in a tone that seemed to incite her husband, it was entirely beyond her conscious awareness—a matter for which she bore no responsibility whatsoever.

Kawaguchi left, and Yoshie offered Masuda more sake. Masuda had already drunk more than his usual amount, but convinced himself that being emotionally upset meant he wasn’t actually drunk from the alcohol alone, and so he kept drinking as she poured.

“I’ll have a drink too.” Before long, Yoshie held out her cup. “Pour for me, won’t you?”

“You said ‘please pour,’ didn’t you?” Masuda tried to pour a drink, but his unsteady hand spilled the sake. “Hah—looks like my hands’ve gone drunk too, damn ’em.”

“No, no! You’ll spill it all! Hand it here—I’ll pour it myself.” “Sorry... real sorry, Yoshie.” Masuda forced a laugh and shook his head at Yoshie’s face. “You’re Hatsu-san’s Yoshie, ain’t ya? Heh—now that’s a real shocker!”

“Has your chest started thumping again?” “My chest—... Ah, my chest?” Masuda spread open his collar, felt around his chest hair, and tilted his head in puzzlement. “Weird… Not a single thump. Maybe even my heart’s drunk.” “Here, I’ll check for you.” Yoshie sidled up to him, reached out to his chest, and began fondling his thick chest hair with apparent relish. “It’s pounding away—right here, see? Thump-thump! Such a strong heartbeat—it’s practically knocking my hand back!”

“You said ‘thump-thump,’ didn’t you?” Masuda twisted his torso. “How ’bout yours?” “Why don’t you check for yourself?” “What a pain—screw this damn heart.” “Hey, wait! You’re so rough, Big Bro—wait up!”

“Ah—” Masuda collapsed heavily onto the spot. “Big Bro...?” “What’s wrong? You can’t sleep there—you’ll catch cold!” “Big Bro... get it now?”

Masuda, keeping his eyes closed, chuckled as if tickled and said, "Cut it out."

Kawaguchi did not return. Yoshie drank the sake unchilled, alone for a while, then stood up and began laying out bedding she took from the closet there.

Early the next morning, Masuda’s wife came to Kawaguchi Hatsutarō’s residence, handed over her husband’s work clothes, received Kawaguchi Hatsutarō’s work clothes, and returned home.

“Men are impossible when they’re drunk, really,” said Katsuko, Masuda’s wife.

“Really, though—when men get drunk, they’re just like children,” answered Yoshie, Kawaguchi’s wife. That was all of their conversation.

It wasn’t that there had been any psychological avoidance—like harboring unspoken thoughts or dreading awkwardness through discussion. They had nothing more to say to each other. Truly, there had been nothing more to say.

At the usual time, having changed into their work clothes with their lunch bundles dangling, Kawaguchi Hatsutarō and Masuda Masuo met at the water’s edge.

“Hey,” said Masuda. “Hey,” answered Kawaguchi. “The sun’s too damn bright,” said Masuda. “Drank way too much last night.”

“Drank too much,” Kawaguchi also said. “Still feel kinda woozy.”

And the two men went out to work. They, too, said nothing else—not the slightest hint that they were hiding what they wanted to say or probing each other's feelings. That alone might not be particularly surprising, for even when what humans say and do appears wildly inconsistent, it usually coheres logically somewhere. As for the incident where the two couples—Masuda and Kawaguchi and their wives—having gotten drunk one night each mistakenly slept with the other's spouse, such an event would hardly be a rare occurrence in our "street." Moreover, without distinction between city and village, if one were to remove the skillfully worn masks, similar adventures could likely be found anywhere.

However, this particular pair of couples proved a slight exception. That morning, the two men had gone out together for day labor; upon returning that evening, Masuda headed to Kawaguchi’s residence and Kawaguchi to Masuda’s—parting ways without hesitation, utterly naturally, as if it were the simplest thing in the world. In neither case was there any sense of resistance, awkwardness, or discomfort—or anything of the sort. Each returned as though heading back to their own original residences.

The next morning as well, they met at the water’s edge and went off to work together. Neither showed any change from their usual selves. They neither seemed in good spirits nor appeared sullen.

“The weather holding out is a real stroke of luck—if only this’d keep up for half a month.” “Yeah, if this weather keeps up half a month,” answered Kawaguchi. “That’d be a real stroke of luck.” In this way, shoulder to shoulder, the two men set off.

Katsuko and Yoshie were no different from the previous day; when they met at the water’s edge, they enjoyed chatting while doing the water chores.

“It’s such a pain how prices just keep rising like this,” Katsuko said. “Can you believe it, Yoshie? Guess how much a single slice of salted salmon costs now!” “I know, right? It’s absolutely appalling,” Yoshie replied. “A single carrot this size—just one, Katsuko—when I heard the price, I nearly keeled over!” As usual, apart from not mentioning the husbands, there was no change whatsoever in their manner of speaking or demeanor; only this sort of chatter continued.

This state continued without any complications. The neighbors—particularly the wives—were not unaware. Even wives accustomed to rather scandalous affairs were shocked by these two couples' arrangement; moreover, when they confirmed that no commotion had arisen—that husbands and wives continued getting along peacefully as before—they felt an even deeper astonishment and, as residents here, condemned them with moral condemnations unheard of in these parts.

“They’re both as bad as each other—but really, have you ever seen such a couple?”

“The heavens won’t let this slide, no they won’t.”

“I was at my wit’s end when the kids asked me—children these days are so darn precocious! Right at home, they said, ‘Why don’t we swap Dad and Uncle Saku?’ My mouth hung open—I couldn’t even shut it!”

“Children notice things quickly, you know.”

This conversation carried delicate implications. In other words, the fact that Matsu-san’s wife—whose plasterer husband was often delayed at work—and young laborer Saku-san had long been intimate, with their closeness growing dramatically whenever Matsu-san was away, was widely known. “It’s not just children who notice things quickly,” Matsu-san’s wife retorted coolly. “If we’re talking about affairs done discreetly out of shame, I’d say every human’s had a taste of that. Not many can boast such high-and-mighty words, I reckon. But carrying on openly like those couples—that’s just too much.”

“The heavens won’t let this slide, no they won’t.” If Katsuko and Yoshie came, everyone fell silent. Of course, it wasn’t that their conversations didn’t reach Katsuko and Yoshie’s ears. They continued speaking just loudly enough for the two to hear, and they weren’t about to forgo the luxury of observing its effects.

Despite this, the wives' expectations were betrayed. Katsuko and Yoshie showed no reaction whatsoever, joining the chatting circles with composed expressions as they laughed and talked animatedly. One of the wives, unable to bear it any longer, amiably asked Katsuko about Masuda Masuo on one occasion.

“Now that you mention it, I suppose so,” Katsuko answered plainly. “He still drinks as much as ever, but he doesn’t get drunk and cause trouble anymore. How about yours, Yoshie?” “Now that you mention it, I suppose so,” Yoshie replied with a bright look. “He still drinks as much as ever, but it seems he’s stopped getting drunk and making scenes.” The wife who’d asked smirked in vexation and tried to press further, but finding the two women so utterly composed, she ultimately couldn’t land a finishing blow. Bearing a dense, humiliated anger as if she herself had been insulted, she left.

It remained unclear whether Katsuko and Yoshie were entirely indifferent to matters concerning their husbands.

One day, while doing laundry at the water's edge, Yoshie abruptly stopped her hands. Gazing vacantly into nowhere while watching ahead, she slowly spoke in a tone that seemed to sigh: "Men are all much the same, aren't they?"

Then Katsuko stopped her hands from the laundry too, gazing vacantly as if pondering something before suddenly smiling and nodding in reply. "Really now, they're all much of a muchness." It couldn't be definitively claimed this was their mutual sentiment about the men they were currently cohabiting with. It might have been a general observation about men, but in any case, their expressions and manner of speaking carried a weight of lived reality. A similar dynamic existed among the husbands. Masuda and Kawaguchi had grown closer than before—they went to and from work together, striving to stay paired at job sites whenever possible. Even when one was assigned to revetment work and the other to cargo handling—though cargo paid better daily wages—neither clung to earnings once they learned revetment allowed extra workers; both willingly chose the revetment labor.

“What’s going on?” Every morning, the young labor recruiter who assigned jobs to the day laborers gathering there looked at them suspiciously one day and said, “You two’re always stuck together—what’re you plottin’, huh?”

The two men remained silent.

“Don’t try any half-baked stunts,” the young man snarled. “If you’re plotting some wage-hike strike, that’s one hell of a mistake—an accident’ll come raining down that’ll tear you limb from limb.” “Loudmouthed brat,” Masuda muttered. On their way home that day, while having a drink at a stall, the two men laughed together at the absurdity. “Wage-hike strike my ass,” Masuda said. “If it was skimming off the top, maybe we’d play along. But we ain’t got time for that shit, right?”

“Ain’t got time for that,” said Kawaguchi. “Hell, this ain’t exactly a time to be carefree.” That these two always stuck together clearly had nothing to do with wage-hike strikes or skimming off the top.—Were they suggesting they had more urgent shared concerns than such matters at present? No such thing seemed to exist; even working the same job sites, they couldn’t be considered particularly close.

It was clear that the two men were always together—not because they had suddenly discovered friendship, but rather out of a sense like fellow sufferers drawn to each other's company, or perhaps like criminals keeping mutual watch for fear of betrayal. The next time on their way home from work, they were again drinking at a stall. Even when drinking, they didn't seem particularly close, and their conversations rarely grew animated unless thoroughly drunk. As usual that day, they sipped shochu from cups, picked at side dishes, occasionally exchanged empty remarks in distracted tones, then fell silent—each seemingly absorbed in their own thoughts. Eventually, Masuda Masuo shook his head, slurped his shochu loudly from the cup, and muttered as if to himself.

“Women, I tell ya—h-ain’t a lick of difference between ’em.” “Seriously,” said Kawaguchi Hatsutarō, “women ain’t a lick of difference whichever way they turn.” How long these two couples’ romantic relationships lasted remained unclear—some said less than twenty days, while others claimed more than thirty. Even those who had invoked moral arguments in outrage soon grew accustomed to their romances in this “Street”—where events that piqued interest were ceaseless, and above all, their own lives demanded urgent attention—until they forgot all about it without even noticing when. And when people suddenly noticed that these two couples had returned to their original pairings, everyone was taken aback all over again.

Here’s how it happened. One day, Masuda was assigned a different job from Kawaguchi. Of course, this wasn’t the first time—depending on the day’s work, they’d often end up separated when they couldn’t get assigned to the same site. Still, they never failed to meet up at their usual stall on the way home for drinks together—but that day, they didn’t even meet there. “Your partner ain’t here,” said the stall owner. “Somethin’ wrong, boss?”

"He'll be along," Masuda answered. "Let's have some Demon Killer for a change." "Poison when you're tired," said the stall owner. "This new batch is damn strong. Sure you want it?" "Quit naggin'. I ain't new to this. If Demon Killer's poison when you're tired, there's way worse out there." "Suit yourself." "Just pour the damn thing." The liquor called Demon Killer apparently differed by region. Here, the stall owner proudly claimed their strong shochu had sixty percent alcohol content.

If it was sixty percent alcohol, there must be stronger liquors elsewhere. However, this Demon Killer somehow packed an extraordinary punch. Up to about two cups' worth, it was nothing remarkable—the texture and smell hardly differed from regular shochu. But by the time one finished the third cup, even the hardiest drinker would slump over. As if struck by an expert sniper’s bullet, they would suddenly go limp, and some would even collapse to the ground.

Masuda was no novice who’d collapse from drink, but even he couldn’t withstand Demon Killer’s potency—by the time he left the stall, his steps were unsteady. “Poison ‘cause I’m tired? Horseshit! Who the hell d’you think I am?!” Masuda said while walking. “This ain’t some rotgut I started swillin’ yesterday! Quit jerkin’ me around.” “Got it, Boss,” someone said. “You’re dead right ‘bout that—ain’t arguin’. But my old lady’s waitin’ back home, see?”

“Let ’er wait—your old lady ain’t goin’ nowhere, you—the hell? Thought you were Hatsutarō, but you ain’t him, you bastard.” “I’m beggin’ ya, Boss—I really gotta get home now.” Masuda tried to grab the other man, stumbled, and lurched against a house’s door pocket. “Keep it down! Who’s there?” snapped a woman’s voice. “See? The wife hasn’t run off—she’s right there at home,” he muttered. Then he pulled away from the door pocket and tilted his head in thought.

"Wait—hold on," he said, looking around, "Had some Demon Killer at that stall there, then turned down the alleyway—did I do a round somewhere? No—no, that ain’t right... Ain’t it? Then that means—"

“Who is it?” the woman said again. “Who’s there?”

“You idiot!” Masuda roared back. “Who’s there? What kinda bullshit is that? What kinda woman forgets her own husband’s voice? Where in hell you find a faithless bitch like that? Where in hell?!” The shoji slid open, the lamplight stretched beyond the lattice, and Katsuko stepped out into the earthen entryway to peer outside.

“Well, if it isn’t you. What’s going on?”

Katsuko opened the lattice. "So you went and said 'if it isn't you,' huh?" Masuda staggered into the earthen-floored entryway. "Hah! You think I'd be shocked hearin' that kinda talk? Quit spoutin' nonsense!" "Ugh, it reeks!" Katsuko waved her hand before her nose. "You've been drinkin' Demon Killer again—stink's strong enough to curl my nose right off!" "What's this 'Demon Killer'? So what if I drank Demon Killer?" Masuda rambled on like this while Katsuko tried coaxing him into the room, but he plopped down stubbornly on the earthen floor.

Just then, Kawaguchi Hatsutarō returned. Swinging his empty lunch bundle, he ambled over, peered in through the lattice entrance, alternately narrowing and widening his eyes, shook his head vigorously side to side, then fixed his gaze anew as if discovering some strange object, scrutinizing Katsuko and Masuda with intense focus. “Oh, you’re back,” said Katsuko. “This one’s gone and done the Demon Killer again—look at this state of him. Weren’t you together today?”

“Bro,” he said. Kawaguchi stuck his face out and peered at Masuda sitting on the earthen floor. “Ain’t that you, Bro?” “Wasn’t his job supposed to be with you today?” “At my worksite they’d brought out liquor—real whiskey, I tell ya.” Kawaguchi pressed his palm to his forehead. “Authentic whiskey—the kinda stuff that costs a fortune per bottle. Wanted to let Bro have some, but... yeah, we weren’t together today.”

“I’m sorry to ask, but give me a hand here. He’s so heavy I can’t manage alone.” “You got it.” Kawaguchi threw down his empty lunch bundle, entered the earthen floor, slid his hands under Masuda’s armpits, and hoisted him up. “Who’re you? The hell you think you’re doin’ to me?” “It’s me, Bro—steady on now. Here we go.”

“Let go of me!” “Here we go.” Kawaguchi lifted Masuda up and entered the room still wearing his work boots. "Oh my, you're wearing your shoes!" Katsuko exclaimed as Kawaguchi dragged Bro into the six-tatami room and collapsed there himself. Though not to Masuda's extent, he too seemed thoroughly drunk from authentic whiskey. The moment he collapsed onto his back, he roared at the top of his lungs, “I need a drink!” “Hey! Keep it down!” A man’s voice shouted from next door, “There’s people here too! This ain’t some lone house in the middle of nowhere!”

Katsuko shook Kawaguchi’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Hatsutarō, keep it down.” “Huh? What?” Kawaguchi raised his head. “Hatsutarō?” “The neighbors yelled at us,” said Katsuko, waving her hand. “My husband’s drunk out of his mind here, and if even you’re like this too, Hatsutarō, we’ll be in real trouble.”

“That was my bad,” Kawaguchi started to say before looking suspiciously at Katsuko. “What’s happened to Bro?” “He’s like this,” Katsuko replied, waving her hand again. Kawaguchi looked toward her waving hand, saw Masuda lying there, and muttered vacantly, “Bro.”

Kawaguchi sat upright, thoroughly confirmed everything once more, and said: "Ain't this Bro here?" "He's out of his mind."

“Still in his work boots.” “Didn’t you have him put them on? You’re still in your work boots too.” Kawaguchi looked at his feet, muttered “Damn, what a lousy Right Minister,” then crawled toward the entrance step and descended into the earthen floor. Katsuko followed after him, but Kawaguchi looked around the dim earthen floor, found the empty lunch bundle, picked it up, then nodded to Katsuko and said, “Well then.” “Give my regards to Big Bro,” he said. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Katsuko replied. “Give my regards to Yoshie.” Kawaguchi started walking slowly and, without any mistake or hesitation, went straight to his house. He opened the lattice door while saying, “I’m back.” Yoshie, who had emerged, showed no signs of surprise or confusion. “Welcome back. You’re late, aren’t you?” she said, taking the lunch bundle. “You’re drunk again—ugh, you reek. What have you been drinking?”

“It’s whiskey. Got treated to it at the worksite—authentic stuff that costs however much a bottle.” Kawaguchi said, “You think you can judge just by the smell? How the hell could someone like you possibly understand?”

“For something that’s supposed to be whiskey, that’s a nasty smell. Honestly—did you have Demon Killer again?” Muttering something like “That’s Bro’s doing,” he removed his work boots, sat down heavily with a “Gimme water,” and leaned back against the wall as if utterly exhausted.

That was how things unfolded. Beyond this, nothing else occurred, and there was no change whatsoever in either couple’s relationship or in the interactions between the Masuda and Kawaguchi households.

Every morning early, the two would meet at the water spout and set off for work. When Masuda called out “Yo!”, Kawaguchi would respond “Yo!”. “Looks like it might start drizzling today,” Masuda said. “Those clouds look ominous.” “Yeah,” Kawaguchi said. “The good weather’s lasted a bit too long.”

And then, they walked off together.

Then, a few hours later, when Katsuko and Yoshie met at the water spout, their conversation once again flowed just as it always did.

“How was it over at your place last night, Yoshie?” Katsuko asked, “When it comes to my husband, he’s such a mud turtle—I’m completely fed up, honestly.” “Same here.” Yoshie answered while splashing laundry water, “If he’d just bring back half of what he drinks, it’d help here at least a bit.” “Why on earth do men want to drink so much?” “They must have boa constrictors in their bellies—I’m just sick of it, don’t you think?”

The neighbors didn’t know exactly when they had returned to normal, and once they had, they no longer had any interest or anything to say. Therefore, between those two couples, there was nothing—subjectively or objectively—to speak of.

A House with a Pool

On a June afternoon misty with light rain, the parent and child walked through the town. The father appeared to be around forty years old, the child six or seven. Though small and thin for a six-year-old, listening to his conversations with his father made him seem at least seven.

Both parent and child wore tattered clothes and wooden geta sandals worn down like planks. The tattered clothes they wore could not be distinguished as lined or padded. Their hair—cropped short in what’s commonly called a tiger cut but now grown out—and their gaunt, unhealthy faces presented an utterly typical image of beggars; indeed, this father and child lived a life scarcely different from actual beggars. The reason for calling them beggar-like lay in the form of their lifestyle—in substance, there was a considerable difference. They received both food and clothing from others and lived in a doghouse-like dwelling, but they never sat by the roadside to beg for money. On Nakadori or Hondori streets, when women occasionally gave the child some money, he would bow with a “Thank you” and accept it—no different from any other child, showing no trace of wanting more. This too was reflected in their conversations: walking through the misty rain without umbrellas, they spoke of the house they would someday build for themselves.

"A hilltop would be a good location," the father said. "The Japanese have had this habit since ancient times of building homes only in low places—mountain shadows, valleys, the sheltered hollows of hills." "Yeah, you’re right," the child nodded with a thoughtful expression. "When we went to Hama too, all the Westerners’ houses were on hilltops or mid-level heights, but Japanese houses were always in valley-like low places."

“And there’s a reason for that too,” the father continued. Japan has many earthquakes and typhoons; because wooden houses are vulnerable to these, people came to choose locations less exposed to wind and with lower risk during natural disasters.

"But it's not just that."

The Japanese were sensitive to what they termed “shadows and light,” preferring indirect illumination over direct sunlight and favoring light softened by screens rather than unshielded brightness. They incorporated the beauty of stillness into daily life and had a custom of avoiding anything garish. “That’s why we Japanese just can’t get used to living like Westerners—stomping around in stone houses with our shoes on.” “Hmm...” The child tilted his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, I don’t like stone houses either. They’re cold—I really don’t like stone houses.”

“Well, you can’t really say it’s all like that either.” “Certainly, wooden architecture suits us Japanese,” the father said reflectively, “but if we keep living only in houses made of wood, mud, and paper like this, over generations, even our national character will adapt to it—producing people who lack endurance and depth.” There, the father spoke about Westerners’ character and said what had supported their capabilities was a lifestyle of living in stone-, iron-, and concrete-built houses; eating at tables with shoes still on; and holding grand banquets.

The child listened attentively to each word, and whenever a response was called for, he would nod as if deeply moved, sigh, or groan. The father’s manner of speaking didn’t sound like he was addressing his own child, and the child’s responses didn’t seem like he was listening to his father. As was always the case, the two seemed less like father and child than like siblings with a slight age difference or the most intimate of friends. "Even so—now that it's finally come time to build our own house, this presents its own separate set of problems. When it’s a house we ourselves will live in, national character is one thing, but practical realities are another."

“I don’t think national character matters much.”

“You say that, but this concerns your future. We adults don’t have much time left ourselves—even if we tried developing three-dimensional character traits from now on, it’d be impossible. When considering you and your children and grandchildren yet to come, we can’t just indulge solely in personal preferences.” “Yeah, uh-huh, you’re right.” The town grew dusky in the rain, the streets clamorous with taxis, pedestrians, trucks and such. Yet this meant nothing to the parent and child, just as they seemed nonexistent to the taxi drivers, pedestrians, shopkeepers along the street, and those shopping at their stalls.

When dusk fell, the father and child returned to their dwelling. It was attached to Old Man Hachida’s house in our 'town'—that is, built right against the clapboard siding of his home, pieced together from old planks. Standing one and a half meters high, a bit over one meter wide, and just under two meters long—this handmade sleeping hut exactly like a doghouse contained layered plank flooring inside, with bundles of straw and rush mats serving as the parent and child’s bedding. Outside the hut stood a beer crate, inside which were two bowls, chopsticks, a Yukihira pot with a chipped rim, and a dented aluminum milk pot covered in bumps. Beside the beer crate was a shichirin charcoal stove bound with wire—a worn-out wreck of a thing that would surely fall apart if the wire were removed.

The father and child ate their meals outside the hut. In the Yukihira pot and milk pot were rice, soup, and such—sometimes bread and stew, sometimes fried rice and coffee, sometimes an indescribable concoction of meat, vegetables, fish, breadcrumbs, and rice—but neither father nor child cared what sort of meal it was. Rather than indifference, they actually seemed to be diverting their attention from the food itself, striving to concentrate their senses of smell, taste, and sight as much as possible in other directions.

But while this was their usual practice, it wasn't something immutable. At times, something that awakened their taste buds would emerge in the soup or amidst the rice or bread. "Well now, what do we have here?" The father extracted a small piece of meat with his chopsticks. "How rare—this appears to be roast beef. Expertly cooked rare too. The key is to stop roasting when the center's still red. Care to eat it?"

“It’s fine, Dad, you eat it,” the child said with a frown. “I don’t like undercooked meat.” “Beef, you see—” While putting the leftover roast beef in his mouth, the father said earnestly, “In Germany and France they eat it raw—or maybe just Bavaria—that might be how they do it specifically in Bavaria. You make a lemon marinade with onions and bay leaves, put the meat in there to soak, then take it out and top it with minced onions and spices. Serve it raw like that with black bread.”

“And some grated cheese too,” the child added. “—Or perhaps not?” “It’s a matter of taste, but that would make the flavor too overpowering.” The father swallowed the meat he had been chewing, paused to imagine for a moment, then shook his head seriously. “Hmm—in this case we probably don’t need grated cheese. Grated cheese would rather—” In this manner, the father slowly explained several meat dishes.

His explanations might have been immediately recognized by experts as fantasies colored by his imagination—a patchwork of half-digested knowledge and hearsay. Conversely, it might have been true that despite possessing such experience and knowledge, along with a certain degree of innate talent, his ill fortune had prevented him from succeeding in any field. He had an impressively broad range of topics, and the child served as his most attentive listener. When they finished their evening meal, they would relax outside the hut during warmer seasons. The child would insert cigarette butts—collected from the streets—into a handmade bamboo holder, and puffing on them reverently while the father talked and the child listened. Though it wasn't uncommon for the child to take up the role of speaker, neither touched upon anything real. Nearly all of it was abstract, consisting of what seemed pure fantasy and invention.

What stood out most clearly was that the child never spoke of his mother, and the father never spoke of his wife or family relations. Whatever the circumstances might have been, a child around seven years old should have thoughts of his mother in mind, whether she was alive or dead. A man might feel that way too, but for a child especially, the image of his mother would be deeply engraved in his heart. Yet the child never spoke of his own mother and had never mentioned other children's mothers either. When sleeping in the hut and waking in the dead of night, or when walking through town with his father, a lonely expression yearning for human connection would fleetingly appear on the child's face. At such moments, he might have been remembering his mother and feeling that impulse of longing. He showed no signs of forcibly suppressing or enduring it—yet neither did he ever give voice to it.

Where the father and child had come from or what their previous life had been like—none of the residents in this “town” knew. None even knew their names. The Old Man Hachida who had permitted them to build their hut there—to be precise named Hachida Kōhei—when first asking about names had merely received a bitter smile from the man as he scratched at his nape and said he wasn’t one worth formal introduction.

Hachida Kōhei was also a bachelor who believed himself an entrepreneur, ceaselessly devising grand ventures only to fail them repeatedly. Since a businessman must maintain an open-handed disposition, Hachida deliberately pursued nothing and declared he would charge no hut rent. Hachida Kōhei had exaggerated. Within this "town's" residents existed no owners of land or houses. Proper landlords did exist elsewhere, and those privy to this fact were likely Mr. Saitō the Yaso and a mere handful of others. Not once or twice had disputes over "rent" arisen between landlords and tenants—disputes that Mr. Saitō the Yaso mediated until settlements were reached—meaning Old Man Hachida's declaration about waiving "land rent" amounted to nothing beyond a show of magnanimity.

Not only did the neighbors not know their names, but even between the father and child, they did not call each other by name. The father never called his child by name, and the child never addressed him as "Dad" or "Papa". Both of them would only address each other with vague calls like "Hey" or "Hmm," which made their relationship feel more like close friends or siblings rather than parent and child.

After ten o'clock at night, the child slipped out of the hut and made his way alone to Yanagi Alley. This was a section of backstreets at the southern edge of Nakadori Avenue, lined with small restaurants, oden stalls, modest eateries, Chinese noodle shops, and sushi places—colloquially known as "Nonombo Alley."

The child first visited the back door of "Sushitei". This was both because the sushi shop closed earlier than anywhere else and because they had containers stored there. “Sure thing, it’s cold tonight,” the mistress would say. “We had a busy day—there’s only what’s in there left. You’ll have to make do.” “Well, you made it, kid,” the old man would say. “Take what’s there. Make sure to cook any raw stuff through.”

The child bowed and said thank you. Beyond that exchange, he never spoke; the old man at Sushitei would often ask in a tone that didn't seem entirely teasing if the boy wanted to come work at his place, but the child had never once responded to this offer. The container they kept stored there consisted of three stacked aluminum pots fitted with a wire frame that ran from bottom to top, allowing them to be carried while still nested together. They had designated one pot for soups, another for vegetables, meats, and fish, and the remaining one for rice, udon noodles, soba noodles, and similar items. Of course, it was rare for them to become full to that extent; vegetables, meats, rice, udon, and such things seldom retained their original forms. If one could broadly categorize them into soups and items with somewhat discernible shapes, that was considered good enough—without considerable experience, distinguishing those contents was no easy task.

After the sushi shop came small eateries, then restaurants, oden stalls, and Chinese noodle shops; among them—two restaurants, four small eateries, three oden stalls, and two Chinese noodle shops—priority went to those establishments beginning to close. Mistiming carried multiple risks: approaching too early might draw complaints like "How ill-omened—we still have customers!" or "You trying to drive our patrons away?"; a single blunder meant waiting until shopkeepers' moods improved enough to receive scraps again; there was even the constant threat of competitors seizing one's hard-won rights.

It may go without saying, but those who came to collect food scraps were not limited to the child alone. From our "town" as well, when earnings were lacking and times got tough, there were those who secretly visited the back doors of these establishments; and there were also a few who came regularly from elsewhere. —Strangely enough, Hachida Kōhei had also made an appearance. However, in Old Man Hachida’s case, it was not out of desperation but rather part of his scheme to turn it into a "business venture." Among his unbelievably diverse entrepreneurial ambitions, this had been one of the most promising and reliable examples; however, due to an opposition statement from the mistress of Hanabiko, an oden shop, it unfortunately failed to get off the ground.

“Having to beg comes from your own failings,” declared Hanabiko’s mistress to her fellow Nonombo Alley shopkeepers. “But hoarding it all alone to turn a profit—that’s inhuman! I’d sooner dump it in the gutter than give it to scum like you!” The child knew these risks intimately. The restaurant workers showed no particular favoritism—if someone appeared at precisely the right moment while they closed up and tidied, they’d give scraps to anyone without distinction. Arrive just one step late, and your regular spot might already be claimed by another.

There was one more thing. It had to be understood that these shops did not always part with their scraps willingly. Many of them were also running their businesses with great difficulty—struggling to make ends meet—and there were a considerable number of such people regardless of outward appearances. These establishments were apparently collectively referred to as “nightlife businesses,” and when it came to nightlife businesses, popularity was said to be crucial. No matter how dire one’s financial straits might be, the key lay in not letting such circumstances show even a wisp—this also served as a crutch to overcome crises. Thus, even when handing over a handful of scraps, they weren’t solely savoring charitable satisfaction; there were likely many instances where they wanted to say, “We’re in no position for that ourselves.” This went smoothly enough when dealing directly with owners or mistresses like those at Sushitei or Hanabiko—but in places with employees, especially waitresses, things often didn’t proceed smoothly. Though the psychological mechanism remained unclear, among waitresses at Western-style eateries doubling as restaurants or bars were those who made a habit of stubbing out cigarettes on plates of customers’ leftovers, stuffing rouge-smeared tissues into dishes, and tossing in matchsticks, toothpicks, snot-covered paper, and various other items. In extreme cases—while someone was emptying scraps—there were even ladies who went out of their way to approach and toss in cigarette butts.

The child had now come to the back of a restaurant called Riza. The glass door there was open, but the usual cook was nowhere to be seen; two waitresses leaned against the sink, talking loudly and smoking cigarettes. “Oh, that little squirt’s back again,” said one of the waitresses upon noticing the child at the back door. “No use coming here—there’s nothing for you. Go home.” The child directed his gaze to the corner. There was an enamel-coated can about half the size of a drum can, inside which Western-style food scraps had accumulated to about eighty percent capacity. Usually, the cook who owned the place would set aside leftovers in another sauce pot for the child, but now nothing of the sort could be seen.

“What’re you loitering around for?” the same waitress said. “Standing there like that won’t get you anything. Go home.”

The child turned around and left the spot. He was completely expressionless; there was no way to discern how he felt about the waitress’s unjust insult. He seemed accustomed to such insults; conversely, by not acknowledging them, he appeared to be returning the slight to its perpetrator. Though appearing to be barely seven years old, he carried himself with composure, and in his expression and manner of speaking there somehow exuded a certain mellow gentleness—as if possessing the world-weary wisdom of a sage or the resigned gentleness of an adult weathered through hardship.

By the time he finished his rounds through Nonombo Alley, there were times when, if things went poorly, he would encounter other formidable adversaries.

One of the adversaries was a dog named Maru. The other was a trio of boys. Despite its gentle-sounding name Maru, the dog possessed a massive forty-kilogram frame and a face so fearsome it would make a gorilla blush. Upon spotting the child, it would come lumbering closer with deliberate slowness, baring its teeth and growling all the while. Dog lovers often assert that a dog with such a large frame and terrifying visage is actually rather gentle and harmless. Indeed, Maru was usually gentle and timid; even when glared at by a dog half his size, he would avert his eyes with a wilted expression or slink away to hide behind something. He had never fought with other dogs, nor did he ever bark at suspicious humans. Despite this, the moment Maru spotted the child in Nonombo Alley, he would curl back his lips to bare his teeth and lumber closer as if showcasing his massive, weighty frame.

It seemed there were things like compatibility and mutual aversion between humans and animals—Maru appeared to dislike the child, and the child likely found Maru too much to handle. When the old pots he carried contained food scraps, he would empty them completely onto the ground and flee; when he had yet to receive anything, he had no choice but to show Maru each of the three pots one by one—demonstrating their emptiness—before giving up on that night’s collection and returning home. Of course, Maru paid no attention to the food scraps whatsoever.

The trio of boys belonged to what was generally called hoodlums; though there was no need or reason for it, they seemed to derive a heroic thrill from intimidating, beating, or stealing belongings from those who appeared weak, believing that this alone was the joy of living. The oldest was about fifteen years old, and the other two were probably twelve or thirteen. Though they appeared to be boys from proper households—wearing trendy shirts and pants they intentionally disheveled—they patrolled with a threatening yet disjointed gait as if their joints were unhinged. But upon discovering our child, they would let out Indian-like war cries and perform war dances around him while circling his small frame—poking him, yanking his hair and ears, snatching the old pot he carried, and scattering its contents of food scraps.

The child never resisted. Not because he had weighed the disparity in strength, but because he appeared to fully comprehend the utter futility of resistance. Furthermore, he seemed to recognize this as an inescapable tribulation—something all must endure while drawing breath in this world.

When the gang members grew tired of their game and left after either knocking him down one last time or delivering another blow, only then would the child shed tears.

While gathering the scattered pots, he wept silently without uttering a word. Tears streaked messily down his cheeks, but he never spoke nor let out a sob—this had never once occurred, nor did he ever tell his father after returning home. When the child returned home, he would take the pot and crawl into their hut. The father was usually sound asleep, and at such times the child would carefully avoid waking him, slipping quietly into his own bedding. But when the father had retired early and was already well-rested, it was not uncommon for him to stir awake at the child's return. Then they would inevitably fall into their usual conversations, sometimes lasting until dawn.

"I've been thinking while lying here," the father began. "When building a house, the gate comes first—it's like a person's face, you know? Just by looking at someone's face, you can get a rough idea of their character. A rough idea, mind you." "Yeah... Uh-huh... That's right."

“Of course, there’s also the saying about not judging by appearances—but putting it that way... You’re getting sleepy, aren’t you?” “I’m not sleepy at all.” The child rubbed his eyes and answered brightly, “I’m fine.”

He yawned. Patrolling Nonbe Alley had worn down his nerves and left his body exhausted. His legs felt heavy, and his eyes were on the verge of sticking shut. Yet he fought against them with all his might, keeping his father company in conversation. Was the father unaware of this, or was he aware but compelled to keep talking for some reason—as though interrupting it might trigger something abnormal? —Be that as it may, the father spoke of various "gates" and their dignity and beauty, while the child patiently nodded along, murmured in awe, and eagerly agreed.

They almost never cooked meals. In cold seasons they would boil water, but for meals they would sort through the food scraps, transfer them into their respective bowls, and eat them cold. “Cold meals are good for your health,” the father would often say. “Take dogs for example—the ones kept by the bourgeois are well cared for, but their bodies actually grow weaker.” “But stray dogs that scavenge and sleep on the ground—they don’t get cavities or weak stomachs, right?”

“Yeah, uh-huh, that’s right.”

“Living creatures originally ate cold food, you know—this looks like pork cutlet. Will you eat it?”

"No, you eat it," the child said, shaking his head. "I have some too." The father ate pieces of pork cutlet and launched into his theory—how warm clothes and rich food made human bodies weak and sickly, while cold meals and outdoor living were perfectly natural and beneficial to health. Even as he advocated cold meals and outdoor living as humanity's most natural and healthy state, their imaginary house—repeatedly built and remodeled in their minds—gradually evolved into an increasingly grand mansion.

The gate had been settled as a kabukimon gate made entirely of hinoki cypress, the fence of Ōya stone. The Western-style building had been outfitted with heating and cooling systems on both floors, the Japanese-style rooms designed in sukiya-style architecture. The garden had been planned as an expanse of lawn, for which they would procure Evergreen from England. For the approximately two thousand square meter garden, they had decided to make the western third an oak grove interspersed with young cedars, having excluded all flowering trees.

The above became the result of the father and child meticulously and repeatedly examining [the plans], proposing trial designs, and correcting flaws—a result that had grown nearly satisfactory. They had reached a point where they could instantly identify and explain every aspect of the mansion’s exterior—from any angle, down to the finest detail—as though it were a tangible reality. “We have finally reached the stage of furnishing the place.” Walking through town with the child, the father said in a measured tone, “For the Western-style building, I want to go with a Scottish look—like this—” He gestured a shape in the air with his hand. “Using sturdy, thick oak for everything—either an old Highland lord’s manor or, no—a hunting lodge estate. Furnishings that retain the simplicity of peasant craftsmanship yet exude a dignified, composed elegance.”

The child tilted his head but, perhaps unable to find words to respond, merely shrugged his right shoulder and rubbed his cheek, saying nothing. “The problem is the kitchen,” the father said, narrowing his eyes as he tried to give concreteness to his imagination. “In other words, should we make it Japanese-style?” He again gestured a shape in the air with his hand. “Or should we go with a Western-style one that has a countertop equipped with a gas range and frying iron plate?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” The child cautiously furrowed his brow and said, “Maybe we don’t need to rush that yet.”

“That’s true—we’re not in any particular hurry, mind you. But since we’ve already settled all the plans for the buildings and garden, those parts might as well be finished already.”

“Oh… I guess you’re right.” The child answered as if shouldering a heavy burden, “Well… I guess it’s the kitchen after all.” The father vigorously scratched his unshaven cheek as he discussed whether to make the kitchen Japanese-style or Western-style. This kitchen matter would undoubtedly remain their enjoyable topic for some time—or rather, for as long as possible. The two would walk side by side through town, sometimes sit together in grassy fields, and at night converse in their cramped, dim hut while distracting themselves from hunger.

It must have been a disappointment for the father, but when the interior furnishings had progressed as far as the Western-style mansion’s parlor, the child died.

On the hottest night in early September, inside a shack more wretched than a doghouse, after suffering from severe diarrhea for about a week, the child died as if it were a lie—so abruptly. The exact cause of death remained unclear. One morning during a meal, the child lit a fire in the charcoal stove. Because he was burning the assorted wood scraps and tree branches he had gathered, the sleeping father choked on the smoke, stuck his face out of the hut, and said, "Why are you making a fire? We don’t need hot water." They only boiled water for meals during cold seasons, as they had always made do with plain water otherwise.

"It's not for hot water." The child turned his face—darkened around the eyes—and said, "There's raw food, so I'm boiling it." "Raw food? Let me see it."

The child took the milk boiler, went over to his father, and showed him what was inside. "What? It's just salted mackerel." The father twitched his nose and stroked his lips sideways with his hand. "This has been preserved with salt and vinegar—it's not raw." "The uncle from Sushisada told me to cook it thoroughly."

The father shook his head. “You must’ve made a mistake. Boiling salted mackerel like that makes it inedible.” “But...” The child tried to argue back, but upon seeing his father slowly shake his head, he forced a tearful smile and set down the milk boiler. From that afternoon onward, the father and son began to suffer from stomach pain and diarrhea. It might have been poisoning from the salted mackerel, but it was also possible that wasn’t the case. The salted mackerel had tasted fine, and its smell hadn’t seemed off. What they’d eaten wasn’t limited to that—various foods had become so thoroughly mixed that distinguishing them was impossible.

“This isn’t salted mackerel.” The father said in a tone not of self-justification but of medical introspection, “—If you’d gotten sick from salted mackerel, first you’d break out in hives or start vomiting. But neither of us had those symptoms. So this isn’t food poisoning—I think it’s just a chill.” Grimacing from stomach pain, the child nodded along—“Yeah... Mm...”—as he agreed.

At the base of Saiganji Temple’s cliff stood a communal toilet on the verge of collapse. Having long since fallen into disuse, it now resembled nothing more than a heap of dried-out, rotted planks. Now only that father and child were using it; during the period when diarrhea persisted, the two would make their way there from their hut. By the third day, the father’s symptoms had subsided. His stomach pain eased after one night, and by the third day his diarrhea had stopped altogether. As for the child, neither his stomach pain nor diarrhea lessened, and after the third day had passed he grew so weakened he could no longer walk as far as the base of the cliff.

“I’m okay, you don’t need to worry.” “I’ll get better soon,” the child said encouragingly to his father. “Well, of course—not like I’m worried about that or anything.” The father stroked his stomach. “Fasting’s the only treatment at times like this—but even that has its limits.” The child looked at his father with apologetic eyes. Because the father had already recovered, he needed to eat something. He had probably become unable to endure his hunger anymore. And now, the child clearly understood that he was expressing this need to him.

“I wish I could walk,” the child said. “I think I’ll be able to soon.” “Oh, oh, don’t be silly.” He waved his hand. “I’m not asking you to go to Nonbe Alley—if we absolutely must eat something, I’ll go myself. That’s not it—I’m not even that hungry yet. The only treatment for this diarrhea is fasting, and the longer you fast, the better it’ll be in the long run. Besides, even if you go ten or fifteen days without food or water, a person won’t die.”

The child sharply contorted his wrinkled face and, while clutching his stomach, bent his body into a C-shape. Perhaps his stomach had started hurting, or maybe diarrhea was about to begin. He gritted his teeth to suppress any moans and curled his entire body into a circle.

Could it be that the father couldn't see this? He averted his eyes from the child as if dazzled, lifted the cloth hanging over the entrance, and left the hut. The child's condition was no longer ordinary; his body had completely wasted away, his skin hanging in wrinkles like an old man's. Blood had begun mixing into his stool, and the intervals between bouts only grew shorter. Could he not see this as the child's father? Was he pretending not to know what he saw, trying to deceive himself? Having exited the hut, he put on worn-out clogs and sat down on an empty beer crate at his side. His face remained utterly expressionless; with eyes as drowsy as if asleep, he gazed into the distance and let out a long sigh without making a sound.

“About the Western-style mansion’s reception room,” the father spoke to the child inside the hut, “I’ve decided to reconsider that idea of making it Scottish-style.”

When his stomach growled, he hurriedly raised his voice and spoke earnestly about new ideas for the reception room.

Come now—quickly take that child to a doctor! The treatment costs can be sorted out later. In any case—go see a doctor! You can't leave him lying on such ground; move him into a hospital bed immediately! Don't you understand? It'll be too late.

The father slowly stood up and let out a big yawn.

When a pet dog sees its owner’s face, it first lets out a big yawn before wagging its tail—what does that mean? Even he—the child’s father—opened his mouth wide in a yawn, though this was hardly the time for it. What did this mean? Was he bored? Was he at his wit’s end? Needless to say, it bore no resemblance to a pet dog’s yawn. His yawn had a feeling entirely opposite to that of a dog expressing joy upon seeing its owner.

On the afternoon of the fifth day since falling ill, the child became nearly unconscious. The occasional delirious mutterings were unintelligible, and even when spoken to, there was no response. The father did nothing but go in and out of the hut, not even attempting to touch the child.

He did not appear as the parent of a single child; rather, he resembled an infant abandoned by his parents. Like an infant abandoned suddenly by his parents in an unfamiliar town—not knowing what to do next, unable to discern whom to turn to—on the verge of bursting into tears.

—— Around ten at night, the father—who had been crouching outside the hut—reached toward three stacked old pots as if after deep deliberation. "So it is—human beings can't go without eating," he muttered under his breath. "Even a sick person can't be left unfed forever."

He still seemed to hesitate, but soon—as if declaring he’d made up his mind—lifted the stacked old pots and stood up.

“I’ll be right back.”

The father called into the hut.

“I’m just going to Nonbe Alley, you know. I’ll be right back—I’ll bring you something tasty.”

He set out into the night streets, dredging up names from the depths of his memory—Sushitei, Hanabiko—places the child always talked about. And then, about an hour later, he returned chewing something in his mouth, set down the old pot, and peered into the hut. "I'm back now," he said. "When I told them you had an upset stomach, the madam at Hanabiko said that wouldn't do and gave us something delicious."

“Hey,” the child said. “I’d forgotten, but let’s build a pool.”

He had said it clearly. His voice held no strength and was slightly hoarse, yet his manner of speaking was unsettlingly clear. The father smiled with a tearful expression. "Yeah, okay—let's do that," he said loudly. "We'll do whatever you want. There we go—finally settled now." The child's illness had passed its crisis. Children are resilient creatures; he regained a healthy complexion and, unusually enough, began building a fire in the shichirin while humming.

He made porridge from leftovers using the numetal milk warmer and was about to feed it to him when he entered the hut, only to find the child had already turned cold.

The next morning, when Yaso's Mr. Saita passed by the hut, he was sitting on an empty beer crate, gazing blankly at the sky with a milk warmer in hand, muttering something to himself.

"Good morning," Mr. Saita called out. "How's the little one?" He looked up at Mr. Saita with eyes that seemed to see a complete stranger, yet answered, "Yes, he's fine." When Mr. Saita asked if he’d heard the child had been ill but was now recovered, he answered, "Yes, thanks to you," and turned his face away as if to say how bothersome this was. He had frequently traveled back and forth between Saiganji’s cliff and the hut while carrying the child, so the neighbors couldn’t have failed to see him. Mr. Saita had likely heard about it from someone, but upon seeing his indifferent attitude, he lost any desire to say more and left while muttering something like, "Looks like another hot day today."

After that, no one ever saw the child again. First, Hatta Kōhei noticed this and asked what had become of the boy. "I returned him to his mother," he answered. "Oh? So that kid had a mother?" Old Man Hatta asked back in disbelief. "Didn't you have a mother?" he retorted.

“I had a mother too, y’know. No kid gets born without one.” “Suppose not,” he said, turning his face away. Hatta Kōhei seemed to want to ask more, but finding his manner utterly cold and downright standoffish, he let the matter drop there and then.

Before anyone knew who started it, a rumor spread that someone had seen him carrying the child on his back and walking off toward Saiganji Temple one early morning while it was still pitch dark. Some said he must have abandoned the sick child somewhere, while others claimed he’d truly returned him to his mother—but since neither outcome concerned them in the least, they soon stopped even gossiping about it.

The heat of September ended, and October too passed. Every night around eleven, he would go to Nonbe Alley, collect food scraps, return home, crawl into his hut, and sleep alone. When morning came, he would finish eating alone outside the hut, wash that triple-layered old pot, leave it with the wife at Hanabiko oden shop in Nonbe Alley, then spend the day either wandering about somewhere or returning to the hut and lazing around. In time, a replacement for the child came into being.

At some point after November began, a small-footed puppy started following him. A puppy that had been born just forty or fifty days prior—a black-and-white mixed breed with thick limbs and a sharp, clever-looking face—would follow him wherever he went and took to sleeping together with him in the hut. “That’s right—that’s how it is.” He walked through the streets, unconsciously muttering to himself: “—Wait, you can’t just say it’s all like that. Hmm—there are times when it’s not. It’s not so simple.”

The puppy pressed itself against his legs as it followed along. Every now and then, it would lift its sharp little face to look at him and wag its tail as if to say, "That's right—it really is." And when he turned to look, it would gaze up with eyes that seemed to convey Yes, I'm right here, don't worry, everything's fine—wagging its tail all the more vigorously. He rarely ever spoke to it. When he turned to look at the puppy, an indescribable expression would cross his face. It seemed he wanted to say something but, knowing the other couldn't hear him even if he did speak, would murmur something like, "How sad."

You—what did you do with the child? What did you do with the dead child. Don’t you ever think about that boy? Have you already forgotten? Don’t you feel any pity for that young child who gathered leftovers for you—who warmed them for your meals—who listened without complaint to your rambling nonsense—those useless fantasies—who walked through rain by your side—who tirelessly tended to your needs? You—what in God’s name did you do with that child.

“It’s nothing major.” He continued walking and declared in a raised voice, “Either way, there’s not much difference—fifty steps and a hundred steps may be worlds apart, but the world says they’re about the same. When it’s your own problem though, even ninety steps versus a hundred would keep you up at night—but still, I guess none of it really matters much.”

Cold rain began to fall. The afternoon town, nearing December, saw the flow of people grow sparse for a time; the road began to slowly dampen, and the pebbles seemed to glisten coldly. The puppy trailed behind him with its tail and head drooping, its increasingly drenched fur appearing heavy—yet never straying from his side as it scurried along. When they reached a certain street corner, it would confidently turn in one direction as if it knew the way by heart. He didn’t always take that path; more often than not, he would continue straight or turn the opposite way. But upon noticing the puppy standing still and watching him suspiciously, he would silently backtrack and set off in the direction the puppy had turned.

After walking about two blocks along that road, it became a gentle slope. At the base of the ascent on the right stood a police box, and just thirty paces further up on the same side was Saiganji Temple's main gate.

Accompanied by the puppy, he passed through the temple gate, crossed the front garden of the main hall, and proceeded straight into the cemetery. The rain neither intensified nor showed signs of letting up, and droplets that had pooled on the bare branches of trees spilled down incessantly upon him and the puppy. Cemeteries too had their districts divided—the high-class residential areas and middle class were quite distinctly separated from the lower-class housing and row house neighborhoods. While the former contained graves receiving perpetual veneration for fifty or a hundred years—rarely even longer—in the latter district, it was uncommon to find any maintained for over thirty. When graves grew slightly older there, they were left uncleaned and overgrown, many becoming unclaimed graves with no telling when they might be cleared.

He walked to the western edge of the cemetery and stopped before a vacant lot roughly two meters square—its rear a bamboo grove, its left and right blocked by dead tree forests. The place showed no particular change—just sparse weeds withering on red clay soil—but he squatted down before it and fixed his gaze on a single spot of earth. "I'm all for building a pool," he murmured under his breath. "Maybe right in the middle of the lawn... An Evergreen lawn with a white-tiled pool at its center wouldn't be bad. Gives it a bit of bourgeois flair, don't you think?"

Perhaps chilled by the rain soaking its fur, the puppy sat pressed tightly against his side, its body quivering minutely as it gazed up at his face, occasionally letting out low nasal whimpers that sounded almost like entreaties of “Let’s go home already.” His disheveled hair, unkempt beard, and tattered padded robe were soaked through enough to wring out; raindrops dripped from his matted locks down his forehead, cheeks, and along his jaw to his neck. “There are slight issues with the water supply and drainage systems,” he said, wiping his entire face with his hands and rubbing around his eyes. “Since the property’s on high ground, we’ll need a tank for droughts—and when it comes to drainage, a small sewer won’t handle a pool full of water.”

The puppy whimpered nasally. He gestured with one hand as though sketching something in the air, but let it fall limp immediately after, his head bowing low in tandem. Then, speaking as if addressing someone present there, he said:

“Don’t worry—I’ll build it. That pool was all you ever asked for… You should’ve demanded more. Anything else you wanted.” As raindrops trickled down, he wiped his face with his hand once more and rubbed at his eyes. The sky had darkened completely now, the puppy shivering against him as it let out a frail, pleading whine.

The Sheltered Wife

Toku-san got married.

Toku-san was said to be related to the renowned boss “Chikushō” family and always took pride in being a professional gambler. How much of this to believe, no one could tell—but his love of gambling was an undeniable fact. Toku-san would challenge anyone to a bet, regardless of time or place, as long as there was an opponent. “Hey, let’s have a round, hey,” Toku-san pressed. “The number on the next city tram—odd or even, hey—let’s bet a round on that, hey.”

“Hey—let’s make a bet—hey,” he pressed. “We’ll use your teeth—upper set for odd, lower set for even. Or combine ’em all—odd or even?” “Hold on,” he cut in with a restraining gesture, “Don’t close your mouth—you’ll count ’em with your tongue! Keep it open—stick out that tongue. Now—odd or even?” Number of wood grains in paneling. Age of passing old men. Length of rope scraps. Segments in citrus fruits. Matchsticks in a bundle. Petals on flowers. Rails under streetcars. Girders on bridges. Grains in a rice bowl. No matter how you tallied them up—the truth was anything countable became betting fodder on the spot.

He boasted of being thirty-two, but in truth appeared to be twenty-eight or nine. He wasn’t muscular but had a pudgy, medium build, wearing nothing but a washed-out yukata year-round—in winter, he threw on a tattered hanten jacket full of frayed holes. It was a women’s hanten jacket so old its stripes were barely discernible—but if anyone remarked, “Isn’t that women’s clothing?” they were typically subjected to an hour-long account about *her*: the woman who had tearfully begged him to wear it, followed by romantic boasts so improbable they bordered on the unbelievable. If someone said, “I’ve heard that one before,” he would instead produce another woman from his repertoire—and then they’d be subjected to tales so dreary they weighed on the spirits for days. Her face was at once oblong and round, yet somehow neither—eyebrows indistinct, eyes narrow, lips thick, nose pockmarked like an orange peel, every inch scarred with acne marks. Though his height barely reached 1.60 meters, he boasted of being “a full five shaku seven sun,” and perhaps to prove this claim, was always standing on tiptoes in others’ eyes.

One day, a police officer visited Toku-san’s home regarding Mr. Shingo of the “Street.” It was later learned that he had been a young officer who first questioned Shima Yukichi next door before coming to Toku-san’s house. “What is it?” The moment he saw the police officer, Toku-san began trembling violently. “What’s this about? I ain’t got nothin’ to do with the Take family!” “It’s not about you—it’s something that doesn’t concern you.” While flipping through his notebook without looking at him, the police officer said, “Do you know a man called Tobe Shingo?”

When he realized it wasn’t about him, Toku-san’s stiff expression relaxed and the trembling of his frame ceased. The moment he smiled with drooping eye corners, his customary mannerism resurfaced. “Do I know Tobe or don’t I?” Toku-san said. “Care to make it a round, sir?” The police officer eyed him suspiciously. “What sort of round?” “A bet! It’s a bet!”

The police officer’s mouth slowly opened. “You place your bet first, sir,” he said with practiced smoothness. “Whether I know Tobe or not—you’re free to wager either way. No tricks in a proper bet—I’ll give you an honest answer. Come on—care to try a round?” He reportedly said there was no bet this favorable for you, sir. No one knew how the young police officer responded to this—some said he got angry, others that he laughed, and still others claimed he remained silent as if he hadn’t heard a thing. The next evening, he was cornered by his neighbor Mr. Shima in front of his house.

Mr. Shima had a delicate chronic condition—a facial nerve spasm—and one leg was slightly shorter. Yet he maintained a cheerful disposition, got along well with everyone, and always wore an amiable smile. Though neighbors, he and Toku-san rarely interacted and spoke to each other only on rare occasions. "You did it, didn't you?" Mr. Shima said to him with a tight smile, "Was there some major incident?"

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play dumb—the cops came ’round last night, didn’t they?” “You know about that?” “They stopped by my place first—seems you’re quite the big shot.” “Aw, c’mon now.” He grew smug, scratching his head to hide it. “They just drop by sometimes to check in—a real nuisance, but what can ya do? Police gotta do their job, I s’pose.” “I never realized you were such an important figure—my opinion of you’s gone up.” “Quit it, will ya?” He puffed up like a proper gambler. “Me? I’m still wet behind the ears in this business.”

Toku-san told this story to all the people he knew—how Mr. Shima had caught him at an awkward moment, or how this sort of thing wouldn’t happen if he were just some low-ranking lackey. He even said things like how the police had already caught on that I was going to become an executive.

Toku-san had gotten married. One night, he went around all the houses in the neighborhood accompanied by the young woman he had married.

“I’ve taken a wife this time,” he introduced her, “age eighteen, and the name’s Kuniko. Do treat her kindly.”

Kuniko stood about one meter fifty in height, slightly plump, with quite good looks—her eyes, mouth, and nose all compactly arranged.

“What sort of background does this ‘Kuniko’ have?” the neighborhood wives chattered among themselves. “She’s well past twenty—eighteen my foot! Huh—he must’ve snatched her from some shady bar hostess job or cheap eatery.”

“If that were all,” one continued, “but come nightfall, she was probably standing on some street corner, don’t you think?” “She puts on such a gentle face, but peel back one layer and she’s quite the troublemaker.”

As was usual with such things, there was no particular malice behind it. Those who came from elsewhere were without exception subjected to this sort of appraisal. Since these were baseless appraisals, once four or five days had passed or people began exchanging words, not only would the gossip immediately reverse itself, but it would swiftly transform into relationships more intimate than those between relatives.

But in this case, things didn’t unfold in that manner. The fact was that Kuniko, his wife, did not socialize with the neighbors, did not come to the communal water source, and was never seen going out shopping. As had been the case until now, Toku-san did all of those things. He carried a wrapping cloth and basket to go shopping and did laundry at the communal water source. Because he often washed Kuniko’s undergarments and underthings as well, the neighborhood wives were beside themselves.

While such behavior might be tolerated in long-married couples where the wife was frail, for someone like Toku-san—newly wed with a perfectly healthy bride—a grown man doing such things was taboo. Especially since the wives of “the Street” were all suffering for their own husbands and children; being confronted with such immorality left them no choice but to speak out. “What the hell is that rice paddle—where’s she from and who does she think she is?” The “rice paddle” was undoubtedly referring to Kuniko. “Just got here as a bride, yet making her husband wash her underthings—what kind of world has a sinner like that in it?”

“She’s obviously from the nightlife trade—if she can’t cook rice or hold a needle, she must be handy at that other business instead.” “Toku-san’s a real piece of work—bragging about being kin to Boss Chikusho, but look at that pitiful act! Makes us want to crawl under a rock just watching.”

Once again, as was customary, these words flowed unimpeded into Toku-san's ears. "Our Kuniko's been sheltered, see," he launched his counterattack with a smirk, "she's still green behind the ears and shy as they come. Figure I'll keep her as my boxed-in bride for now." "When it comes to married life," he continued, "a husband washing his wife's things is an act of affection. Some might call it shameful, but that's just meddlesome nonsense—envy curdling into spite, plain and simple."

The neighborhood wives' anger reached its peak. They had never imagined being told to their faces that their gossip was "envy born of jealousy," nor had they ever heard such remarks before; what made it utterly unbearable was that this was the "truth." The neighborhood wives cursed Toku-san as the scum of men and laughed that the contents of that bag were surely packed not with gold or silver—not even iron—but ditch mud instead.

Toku-san remained unperturbed no matter what was said. He acknowledged to himself that having such an excellent wife made being subjected to malicious talk only natural. In this "Street," he was closest to Old Man Tanba. Old Man Tanba alone would listen seriously to his stories and, when he was in a bind, would generously lend him small loans without collateral. Naturally, whenever he wanted to boast about his new wife Kuniko, he would go to the old man and tell him all about it in lavish detail.

"She's truly devout, I tell ya," he said to the old man. "Every night when it's time to sleep, there's this whole kerfuffle about which way to lay the futon. At first I was completely thrown—I mean, right when we're laying out the bedding, she suddenly looks at me and asks, 'Which direction does Lord Indra face?'" He was dumbfounded. Was she trying to involve Lord Indra at this juncture? Or planning to summon him as some sort of witness? He found himself utterly perplexed. Then in a reverent tone, she explained that since today was Lord Indra's sacred day, sleeping with one's feet pointed that direction would bring divine punishment.

“That put my mind at ease, but then I was stuck again—about which direction Lord Indra faced. I had no damn idea. Do you know, Tanba-san?”

“Well, let’s see... Hmm—seems I don’t know.”

Kuniko frowned and pondered deeply, but soon declared she would make do with a direction she already knew, then slept with her pillow facing southwest. "The next night it was your turn with Fudō Myōō," Toku-san declared. "Since I knew this one from temple fairs, there was no getting lost—figured out Konpira Shrine right away and Sannō Inari was a snap too. But when it came to Kannon-sama, we were in a real fix. I mean hell, you start talking Kannon and she's everywhere! Even Kuniko threw in the towel on that one. After racking our brains, we finally settled on begging forgiveness from the head temple—that's how it went down."

“Does this happen every night?” “Every damn night,” Toku-san said. “Then we ran into these impossible days—Kuniko’s got this weird almanac-style book she flips through to check which deity’s day it is. But on those impossible days I’m telling you about, no matter which way you lay your head, there’s some god or buddha right where your feet end up pointing.”

A gentle smile rose on Old Man Tanba's face and slowly faded. "That must have been tough," Old Man Tanba said sympathetically. "Then Kuniko started bawlin' 'cause she couldn't sleep," Toku-san continued. "East, west, north, south—every damn direction's got somethin' dug in there. All them days line up like holy anniversaries, not a single one we can disrespect. Means there's nowhere to point our damn feet when we lay down! I told her—check that almanac-book proper! There's gotta be a gap somewhere—hell, even police barricades got gaps! Ain't that right, Tanba-san?"

"That won’t work," Kuniko said. "Every direction’s completely blocked—not a single centimeter’s gap," she insisted. Toku-san finally lost patience and went to sleep himself—only to wake past midnight and find Kuniko slumped against an old chest of drawers, dozing upright. “Turns out days like that come ’round once or twice a year,” Toku-san told Old Man Tanba later. “No proper schooling to speak of, but that woman knows more gods and buddhas than anyone alive. You won’t find devotion like hers anywhere.”

Old Man Tanba slowly said, “That’s unusual for someone so young.” “Well I’ll be damned, Tanba-san,” Toku-san said next. “Here’s another one of Kuniko’s pious tales—when she was fifteen, see, sent out on some errand she can’t even remember now. So she’s walking along when she comes upon this ridiculously huge building with pillars and railings all painted vermilion, grand as anything. Scared outta her wits by all that glitter and splendor, she goes and clasps her hands in prayer without thinkin’. Then she asks some passerby, ‘Which god’s shrine is this?’ The fella’s shocked and says, ‘Why miss, this here’s the Kabukiza Theater!’ So Kuniko gets scared all over again and bolts clean away, I tell ya.”

As if to prove that Kuniko had been that devout since she was about fifteen, Toku-san declared, stroking his chin proudly. Old Man Tanba nodded slowly several times with deep reserve, his expression ambiguous—neither impressed nor unimpressed—yet never once betraying any desire to laugh.

Thirty days passed, fifty days passed.

About seventy-odd days after taking in his new bride, Toku-san came to Old Man Tanba to ask his opinion regarding a separate matter.

“Well, it’s... y’see... kinda hard to put into words.” He kept scratching and rubbing the back of his neck. “Now Tanba-san—since it’s you I’m talkin’ to—Kuniko’s still that boxed-in bride, ain’t she? Not a speck of worldly tarnish on her, fresh as spring dew. Told you all that before. But even so... there’s this damn thing I can’t wrap my head around.” Old Man Tanba remained silent, eyes fixed on the shogi problem spread before his knees as he waited for Toku-san’s next words.

“So y’see, it’s about... well, that time,” Toku-san mumbled, “you know which time I mean. There I was, sweating buckets and workin’ up a storm—when Kuniko suddenly starts spoutin’ weirdness: ‘Hey you, why d’ya think leaves fall from branches come autumn?’ I was shocked! ‘You been thinkin’ ’bout that?’ I asked. She goes, ‘It just popped into my head now.’ ‘Why’s it poppin’ in now of all times?’ I pressed. ‘Dunno why, but I can’t stop wonderin’,’ she says. ‘Quit it—this ain’t the time!’ I told her, tried revvin’ up again—but no good, Tanba-san! Once that ‘why do leaves fall in autumn’ gets stuck in your head too, all your horsepower just drains clean away!”

“Then it’s your teeth,” Toku-san continued. “There I am sweating buckets and working up a storm when she goes, ‘Hey you—what’re human teeth made of anyway?’ Teeth are teeth, ain’t they? I tell her. But she says, ‘They ain’t bone or flesh, so they gotta be made of somethin’ else!’ Quit it—this ain’t the time! I yell, then rev up again. But no good, Tanba-san—hold on! Once she says that, I start wonderin’ too: if teeth ain’t bone or flesh, what the hell *are* they made of? Gets stuck in my head, and boom—another derailment.”

Next came the matter of banknotes—she asked why there were 100-yen bills and 1,000-yen bills but no 150-yen or 1,500-yen bills. When I answered that it was the government's doing and who could understand them, she said maybe we should write to the newspaper's advice column. When he tried to figure out what connection there could be between 150-yen bills and advice columns, Toku-san's thoughts became hopelessly tangled, leading to yet another derailment—or so the story went.

“Thinking’s all well and good, Tanba-san,” Toku-san said. “Why leaves fall in autumn—that’s the sorta thing normal folks wouldn’t even dream up. Shows Kuniko’s got a sharp mind, so I ain’t opposed none. But hell—no matter how clever the thought, there’s a time and place! Right? So I told her—think about timing! Any man’d be givin’ it his all in moments like that! Can’t keep goin’ when my head’s all scattered!”

Old Man Tanba carefully moved one of the pieces in the shogi endgame problem, then let out a wordless groan. “Now Kuniko’s got a gentle nature—she don’t talk back, just nods ‘yes sir’ all sweet-like. But whether she forgets or it’s just her born habit, soon as I’m sweatin’ buckets and revvin’ up, she starts in with ‘Hey you’ again—‘Hey you, who’re the Seven Lucky Gods?’ Right when I’m goin’ at it! ‘This again? Save it for later!’ I tell her. ‘But I gotta know now!’ she whines. ‘Gods ’n’ buddhas are your department!’ I snap. ‘The Seven Lucky Gods are different!’ she insists. So I rattle ’em off—Benzaiten, Jurōjin, Bishamonten, Hotei, Daikokuten, Ebisu—then get stuck. She starts countin’ on her fingers—‘Still one short!’ So I start over from the top, but damn if I can name that last one. Now *I’m* wonderin’ who it could be—and boom, all my horsepower drains clean away! Ain’t no laughin’ matter, Tanba-san!”

“I wouldn’t dream of laughing.” “I’m dead serious here,” Toku-san said, tightening his expression with utmost solemnity. “Last night too—she starts up with ‘Hey you’ again. ‘Why don’t taxi drivers get carsick?’ That’s just plain obvious, ain’t it? If they got carsick, they couldn’t be taxi drivers! So I tell her. Then Kuniko goes, ‘When I worked at the bar, we had sailor customers—plenty of ’em got seasick! If sailors get seasick, taxi drivers must not get carsick by definition!’ I groaned—actually groaned—then told her, ‘Alright alright, next time I see a taxi driver, I’ll ask ’em for ya.’”

“So I got interrupted again, but I pulled myself together and finally started over,” Toku-san continued. “But damn—just when I was hitting the home stretch, Kuniko hits me with another ‘Hey you.’ And this one’s a real doozy—‘Which hurts worse: hanging yourself, jumping in the river, or throwing yourself under a train?’ Huh? What d’ya think went through my mind then, Tanba-san?”

Old Man Tanba pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, then muttered in a low voice, “That... what’s this ‘home stretch’ you mentioned?” Toku-san seemed not to take in a word of this; with an intensely grave expression, he stared at the old man’s face as though holding him responsible. “I mean, my stomach came right up to here—” He pointed at his own throat. “—Felt like it was comin’ right up here, I mean it! Swear on my life, Tanba-san.”

“I’d had enough,” Toku-san pressed on immediately. “Letting this slide would wreck the whole household—right? So I sat up straight and said, ‘Why the hell you bringin’ this up now? What’s hangin’, drownin’, or train-jumpin’ got to do with what we’re doin’? Cut the crap!’ But Kuniko—she’d been thinkin’, stewin’ deep inside—starts yappin’: ‘When I worked at the bar, O-Natsu went upstairs with a customer, right? Customer comes down alone and leaves. O-Natsu never shows up by closin’. So her man goes lookin’—found her strangled dead! I said, ‘Bet she suffered awful,’ but Maako claims drownin’s a thousand times worse than hangin’. Then Ririi pipes up that train suicides hurt most of all! Damn it—wasn’t there a blue-line hostess murder in the papers once?’ she says!”

“Ah, never mind—let’s drop that story,” I said. Toku-san made a restraining gesture with his hand. “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout O-Natsu! Why’s she gotta start thinkin’ ’bout that kinda stuff right when we’re in the thick of it? There’s plenty other times for that! Why’s she always pick the worst damn moments to bring up nonsense? My feelings get hurt too, y’know! That’s what I told her—ain’t that right, Tanba-san? You—” He suddenly stared at the old man with widened eyes. “You don’t know squat ’bout horse racin’?”

“Horse racing—no, I don’t know about that.” “Then that ‘home stretch’ business—yeah, exactly the home stretch!” He returned to his story: “So when I said that, Kuniko tilts her head all thoughtful-like. Then she cocks it my way and says—though she don’t get it herself—‘When I worked at the bar, the Madam told me: In those moments, you gotta distract yourself with other thoughts. Otherwise your body can’t keep up.’ Reckon havin’ that drilled into her over n’ over made it a habit. That even possible, eh, Tanba-san?”

“Well now,” The old man considered briefly before saying solicitously, “There might be—for an unworldly, sheltered bride who’s never rubbed elbows with society.”

“She’s too damn unworldly, I tell ya! Worked at a bar over seven years since she was eighteen, but still? There’s gotta be a limit to how green someone can stay! Right, Tanba-san?” “Take good care of her,” Old Man Tanba said. “She’ll make a fine wife one day, mark my words.” That Kuniko lay on her back at home singing a song whose lyrics meant “bearing others’ burdens makes for endless toil.”

The dead tree

Hira-san was a bachelor who lived in a handmade hut. Four old timber pillars formed its structure, with aged planks nailed around them and a roof layered with old corrugated iron over the planks. The entrance had a swinging door so low one had to stoop to pass through, while on the southern side sat a roughly one-meter-square window—also handcrafted—fitted with frosted glass.

Houses where people lived appeared alive.

For some residents, their houses even seemed to possess distinct personalities. Since Hira-san’s "hut" was handmade by Hira-san himself, it should have most straightforwardly reflected his character. And yet, the hut remained utterly devoid of character, without a single distinguishing feature—beyond being nothing more than a "hut" assembled from old timber and planks, it exuded no particular meaning or flavor.

The residents of this "town" tried to decorate some part of their poor dwellings in some form. They would hang wind chimes, grow morning glories in cracked pots, plant flowers and herbs in the narrow strip of earth beneath their eaves, or tirelessly polish the pillars and thresholds of their crumbling homes, washing the latticework and door frames with water—each according to their own aesthetic sensibilities and tastes—drawing humble solace and respite from these acts.

Hira-san did no such thing. The spot stood apart from all the tenements, surrounded by barren vacant lots where the ground was covered in broken roof tiles, pottery shards, and coke cinders, making it impossible for even weeds to grow properly. Only a faint trail—hardly worthy of being called a path—crisscrossed the lot, formed by Hira-san’s footsteps. Outside the hut’s window stood a single slender dead tree, about one meter tall, but having been dead for who knows how many years, by now even what kind of tree it had been was impossible to tell.

Around Hira-san’s hut and its surroundings, there was no sense of life. What could be seen there was not ruin abandoned by human concern, but rather barrenness and death incarnate. Hira-san associated with no one and hardly ever exchanged even casual greetings. His real name and age were unknown. He appeared to be between fifty and sixty years old, but at times he looked like a man nearing seventy—emaciated and listless. Though small in frame and thin, his muscles were taut, his sun-tanned skin had a healthy sheen, and he appeared quite robust; his narrow face with thick eyebrows, upon closer inspection, possessed a certain refinement.

“When he was young, he must’ve been quite the looker,” the neighborhood wives would say to each other. “Even now he’s not half bad—didn’t someone say they snuck into his place in the dead of night just the other day?”

“Don’t go telling sleep-inducing stories now—who exactly is this ‘someone’ you keep mentioning?” “Oh quit it O-Yoshi—don’t pretend you don’t know how rumor-starters end up!” The wife accused of starting rumors snorted through her nose before continuing with practiced calm. “If I say ‘someone is someone,’ those involved will understand perfectly. If you can’t piece it together yourselves, stop meddling in other folks’ affairs.”

“That’s all well and good, but did the main thing work out?” “I don’t know if it’s true or not, but they said Hira-san was sitting in his hut with a dim candle lit.” His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow; when the feeble candle flame flickered, his face looked like a skeleton’s. Then, upon seeing the woman who had entered, he said in a low, hoarse voice, “Ochou?” It was a voice that could have been heard from beneath a grave; the woman jerked upright with her bones freezing in terror and fled outside in a panic, they said.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but that someone’s quite the expert in that field—and since they’ve never failed to land their mark once they set their sights on something, it might actually be spot-on.”

“Who do you suppose Ochou is?” “She might be somewhere in this tenement.” “Or maybe she’s his former wife who either left him or died.” Whether these rumors ever reached Hira-san’s ears remained unclear. He was as silent as stone, curt, stubbornly guarding his solitude.

Hira-san's business was making and selling mattresses. He would buy rags from scrap dealers' depots. Outside his hut stood a makeshift stove built from bricks and stones where he did his cooking; there he would hang a kerosene can, add the purchased rags, and boil them down. Likely to remove grease and grime, he would boil the rags, sun-dry them, tear them into strips about two centimeters wide, twist those strands—then mount them on what appeared to be a primitive loom he had crafted himself, meticulously weaving them into mattresses. They were probably only fit for use as bathhouse foot towels or hearth pads, but because he wove them with such care and sturdiness, Hira-san's products were well-regarded, and he seemed to take considerable pride in them.

As already noted, Hira-san was taciturn, did not socialize with the neighbors, and hardly ever exchanged even casual greetings. However, up until then, there had been one acquaintance who occasionally visited him. This acquaintance was none other than Hansuke, owner of the boss cat Tora—yet even when visited, there was scarcely any conversation. Hansuke was a timid, meek-looking man who seemed perpetually afraid of being beaten by others, and being a misanthrope himself—though he would speak to his pet cat Tora—he had no desire to converse with humans. Thus when it was just him and Hira-san together, their conversations never gained momentum. Even if Hira-san visited and sat there for half a day, their voices were scarcely heard. Occasionally, if one said, "Nice weather today," the other would reply, "Yeah, it’s clear out." A considerable amount of time would pass, and just when they’d nearly forgotten, one might say, “The economy’s still in a slump as usual,” to which the other would reply, “Still as bad as ever,” and then their voices would fall silent—that was how it went.

Before long, Hansuke too disappeared. Hansuke had been taken away by people—so it was said. Some claimed detectives took him, while others insisted professional gamblers had snatched him away because he'd been crafting rigged dice. Either way, Hira-san lost his sole companion—if one could even call him that—and returned to living utterly alone. Each dawn, Hira-san would emerge from his hut carrying a wash basin with hand towel and battered bucket to the water spigot. After washing his face and drawing water, he'd return to measure rice from one mandarin orange box and barley from another, transferring them into an enamel pot before heading back to the spigot with both buckets. He'd rinse the grains, fetch more water, then return to cook his meal.—Most residents of this "town" worked day labor, rising early enough that the spigot usually bustled with people. Some called out to Hira-san, but he'd only grunt replies before ignoring them. One day a rough-mannered man barked at him to at least offer greetings. Hira-san slowly turned and fixed the man with his gaze. The man clenched his fists and stepped forward as if to charge—but meeting Hira-san's unblinking eyes and mask-like face, he stepped back instead. Muttering some final retort over his shoulder, he hurried from the scene.

“Downright creepy,” the man later said, “that guy’s eyes ain’t living human eyes—they’re a corpse’s eyes, I’d stake my life on it. The blood pumpin’ through his veins must be cold as ice, sure as shit.”

Hira-san ate nothing but pickles and miso for his three daily meals. He bought miso but made his own pickles. Moreover, in five soy sauce barrels, he pickled different things using different methods, never letting them run out throughout the year. When going out to buy rags, he would take a large hemp bag with him. And he would lock the hut’s windows from the inside and the swinging door from the outside. In this "town," only two other houses locked their doors, and those two were slandered as engaging in something shady to warrant such security, leading to their homes being ransacked multiple times. To put it bluntly, for the residents there, possessing items that necessitated locking one’s doors was considered contrary to moral principles. —Hira-san’s hut was also attacked several times, but neither the swinging door nor the windows would give way. What kind of mechanism had been installed—though they tried various methods of attack, none ever succeeded. Since it was half mischief to begin with, they didn’t resort to violence destructive enough to demolish the hut, and once they realized that what Hira-san cherished were five pickle barrels, no one remained interested anymore.

Did Hira-san know about these things? Or had he not noticed them at all?

In any case, his condition hadn’t changed in the slightest. He was always moving. It wasn’t so much that he was working as that he was "moving." When he returned carrying a large hemp bag on his back, he would take out the rags inside and sort them, light a fire in the makeshift stove, boil water in the kerosene can, mix in soap powder, add the sorted rags, and stir them with a tree branch while they boiled. He did not look around, nor did he hum to himself or mutter under his breath. Only his torso and limbs moved as necessary, with no trace of willful intent or emotional expression.—On the south side of the hut stood two cedar logs with hemp ropes stretched across them in three tiers, forming a drying area. After washing the boiled rags at the water spigot, Hira-san would hang them on the drying area to dry. His face was expressionless, and his eyes were hollow like two holes. While spreading out the dried rags one by one by hand, his eyes did not seem to see either the rags or the hemp ropes. Just as a void saw nothing, Hira-san’s eyes always seemed to see nothing.

“They say Hira-san’s mattresses are so popular there’s constant orders and he can’t keep up, you know.” In the neighborhood wives’ gossip sessions, such rumors often came up: “He must be hoarding stacks of cash, I bet.” “What’s he saving up for anyway? A lone wolf with no family—money’s no use to him.” “What’s he even living for? Doesn’t watch movies or buy a radio. Maybe stashing it all with Panzuke on the sly or something?”

“In this tenement, there’s always folks eager to take on odd jobs, you know.”

In a certain November—a woman who appeared to be around fifty years old arrived at Hira-san's hut clutching a small furoshiki-wrapped bundle. She was slender and petite with delicate features. Her skin was pale white; her hair and eyebrows jet-black and thick; her small lips like pinched buds moist and red. Though seemingly fiftyish, her overall impression remained youthful with a faint coquettish air. As Hira-san was out, she waited outside. She circled the hut, gazed at the dead tree standing beyond its shuttered window, touched its branches, then leaned against the wooden siding before crouching down and gently closing her eyes. The location stood apart from all tenement rows—no risk of prying eyes noticing her presence. Stray dogs passed by twice but showed no interest upon seeing her before moving on.

When about two hours had passed, Hira-san returned. The woman, who had apparently been in a daze, suddenly stood up with a face as if her breath had been taken away the moment she heard the sound of the hut’s door being opened. Her pale, beautiful face stiffened abruptly, then turned red as if painted on with a brush. Her breath, once stilled, gradually grew ragged as strength returned to the hands clutching the small bundle. When the woman opened the swinging door, Hira-san stood with his back toward her, removing his old coat. After closing the swinging door, the woman whispered, “It’s me.”

Hira-san turned around with one sleeve of his coat half-removed. The woman pressed the bundle to her chest and bowed in a posture that seemed as if she were trying to protect herself. Hira-san's eyes stopped moving as he looked at the woman, and her expression changed. From her pale, petite face, the redness quietly faded away; what had seemed youthfully alluring turned cold and dry, feeling as though it had withered away in moments.

Hira-san said nothing, turned around, removed his coat, took off his worn brown piqué cap, and stepped up into the wooden-floored area. The woman quietly looked around the dirt-floored area. Under the shelf lined with a washbasin, a soap powder can, and some bottles, there were two buckets. On the opposite side of the shelf hung a low rack where a basket of dishes, a safety razor, and a soap box were neatly arranged. On the lower tier were three mandarin orange crates and an aluminum pot.

The woman placed the bundle at the edge of the wooden floor, took out a sash from it and tied it around her shoulders, checked the two buckets, picked up the empty one, and went outside the hut. And then, the woman settled into the hut. Hira-san did not utter a word to the woman, nor did he attempt to look at her. It wasn’t that he was ignoring her presence—rather, both her arrival and continued existence in the same hut seemed entirely unreal.—The woman fetched water, prepared meals, cleaned, did laundry, and went shopping. Hira-san ate the meals she cooked, wore the clothes she laundered, and slept in the bedding she laid out.—These were all part of his usual "merely moving" existence; even when eating a meal, it seemed there was only the motion of using chopsticks, chewing food, and swallowing it, without any awareness of actually eating.

Hira-san's life did not change in the slightest. He would go to buy rags, boil them in a kerosene can, dry them, tear them apart, and weave them into mattresses. When the woman tried to help from nearby, he would silently let her do as she wanted. The popularity of his products stemmed from Hira-san's meticulous workmanship—one might assume he poured passion into them and would never let others interfere—but Hira-san seemed to harbor no such feelings. When the woman reached out to help, he would leave it to her and move on to his next task.

When several were woven, Hira-san would wrap them and go out to sell. The woman who stayed behind did not even try to rest, tidying up inside the hut, sweeping clean around the hut, picking up tiles and fragments of crockery scattered on the ground, and going to throw them away. That the woman had settled into Hira-san's hut was quickly noticed by the neighbors. When they first spotted her at the water spigot, the neighborhood wives said to each other that they assumed she was a new resident—remarking how someone like her shouldn’t be living in a place like this, how she had such a cute face, and how her small, delicate frame made even us women want to pick her up and coddle her. However, that lasted only about two days, and once they quickly learned the facts, the neighborhood wives’ opinions did an about-face.

"What a shock—they say she's a self-invited wife! At her age, what a situation!" "Hira-san's really something—who'd have thought he'd get so hung up on some old granny?" "Look at that face, look at that figure," one of the wives said. "I once knew someone like that way back—that type's got an exceptionally... passionate nature. Even at fifty or sixty, their bodies stay in full bloom without fading one bit—you'll see if you look close enough."

“So that’s why you said you wanted to hold and coddle her, huh? How indecent.” “Oh? ‘Indecent,’ you say,” retorted the wife. “You know all about that, do you?” The true meaning was different, but they didn’t know. In Hira-san’s hut, none of the things the neighborhood wives had imagined came to pass.

After finishing dinner, Hira-san would rest a while, then weave mattresses until around ten o'clock. Not out of necessity but seemingly to kill time, his work progressed little. When his eyes grew tired from the candlelight and tears began to well up, he would put away the loom and go to bed. The woman would clean up afterward and then lie down beside Hira-san, wrapped in a single thin futon. Of course, since the candle would be extinguished, unless it was a moonlit night, the inside of the hut became pitch dark. Hira-san would sometimes turn over in his sleep, but he rarely ever snored. And then before long, the woman would begin to sob.

Her sobs came quietly like wind sweeping through grasslands, then she would begin speaking in a hoarse whisper—as if something were caught in her throat—her words coming in fragments. "The shop's doing well," she said one night. "My son-in-law works hard—he's capable and treats me kindly. Even now when your name comes up, he says we should have you over." "What should I do?" she said another night. "I was born to a family with property and raised spoiled—I didn't even know sinful things were sins. It wasn't as if I was particularly in love with him when it happened, and I didn't fully understand the child I bore was his either—I just want you to believe that much."

Hira-san did not move a muscle. "You’ve ended up like this, and even though it’s been over twenty-five years now, what am I supposed to do?" On another night, she pleaded in a thin, strained voice, “You must have suffered greatly too, but I’ve endured my own endless chain of hardships. My deceased mother felt she owed you an apology—she never forgave me until her dying day. And after Mother passed, I’ve spent years blaming and hating myself.”

These words were spoken smoothly and in perfect order, like lines she had memorized through countless repetitions. Words laden with strong meanings—painful, harsh, unforgivable until death, self-loathing—were spoken too fluently, causing them to lose their intensity and take on only a hollow, monotonous flatness.

“Even someone who’s committed a grave crime like murder can be forgiven once their hard labor ends, depending on circumstances—isn’t that how it goes?” One night she said, “If there’s anything I could do that would satisfy you, please tell me—I’ll do absolutely anything.”

Hira-san did not respond to anything said to him. It wasn't that he ignored the woman's laments and appeals, but rather as if her voice never reached him at all. The relationship resembled that of a stone caught in incessant winds—utterly disconnected from the air swirling around it. The woman remained in Hira-san's hut for twelve days before departing on the twelfth evening. When Hira-san returned that day from mattress sales, he found her sitting at the edge of the wooden floor with a small cloth-wrapped bundle on her lap—winter twilight deepening outside, shadows swallowing her hunched silhouette until she seemed moments from dissolving completely into the hut's oppressive darkness.

Hira-san, as usual, removed his overcoat and took off his peaked cap, then stepped up onto the wooden floor from beside the woman.

The woman remained with her head bowed, looking at the dirt floor of the earthen entrance. Her small, pinched face appeared pale and parched, as if shrunken; both hands resting on her knees were ash-gray and wrinkled, fingertips dangling limply. Was she waiting for something? Behind her, Hira-san was moving about, making noises. Even now, was she still expecting Hira-san to say something? —That didn’t seem to be the case; the woman eventually raised her right hand to touch her hair and let out a thin, feeble sigh.

“Is it really no good?” the woman said, her voice low like a whisper, hoarse and catching in her throat. “—Can’t you find it in yourself to forgive me?” Hira-san stepped down into the dirt-floored entryway and opened the aluminum pot on the shelf. It was empty. The woman had not cooked the rice.

Seeing the empty pot, Hira-san immediately began measuring rice and barley. Unaware that the woman had not cooked rice today of all days, he proceeded with an utterly natural, thoroughly accustomed routine—measuring out fixed amounts of rice and barley from two mandarin orange crates into the pot, then carrying it as he left the hut.

The woman did not look at Hira-san. When Hira-san appeared to be about halfway to the water spigot, she stood up with the small bundle on her lap like someone utterly exhausted and looked all around the inside of the hut. Her nerves completely worn down, her eyes held a gaze that seemed devoid of emotion.

The woman left the hut hesitantly and closed the swinging door. In the sky, there were clouds faintly reflecting the last light, and they accentuated the gloom on the ground. The woman went around the hut and headed to the dead tree standing outside the window. And then, with one hand, she touched the branch of the tree and whispered softly under her breath. “Yes, this was definitely a Japanese pepper tree.” Her tone suggested it wasn’t that a Japanese pepper tree remains a Japanese pepper tree even when withered, but rather that once dead, it ceases to be any kind of tree at all—an ephemeral quality to her words. And then, the woman left, shrinking into herself as she went.

At the water spigot, three housewives were gathered, but when they saw Hira-san coming, they all abruptly fell silent. Hira-san silently washed the rice in the pot. He replaced the water three times while washing the rice and barley by hand as if kneading them, then after adjusting the water level, left the place without a word. “What’s going on?” One of the housewives, waiting until Hira-san had moved away, said, “How unusual for him to come wash rice himself. Has that woman fallen ill or something?”

“That might be true,” said another of them. “According to Ken-chan and someone else’s story, they say you could hear that woman crying nearly every night.” “Ken-chan again? That boy’s got a real sickness, always poking his nose into that woman’s business.” “You’re one of the ones he asked too, aren’t you?”

"Talking about old stories... At my age, I just don't have the energy for that anymore." Outside Hira-san's hut, flames kindled in the makeshift stove. In the evening gloom, bluish-white smoke unfurled before vermilion fire licked the pot's underside, slowly carving a circle of light that etched Hira-san's hunched silhouette into relief against the darkness. His face stayed rigid and impassive, eyes like dilated pupils staring vacantly into the void ahead. Though flickering flames made his features appear to waver, not a trace of expression shifted.

The wind grew slightly stronger, and the firewood in the stove began smoking heavily. Hira-san adjusted the firewood arrangement, choking on smoke as he took two or three wood pieces and added them to the flames. "Bismarck once said:

Mr. Kantō Seikyō said. “Do you know the hidden intentions of the Rotary Club?” Hatta Tadaharu thought for a moment, stroking his greasy forehead as he answered. “I don’t know much about it, but isn’t it an international social organization?” “That’s camouflage—merely a blinding golden signboard they’ve erected to smother the spirit of ethnic independence in foreign nations. What I’m asking is what ambitions they’re hatching behind that gilded facade.”

“Are they plotting something?” “America’s world domination.” Hatta Tadaharu’s face contorted like that of a dyspeptic patient forcing down bitter herbal medicine. It was the face of someone thoroughly sickened by having to take it three times daily without fail, yet resigned to swallowing it out of necessity since his indigestion wouldn’t improve otherwise. The Americans had initially attempted to conquer Japan under the cloak of Christianity. They plotted what might be called the religious enslavement of nations, but this ambition was utterly crushed by the Tokugawa clan. After that—in this manner—the teacher’s highly original arguments unfolded, and the young Hatta grew teary-eyed.

This occurred about a week after Hatta Tadaharu had become a student at the Yūkokujuku. At first, when the young Hatta Tadaharu came requesting to be made a student, it was Kantō Seikyō—the academy head—who was taken aback. Mr. Kantō Seikyō narrowed his remarkably large, intimidating eyes—situated beneath jet-black thick eyebrows—to slits like threads and retorted while staring suspiciously at the young Hatta Tadaharu’s face. “Have you come here to mock me?”

“What do you mean by that?” said the young man, standing rigidly at attention. “It’s that I want to become a student at the academy.” “Couldn’t you permit it?”

"It wasn't that he couldn't take him in," the teacher thought. Indeed, at the entrance of that poor tenement hung a signboard reading "Yūkokujuku," with the academy head's name clearly inscribed. And for many long years—though exactly how many remained unclear—he had supported himself through that title. This was an undeniable fact, yet he had never imagined someone would actually seek to become his student, nor had there ever been such an occurrence before.

"Hmm," the teacher quickly sorted out his thoughts. A youth seeking to join an academy—a rare specimen in this day and age. Such a lad was pure-hearted and unassuming, likely received an allowance from his parents, possessed patriotic fervor besides, and might prove useful for fundraising efforts. Perhaps the time had finally come for our Yūkokujuku to get on track—very well—Mr. Kantō Seikyō resolved deep in his gut.

“Very well,” Mr. Kantō Seikyō said. “I shall accept you as a student.” “Is there something like a qualification exam?” the young Hatta Tadaharu asked at that time. “To tell the truth, exams don’t really sit well with me.”

"Such foolishness doesn't sit well with me either," Mr. Kantō Seikyō answered with a hearty laugh. "You can’t determine a person’s worth through one or two exams—it’s right here." The teacher slapped his thin, flat stomach to demonstrate, whereupon it emitted a mournfully hollow sound.

By the teacher’s judgment that a person’s worth is determined by the gut, the young Hatta became a student at the academy from that day onward. The relationship between this teacher and student was not a simple one. “Where is your hometown, Sensei?” asked the young Hatta Tadaharu. Then Sensei answered, “Japan.” “You! In this flea-shit-sized speck of a country like Japan, wasting time fussing over trivialities like where someone’s from or where they were born—that’s no good! Being born in Japan—that’s all that matters!” he declared.

Then Sensei abruptly asked where his home country was. The young Hatta Tadaharu—as though asked about some grave secret—stiffened his knees and sat up straight, bowed his head deeply, and answered that he would prefer not to have that matter touched upon. "I have dedicated my entire being to the state," he declared, "and am prepared to gladly sacrifice myself for the eternal Imperial Nation. However, it is not my wish to cause trouble to my parents, siblings, or relatives."

When Mr. Kantō Seikyō proposed his "Japan as flea feces" theory, the young Hatta Tadaharu seemed to smirk secretly beneath the surface of his face; then when Hatta shielded his relatives with his "total self-sacrifice" doctrine, the teacher wore an expression as though he'd stubbed his toe and wanted to click his tongue.

At the Yūkokujuku, there was only a single set of bedding. When Mr. Kantō Seikyō asked the young Hatta Tadaharu when the luggage would arrive, the youth flatly replied that there was nothing of the sort. When asked if there were at least clothes and bedding, the young Hatta Tadaharu looked accusingly at Mr. Kantō Seikyō and retorted, "Do students at Yūkokujuku really have to provide even such trivial things themselves?"

In this exchange, Mr. Kantō Seikyō was outmaneuvered. Given Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s solemn assertions about being an enlightenment institution grounded in nationalistic principles—one dedicated to investigating the imperial doctrine’s truths and propagating these through practical means—such trivial matters should indeed have been inconsequential, just as the young Hatta had stated. “Very well,” Mr. Kantō Seikyō yielded. “Go borrow a rental futon.”

For the young Hatta Tadaharu, a daily routine was established as a student for spiritual cultivation. They included meal preparation, cleaning, shopping, errands, Imperial Palace worship, attending to the teacher’s needs, other miscellaneous tasks, and so on. Such things weren’t particularly burdensome. None of these tasks were particularly burdensome—after all, if one wanted to cut corners, each was as simple as deceiving Sensei’s watchful eyes—but separate from this, there was yet another unavoidable labor.

If we speak of unavoidable heavy labor—that alone should require no explanation—indeed, it was none other than listening to Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s lectures. The Japan branch had been ordered to disband on grounds that the Rotary Club harbored intentions of invading Japan—this was not such an old story. At that time, there were still some wealthy individuals in Japan who, distrusting the nation’s future economic prospects, appeared to have either transferred assets abroad or attempted to do so. Wealthy people likely did the same in any country—this wasn’t unique to Japan—but since Rotarians constituted an international fraternity of aristocrats and the moneyed class, they might have facilitated such capital flight abroad. The actual reason remained unclear, but it at least likely bore no connection to Christian missionary activities as suggested in Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s lectures.

The reason the young Hatta Tadaharu teared up was not because Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s lectures were overly original in their leaps, nor because they were too long-winded and boring, nor was it due to being moved by spiritual nobility. To put it bluntly—as becomes clear when observing the relationship between these two—there seemed to be no real substance to it at all. When listening to Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s lectures, regardless of their content or logical structure, one naturally grew teary-eyed—indeed, actually shed tears in reality.

To be fair, it was rare for Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s lectures to focus on a single issue—they typically leaped from A to S, B to K, C to D, then abruptly circled back to A or B. The Rotary Club lecture followed this pattern: he suddenly asked, “Have you read the *Jinnō Shōtōki*?” When met with “What’s that?” he replied, “Go run an errand for me.”

“Regarding fundraising,” Mr. Kantō Seikyō said with a sheepish smile, “I’ll be relying on you from now on. But really, it’s nothing complicated.” Mr. Kantō Seikyō took out a large, well-worn business card from the pocket of his morning coat hanging on the wall, smoothing its curled edge with his finger as he listed three newspaper companies—A, B, and C—explaining that A referred to a certain bureau-affiliated individual, B to a desk editor in the social affairs department, and C to such-and-such. “They’re all my juniors,” Mr. Kantō Seikyō said. “Show this card and they’ll understand—no need to mention money. Understood?”

The young Hatta Tadaharu answered vaguely, “Yes.” “Also, you must take this business card back with you. They’re all trustworthy men, so there shouldn’t be any concern, but business cards can easily be misused. Don’t forget to bring it back, understood?” The young Hatta Tadaharu confirmed the addresses of three newspaper companies and the people he needed to visit before setting out with an uneasy expression—the look of someone standing on a ten-meter-high diving platform about to attempt their first dive.

Despite the young Hatta Tadaharu's apprehensions, the fundraising succeeded.

“Of course—they’re all like my loyal underlings.” Though Mr. Kantō Seikyō had declared this boldly, he couldn’t conceal his own astonishment at how smoothly the procurement had gone. “The great Bismarck once said: ‘A commander must know his troops before tactics—then victory shall surely return to his hands.’” As he counted the amassed funds, Mr. Kantō Seikyō continued: “I showed particular favor to those three men. They say modern journalism neglects human compassion, but while such men still exist, we’re secure—the press campaign retains its backbone. You—today demands a celebratory toast.”

That evening, Mr. Kantō Seikyō took his student Hatta Tadaharu on an expedition to Nakadōri’s 'Nonbe Yokochō,' where they grilled eel heads at a street stall and drank copious amounts of shochu until drunk. According to Sensei, kabayaki was something for amateurs—true eel connoisseurs stuck to "the heads and livers." “I can’t say this too loudly,” Sensei said, “but those who make kabayaki use lots of farmed ones, you understand? That’s why kabayaki often reeks of that pupa-like stench. But the heads—you can’t fake those. Wild ones have hooks in them, see? There’s just no disguising that.”

"See here," Sensei said, pointing out to Hatta Tadaharu three hooks lined up at the edge of the cutting board—the ones that had come from the eel heads he had eaten thus far. "But Sensei," the student whispered, "there's also a theory that eel restaurants secretly plant those hooks themselves."

“That’s vulgar rumor—hardly worth consideration.”

“Actually, I also know about eel fishing.” The student lowered his voice further still. “The hooks used for catching eels are different. Trying to fish them one by one with these hooks would be too much trouble—even if you do catch them, removing the hooks takes too long. It’s no way to make a living.” “If you’re fussing over profitability, you—a man worthy of the name—will never accomplish anything great with that miserly attitude! Speaking of hooks—when this Kantō was in the political department at Newspaper A...”

It remains unclear what sparked it, but before long, Mr. Kantō Seikyō and a laborer began brawling. No—it couldn't be called a mutual fight. The laborer was the one hitting, and Mr. Kantō Seikyō was being struck, yet he showed no decline in his lofty fervor.

“Go on, hit me harder! You don’t even know what you’re doing, do you?” Mr. Kantō Seikyō shouted while sprawled on the ground. “Listen well—you’re striking the fate of Japan itself!”

These were indeed the very words that had burst forth from Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s mouth. The laborer hit him two more times there. “What happened last night?” The next day, Mr. Kantō Seikyō asked his student Hatta Tadaharu, “Why was that man so angry?”

Mr. Kantō Seikyō gently stroked his head, touched the lump, and frowned. Purple bruises had formed on his left cheekbone and forehead. "I don't really know." The young Hatta Tadaharu said while slapping the back of his neck, "I was dead drunk and sleeping in the fire cistern next to the stall when I heard Sensei—singing at the top of his voice about 'Workers of the world' and 'Corpses on altars' or something like that."

"That’s not right—that’s your misunderstanding," he said. "Those are both Communist Party songs, aren’t they?" "So that’s why the laborer got angry." "No, you’ve got it completely backward! I am—if nothing else—the head of the Yūkokujuku Academy!" "Anyway, it’s true he was furious. I was sleeping in the empty fire cistern, so I don’t know details—but he kept yelling ‘You red traitor bastard!’"

Mr. Kantō Seikyō slowly shook his head, rubbed from his mouth to around his jaw with one hand, and looked up at the ceiling.

“The great Bismarck said,” Mr. Kantō Seikyō spoke in a weary tone, “‘To make soldiers truly loyal, you must share their bed and board.’ It seems I mistook which soldiers to command, you—though I feel like I’m still hungover from two days ago when trying to think. Be a good lad and go buy us some shochu.” A pained expression appeared on Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s face. It was not merely something that could be described as "pained"—one would have to say it was a manifestation of complex, weighty self-denial and remorse, if one were to truly discern what lay within his heart.

Among the residents here, some of the old-timers may still remember—Mr. Kantō Seikyō had experienced two tragic love failures in this 'town'. One of them was still alive, referred to as 'Funeral Madam' or 'Okichi-san', living in one of the tenement houses with a young boy. The other had moved away—a widow named O-tomi-san, thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, quite attractive, and living alone.

O-tomi-san maintained a carefree air despite having no visible means of livelihood—she neither did side work nor showed signs of receiving an allowance from elsewhere—and whenever she had free time, she would gather neighborhood housewives to host lively tea parties. That these were not something pretentious like a tea ceremony need hardly be said. The husbands of these wives greatly welcomed this party, for their own wives would bring back various rare elegant tales from these gatherings. These were stories equipped with physiological, psychological, and simultaneously physical elements beyond the men's imagination—there were not a few cases that made the more inquisitive husbands want to experiment themselves.

After hearing about O-tomi-san from these husbands, Mr. Kantō Seikyō grew angry, declaring that such women disrupted proper customs and must be admonished for the sake of the future, then set out to deliver his reprimand. It’s a common enough story—when Mr. Kantō Seikyō returned from his first visit, he was laughing shamelessly and even praised her to the neighbors. "Why, that woman was nothing but an utterly pure-hearted female," he said; "she had simply reached the age where a woman most embodies womanhood, and had the experience to prove it." Then he added—declaring it was all just some trifling matter—and let out a booming laugh.

A rumor spread that Mr. Kantō Seikyō had been captivated by O-tomi-san at their first meeting, and as if to corroborate it himself, he began visiting her with increasing frequency. "Oh come now," Mr. Kantō Seikyō told the neighbors. "Rarely does one encounter a woman so truly born for men as she." "For men to profoundly nurture the vast vital spirit through their very marrow, there exists none other than a woman of her caliber." The neighbors remarked that Sensei had been living alone for quite some time. "Since she's also a widow, why don't you just make it official?" "You're well-matched in age too." "Hmm," Mr. Kantō Seikyō answered, "after spending a bit more time together—depending on how things progress—it might not be bad to end up that way."

In fact, Mr. Kantō Seikyō had been thinking exactly that and had even been secretly seeking an opportunity to propose. However, it did not succeed. O-tomi-san would tell Mr. Kantō Seikyō elegant tales that stirred experimental urges. At times she would even strike certain poses with her own limbs, and since it could be inferred that O-tomi-san was creating these opportunities, Mr. Kantō Seikyō's passion would reach its boiling point, driving him to assume the stance of proposing marriage. Then Mr. Kantō Seikyō's tongue would betray his will.

"As the great Bismarck says—O-tomi-san," Mr. Kantō Seikyō's tongue began moving of its own accord. 'To fight and not win is defeat,' he declared; 'To avoid defeat, one must refrain from fighting,' he proclaimed; and so it continued endlessly—the maxims of Bismarck (or someone else, or perhaps no one at all) kept spilling forth. No matter how he strained, he couldn't rein that tongue back in, nor find any way to stop O-tomi-san from growing thoroughly disgusted.

"Sensei is such a strange man, I tell you," O-tomi-san said to the housewives during the tea party. "Just when I start getting into an interesting story, without fail he starts spouting nonsense about what Bis-chan supposedly said or would do—things neither you nor I could possibly know—until the whole mood gets spoiled. What a hopeless blockhead that Sensei is." It did not take long for these words to reach Sensei’s ears, and at the same time, the gong rang to signal the end of his romance.

In the case of the Funeral Madam as well, the process followed nearly the same course and produced similar results.

The term 'tōmorai' naturally meant funerals, while 'Madam' served as that derogatory nickname—her actual name being Seiko, though she also carried the shadow-name 'Okichi-san'. Her husband went by Honda Masakichi, said to work as a boat-based greengrocer at some harbor port, though he only materialized perhaps once a month or every two months. There existed a third-grade elementary school boy named Jin, and Seiko single-handedly managed their two-person livelihood.

Though not as universal as in the past, Segaki—the ritual of feeding hungry ghosts—was performed at funerals. This meant distributing mourning sweets or stamps equivalent to the sweets' value to funeral attendees. At funerals of pious wealthy families, they would reportedly even toss coins to the poor at crematoriums, with destitute children and elders sometimes forming lines along roadsides to receive alms. Seiko would infiltrate crowds of mourners at funerals to collect items like sweet boxes and stamps, immediately exchanging them for cash at confectioners. Whether cedar-boxed sweets or equivalent-value stamps, confectionery shops repurchased them at 20% discounts—making this more profitable than day labor if five funerals occurred daily. Naturally, initial investment was required: mourners needed black crested kimonos and properly maintained hairstyles. Seiko possessed a cotton black crested kimono with obi, and kept her hair meticulously groomed each day.

Through maintaining this black crested kimono and immaculate coiffure, Seiko came to be called "Madam"—but beyond that, her speech and demeanor carried an air of Yamanote refinement, employing elegant *zāmasu* speech and producing an affected *ohoho* laugh. The boy Jin was a fervent adherent of anarchism. He hated his mother and school; he avoided those physically stronger but would assault weaker individuals or girls on sight while abusing every dog or cat he encountered. He scarcely stayed at home, sleeping instead in others' storage sheds or beneath floorboards—when hunger struck, he pillaged neighborhood kitchens. His clothes hung in tatters, face and limbs crusted with filth that emitted a stench fouler than the lowliest beggar’s. On rare occasions Seiko caught him. She would drag him home—strip him naked regardless of season—scrub him raw with soapy water—shear his matted hair—trim his claws—then dress him in fresh garments.

All the while, Seiko would gently admonish Jin in her refined "zāmasu" speech, while Jin would meekly bow and apologize. It formed a beautiful, moving moment reminiscent of a prodigal son awakening to return home and being warmly welcomed by his parent. But the instant these cleansing rituals concluded, a flagellant sect-like ceremony would commence—beginning with the soft rebuke of “Why must you persist in such wickedness?”

"Why must you be this way? A child who sleeps outdoors isn't human." "Why must you be this way?" "You know perfectly well what the neighbors are saying about you." "Why must you do nothing but wicked things?" "Now then, why won't you reform yourself?" Her voice remained soft and gentle, dripping with a cloying sweetness like honey-soaked pudding, yet between each word came sharp, cracking sounds that chilled the bone. According to neighborhood wives' accounts, she stripped his buttocks bare and beat him with a ruler. The sickly sweet voice like honey-drenched pudding and the bone-chilling sounds of punishment combined into a dreadful harmony that pierced listeners' ears.

Jin's scream of “Stop it!” could be heard. “I won’t do it again! It hurts!” “Stop!” Crack, crack. “It’s not a lie! If I go to school, that one’ll die!” Crack, crack. “Making such a loud voice will trouble the neighbors, crack.” “Be quieter now, crack.” “Your fake crying won’t work, crack.” “Is it that painful? Mother won’t be fooled, crack.”

Eventually, as always, Jin would slip free from his mother’s grasp and dart outside, where he would immediately ignite the signal fire of rebellion. It began with the opening salvo—"Demon hag, drop dead!"—as he showered her with curses, insults, and mockery, wielding a rich vocabulary that even hardened ruffians couldn’t have conceived. Of course, he gave no thought to the neighbors, and if someone stirred by curiosity came to see the commotion, Jin would hurl stones or sticks without the slightest hesitation.

"You mustn’t make such a racket outside," Seiko called out from inside the house, her voice as soft as if wrapping something precious in the finest silk. "Do come inside now, or you’ll have all the neighbors laughing at you." "What’s that supposed to mean, you shitty old hag!" Jin sneered. "Heh heh heh, drop dead—" And for the time being, he would not go near the house, sleeping in some shed or storage space and stealing food to survive.

Mr. Kantō Seikyō resolved to somehow improve the situation between this mother and child, visited them several times, and ultimately emphasized that the root of the problem was the father's absence. As they discussed why the father lived separately and visited so rarely, Seiko gradually opened up: her husband had another woman, was obsessed with keirin racing and earned nothing, only coming to beg for money when desperate; their marital relationship had ended years prior, and she herself thought that if a suitable partner came along, she wouldn't mind starting a family again. "Since my husband has another woman and does as he pleases, it's just dreary for me to shoulder all the hardship alone," Seiko reportedly said, fixing Mr. Kantō with a sidelong stare.

Mr. Kantō Seikyō’s heart swelled like that of an eighteen-year-old boy and pounded violently against the back of his pleura. There was no doubt Seiko had confirmed this, for despite her meager earnings, she began applying white powder to her face, painting her lips with rouge, and on days when Mr. Kantō visited, preparing lavish meals complete with alcohol on the dining tray. "Shochu is bad for your health," Seiko said earnestly, fixing her gaze on Mr. Kantō through lowered eyelashes. When pouring drinks, she performed the delicate art of pressing her right sleeve with her left hand, and when Mr. Kantō urged her, she accepted the cup with bashful grace.

Even if Mr. Kantō Seikyō was a blockhead, he couldn’t remain composed after being treated like this. Mr. Kantō realized he had been placed in a position where he needed to say something and began lecturing by asserting that she should divorce such a husband, and that for Jin’s future, she ought to remarry someone educated and reliable. Seiko nodded earnestly at each point, then reached out and gently pressed his knee—perhaps to clear a path for his advance. Then, Mr. Kantō's tongue began asserting itself again.

"The great Bismarck once declared: 'He who triumphs without arrogance is a general among generals.' Seiko waited for what would follow. It seemed she believed Mr. Kantō was finally about to make his advance. Indeed, that had been his intention. Yet reality remained stubbornly prosaic—though Mr. Kantō's heart fluttered like an eighteen-year-old boy's, his tongue refused to relent. Bismarck further proclaimed: 'Defeated soldiers resemble fallen blossoms; to return them to battle lines is akin to reattaching flowers to their branches.'"

Seiko still waited for what would come next. She didn’t think the great Bismarck alone would cling on like this; she was sure something more flirtatious would come next. But Bismarck was stubborn and obstinate. Beads of sweat formed on Mr. Kantō’s forehead and his eyes grew moist with tears, yet his tongue continued to play with “Bismarck once said” with unflagging relish. Since Seiko had no housewives to associate with, it was unclear how they might have assessed Mr. Kantō, but judging by the expression with which she regarded him, it seemed certain that his score was no better than that of a blockhead.

That fight with the laborers in "Drunkard’s Alley" had likely occurred not through any intention of Mr. Kantō’s own, but rather because his tongue itself had willfully asserted its independence. Otherwise, there would be no logical explanation for a man of Mr. Kantō's standing to start singing Communist Party songs. “How disgraceful, Mr. Kantō.” While using the shochu he’d bought to revive his own two-day hangover, Hatta Tadaharu said, “I just glanced at a newspaper at the liquor store—apparently there’s a national convention of right-wing groups being held at the public hall. Why haven’t you received an invitation, Mr. Kantō?”

Mr. Kantō thought for a moment, then gazed at the young man with pity. "You must better examine your own position," Mr. Kantō said. "Those gathering at the public hall now are small fry—they presumptuously call themselves right-wing groups, but there’s not a single person of substance among them. They’re all just scraps of wood." "But Sensei, what about figures like Taigi Kōhei-sensei and Kokusui Jun’ichi-sensei?" Mr. Kantō shook his head and waved his hand.

"There were also names such as Mr. Shinshu Danji." "So what?" Mr. Kantō Seikyō pursed his lips into a への shape: "I know Kōhei, Danji, and Jun’ichi—they belonged to Ashihara Mizuho’s faction but were all expelled as if excommunicated. Rather than truly considering our nation’s eternal welfare, they flatter the powerful for wealth and status, fabricate false reputations, and extort money by intimidating good citizens." Hatta Tadaharu listened to Mr. Kantō’s fervent oration with an expression of profound absorption.

“I dare ask you this, Hatta-kun,” Mr. Kantō concluded. “Do you think the great Bismarck would attend something as trivial as a Nazi party rally?” Hatta Tadaharu reflexively opened his mouth to shout something but stopped himself at the last moment. It felt as though an invisible hand had abruptly clamped over his mouth, and the recoil from this sent him into a coughing fit. “I want to take pride in myself, though it may seem belated now.” Still red-faced from his coughing fit, the disciple said, “This has made me realize I do possess some discernment when judging people.”

“Life is profound,” Mr. Kantō said with a contemplative air, “now drink up, you. Life is profound and its transformations defy measurement—cheers.”

“Cheers,” Disciple Hatta also said.

What exactly was the Patriotic Academy supposed to be? Judging from its name, it was an academy concerned with the nation's future; if categorizing its ideology as left or right, it would generally have been considered to belong to the right wing. In essence, since they stood on the position of protecting national traditions against extreme destructive ideologies, they had to necessarily engage in some form of activity directly opposing the actions of left-wing figures. Of course, the right-wing figures whom the Sensei referred to as "small fry" did appear to be engaging in appropriate activities, and their movements were frequently reported in various journalistic outlets.

However, no such movements were observed in our Patriotic Academy. There were indeed times when discussions resembling such activities arose, but these too were nothing more than Mr. Kantō’s unilateral assertions, with Disciple Hatta merely listening attentively. Mr. Kantō’s arguments were typically so wildly far-fetched and unbelievably original that even the disciple would occasionally doubt his own ears—yet he never voiced any objections.

To put it bluntly, both the academy head and disciple seemed to spend their time idly, focused solely on eating, drinking, and lazing around as long as funds lasted. Even if such a situation could exist in reality, could anyone imagine it lasting long? Needless to say, that was impossible. On his third fundraising attempt, Disciple Hatta collided with this reality. It became clear that the desk editors from several newspapers and other affiliated individuals—whom Mr. Kantō Seikyō claimed to have previously favored—in truth didn’t know who Kantō Seikyō was, couldn’t recall ever seeing his face, had donated out of mere social obligation, momentary whims, or financial circumstances at the time, and had even forgotten they’d contributed almost immediately afterward.

Disciple Hatta reported the facts without even attempting to gloss over them. Mr. Kantō, for his part, showed no particular signs of shame or attempts at explanation. "Hmph," he snorted with dissatisfaction and looked the young man up and down. “Did you meet them in person?”

Mr. Kantō asked. "I don't meet them," the young man answered. "The office boy handles the arrangements." He immediately added, "It's always been like this. They say everyone's busy." "You did show them this business card properly, right?" As if to say What else could we have done?, Disciple Hatta gestured with outstretched hands.

“It can’t be helped. These things happen all the time.” Mr. Kantō said consolingly to Hatta Tadaharu, “Journalists uphold noble poverty—that’s where their existential value lies. They spare no expense of hundreds of thousands for reporting yet care nothing for their own purses. Which is precisely why the great Bismarck declared—” “What should we do about dinner?” Disciple Hatta asked. “There’s no rice left.”

Mr. Kantō abandoned his Bismarck analogy. When it came to food and drink, Mr. Kantō was more pragmatic and realistic than his disciple. The moment he heard there was no rice, a gurgling sound arose in Mr. Kantō’s stomach, and he was struck by an intense hunger as though he hadn’t eaten for three days.

“You should’ve told me about these things beforehand! This is unacceptable!” “Because I thought we could secure funds again today.”

“It can’t be helped.” Mr. Kantō tilted his head slightly and fiddled with his beard before saying, “—Well then, I’m afraid I must ask you to go to Old Man Tanba’s place. If you say Kantō Seikyō wishes to borrow rice, he’ll understand. Tomorrow I’ll handle the procurement myself, but you—this too is an essential experience in character formation. You mustn’t treat this lightly.” Hatta Tadaharu stood up before that Bismarck fellow could make an appearance. It seemed Mr. Kantō did indeed have a separate funding source; the next day, he went out himself and returned home dead drunk after nightfall.

“This isn’t something as base as drunkenness, you,” Mr. Kantō said. “Drunkenness—such a vulgar term—this is... that... that thing... you know...”

“From the back, the back,” Hatta Tadaharu whispered urgently. “What are you mumbling about?” Mr. Kantō swayed drunkenly as he glared at his disciple. “How insolent—‘from the back’? What’s this nonsense?” “Well, it’s about the cat,” Hatta Tadaharu said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Since that rascal’s been sneaking around the kitchen, shall I prepare dinner?” “Why are you feeding that cat dinner again?” “The dinner is for you, Mr. Kantō.”

As he said this, Hatta Tadaharu reached his hand behind his back and fluttered it. Then the kitchen door rattled, and Hatta Tadaharu panicked and coughed loudly.

“Don’t talk like some ideologue about meals, you. It’s sake.” Mr. Kantō sat cross-legged there, picking at the knees of his striped trousers to smooth the wrinkles as he said, “I’m going to drink properly now. Go buy some shochu—I’ll treat you too.” “Please give me the money,” said Hatta Tadaharu as he extended his hand. “Mo... money, money, money,” Mr. Kantō took out a wallet from the inner pocket of his morning coat, pulled out a bill from it, and handed it to Hatta Tadaharu. “--Worrying about the nation’s future, worrying about money... Kantō Seikyō remains ever busy, does he not? As the great Bismarck once said--”

Hatta Tadaharu went to the kitchen to retrieve a sake flask and hurried out through there. Then came the sound of someone whispering with another who had been waiting in the outer darkness—though of course Mr. Kantō Seikyō couldn’t hear it. Mr. Kantō, while arguing alone with General Bismarck, picked up a thin hairpin that had fallen on the old tatami mat, threw it toward the earthen floor without realizing what it was, and then flipped over onto his back.

The next morning, Hatta Tadaharu said while eating a meal with Mr. Kantō. "I really am just a greenhorn after all. Yes, I’ve come to understand that very well myself." "Humility is one of the virtues." "I persisted quite stubbornly but was refused. If you were to run for office yourself, wouldn’t fundraising go more smoothly? I tip my hat to you." He insisted that this was a matter of character and that he needed to train much more. Needless to say, he likely intended to push the fundraising onto Mr. Kantō. Mr. Kantō was not the petty sort to notice any hidden meaning behind such words, so he acknowledged the disciple’s confession as reasonable and agreed to take charge of the fundraising efforts himself for the time being.

One day, Mr. Kantō picked up the same hairpin as before from the old tatami mat and gazed at it suspiciously, scrutinizing it intently. "Here now, you—Hatta-kun," Mr. Kantō called to his disciple and showed it to him. "What might this be?"

“Well...” Hatta Tadaharu tilted his head. A look of panic had appeared in his eyes, but Mr. Kantō didn’t notice such things. “The other day, this same thing was here too...” Mr. Kantō held the thin, bifurcated object between his thumb and forefinger and casually sniffed it. “It smells greasy,” Mr. Kantō said. “What on earth could this be? Who would’ve dropped such a thing? What’s it even used for?”

“It might be a cat.” “Even a cat—such a thing?” “Lately there’s been a cat passing through our house,” Hatta Tadaharu said, swallowing hard. “A shameless thing that saunters right through—sometimes from the front entrance to the kitchen, other times from the kitchen back out to the front—like it owns the place.” Mr. Kantō threw the hairpin into the earthen floor. “Using us as a shortcut? Next time it does that, threaten to turn it into cat hotpot! Impudent bastard.”

And then another morning.

Suffering from a two-day hangover and having no appetite, Mr. Kantō—who had been sipping only miso soup—frequently tilted his head and looked up at the ceiling with upturned eyes before asking his disciple, “Did you have a nightmare last night?” This time, Hatta Tadaharu showed no sign of panic and quietly shook his head at Mr. Kantō. “Then it must have been a dream,” Mr. Kantō muttered. “Somehow... it sounded like someone groaning in pain. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of groan it was.” “It’s definitely the cat.”

“No—that’s not it. I heard someone say ‘It’ll leave a wound.’ No—it wasn’t a cat, that.” “Tomcats in heat make such strange cries, you know. There was a real incident back in my hometown—every night behind the woodcutter’s place, you’d hear wailing like ‘A baby’s dead! A baby’s dead!’ The woodcutter actually did have an infant, so people made a huge fuss thinking someone cursed them. Turned out it was just a tomcat’s mating call. Then the same thing happened again by the rice storehouse—”

“No—it wasn’t a cat,” Mr. Kantō shook his head. “‘It’s going to scar’—that part I heard clear as day. And then there was this thin whimpering groan.” “Then it must have been a dream,” Hatta Tadaharu said. “You were snoring quite loudly and kept tossing and turning all night. Once, I even got kicked in the side—it’s true!” “Maybe so.” Mr. Kantō furrowed his brows. “Hmm, maybe so. My apologies.”

Another day.

When Mr. Kantō returned from fundraising, the lattice door had been closed and wouldn't open. There was no lock, nor was there a crossbar. Since there was no precedent for such a thing, Mr. Kantō shook the lattice door while calling out, "Hatta-kun! Hatta-kun!"

The flustered reply of Hatta Tadaharu could be heard, followed by a clattering sound, and then Hatta Tadaharu emerged.

“Welcome back. I’ll open it now.” Hatta Tadaharu said while fastening his trouser band, “You returned early today.” “What did you do to the lattice door?” “I made a slight modification.” Hatta Tadaharu opened the lattice door and, shifting his body aside for Mr. Kantō, showed an old five-inch nail. “I inserted this here,” he said. “Why on earth did you do such a strange thing?” “Because that cat’s been getting careless.”

“The cat—you mean the one that uses this place as a shortcut?” “After all, since it comes tramping through barefoot, the house gets hopelessly dirty.”

Mr. Kantō took off his morning coat and changed into a lined kimono and haori while sniffing his nose repeatedly.

"There's a strange smell," Mr. Kantō said. "I wonder if someone was here." "A person? No." Hatta Tadaharu shook his head. "I would never let anyone in while you're away. And I don't associate with such people. Shall I make tea?" Mr. Kantō kept sniffing and tilting his head. Then one night not long after, he heard someone's groans and broken words—"Gotta...gotta fix..."—in that twilight between sleep and waking. "Ah, another dream," he thought, and come morning when he reconsidered, decided it must have been just that.

The economic depression worsened severely, and rumors of stagnation in the business world and bankruptcies of small and medium-sized enterprises were fervently passed from person to person. This was like an influenza epidemic in Japan—it would strike at irregular intervals, whereupon the authorities would scramble to formulate stopgap measures and attempt economic recovery through sacrifices from small and medium-sized enterprises and low-wage earners; but because they never considered fundamental remedies, it seemed structured to return once things had settled down. According to Tanba Old Man's reserved opinion, this was a necessary political manipulation to rescue Japan's scavenger economy. Upon hearing this, Mr. Kantō stiffened his shoulders, accused Tanba of being a Red, and declared that someone harboring such dangerous ideologies would face consequences in the future.

However, Mr. Kantō himself—who harbored no dangerous ideologies whatsoever—ended up facing consequences before Old Man Tanba did. This happened one evening when Mr. Kantō returned from fundraising—Jisuke came storming in as if he’d been waiting for him. “Hey, Mr. Kantō! You’ve got some nerve stealing my wife!”

And he rolled up his sleeves. Jisuke was counted among the hard workers of this "street". He was forty-seven or forty-eight and had six children, but all except the youngest—who was five years old—had run off somewhere. His current wife, Ohatchi, was his third—she was about twenty years younger than Jisuke, said to be from Tōhoku with fair skin and good looks, though not the mother of his children, and had been married to Jisuke for barely two years.

Jisuke was ordinarily a composed man; according to Old Man Tanba, "he would carefully consider whether to eat or not before finally deciding to have his meal." Yet this same man was considered the very model of diligence—actions like barging into people's homes or picking fights were so utterly foreign to Jisuke that even Toku-san, the neighborhood gambling addict, wouldn’t have bet on.

Now, trembling with rage, he clenched his fists, thrust forward his unshaven dark face, rolled up the sleeves of his old workman's coat, and looked ready to lunge at Mr. Kantō at any moment. "What are you shouting about? What's this?" Mr. Kantō said flusteredly, thrusting one hand forward as if to block Jisuke's fist. "If I've done something wrong, I'll apologize. Just calm down." "Give me back my wife!" Jisuke roared. "I'm telling you to return my wife Ohatsu!"

“Are you talking about Ms. Ohachi?” “That’s her country accent—the real name’s Ohatsu! But that don’t matter! You’re tryin’ to trick me right now, usin’ that brain of yours while we’re jawin’, but I got witnesses—a whole passel of ’em! They might not be brainy types, but their peepers work just fine—saw the whole shebang go down!” “Now settle down—anyhow I can’t make heads nor tails of this—calm yourself now, Jisuke-kun.”

As Mr. Kantō sat cross-legged there, pinching the knees of his striped trousers to smooth out the wrinkles, Jisuke—his face still contorted with unresolved anger—vehemently accused him: "For someone who’s called ‘Sensei,’ snatching another man’s wife shouldn’t even be a consideration!" "I know nothing of such matters. That must be malicious residue from someone," Mr. Kantō replied.

"The witnesses said you'd counterattack first to catch me off guard—but listen here, Sensei, they all saw it with their own eyes," Jisuke said. "That woman Ohatsu sneaked in through your back entrance, stayed about an hour, then came slinking out fiddling with her hair or something before sneaking back home. You really going to keep pretending you don't know nothin'?"

“Wait now, wait a moment.” Mr. Kantō stroked his beard. “Ah... Hmm... So that’s it? Yes, that does seem possible.” “What’s this ‘seems possible’ nonsense?”

“Now listen, Jisuke-kun,” Mr. Kantō said calmly, “this isn’t about whether witnesses saw something or not—it’s about Ms. Ohachi herself.” “It’s Ohatsu, I told ya!” “It concerns that person, you understand?” Mr. Kantō adopted a trump-card tone. “Wouldn’t having her come here settle matters clearly? I believe that’s the simplest solution—what do you think?” “That’s why I’m telling you to give her back, Sensei!”

“So you’re telling me to return her—are you suggesting I’ve done something to Ohachi-san?” “What do you mean ‘am I suggesting’?!” Jisuke scratched at his head in frustration. “Look, I ain’t just barged in here today on some whim. I noticed Ohachi—no, Ohatsu’s—behavior actin’ strange two damn months back. Gave it proper thought, I did—kept wonderin’ ‘Can I sleep tonight?’ dozens o’ times. Not that I couldn’t sleep, mind ya, but somethin’ felt off for sure—sleepin’ or not.”

“Now now, Jisuke-kun,” Mr. Kantō interjected, “let’s simplify this discussion. What you’re demanding is ‘Return Ohachi-san,’ while I for my part—Ohachi-san—” “It’s Ohatsu, I told ya!” “I’m saying it would be simple and clear if you bring that person here. So shouldn’t bringing the person in question here be the first order of business?” “So you’re trying to mess with my head, huh, Sensei?”

“What would I do with your head?” Mr. Kantō finally sharpened his voice: “The person you’re talking about is your own wife! If you’re going to shove your wife’s indecency onto me, then you as her husband should be the one to bring her here! Isn’t that right, Jisuke-kun?”

That this problem was circling around the central issue without ever addressing it directly went without saying. However, as they continued circling around, their thoughts—through centripetal force—eventually managed to strike the core of the problem. And indeed, it was something truly simple and clear, just as Mr. Kantō had said.

“That’s one of my students,” Mr. Kantō said. “A young man named Hatta Tadaharu who enrolled about three months ago.”

"So you ain't Sensei now, huh?" “Don’t spout nonsense! This Kantō Seikyō remains a patriot whether I waste away or wither.” "As I’ve been repeating since earlier, if you ask Ohatsu herself, you’ll understand." “But she ain’t at my place, Sensei.” Jisuke sat down on the entrance step and pinched his thick lips. "Seems she ran off in the middle of last night. Woke up this mornin' and she was gone. Still ain't come back even now. It's the truth, Sensei."

“One of my students disappeared last night too—though I didn’t notice till morning—so... this might be an elopement.” “That woman took every damn thing she owned,” Jisuke muttered like he was talking to himself. “Why’d she do it, Sensei? Me an’ Ohatsu became man an’ wife by mutual understandin’. Wasn’t like I just picked up some rock over there all by myself an’ dragged it here. She thought it through too—figured marryin’ me’d make her future safe. That’s why she agreed to tie the knot. That’s how it was, Sensei.”

Mr. Kantō had not been listening to what Jisuke was saying.

Early that morning, when Mr. Kantō realized that his student Hatta was nowhere to be seen, he assumed it was only temporary. Since he had never gone out for personal reasons since enrolling, he must have gone to visit a friend or something. So now, upon hearing Jisuke’s story, the moment he surmised it was likely an elopement arranged with Ohachi, he realized his trust had been ignored like scrap paper and betrayed, plunging him into despair. “Complaining like that won’t do any good,” Mr. Kantō said. “You must have some idea where that person’s run off to.”

“I wish I did.” “Don’t you have any leads?”

Jisuke shook his head. He had met Ohatsu at a land reclamation site where she worked as a cook in the mess hall, but when the project ended, the mess hall didn't relocate—it disbanded there. Therefore he couldn't trace those connections, and though he and Ohatsu had become husband and wife, they hadn't officially registered their marriage—so he didn't know her family registry or current residence. Most residents in this "neighborhood" typically didn't care about marriage registration until a child was born—after all, they'd say, you never knew when our women might run off with someone else.

"That's a problem." "What about you, Sensei?" Jisuke retorted. "You do know where that student kid's people are from, don't you?" This time Mr. Kantō shook his head.

“Then what about the guarantor?” Mr. Kantō repeated the same motion. Recalling Hatta Tadaharu’s enrollment interview, Mr. Kantō made a sour face while Jisuke grew furious. He accused him of employing someone without checking either parental background or guarantor—an irrational approach unbefitting someone like Mr. Kantō. “That’s against the law, I tell ya,” Jisuke said. “You gotta register a license even just to keep one damn dog! But hiring a person without no guarantor—how’s that make sense? Folks like you, Sensei—people ain’t what they look like.”

"That is not an employee," Mr. Kantō retorted. "He is a student of this Patriotic Academy." Jisuke sighed. It was a deep, absurdly long, lifeless sigh. Jisuke couldn’t tell whether Mr. Kantō’s answer that the student wasn’t an employee was reasonable or not. He sighed, pinched his lips with his fingers, roughly scratched his head, and sighed again. “So, about that—” Jisuke looked at Sensei. “What do you plan to do with that student, huh?”

“I’ll do nothing,” Mr. Kantō replied calmly. “As the great Bismarck said: ‘To try to return fleeing soldiers to the front lines is akin to attempting to reattach fallen blossoms to their branches.’ I adhere to the doctrine of letting those who leave go unpursued.” “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout complicated stuff—might not even know ’bout simple stuff either. Haa... What’m I s’posed to do?” “In that case, the only option would be to file a missing person report with the police then.” "That ain't gonna work" Jisuke shook his head violently, “If we do that, her own husband or other husbands might’ve already filed reports. If three or four missing persons reports overlap, even if they find that Ohatsu woman, the police’ll just be at their wits’ end. Such an outlandish idea ain’t even worth discussin’.”

Mr. Kantō said “Huh…” and gazed intently at Jisuke’s jet-black face with probing eyes.

“In that case,” Mr. Kantō eventually said, “there’s no point in you staying here like this. Why don’t you go home?” “Even stayin’ here like this,” Jisuke answered as if wrestling with his thoughts, “I know there ain’t no helpin’ it. But if you’re askin’ whether I wanna go home—I don’t feel like returnin’, don’t plan to stay here forever neither. Just can’t bring myself to leave. When I think of where that Ohatsu might be lyin’ around right now... I’m just gettin’ torn apart inside.”

Mr. Kantō widened his eyes. Even after Jisuke had left some time later, and again while preparing the evening meal, those eyes remained wide and bulging.—About a week later, a postcard arrived for Mr. Kantō from Hatta Tadaharu. I hereby reject the Patriotic Academy’s empty theorizing! 'All men must be men of action'—so goes the ancient maxim. I boldly declare to you, Mr. Kantō: I, Hatta Tadaharu, shall become the standard-bearer of women’s liberation through my very flesh! Ah! “Tadaharu Sei”

Such was the message. As soon as Mr. Kantō finished reading, he tore the postcard into tiny pieces and flung them away, crumpled his face, and scratched his beard.

“Well now...” Mr. Kantō looked around him. “First things first—damn, this is exactly when I need to knock back some shochu. Even two cups or one would do, but those damn lushes in Nombeyokocho are all men of action through and through.” Mr. Kantō stood up, paused in thought, then muttered “First, Old Man Tanba,” and stepped outside wearing an expression of resolve yet lacking conviction.

Dad

Sawagami Ryōtarō had five children. Taro, Jiro, Hanako, Shiro, Umeko. They were all young children—the eldest being ten years old, followed by nine, eight, seven, and five. His wife Misao was pregnant. The people of this "neighborhood" knew full well that none of those five were Sawagami Ryōtarō's children—that each had a different biological father living within this same "neighborhood," and that these men could each identify their own offspring.

Since Misao, the wife, had damaged her own womb, she would of course have been more familiar with it than anyone else. It was believed that only the children and Sawagami Ryōtarō were unaware of this. Sawagami Ryōtarō was called "Ryō-san". He wasn’t particularly tall but was stocky, with a round face that looked inherently good-natured. His thick eyebrows and small, round eyes both slanted downward; his lips were thick, and because the flesh around his cheekbones swelled up, his small, round eyes seemed to peer out from beneath that fleshy mound.

Old Man Namiki, known for his stinginess, declared that Ryō-san's face had every characteristic of a pushover. Every feature—eyes, mouth, nose, cheeks, ears—seemed assembled from nothing but pushover components. "Take a proper look at Ryōtarō's face," said Saitō-sensei the herbalist. "That's the face of a man hypnotized by his wife, unable to wake from the spell." "This ain't no laughing matter—really study that man's eyes," Otsune-san from the prayer shop insisted gravely. "Those eyes despise people from their very core—looking down on everything under heaven, people and gods and buddhas alike."

Misao had a slight, petite frame with a narrow face and sharp cheekbones; sunken eyes always sparkled with a combative gleam. Skin was dark; hair brown and curly; forehead receded. She was three years younger than Ryōtarō at thirty-two years old but conversely looked about four years older. Misao was hardly ever at home. She would prepare meals and mend children's clothes but otherwise spent time somewhere in the tenement—gossiping with wives' groups, getting into brawls, drinking sake while mediating disputes—or frequently disappearing for half a day.

“Ugh, women are such a drag.” Several times a day without fail, she would lament: “Men get to do whatever they please, strutting around playing the household tyrant while we women break our backs working and can’t even enjoy a single trip to the theater. When you think about it, what’s the point of living? I just end up pitying myself something fierce.” Ryō-san smiled softly as he diligently applied himself to his livelihood of brush making.

Ryō-san was a skilled brush maker—though his brushes were actually hairbrushes—and wholesalers treated his products as luxury goods, supplying them to high-end cosmetic shops, Western goods stores, and department stores. However, because his work was slow and output remained low, people said it made their teeth grind. Indeed, his wife Misao seemed to grind her teeth at his slowness—not just regarding his work, but even down to the raising and lowering of chopsticks, she showered him with blatant criticism.

“Watching you work makes the soles of my feet itch,” Misao said. “Honestly, how did such a sluggish man ever get born? If your parents were still alive, I’d march right over and ask them myself.” Ryō-san simply narrowed his small round eyes, allowed a faint smile to hover around his lips, and continued working in silence. On the amber-colored workbench, slightly to the right, stood a board about three inches thick, with materials arranged around Ryō-san—tubes containing hog bristles, brush bases, fine-gauge wires, and glue pots flanking him on both sides. With his left hand, he nimbly plucked hog bristles from the container. The number of strands to be inserted into each hole was fixed at approximately thirty, but he had never once managed to grab exactly that amount. After plucking them up, each time he would carefully count them, adding two strands or subtracting one as needed.

“What’s this about one or two strands?” Misao rebuked. “A couple more of these scrawny hairs wouldn’t make any difference anyway.” “That may be so,” Ryō-san answered slowly with a cheeky smile, his tongue seeming too heavy to move, “but I can’t rest easy unless it’s thirty strands.” When the count matched, he tapped the root ends against the thick standing board’s edge to align them, wound fine-gauge wire tightly around the base with his right hand, threaded one end through the brush’s hole and pulled to draw the hair roots into place for securing, then trimmed the excess wire with scissors. The holes consisted of three central rows of twenty and one row of seventeen on each side—ninety-four in total. Once thirty hairs were inserted into each one, he hammered the fixed wire flat, applied glue, covered it with a backboard, and dyed it.

The glue always needed to remain melted, so it was kept on the brazier year-round—and thus the pungent odor never ceased inside the house. "This glue smell makes the whole world feel so fleeting," Misao said with exaggerated grimacing. "You'd think there'd be at least one clever person out there who could figure how to remove this stench from the glue. Ugh! It's unbearable—I can't stay in this house another minute!"

Misao never helped her husband. When she criticized the slowness of his work pace and found fault with the smell of glue, she promptly headed outside. She usually came home for the evening meal but more often than not didn't return for lunch. Since Ryōtarō and the children were accustomed to this, they didn't find it particularly strange when she didn't return. When their father prepared the meals, everyone ate them meekly. The children were all obedient. The four up to Shiro were elementary school students, and each child ranked at the top of their class, with Taro having consistently remained class president.

“Those kids are the first of this neighborhood’s Seven Wonders,” the people here would say. “No matter how you look at it, there’s no earthly reason such children could’ve been born here.” The children, all five of them, were not very close to their mother. Whether because their father handled most aspects of their daily lives alone, or because their youthful sensibilities instinctively pitied him, even when their mother was home they never acted spoiled—consulting their father about everything and striving to assist him. The residents’ clothes here were almost all repeatedly washed and mended items; even when getting new garments, they could only afford to buy from secondhand shops. Because of this, there were two merchants who regularly made rounds carrying odd lots and used clothing, but they grumbled that rather than selling what they brought, they more often ended up buying rags instead.

The Sawagami family was no exception - every garment the children wore was someone's hand-me-downs; shirts, trousers, blouses, skirts, all patched all over, requiring constant washing, unraveling and resewing, patching up tears and mending frayed edges. Of course Misao didn't just watch idly by either, but eighty percent of it still fell to Ryō-san. Due to his occupation, he was likely accustomed to delicate handiwork—one might even say patient work was his specialty—but since he stayed home all day watching the children, whenever he saw them wearing soiled clothes or noticed unraveling seams, he couldn't help but set to work.

Lately, the children themselves began doing whatever tasks they could manage on their own. Though only a second grader, Hanako managed the mending, and Taro and Jiro took charge of the laundry. Moreover, whenever they had even a little free time, they tried to help with brush making. "What disgraceful children you are," Misao would often say. "Boys doing laundry and such—with that petty mindset, you'll never amount to anything."

The children remained silent. If they were to retort that the school teacher had told them to take care of their own business, even the school teacher would become a target of ridicule.

“I’m not just some ordinary body, you know,” Misao insisted, “my side dish stays separate.” Whether it was scraps of meat or tuna offcuts, Misao alone received a separate plate of side dishes. In other words, since she was pregnant, she needed to consume that much nutrition. The others didn’t even glance, but Umeko, the youngest at just five years old, couldn’t help having her eyes drawn there whenever meat was simmering—the smell alone made it inevitable. Then Misao glared at her with eyes like she was facing an enemy.

“What’s with that look?” Misao roared. “I told you I’m not just some ordinary body—I have to eat for two! Go ask anyone out there—they’ll tell you how Mrs. Sawagami puts up with all this!” “I can’t even eat this stinking scrap meat in peace!” someone would wail. “If you want it so bad then you eat it! Wouldn’t matter if Mom dropped dead from pregnant beriberi! Go on—eat it then!”

Then she would let out a shrill wail and dump the contents of her plate onto Umeko’s face. It was certain that Misao was pregnant, and the neighbors knew who the partner was. About a year ago, a young man named Yonemura Gorō moved into this "neighborhood." The instant Misao set her sights on him, the widow O-Tomi-san did the same, and both women became utterly infatuated with Gorō. O-Tomi-san, being a widow living alone with time to spare and in a more advantageous position than Misao who had five children, seemed to have scored the first point. One day, Gorō entered O-Tomi-san’s house, and about thirty minutes later, Misao rushed into that house. Having seen Gorō enter and likely timed it accordingly, Misao erupted into a clawing brawl with O-Tomi-san—half-naked with her obi loosened—until neighborhood wives gathered and finally pulled them apart, though Gorō had already vanished unnoticed. At that moment Misao shrieked something to the effect of "After squeezing me dry you shack up with this slut?", thereby resolving two of the wives' lingering questions. In other words, it answered two questions that had puzzled the neighborhood wives: how a woman like Misao kept attracting men after men, and why Ryōtarō—a skilled brush craftsman—remained trapped in poverty.

Delivering the brushes Ryōtarō finished to the wholesaler and collecting the wages was Misao’s role, and she was also the one who controlled the purse strings. Ryō-san never inquired about the wage amounts, nor did he ever ask how much money was currently in Misao’s purse. Misao could use her husband’s earnings however she pleased. Even so, given their limited income, whatever she spent on the man must have been trivial. In other societies, matters like having suits tailored for someone or buying them cars might be discussed—such things were a thousand miles apart from the reality here. But in this "street," it wasn’t uncommon for a cup of shochu to hold the same value as a suit elsewhere.

It remained unclear exactly how much Misao had given Gorō. Gorō lived with a craftsman called Mr. Tanaura, occasionally taking day labor jobs but quickly growing bored of them—if he worked ten days a month at most, he spent the remainder idling about. Though O-Tomi-san proved a formidable rival, Misao held material superiority, and Gorō—keenly aware of this fact—skillfully played both sides. When O-Tomi-san moved away that spring, Misao came to monopolize Gorō completely, and thus the ceasefire trumpet was said to have sounded.

Rumors held that each of Ryō-san’s five children’s biological fathers still resided in this “neighborhood,” and that they had not entirely severed their relationships with Misao either. “Hey, Taro’s mom,” Taro’s biological father said, “I hear you’ve got yourself some young stud. You’ve been lookin’ real fine lately.” “Yo, Hanako’s ma,” Hanako’s biological father called out, “you’ve been neglectin’ me something fierce. Quit pamperin’ that young buck all the time—how ’bout tossin’ this way a scrap now an’ then?”

“Quit puttin’ on airs with that three-point act,” Shiro’s biological father said. “You’ve packed on so much lard one young buck ain’t cuttin’ it no more. How ’bout we get down good an’ proper like old times—whaddya say?”

Jiro's biological father said nothing. He said nothing and reportedly resorted to direct action. These appeals and actions were carried out openly where neighbors could see and hear everything, yet Misao never showed any shame or anger. Rather, she flaunted herself before the neighbors' eyes and ears, adopting an attitude meant to stir envy. Could Ryōtarō have been completely unaware of his wife's brazen promiscuity? The residents believed he remained ignorant—not only laughing behind his back but sometimes even making sarcastic remarks to his face—yet Ryō-san merely lowered his small round eyes and responded with nothing but a gentle smile, showing no reaction whatsoever.

“Since Japan began, we ain’t never seen such a gullible fool,” the men said, “even if we ain’t been around since the start of time ourselves.” Yet there were moments when Ryō-san would stare intently at his children. During meals, while sitting around the dining tray with them, he would suddenly freeze—bowl and chopsticks halted mid-motion—looking at Taro with startled eyes before shifting his gaze to Jiro, then watching Hanako, Shiro, and Umeko in turn.

“What is it, Dad?” Noticing their father’s gaze, one of the children asked, “What’s wrong?” Ryō-san slowly shook his head and smiled gently. “It’s nothing,” he answered. “I was just thinking how big you’ve all gotten.”

One evening, Jirō came home crying. Misao was out as usual, but the father and siblings were all there. Jirō would occasionally come home after getting into fights outside, so at first no one paid any attention. Ryō-san was making brushes while Taro sat beside him polishing the handles. But Hanako was first to notice something different about Jirō's crying this time. "What's wrong, Jirō?" Hanako stopped her sewing to look at him. "You'll make Umeko worry if you keep crying like that."

“Dad.” Jirō looked at his father’s face. His own face was smeared and soaked with tears, grayish smudges forming around his eyes down to his cheeks—likely from rubbing with dirty hands. “What is it, Jirō?” “Dad,” Jirō said again, “is it true? They say none of us are really your children.”

Taro, Hanako, and Shiro all jolted as if a snapping firework had suddenly exploded there, and they all looked toward their father. Their demeanor showed they had long harbored these suspicions themselves—now that the matter had finally surfaced, they wanted to hear the truth clarified once and for all. Ryōtarō stopped working and gazed at each of his five children's faces in turn. Wearing his usual gentle smile while narrowing his small round eyes. Then he slowly resumed his labor.

“You should think about that for yourselves,” Ryō-san said, “—whether you’re my children or not.”

The children were silent.

“Dad knows you’re all his own children.” Ryō-san paused and continued, “That’s why I cherish all of you—why I love you all so much it hurts. But if you don’t love Dad… if you don’t think he’s your real dad… then Dad isn’t your dad at all. Right, Jirō?” In Jirō’s throat, the remnants of his sobs hitched with a small sound, and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“But everyone says it—they’ve been saying forever that none of us are really your kids, that our real dad’s someone else,” Jirō said. “It’s not just me—Taro and Hanako and Shirō get told too!” The father laughed soothingly. “People say all sorts of things. You’ve heard them call your dad slow and spineless, haven’t you?” Ryō-san chuckled in his throat. “No way—Dad’s got strength and knows how to fight! When I was little, I got into twice as many fights as Jirō here, and never once lost a single one.”

Ryō-san rolled up the sleeve of his left shirt, showed the children his upper arm, and revealed a brownish scar about fifteen centimeters long there. "This here," he said, "is where a friend cut me with a knife. Back when Dad was in sixth grade."

And he matter-of-factly recounted how he had subdued the most violent kid in the class—one who even threatened the homeroom teacher. While his arm was being slashed by a knife, when he struck his opponent’s nose bridge, the children pursed their lips and shuddered. Amidst them, only Taro lowered his eyes so as not to be noticed by his father. He seemed to know how the scar on his father's arm had come to be. Moreover, it was clear from his downcast expression that this was not some valiant tale as Ryō-san described, but rather a humiliating incident—one so shameful that even he, as a child, found it embarrassing to recall.

Ryō-san went on to explain that he wasn't slow—that his work took time because he valued quality, that this was all for his children's sake, and that raising them properly required doing reputable work. "This here's Dad's true feelings," Ryō-san said. "When push comes to shove, I could take down three or five men easy—not weaklings mind you, only proper strong opponents. Same with my work—if I set my mind to it, I'd finish two hundred, three hundred brushes in a single day."

There, Ryō-san smiled with an air of confidence and looked around at each of the children’s faces in turn. “But the people in the tenements don’t know any of this—they just spout all sorts of nonsense, don’t they? Hey, Jirō.” Ryō-san spread his smile wider. “So, what do you all think? Do you trust Dad, or do you trust those people in the tenements who don’t know anything?” “It’s Dad,” Jirō said, raising his hand. Then Taro, followed by Shiro and Hanako, raised their hands and said, “Dad.” Umeko probably hadn’t fully grasped the conversation; she looked around at everyone’s faces before pointing at Hanako and declaring, “I’m with Sis!” Everyone burst into laughter.

“Whether someone’s a real parent or a real child—no one can ever really know,” Ryōtarō said softly as he returned to his work. “If each of us believes deep down—‘This is my own dad,’ ‘This is my child’—that’s what makes a true parent and child. Next time someone says such things, you ask them back—‘What about you?’”

“If there’s anyone who can answer back, I’d like to meet them,” Ryōtarō said as he tightened the thin wire firmly. Taro silently continued polishing. Crushed tofu fritter

Katsuko was fifteen years old. Compared to other girls her age, she was shorter in stature with a less developed figure—flat-chested and narrow-hipped. Her skin was a dull brown without luster, coarse in texture, with thick body hair growing on her arms and calves.—Her features weren’t particularly unattractive in any specific way, but overall she lacked the fresh vitality typical of a girl her age, instead giving the strong impression of a middle-aged woman who had thoroughly experienced life’s hardships.

Katsuko had been raised by her uncle and aunt and still lived with the three of them. Her uncle, Watanaka Kyōta, was fifty-six, and her aunt, Otae, fifty-seven. Katsuko was the child of her aunt’s younger sister and was taken in by her aunt immediately after birth. The exact circumstances were unclear, but her biological mother had married the president of a certain trading company shortly after giving birth to Katsuko, with whom she now had three children and lived a life of luxury. It was said that when taking Katsuko in, they had made an agreement; even now, her biological mother sent fixed remittances to the uncle and aunt, and Kanae herself visited this “town” about three to five times a year.

Watanaka Kyōta was said to have been a middle school teacher. Though eloquent in speech, he was a thoroughgoing drunkard and idler who funneled not only the remittances from Kanae but even his wife and Katsuko’s earnings almost entirely into drink, while never attempting anything resembling proper work himself. Kyōta had a habit of appending taxonomical annotations to everything. "My drinking constitutes a genetic presample, you see." "Once this fish has been filleted and boiled, it no longer falls under zoology but rather hygiene."

He would say things like that. He took great pride in his own appearance. In particular, he had absolute confidence in his profile. He called this his "John Barrymore's Profile," and when drunk, would repeatedly strike sideways poses to show it off even to his wife and Katsuko. "Look at my nose," Kyōta would say to his drinking companions. "This transcends the realms of phrenology and human anatomy—it is an object of pure aesthetics."

Mr. Shima, who suffered from facial nerve spasms, had become quite close with Kyōta not long after moving to this “town.” But when Kyōta once expounded on his nose, Mr. Shima smirked swiftly and retorted. “No aesthetics there,” “So it’s nasology then,” Mr. Shima said admiringly—pointing at his own nose—and asked, “Pathological nasology, perhaps? Not bad at all.”

One must never direct sarcasm about appearance toward those confident in their looks. Though Mr. Shima's remark amounted to little more than feeble wordplay rather than true sarcasm, Kyōta appeared wounded by it and thereafter drank less frequently with him.

“It’s truly dreadful weather, isn’t it,” Otae said one time. “Feels like mold’s growing right to the core of my head.” The rainy season dragged on, and dreary days continued—days so damp that blue mold grew on old tatami mats. Otae and Katsuko were doing piecework making artificial flowers together, while Kyōta, alone, had been drinking cold sake since morning. But upon hearing his wife’s words that seemed to ooze gloom, he suddenly adopted a serious expression and retorted. “You go on about the weather this and that—is that a meteorological complaint, or an astronomical one?”

Attached to the northern tenement was an old duplex; having grown too aged and neglected, the entire structure leaned southward, appearing on the verge of collapse, for which reason three long cedar logs had been propped against that side as supports. Now, when a storm approaches, the residents of that house hastily remove those support beams. Anyone would initially suspect, "Isn’t this backward?" Since a storm is coming, that’s precisely when one should prop up support beams—because that’s the common-sense view. However, the residents of that house say, “Common sense doesn’t apply to this house.” If they were to prop up that house, it would be torn apart by the strong winds. If they remove the support beams, the house sways and creaks, adapting to the wind’s intensity. In short, not resisting the wind was the sole preservation method for this house—such was the principle.

“That can no longer be discussed within architecture,” Kyōta remarked after hearing the explanation. “It’s fundamentally a question of material resistance science.” Otae, his wife, remained submissive. This wasn’t due to her being a year older than her husband—both had long passed such youthful concerns. Kyōta devoted himself to drink, avoiding any establishment with feminine ambiance when drinking elsewhere. “Women’s presence ruins liquor’s essence,” became his mantra. Yet traces of his middle school teaching days lingered—he never raised his voice or hand against his wife or Katsuko. Thus Otae’s obedience seemed innate, managing their destitute household through endless piecework without complaint, never demanding her husband seek employment.

“There are so many people in this world driven to parent-child suicide because they can’t make ends meet—how pitiful,” Otae would say while working. “To those people, we’re still fortunate just to keep living. Really now—what must it feel like for those parents and children who kill themselves together?” Katsuko stayed silent, either releasing a sigh too faint to hear or pausing her work to stare at some fixed point on the worn tatami.

There was no one as diligent as Katsuko, and few were as sparing with words as she was. Since they had taken her in immediately after birth and since Otae was her blood-related aunt, one would expect that an affection no different from that between true parent and child would flow between them. Nevertheless, shortly after moving here, the neighboring housewives realized that Katsuko was not the couple’s biological child. That was four years ago; Katsuko was still eleven years old. Apart from the time she spent at school, there was never a moment when she wasn’t seen working. Her movements lacked any girlish charm or brightness, being far too brisk and adult-like—so much so that one might have thought she’d been disciplined with a whip.

“What’s with that girl?” The neighborhood housewives would often say back then, “No matter what you say to her, she just glares at you with those awful eyes of hers and never gives a proper reply—deaf-mute or something, I wonder.” “It’s because she was abused growing up—it’s made her too guarded to get along with anyone or trust a soul.”

The circumstances of her early childhood were unclear, but ever since settling here, everyone could sense that the relationship between Otae and Katsuko was not only not one of real mother and child but also devoid of affection or warmth. Otae was not solely obedient to her husband, but submissively accepted all things that occurred around her, never once attempting to oppose anything—much as clergy fear defying divine will. If Katsuko did not grow attached to her, she accepted that lack of attachment. Katsuko was as reticent as a mute and hardly ever responded when spoken to, but Otae had never prompted her for a reply. Even if she received no reply, if she wanted to talk, she would simply speak—she never resorted to anger over the lack of response or ceased initiating conversation.

“You’re not an anthropological being,” Kyōta said. “You’re not even zoological—one can only say you’ve become a botanical being by now.” When Katsuko graduated from elementary school, Otae argued with her husband just once. Kyōta insisted there was no need to send Katsuko to school any longer, while Otae maintained that with the remittance money, she wanted at least to let her attend middle school. “Don’t mock that remittance,” Kyōta said. “They foisted that bastard child on us—do they really have the right to call this pittance a remittance? I can’t even drink decently!” “That may be true,” Otae persisted, “but middle school is compulsory education now.” After two or three more exchanges, Kyōta suddenly produced a clever scheme. “Then here’s what we’ll do—since sending Katsuko to middle school will cost more, we’ll tell them to double the remittance from now on. If Tokioka agrees to that, then I might reconsider.”

And so Kanē came to arrive in this “town”. That was the only time Otae voiced her own opinion to her husband.

And presumably contact had been made with Katsuko’s birth parent, for Mrs. Kanē came visiting for the first time.

She was said to be seven years younger than Otae, which would have made her forty-six or seven at the time, but with her flashy kimono and freshly styled hair and makeup—as if she’d just stepped out of a beauty salon—she looked no older than thirty-two or three no matter how you saw it. Her appearance struck the people of this "town" like a shockwave; in vacant lots and alleyways, crowds of housewives and children who had rushed out to see her formed human walls, all their eyes—blending curiosity, admiration, and jealousy—fixing upon her and tracking her every movement as she walked.

“Here, take a sniff,” a certain housewife said the next day. “The places that person passed through still smell of perfume.”

At the Watanaka household where Kanē was received, Kyōta was the first to start making a commotion. He had been drinking alone as usual but leapt up to usher Kanē inside, then immediately began badgering Otae and Katsuko to prepare a feast.

“Oh, Sis,” Kanē said to Otae, “is this that child? Oh,” Then she looked Katsuko up and down, fixed her gaze on the girl’s face, and stared at her for some time. When Katsuko flushed and turned her face away, she let out a sigh and shook her head. “Well, well,” Kanē said, “what an ugly child. She’s just like a crushed tofu fritter someone stepped on.”

Katsuko expressionlessly looked back at Kanē and, remaining silent, slowly stood up and left. Otae took Katsuko with her to go shopping, grilled fish, and simmered stews. Only the sake was delivered from the Nakadori liquor store. Above all else, Kyōta always settled his liquor bills properly, and since he drank a great deal, he seemed to be quite a profitable customer for the liquor store. Thus, while being persistently urged by Kyōta, they prepared the meal, and Kyōta and Kanē began drinking.

“Oh my, what a surprise!” Otae stared intently at her sister. “You can drink alcohol?” “It’s Papa’s training, you see,” answered Kanē. “A single bottle of whiskey means nothing to me. Besides, we move in wide social circles—in high society, couples must always attend events together. If you can’t handle a little alcohol, you’d never manage being a proper hostess.” “That’s remarkable,” Kyōta said. “Then sending Katsuko to women’s college should be child’s play for you.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Kyō-san,” Kanē said, feigning a hit. “The bigger the business gets, the less idle cash we have lying around. Even my little purchases are all done by check—it’s not something you people could possibly understand.” “But…” Otae said, “we have to send this child to at least middle school.” “Oh la la, no way.” Kanē waved her hand before her sister could finish half a sentence. “Sending a child who looks like a stepped-on crushed tofu fritter to middle school? That’s a waste! Elementary school alone is more than enough—let’s drop this talk already.”

And she poured Kyōta a drink. The concepts carried by words like "high society" and "hostess" seemed utterly unrelated to Kanē's manner of speaking, eating, and drinking. She gulped down the poured drink as if swigging it and attacked each dish of food one after another with her chopsticks. She sucked the grilled fish down to the bone, and when a small bone got stuck in her teeth, she thrust her finger into her mouth to dig it out, rubbed it off on the chabudai, then nonchalantly licked her finger clean. As the alcohol took effect, she launched into elegant tales, suddenly shoved Kyōta’s shoulder, or opened her large mouth wide and cackled.

All this time, Otae and Katsuko were doing piecework, but Kyōta and Kanē acted as if the two were invisible—drinking and eating on their own, saying whatever they pleased while laughing foolishly. After opening over one and a half of the two two-liter bottles and devouring all the food, Kanē let out a burp and announced she was leaving. “Ah, that was fun! You’re so cultured I never get bored,” Kanē said to Kyōta. “Drinking with uncultured people—that’s truly à la pareille. Thank you for the meal.”

“You’re absolutely right, yeah,” Kyōta muttered, “such folks are completely à la pareille.”

Otae accompanied her as far as the ditch stream in the wasteland.

“Hey, Kanē,” Otae said when parting, “please don’t say such cruel things about a woman’s face—it’s heartless, don’t you think?” “Crushed tofu fritter, huh? Hmph.” “If you’d just stop saying that—you’re blessed with looks yourself, so it’s easy for you to talk.”

“That goes without saying.” Kanē tilted her nose up. “I was the one Papa fell for at first sight. Well, goodbye.”

From then on, the people of this "town," especially the children, began calling Katsuko "crushed tofu fritter." After finishing elementary school, Katsuko stayed at home, doing piecework and helping with housework. Whenever she had a free moment, she would clean inside and outside the house, sweep paper scraps and pull weeds even for the neighbors, and take on ditch cleaning that everyone else avoided—doing it willingly once a month. "Rare for her age, isn't it?" the housewives said. "If only she had a bit more charm, we wouldn't complain—but she never sits still."

Even after that, Kanē continued to visit once or twice a year in her lavish attire. She would call Katsuko "that stepped-on crushed tofu fritter," drink with Kyōta, and in the boisterous tone of a stagecoach driver’s wife from some cheap play, dish out all sorts of shady stories.

It seemed certain that Kanē’s marital family were substantial businesspeople. But what kind of business they were running, or what their household was like, remained unclear. Even when she spoke of things like the so-called Nanishi Trading Company or mentioned how the three children she had borne there were taking piano lessons with two private tutors each constantly in attendance, it did not feel as though she was discussing the company itself or the children—rather, it seemed solely to elevate Kanē herself, to flaunt Kanē herself. She would pepper her speech with foreign phrases at every opportunity, but most were used inconsistently, and many were nonsensical toilet-like utterances that defied identification as any actual language.

What kind of upbringing Otae and Kanē had, what parents and siblings they possessed, or whether they even still had any parents or siblings at all—all these matters, like those of the other residents in this “town,” remained vague and elusive. There was always only the present there; as a rule, the past went unacknowledged. When stories of the past happened to be told, it had become common sense that ninety percent would be embellished and exaggeratedly distorted.

What was intriguing was that when it came to these exaggerated tales, the storyteller would become excited even while knowing they were lies, and if it was a tragic tale, they themselves would shed tears over its pathos. The listeners too, while thinking "Ah, this must be a fabrication," would nevertheless find themselves so deeply moved that they'd weep in sympathy—a far from rare occurrence. However, when it came to matters involving vanity, the circumstances changed entirely. Even when something was clearly a lie, it would inevitably invite resentment and harsh slander; if someone had actually been wealthy in the past or openly flaunted their wealth, they would be denounced as if they were mortal enemies.

Kanē belonged to the latter category—dressed in lavish attire, scattering perfume scent across a hundred square meters as she arrived and departed with her nose held high. She paid no mind to the residents forming crowds to greet or bid farewell to her, nor did she offer any greetings. Yet Kanē’s reputation in this place remained unscathed. Even the vicious-tongued housewives—who never missed a chance to call Katsuko “crushed tofu fritter”—fixed gazes of envy and longing upon Kanē, their resentment amounting to little more than what might pass for typically feminine jealousy.

On one occasion, a group of socially conscious prominent wives came as a delegation to distribute old clothes, sweets, powdered milk, household medicines, and other items free of charge to the residents there. It must have been a great joy for the residents—like starving beasts pouncing on prey, they assaulted those supplies and swiftly snatched away every last item. And as the famous wives stood dumbfounded—"That's all? You only brought this paltry amount?"—the men began shouting.

Another man yelled about them bringing such paltry items and putting on airs, threatened they'd better scram quick or there'd be hell to pay, and the children started hurling stones—that's how it ended up. Why did such people show an attitude closer to reverence than resentment or malice toward Kanē, who embodied arrogance itself? "The charity delegation was attacked because they touched on the residents' poverty," remarked Mr. Saita, the Christian. That famous wives' group had tried to satisfy their own sense of atonement and superiority through almsgiving. Nothing's more sensitive to such things than the poor—they'd grown furious knowing their poverty was being exploited—it's written right in the Bible: when your right hand gives alms, don't let your left hand know of it.

“Why, it’s a simple matter,” Old Man Tanba remarked. The reason the people here didn’t resent Madam Kanē was likely because they sensed she belonged to their own kind. Then what of Katsuko—an unparalleled hard worker who never missed cleaning even the neighbors’ doorsteps? Though plain-looking and brusque, she never acted spitefully toward anyone nor hindered others. She supported Kyōta—a shiftless drunk who didn’t earn a single yen—and though overwhelmed by piecework with her aunt to scrape by, she never once complained about being unable to attend middle school.

The people here called Katsuko a "crushed tofu fritter" and mocked her, not even bothering to lower their voices when she might hear. "There's no malice in it," people might claim—"but," Old Man Tanba remarked, "they don't just lack malice—they hate her outright. That girl makes them see their own wretched lives reflected back—all that work that never gets rewarded." So Katsuko reached fifteen years old. That winter, Otae entered the hospital for three weeks to have a gynecological tumor removed. Kanē covered the surgical costs but declared she'd deduct it from their monthly remittance, leaving Kyōta cornered.

“Hey, Katsuko, you need to think this through carefully.” Kyōta said with an alcohol-tinged burp, “This is Auntie’s illness—she who’s shown you deeper kindness than even your birth mother. This could mean life or death. Right?”

Katsuko silently continued her piecework. "So, as proof you haven't forgotten Auntie's kindness, this is when you work your hardest here. You should know well what Auntie's worried about—what weighs on her mind most while she's in the hospital." Kyōta stared at the girl's face with eyes that seemed to confirm whether she'd understood his words. Katsuko showed no expression and merely sped up her piecework.

“If only you had a slightly better face and a more mature figure,” Kyōta muttered as if to himself. “Then there’d be easier work with better pay for you—but with how you are, there’s no helping it. Guess we’ve got no choice but to stick with piecework. But you’ll have to cover Auntie’s share too. Got it?”

Katsuko nodded quietly as if to show she understood, but still did not speak.

For nearly three weeks, Katsuko worked ceaselessly day and night, as if driven to discover the limits of her capabilities. Piecework wasn’t something that was always consistently available—there were times when it would pile up two or threefold, and others when it would stop entirely for over ten days. Katsuko feared nothing more than the “stopping.” To prevent that, she had to complete the work faster than anyone else and more skillfully than others. In other words, she needed to secure the evaluation that "That girl’s work is reliable and quick." Day and night, without rest, the mind of Katsuko—who worked ceaselessly—was constantly occupied by this thought, dominated by it.

Kyōta, unlike what one would expect of a heavy drinker, had never missed his three meals a day. Even when drinking elsewhere, he would always return home to eat at mealtimes. Moreover, he demanded fish or meat for all three meals, and miso soup had to be included without exception. “No good. This mackerel’s spoiled—look at this skin.” Kyōta said while prodding the simmered fish with his chopsticks: “Fresh fish keep their skin intact—look here! The skin’s all flaky and peeling off like this.”

“Scraps again?” Kyōta wrinkled his nose. “This isn’t some street stall beef bowl—having scraps all the time sticks in my craw. This isn’t culinary science but food sanitation we’re talking about.”

Katsuko said nothing. With her fifteen-year-old arms and mind, she was doing everything she could. She had neither the money nor the wisdom to select fish based on their freshness or buy meat that wasn’t scraps. Moreover, she had no room left to spare for listening to her uncle’s complaints either. Katsuko worked tirelessly and earned nearly the same wages as when she and her aunt had worked together. She never went to bed before 1 AM nor slept past 4 AM—her sleep lasting at most three hours—during which she slept soundly like someone who had lost consciousness, neither turning over nor snoring.

One midnight—or rather, a little past 2 AM—Kyōta woke up and went to the restroom; upon returning and as he was about to get into bed, he suddenly noticed Katsuko.

Katsuko was lying on her back, one leg sticking out from under the futon. That was not something that usually happened. If she slept on her back, she would remain in that position; if she slept on her side, she would stay that way until she woke up. At that moment, one leg had stepped out from the futon, and the upper thighs were exposed.

Kyōta crouched to cover her with the futon. The underdeveloped body of Katsuko had nowhere even a girlish charm could be felt. Her chest and hips were bony like a boy's, with no trace of softness or pliancy visible to the eye.—This was indeed how they normally appeared, but whether through some trick of the dim nighttime light filtering through the cracked glass door, Katsuko's exposed leg as seen by Kyōta now displayed an astonishingly alluring quality—particularly at the thigh—with a soft fullness and heavy tension that seemed to defy reality.

Immediately, Katsuko opened her eyes. It felt less like waking from sleep and more like someone who hadn’t been sleeping had opened their eyes; without so much as moving her pupils, she stared at her uncle. “It’s nothing,” Kyōta said, “Just something normal. Just stay still.” As usual, Katsuko said nothing and did nothing but stare at her uncle’s face. In those eyes, there was no hint of surprise, not a fragment of emotion. They remained cold and transparent like glass marbles.

“Close your eyes, Katsuko,” Kyōta said. “Just stay still and keep them closed. It’s nothing.” But Katsuko’s eyes remained fixed on her uncle without moving. There, Kyōta himself closed his eyes—but as if he could see Katsuko’s wide-open eyes behind his closed eyelids, he immediately opened them again and snapped in a sharp voice, “Close your eyes!” Katsuko’s lips slowly parted, revealing her teeth. It seemed like a smile, yet also felt like mockery. Kyōta shuddered to his very bones and hurriedly closed his eyes again. Katsuko kept her eyes open and did not utter a single word.

“Women, I tell ya, Pops,” Kyōta said while drinking at an oden stall in Nonbe Alley. “Whether they’re fifteen or thirty—they’ve all got that same quality about ’em. You’ll see some thirty-four-, thirty-five-year-old who suddenly looks like an innocent fourteen-year-old girl when you catch her just right. Then there’s those fourteen-, fifteen-year-old brats who’ll stare at a man with eyes like some thirty-five-year-old woman’s—demonic beings, I tell ya. That’s what they are.”

“For Taishō to be talking about women—that’s unusual, isn’t it?”

“Women, I tell ya, Pops,” Kyōta continued, “That ain’t somethin’ to discuss in anthropology—that’s natural history—no—yōkai studies. Or maybe not… No—rather, that’s… yeah, definitely the domain of yōkai studies.” Otane was discharged from the hospital, and Katsuko became even busier. This was because although she had been discharged from the hospital, she had been prescribed another two weeks of bed rest. In addition to her existing work and chores, Katsuko now had added duties of preparing special meals for Otane—the doctor had sent a dietary chart that strictly had to be followed until she was able to get up—taking care of her daily needs, and going to fetch medicine.

“I’ve had some good luck too.” Otane stretched her limbs leisurely in the sickbed, her face drunk with self-perceived fortune as she said, “When they told me I was being discharged from the hospital, I was terrified—but you know, if I were to die, that’d be fine too. If I died, I wouldn’t have to work myself to the bone anymore—I could just rest easy.” “Since the discharge went well,” Otane continued, “I’ve already been lying around for over twenty days, and now they’re telling me to stay in bed for nearly half a month more. Ever since I came to my senses, this is the first time I’ve had such a stroke of luck.”

A profound, ineffably human happiness overflowed vividly in Otane’s eyes. Yet she never once voiced appreciation for Katsuko’s efforts during her hospitalization, nor showed any hint of gratitude for the impending care—indeed, seemed incapable of even conceiving such thoughts. That Katsuko expected no such consideration from her aunt was equally evident. The crushing workload following her aunt’s discharge had whittled Katsuko’s sleep to mere shreds—three hours at most—until she began nodding off mid-task during daylight hours, only to be roused each time by Otane’s insistent voice. In time, she mastered sleeping with eyes unshuttered, head unbowed. This wasn’t conscious deception but some primal reflex against disruption—a survival mechanism that left her work miraculously error-free.

“What are you doing?” One midnight, Otane called out in a hushed voice, “What are you doing there?” “There was a rat just now,” came Kyōta’s answer in a feigned innocent tone. “There was a rat here, you see. Dangerous, so...” “You’re still half-asleep.” “It’s gone now.” Kyōta mumbled, “There’s a rat scurrying around here right now—see, from this side over to that side.” “You’re half-asleep.”

“Me—that I was sleepwalking?” “You were sleepwalking again the other night—you strange person, acting like a child.” Eventually, Otane cleaned the sickroom, and their life returned to its usual rhythm. Throughout this period, Katsuko never uttered a single complaint or showed any displeasure on her face, but the neighbors noticed she’d grown alarmingly thin, her features now visibly haggard. Then one night, about fifty days later, Otane discovered something unusual about her niece’s body.

The residents here hardly ever went to public bathhouses. There were exceptions, but through all four seasons, they generally made do with bucket baths. That day Otane received her wages from work and, having not had a proper bath in quite some time, went with Katsuko to a bathhouse called Kusatsu Onsen in Nakadori. And then she was startled upon seeing Katsuko's naked body. Her thin bony frame showed swollen breasts with darkened nipples and areolae. Her abdomen had also slightly swollen, while the vertical line running downward from her navel had distinctly darkened.

Otane said nothing and observed her niece’s condition. There was no change in Katsuko’s daily life except that irregularities in her appetite became noticeable—sometimes skipping a meal, other times eating two meals’ worth at once, or vomiting first thing in the morning. Otane began keeping watch on her husband. This was because she recalled there had been several instances late at night when he mumbled sleepily about “a rat scurrying around.” Whether Kyōta noticed Otane’s vigilance or not, from then on he stopped his strange sleepwalking behavior and ceased making peculiar gestures toward Katsuko.

One day, Otane silently took Katsuko with her, boarded a train from Main Street, and went to Ninzen Hospital in Nakabashi. The place had an old building and mediocre doctors, but was known for its low consultation fees. At the hospital—explaining that there was currently no attending gynecologist available—the director conducted a brief examination and informed them that the pregnancy was unmistakable, likely around the end of the second month, and that there were no abnormalities in the mother’s body. When Otane tentatively inquired whether an artificial abortion could be performed, the director casually replied that while she was still underage, it would not be impossible if parental or spousal consent were provided and sufficient funds could be arranged. When Otane inquired about approximately how much the necessary costs would be in a way that avoided causing offense, the director, in an equally inoffensive tone, let slip an approximate amount.

After leaving the hospital, as Otane walked home along the back street with Katsuko, she asked who the father was. Katsuko had been in the waiting room after the examination and hadn’t heard the conversation between her aunt and the director, so the question of who the father was seemed incomprehensible to her at first.

“Hiding it won’t do any good.” After laying out the facts, Otane said, “Since it’s your own affair—and nothing to do with me—and whatever the reason was, I won’t judge you—so tell me the truth: who was it?” The moment she heard she was pregnant, Katsuko’s entire body stiffened and contracted, as if every drop of fluid had been squeezed from her bones. She opened her mouth, breathing through gritted teeth while clenching her fingers with all her strength.

“It’s not something you can keep hidden—we’ve got to settle this somehow. Katsuko, just tell me who the father was, eh?”

Katsuko did not answer. Her aunt’s words might not have reached her ears at all. With vacant eyes fixed on a single point ahead, she merely staggered along after her aunt. Otane had already formed an idea of who the other party was. When she counted back the days, it seemed the incident had occurred during her own hospitalization—along with those midnight rat disturbances. Since Katsuko worked day and night without rest, there had been no opportunity for such a mistake outside, but at home, there were countless chances. The only thing she couldn’t understand was that for over five years now, Kyōta had not touched her, had disliked women themselves, and had consistently avoided them. Until he turned fifty, he had been excessively frequent in his habits—indulging in cheap affairs and entangling himself with trivial women who caused nothing but trouble—but as if in reaction to that, it all had come to a complete stop, and he had ceased even approaching establishments with any female presence, including drinking houses.

He had boasted that a drunkard had no use for women, and there had been no instances contradicting this. Even her birth parents called her a "crushed tofu fritter"—so plain were her features, her figure devoid of any feminine charm. Why Kyōta would consider laying hands on her—this point held considerable doubt. Yet for Otane, this mattered little. Even had the father been Kyōta, no feelings of resentment or jealousy would have stirred within her. She didn't know if it was old-fashioned thinking, but since her monthly cycles had ceased, she'd vaguely felt herself no longer a woman—completely freed from base desires. With this tumor removal having stripped her actual womanhood, she'd grown even more detached from such matters.

But that wasn't the end of it. Inside Katsuko's body, something was growing day by day—they had to decide whether to let it be born or terminate it. In any case, with no means beyond relying on her sister Kanae for expenses, she first confronted her husband.

At dusk, she sent Katsuko to the liquor store on an errand, and as soon as they were alone, they began talking.

Kyōta was shocked. In his extreme shock, he slipped out of his own body; what remained there was what had once been Kyōta but was now merely an empty shell, creating such an impression. However, it lasted only a very brief moment. He realized that Otane was utterly calm, that the issue had been narrowed down to two points—whether to let the child be born or to abort it—and that there was no trace of dramatic emotion. Upon this realization, he appeared to hurriedly slip back into the hollow shell of himself that he had just shed.

"You can’t possibly—" Kyōta retorted, "you don’t actually think I’m the one who did something to Katsuko, do you?" "I’m only asking which one we should choose."

“Well, that’s true.” Kyōta deliberately made a sour face. “Since it’s nearing the end of two months, deciding which course to take must be our first priority. Investigating the responsible party can wait until later. But let me state clearly—you might suspect me, but it wasn’t me. That’s preposterous! We’re uncle and niece—practically parent and child according to the family registry! How could I possibly—” “Which will you choose?” Otane said to her husband, “Will you have her carry to term or undergo an abortion?”

“There’s no way we can have her give birth—she’s too young, and there’s societal decorum to consider. Here, rather than ethics, forensic medicine—no—that is—taking a forensic method would be more rational.” “Please speak plainly—you mean to abort it?” “You can only spout tabloid talk, can’t you? That’s right—we’ll abort it.”

Otane then brought up the issue of funding—how they ultimately had no choice but to rely on her sister, but since debts had been incurred from her own hospitalization surgery, it would be difficult to make the request; what approach they should take in negotiating to avoid refusal; the need to carefully devise a plan—and earnestly discussed these matters.

Because there was a sound of someone at the entrance, the couple interrupted their conversation, and Otane went out to check. At the entrance stood a uniformed policeman, who asked if this was Watanaka Katsuko’s house.

Otane answered that it was. “Please go immediately to Ise Sho on Nakadori Street,” the policeman said. “Katsuko has been involved in an assault incident. I’ll accompany you.” “What are you saying Katsuko has done?” “It’s an assault case—assault,” the policeman said. “Depending on how things go, it could turn into manslaughter or even murder. We’ll have to wait for the investigation results, but in any case, come with me immediately.”

At that moment, Kyōta appeared. “Thank you for your trouble,” he bowed to the policeman, then said to Otane, “I just heard everything. It’s fine as it is—you go with him right now. No need for preparations.” He pressed her to hurry. The policeman looked at Kyōta and asked if he was Katsuko’s father. Kyōta—as if wiping sweat after kneading flour—dangled his fingers limply and brushed his forehead with the back of his hand while briskly replying that Katsuko was his wife Otane’s biological niece. Then, abruptly shifting his tone, he countered that while he’d heard it was an assault case, what kind of violence had Katsuko actually suffered?

“No—Katsuko is not the victim but the perpetrator,” said the policeman. “She stole a deba knife from the front of Sakana-gin and stabbed Okabe Sadakichi—a shop boy, no—a clerk at the neighboring liquor store Ise Sho. The clerk is seriously injured.”

Otane's jaw went slack as if unhinged, her mouth hanging open and eyes wide.

Kyōta tried to unravel the meaning of the situation in his mind but could find no thread to grasp; unsure how to respond, he stood with an expression that seemed to declare he would remain neutral for the time being.

“Please hurry,” the policeman said. “I’m not assigned to the crime scene—once I escort you, I must return to the police box immediately.” Otane unhooked the hand towel from her collar, passed it to Kyōta, then rubbed her hands together and stepped into her clogs on the earthen floor. Though she appeared momentarily shocked, it lasted barely an instant—her demeanor showed no trace of fluster or emotional agitation.

At Ise Sho’s store, there were as many as six or seven people—uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, and others in white work coats who clearly appeared to be police-related—all busily engaged in tasks that made no sense to Otane. Katsuko had been escorted to the police, and the victim, Okabe Sadakichi, after receiving emergency treatment, had been taken to nearby Kusata Hospital.

The policeman who had brought Otane along handed her over to a plainclothes man there and left. The plainclothes man was apparently a detective named Horiuchi; after taking a brief memo from Otane, he said they should go to the station together. "I want to visit Mr. Ise's young clerk first." Otane insisted, "Since Katsuko is detained at the police station anyway, there's no need to hurry. I'm worried about how badly injured the clerk is, and I want to apologize properly."

Detective Horiuchi thought for a moment, consulted with another mustached plainclothes man, then said, "In that case, I'll go with you."

Around the liquor store, crowds of people were bustling noisily and whispering furtively as they came and went. Some pointed at Otane, but she neither looked at nor listened to anything. At Kusata Hospital too there were police officers; after hearing Otane’s request and consulting with a doctor, they denied her visitation. “We’re in the middle of a blood transfusion, and he’s unconscious,” said the officer stationed at the hospital. “I’ll pass along that you came, but given the circumstances, you should head to the station first.”

“How bad are the injuries? Is his life in danger?” “I can’t tell you anything for sure right now,” the officer replied. “We know the victim lost a lot of blood and kept calling the perpetrator’s name before passing out. Beyond that, it’d cause problems if I meddled in the investigating officer’s duties. Just head to the station—and remember you’re the guardian here, not some bystander.”

It was past eight in the evening when Otane returned home. Kyōta had likely been drinking alone; his face had turned deathly pale, and the pungent smell of shochu filled the air. "How was it? What was the situation? What happened to Katsuko?" Still seated and swaying his upper body unsteadily, Kyōta asked, "Is it true she did that to the liquor store clerk? Did she really use a deba knife?"

Otane went to the kitchen and washed her hands while saying, "I'll talk now," then began preparing the meal. "I've been thinking this whole time—if Katsuko really did stab that shop boy, there's only one reason. Right? You think so too—there's only one reason. That shop boy's the one who got Katsuko pregnant. Right? That's it, isn't it?"

“That young shop clerk has only just turned seventeen.”

“Katsuko is fifteen!” “Women and men are different.” “In human physiology there’s no difference anymore—in America kids are developing faster these days, they’ve had to push the marriage age way down. Even in Japan these teenager problems are giving headaches to ethics and anatomical sociology.” Kyōta continued his meaningless chatter while Otane ate her meal alone. Though his loquacity seemed pointless, it gave the impression of laying a smokescreen to conceal some truth.

"How composed you are." Kyōta looked at Otane and said, "It's commendable how you prioritize satisfying your appetite even when your own flesh-and-blood niece has been arrested on assault charges. Women truly are more physiological than psychological beings." Otane silently finished her meal and cleaned up afterward. Though it may sound repetitive, her demeanor showed no trace of being rendered speechless by shock or being too overwhelmed by grief for her niece to organize her feelings. Because it was late and she was hungry, she would eat first; once finished, she would discuss what needed discussing. Her attitude seemed to declare that nothing had changed.

“Katsuko didn’t say anything.” Sitting down to work on her side job, Otane began speaking: “The deba knife was taken from the front of the neighboring fish shop, and she did admit she was the one who stabbed Sadakichi—but no matter how much they ask why she did it or whether there was some grudge, she won’t respond. Yes, because the detective told me to, I asked Katsuko too—if there was a reason behind it, since she’s only fifteen, the punishment might not be too severe.”

“No—it’s obviously the one who got her pregnant.” “If it were about anything else, she could probably say,” Kyōta insisted, “but since it’s an embarrassing matter, she can’t—that’s obviously how it is.” Otane simply listened in silence to her husband’s persistent words. “Even if the police summon us, I have nothing to do with this—Katsuko is your niece,” Kyōta said, turning away. Otane went out without protest; when asked about the father, she would answer as Kyōta had instructed—that he was ill and couldn’t come.

The investigation into Katsuko made no progress whatsoever. No matter what methods they tried, she refused to state her motive for the crime.

“It’s your bad child,” one of the detectives said. “No matter what we ask, she just stays silent—then suddenly she’ll bare her teeth. You’d think she’s laughing, but she isn’t. Her lips slowly stretch open like this”—he demonstrated—“and there they are—her teeth. But watch closely: it’s not a laugh. Not like when you rile a monkey and it snarls either—not angry, not laughing. Chilling to see. Ah, she’s your bad child through and through.”

Otane also went to visit Kusata Hospital. Okabe Sadakichi had fortunately survived and been diagnosed to fully recover in three weeks. The stab wound was in his chest but had narrowly missed the heart; the blood transfusion had gone smoothly, and the condition of the injured area was generally favorable. "I don't know why she did this to me. I liked Katchan." The boy Okabe reportedly answered the detectives' questions thus: "I felt so terribly sorry for Katchan—she worked herself to the bone yet was hardly given proper food to eat. She was always so thin with sunken eyes. So whenever Katchan came by, I would buy her a large steamed bun. Sometimes we'd go to Myoken-sama together and talk while eating."

The boy reiterated that he couldn't understand Katsuko's feelings. Katchan was teased by everyone as a "crushed tofu fritter," but he never said such things himself, and whenever he saw someone doing so, he would even step in to stop them. Katchan also seemed to like him. When she received a large bun, she looked happy, and when invited to Myoken-sama, she would come along and even talk a little. Even so, why did she do such a thing? No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand. "Katchan must have made some mistake—it must be that," the boy kept insisting.

“Yes, I don’t feel anything about it—I don’t find Katchan hateful for what she did, nor do I feel resentful or bitter.” The boy said, “If there’s anything I can do so Katchan won’t be charged, I’ll do whatever it takes. Since I was the one stabbed with that thing and I don’t feel any way about it, shouldn’t Katchan be let off?”

When Otane told him about that conversation, Kyōta said, "I told you so." "It's precisely because he feels guilty about his own wrongdoing that he's saying such things." He ranted that there wasn't a soul in this world who'd spout such nonsense—claiming he felt neither hatred nor resentment after nearly getting killed with a deba knife for no reason, even asking them not to punish her—and that just proved he was confessing to his own misdeeds. He cursed the boy as a brazen brat of sixteen or seventeen.

While busy with her side job, Otane went to Ise Sho, visited the police, and stopped by Kusata Hospital. The discussions with Ise Sho concerned the Okabe boy’s treatment costs and taking Katsuko into custody. Regarding the money, she sent a letter to her sister Kanae explaining the general circumstances and requesting help, but as for the custody process, since Katsuko remained stubbornly silent, the police’s impression worsened, making it seem unlikely that things would progress anytime soon.

Thus, after being summoned to the police station over a dozen times, Otane returned home and told Kyōta that having relations with a girl under eighteen could constitute assault depending on the circumstances. "Of course it would," said Kyōta, lying on his side with an alcohol-tinged belch. "That boy's seventeen but still a man biologically—if we file charges as his legal guardians, an assault conviction's inevitable."

“The police said they want you to come in,” Otane said as she began working. “It seems the detectives know you’re not sick. They say if you don’t show up, you’ll be charged with something.” “Me—to the police? What do you—” Kyōta stared suspiciously at Otane’s face. “For what purpose?” “Katsuko says she has something to tell the detectives.” “What does that have to do with me?”

“I don’t know,” Otane said while continuing her work. “There’s some issue involving a minor under eighteen, isn’t there? Once they learned the boy from Ise Sho survived, Katsuko said she’d talk if they called her uncle in—and the detectives already sounded like they’d heard something.” “That’s nonsense!” Kyōta sprang up. “I don’t know what that delinquent said, but it’s all lies! What idiot would believe such slander? I knew from the start—that ungrateful brat was bound to bite the hand that fed her sooner or later!”

Otane appeared slightly startled by her husband's outburst but, without stopping her work, slowly turned her gaze toward Kyōta. This was indeed true, yet her face remained as impassive as a whetstone, showing absolutely no indication of any emotional disturbance.

“But nonsense is nonsense! Huh—what can you prove with nonsense? Huh, what can you prove?”

Kyōta kept shouting.

Otane retorted for the first time.

“Did Katsuko say some nonsense?” “It’s obvious, isn’t it? If that weren’t the case, why else would the police summon me? That delinquent brat!” Kyōta roared back. “We took in someone who might as well have been abandoned by her own parents and raised her from infancy through all our hardships—and now she repays that kindness with spite! She’s lower than a damn bastard!”

But he couldn’t prove a thing—what could she possibly prove?—he kept shouting to himself. The next morning, after drinking what remained of the alcohol, Kyōta left the house but did not appear at the police station. He had his wife obtain piecework, visited three wholesalers, took the money he had borrowed upfront from them, and vanished.

Katsuko returned home three months later. She had been placed in what might be called a protective facility, where the abortion was completed. Given that Katsuko was a minor and the content of her confession, the abortion had likely been administered through legal means. Though parts of the incident appeared in some newspapers as brief articles, details of her pregnancy and how the abortion was conducted remained undisclosed, leaving no one the wiser.

The medical expenses for the Okabe boy were covered by Kanae.

She appeared in her usual opulent attire—Katsuko still being detained at the time—and launched into a lively monologue entirely on her own. The target of her sharp tongue was Kyōta; he had apparently gone to Kanae's place to beg for money too. "I knew he reeked of trouble at first glance—first glance, I tell you," Kanae said, flaring her nostrils. "Shallow people show everything on their faces. That man looked like he'd put his shoes on the wrong feet while still having a hundred miles to run. I didn't give him a single ten-yen coin—adiós! Even a newborn baby wouldn't swallow that act."

Perhaps not wanting to mention Katsuko, she chattered on as much as she pleased, then left the money and departed.

The Katsuko who returned home began working diligently as usual from that very day, as though nothing had happened. She showed no change in her usual demeanor toward her aunt, offering neither thanks nor apologies, and she didn’t ask where her uncle had gone.—The neighborhood children—likely warned by their parents—now merely stepped aside when Katsuko passed, no longer taunting her as a “crushed tofu fritter.”

Who had assaulted her and why she had stabbed the Okabe boy—since Katsuko herself said nothing, even Otane couldn’t understand. Katsuko seemed to have told something to the detectives in charge, but whether due to duty regulations or not, no information leaked from the police, and the details of the assault case were settled in darkness as though they had been disposed of, ending without anyone ever knowing. With Kyōta gone, they naturally had no more business at the liquor store, and since there was another shop that sold miso and soy sauce at a discount once every ten days, their ties with Ise Sho seemed to have been severed.

There were rumors that the Okabe boy had recovered well and been discharged from the hospital, but Otane naturally said nothing about it, and Katsuko made no move to approach Ise Sho, as though it had nothing to do with her.

And one day, on her way back from an errand, Katsuko was called out to by the Okabe boy. The boy wore denim pants and a jumper, an apron dyed with the name of a sake brand tied around his waist, and rubber half-boots on his feet. "What's wrong, Katchan?" the boy called out in a bright tone, supporting his stopped bicycle with one foot on the ground. "You haven't come to the shop at all. Oh right—your uncle's not around anymore, huh?" Katsuko looked up at the boy with calm eyes, slowly lowered her gaze, and said "I'm sorry" in a barely audible voice. The Okabe boy seemed to barely comprehend her words, his pupils glinting as he stared intently at Katsuko's face.

“I don’t understand,” whispered the boy in an earnest tone, “why did you do that, Katchan? Hey, why?” Katsuko looked up at the boy again and, lowering her eyes once more, answered that she had meant to die. “So you meant to die, Katchan?” Katsuko nodded. The Okabe boy tilted his head. “I don’t get it. If you were trying to die yourself, why’d you go and do that to me?”

Katsuko thought for a moment, then said she couldn't explain it properly. "Now that I think about it, even I don't really understand," she said. "When I wanted to die, I was terrified you'd forget me—when I thought how quickly I'd be forgotten after dying, I became absolutely terrified. Really, absolutely terrified."

“Hmm…” The Okabe boy tilted his head again, moved the foot he’d lowered to the ground back onto the pedal, and lowered his other foot instead. “That’s rough.” Katsuko looked up. The boy whistled while glancing upward at the sky, then suddenly turned back to her and spoke. “Wanna get manju again?” Katsuko shook her head. “I don’t want any.” “Then maybe next time.” The boy grinned. “I’ve started skating—ice skating, not rollers. When I get good, you should come watch me, Katchan.”

Katsuko remained silent. The Okabe boy righted his bicycle, waved his hand, and pedaled away, gradually picking up speed as he rode off. Katsuko watched his retreating figure as she murmured, "I'm sorry, Mr. Okabe," under her breath.

Choro

His real name was Tsuchikawa Haruhiko. He moved to this "neighborhood" about five years ago but consistently claimed to be thirty-seven ever since. None of the neighbors saw him as younger than forty-five or forty-six, but whenever asked, he always answered that he was thirty-eight.

It was unclear how many wives he had. Even since coming to this area, he had changed three times, and after the third one left, he had already been living alone for over a year.

He stood about 160 centimeters tall, with a muscular yet emaciated build. His face was thin and small, with only his eye sockets and mouth standing out as disproportionately large. ――He was a restless man. Sensitive enough to be embarrassed by his own name Haruhiko; a materialistic sentimentalist who combined altruism with egoism; and thus, an entrepreneur. Tsuchikawa Haruhiko's brain was perpetually crammed with grand business schemes. In this respect, he seemed to share something with Hata Kimihyō, another resident there, but such a view was superficial; in reality, the majority of the residents there―even if it remained mere fantasy―were all entrepreneurs and businessmen of some standing.

The truth of this was uncertain, but it was said that Tsuchikawa Haruhiko had connections to the stockbroker district and often made easy profits. None of the residents there had any business frequenting the stockbroker district—if that were the case, one could only conclude that the rumors had originated from the man himself—and judging by his daily life, it did indeed seem certain that he occasionally made modest sums somewhere, not through day labor or temporary jobs, but by keeping his hands clean.

It was difficult to prove just how restless he was. The only ones who knew the details were likely several women who had been his wives and a number of cohabitants. No—or rather, there were also the children of this neighborhood. He went by the nickname "Choro," said to refer to sand fleas found along the coast. What astonished one was the precision and sharpness of the children's observation in likening Tsuchikawa Haruhiko to those sand fleas that were always scurrying about in restless agitation.

There were always cohabitants in his house. Even during the time when he still had a wife, there was always at least one cohabitant. They were irregular cohabitants who never stayed long; some would be gone within thirty days, while others remained for over a hundred. The second wife he had after coming here ran off with one of those cohabitants; however, that man had only been a cohabitant for seven days.

These cohabitants were all brought by Tsuchikawa Haruhiko himself, though no one knew where he brought them from or what connection they had to him. Strangely enough, they all shared certain similarities in build, temperament, or manner of speaking, leading the children to bestow upon them the common nickname "Pumpkins." The nickname "Pumpkins" captured the appearance and personalities of the successive cohabitants quite well. Their builds varied in size, their features and ages were diverse, but when it came to being slow and lumbering, tongue-tied and lazy—despite minor differences—they all belonged to the same ilk.

And now, the seventh-generation Pumpkin was living with him. Tsuchikawa Haruhiko called him Bankun—though no one knew which characters comprised the name. He appeared to be between thirty and forty—of average height with a stocky, solid build—but his movements were sluggish, his speech ponderous. He spent his days lazing about, doing almost nothing beyond fanning himself and eating meals. “You just focus on building up your strength,” Choro—that is, Tsuchikawa Haruhiko—repeated. “Once I get my business going, I’ll put you to work. Your role for now is to listen. I’m the sort who can’t endure ten minutes without someone to talk to—all you need do is hear me out.”

The corners of Bankun's eyes drooped, narrowing his gaze as his thick lips quivered faintly. He had likely smiled, but discerning whether it was genuine proved difficult—even Tsuchikawa Haruhiko seemed privately astonished by this seventh Pumpkin's silence and sluggishness beyond description. Though equally indolent, previous Pumpkins had at least assisted with one or two household tasks. Clearing meals, sweeping floors, lighting fires, drawing water—even when performed halfheartedly, they'd maintained the pretense of helping. True, each had their flaws; unlike this seventh, none could quietly endure Haruhiko's loquacity. When topics touched their interests, they'd lose patience for silence—the tongue-tied voicing opinions in their faltering way. To this, Haruhiko had reluctantly compromised. What proved intolerable were those who feigned sleep without objection—such men naturally never lasted as cohabitants.

While Bankun was a thoroughgoing advocate of idleness, he possessed near-perfect qualifications as a listener; consequently, Haruhiko favored this seventh Pumpkin over all previous cohabitants.

“There’s such a thing as compatibility between people, you know,” Choro said. “I’ve had eight—no, ten wives to be precise—but none of them had it with me, I suppose. The longest lasted two years—that was a woman who lived alone and was hard of hearing. Her favorite food was grilled salted mackerel—there was even a time she put it in miso soup and ate it, which shocked me. Even now when I think of that woman, the smell of grilling mackerel clings to my nose. I wonder if being hard of hearing makes your nose and tongue somewhat duller too.”

Tsuchikawa Haruhiko spoke about his ten wives as the seventh Pumpkin listened patiently. To call it "patient" listening was merely an objective description—in reality, if one could peer into his inner being, it amounted only to his body sitting there appearing to listen to Choro's stories. His true self might have been asleep within that flesh, or perhaps had slipped free from it to yawn in some quiet corner of existence.

“That wife—I mean, the woman who loved salted mackerel—” Haruhiko said, “I parted ways with her after about six months. Then nearly two years later, she suddenly showed up out of nowhere. I was so busy running all over the place with business schemes—traveling by ship and horse, you see—that I didn’t even have time to take her back. This was when I was living in Koami-cho. When I asked why she’d come, she said she couldn’t take it anymore—she’d been grilling mackerel.”

He looked at Bankun's face as if to confirm the effect. Bankun sat cross-legged with half-closed eyes like a Zen monk in training, but the moment Haruhiko looked at him, the left side of his cheek twitched faintly. “I’m glad you have a sense of humor.” Choro muttered with satisfaction, “I mean, if she’d said she missed her ex-husband, that’d be one thing—but remembering me because of the smell of grilling mackerel? That’s a hell of a thing.”

At that point, the conversation veered toward his business ventures. Generally, Tsuchikawa Haruhiko’s actions and statements lacked continuity—one moment he would be expounding his humble opinions on timber, then abruptly pose questions like “What’s tastiest in Chinese cuisine?” While asserting that his favorite food was rice, and that rice balls kneaded with sesame salt were the most delicious, energy-boosting sustenance one could never find anywhere else in the world, he would then declare that nothing was more promising than cement as a business venture.

These topics, and the way they relayed from one to the next in abrupt jumps, were absurdly tedious and ridiculous to the listener—so much so that it made life itself feel unbearable. Ms. Salted Mackerel’s return was likely facilitated by the advantage of her hearing impairment, and it might not be entirely fair to call the nth-generation Mr. Pumpkin—who had doosed off—cowardly.

There was another reason Tsuchikawa Haruhiko was called Choro. Not only did he talk nonstop, but he never kept still for a moment during that time. Since the seventh Pumpkin arrived, this had grown particularly worse. In other words, it was because he now had to do absolutely everything himself.

For example, in the morning, he would start a fire in the kitchen, cook rice in an earthenware pot, prepare miso soup, and slice pickles. He set out the low dining table, arranged the dishes, and if there were leftovers, put those out as well. This—the talking would begin simultaneously with the fire-making task, and as the work progressed, intertwining with it, the conversation would leap freely, slide sideways, somersault, yet continue ceaselessly without interruption.

“This miso stuff,” he began addressing Bankun from in front of the portable charcoal stove, “in terms of both nutritional value and breadth of application, it’s the undisputed king among foods, Bankun.” Then starting with miso soup—indispensable to any Japanese person for even a single day—he would expound on dressed dishes, simmered dishes, kneaded dishes, pickles, grilled fare, and other such cuisine, elaborating on cooking methods and variations beyond anyone’s imagination, before heaving a long sigh of lament.

“Ah, if only I’d invented this first—then by now I’d have risen to become a great industrialist steering Japan’s entire business world!” Could anyone hearing this laugh heartily, feel genuine interest, or experience an epiphany about life? No matter the subject, whenever speakers grow self-excited and self-amused, their listeners’ enthusiasm cools into tedium. And when that subject happened to be something as banal as miso—a hopelessly mundane staple—with its culinary applications analyzed in fervent detail, the poor listener stood no chance of endurance.

“Rice is one hell of a thing, Bankun,” he continued. “If they’d never made atomic bombs, Japan would’ve won the war. Get it, you?”

Bankun slowly narrowed his eyes and then slowly opened them. It was as though the opening and closing of a camera’s lens shutter were being filmed in high-speed photography. "Why we won the war," Choro continued. "The foundation of military strength lies in soldiers, and the foundation that gives soldiers their strength lies in provisions." "The Japanese are fortunate in that they have rice cooking—all they need is rice and water to make a meal anywhere—whereas foreigners, being bread-eaters, must bring along baking ovens and specialized craftsmen wherever they go." "As for side dishes too, the Japanese can eat their rice with umeboshi pickled plums or takuan pickles—or if needed, just salt or miso." "But foreign soldiers can’t manage that—they need stew, croquettes, meatballs, omelets, steak, all requiring specialized cooks. To prepare these, they end up having to lug around stew pots, frying pans of all sizes, knives, spoons, forks, and whatnot." “So while the Japanese military would efficiently prepare their mess tin meals, finish up with something like sesame salt, and head out to the frontlines, those guys would finally be pulling baked bread from their ovens while simultaneously stirring their stew pots—that’s how it went,” Haruhiko said.

“This is why you can’t fight proper wars—right, Bankun?” Choro continued while setting out the low table. “While they’re waiting around for their bread to bake and stew to simmer, we finish our mess tin cooking in a flash—toss in some pickled plums and we’re done—then charge straight to the frontlines ready for battle. Oh, speaking of which—way back when, American and British military observers came to watch grand maneuvers.” “They say when those observers saw how Japanese soldiers lived in the barracks at Mount Fuji’s foothills, what shocked them most was their meals—does this ham smell off to you, Bankun? Could you give it a sniff?”

Even as Bankun sniffed at the ham’s odor, his tongue was springing to life. "—The American and British military observers saw the reality of mess tin cooking, witnessed sleeping quarters worse than construction site barracks—straw mats with blankets for beds—and acknowledged that the canned beef stockpiles dated back to the First Sino-Japanese War. They marveled at how this exemplified military organizational marvel, declaring that no army of any civilized nation could match Japan's instant field rations," he said fervently.

“So if it weren’t for barbaric inventions like the atomic bomb，the Japanese military’s victory would’ve been certain—but those American and British nations，so fixated on aggressive expansionism，cunningly turned their own weaknesses into—is that ham no good？”

Bankun’s large nostrils flared and slowly returned to normal as he placed the plate on the tatami. "You know preparing this ham wasn’t an accident, right, Bankun?" Choro pushed the ham plate under the low table, brought the earthen pot from the kitchen, and said, “This has an inseparable relationship with glass manufacturing, you know. It’s all very old—maybe BC in the Western calendar? No, wait—glass already existed in Egyptian times. But they didn’t have ham back in Egyptian times, did they? Oh—your bowl’s missing.”

Haruhiko gazed across the low dining table while darting a sidelong glance at Bankun. He seemed to expect Bankun would fetch his own bowl, but this seventh Pumpkin showed no intention of moving. Choro meant to wait for him to rise, but his body acted first—reflexively springing up to retrieve Bankun’s bowl from the kitchen. “Ah yes, there was a German officer among those military observers,” he resumed, his narrative executing an abrupt flip. “Sharper-eyed and more critical than the others, you see. Must’ve filed a thorough report after returning home—that’s what drove Hitler to write about the Yellow Peril. For the American and British military brass, soldiers’ rations remained a perpetual headache.”

Choro acknowledged that Bankun had single-handedly devoured three bowls of rice, two and a half bowls of miso soup, and about eighty percent of the pickles, leaving him with a disheartened feeling. Our Seventh Pumpkin was quick to eat his meals. His sluggish inertia throughout the day—as though conserving every ounce of energy for mealtimes—gave way to mechanical precision once seated at the low table. Both hands and mouth synchronized like a fully revved engine, shoveling in rice with flawless speed: chew, swallow; shovel, chew, swallow. He showed no concern for portion sizes, devouring as if calibrated to empty vessels rather than human appetite.

Haruhiko’s routine had been to serve three bowls of rice each, two bowls of miso soup each, and plate up side dishes and pickles for two portions. Thus, the slower he ate, the more Bankun encroached on his own share—and though he steeled himself against this outcome, alas, he found himself unable to halt his talking. The moment he tried staying silent to focus on finishing his meal, his stockpile of splendid stories would instead come pressing in relentlessly, drastically slowing his eating pace.

“You need to chew your rice thoroughly, or it’ll poison you.” “It’s odd for people our age to be saying this,” Haruhiko once remarked suggestively, “but I believe Gresham also said that unless you chew each mouthful over a hundred times, your body won’t properly absorb the nutrients.” Bankun faintly twitched just one eyebrow. Around the time Choro’s words seemed to enter through his mouth and settle into his stomach, he slowly let out a belch, then spoke carefully, pausing after each word.

“Rice doesn’t taste good if you chew it too much. If you just chew it two or three times and then gulp it down, the way the half-milled grains rub against the throat—the smell and taste are irresistible.” And, as if to demonstrate just how irresistible it was, he thrust his jaw forward and spoke again. “Even if that weren’t the case, I don’t like chewing that much—it’s tiring.”

Tsuchikawa Haruhiko prided himself on being an entrepreneur and had planned countless ventures. If taking his own words at face value wasn’t a mistake, then some of those ventures had been realized and were reportedly put on track to a considerable extent. But in the end, small-capital enterprises got swallowed up by large capital. If a business failed to meet expectations, it would undoubtedly collapse; if it showed promising growth potential, large capital would immediately reach out and seize it.

“What do they mean by cartels?” he lamented. “Japan’s financial circles are just a gathering of skin-and-bones ghouls with tight assholes, you know. The moment they see a promising new venture, they don’t nurture it—they pounce to plunder it.” “It’s like thieves or bandits—Japan’s financial world is still stuck in the Warring States period, completely uncivilized, I tell you.”

Bankun obediently listened to such talk. It was rather unbelievable—this man, so lazy and indifferent to everything—yet when it came time to hear Haruhiko’s stories, he fulfilled his role splendidly, to the point of astonishment. Of course, it wasn’t that the content interested him or held any appeal. As long as he remembered his duty as listener—that singular obligation—he could secure food and shelter without fail. He seemed to possess just enough conscience—or perhaps necessity—to engrave these terms in mind and adhere strictly to what he’d committed to.

Choro frequently directed criticism at Japan’s financial circles, ridiculed its financiers, and disparaged its economic organizations. For example, even when trading companies expand overseas—if five companies open in the same area—all five will try to sell every product like a general store. In contrast, foreign trading companies handle only the specific goods their company specializes in. Suppose a customer comes to a pottery shop to buy pottery and asks, “Do you have any fishing hooks?” At this, the clerk bows politely and adds promotional flair: In that case, Itagaki Shokai one block from here handles those—they stock every fishing hook imaginable worldwide and will surely satisfy your needs. At Itagaki Shokai as well, it was the same—in short, there was a pervasive sense of responsibility in national commerce through mutual aid and collective support of profit blocs. Therefore, the five trading companies prosper mutually by each adhering to their respective specialties. However, in Japan, everyone engages in general store-style management while attempting to monopolize all customers; as a result, they end up in cannibalistic competition with each other—ultimately leading to mutual collapse—a historical norm.

"You see, this proves Japan hasn't yet become a capitalist nation—it's barely managed to reach a free economy and just keeps floundering about there."

Japan had no Western-style financiers—only stingy merchants, a bunch of peddlers from night markets who’d grown a few hairs scrambling over ten-yen and hundred-yen profits—Haruhiko declared conclusively. “The National Railways have started using seamless rails now—and I’ll have you know that seamless rail idea was mine.” Choro gave a firm, exaggerated nod. “This was before the war—five or six years before World War II started, I think. I presented that idea to the National Railways—no, it was the Railway Ministry back then—to the Railway Ministry’s vice-minister and launched into a grand speech about it. Now what do you suppose he said in response, eh, Bankun?”

The Seventh Pumpkin slowly turned his eyes to the left, returned them to center, deliberately shifted them to the right, and back to center once more. “You couldn’t possibly imagine, hmm?” Choro said with satisfaction. “The vice-minister replies like this: ‘Tsuchikawa-kun, Japan is currently facing a dire era. I can’t disclose the details as they’re confidential, but Japan will soon be struck by an iron famine. Your idea won’t do.’”

"I asked, 'What do you mean by "no good"?'" Haruhiko continued, "The vice-minister answered that iron was the top-priority national resource. 'You must understand,' he said, 'the Railway Ministry is currently considering widening rail joints by two millimeters—shaving one millimeter from both ends of every rail. We intend to divert that saved iron to urgent national policy materials. Your seamless rail proposal can only be said to run counter to national policy.'"

"Indeed, the vice-minister hadn't been spouting nonsense," Haruhiko immediately continued. "Soon came the controlled economy and World War II. The iron shortage grew so severe they even began stripping streetcar rails—you've got to respect the vice-minister's foresight there, I'll admit that much. But then we lost the war, and now it's the National Railways' turn. Whether for efficiency gains or rationalization, they went and adopted seamless rails—a blatant theft of my idea! They claim the postwar government bears no responsibility for prewar affairs, but how can Japan's world-famous National Railways shamelessly pilfer ideas from someone as impoverished, powerless, and isolated as me?"

The Seventh Pumpkin spoke in an extremely cautious and precise manner, as if he had thoroughly examined the Six Codes, saying, “How about suing the Patent Bureau?” Choro shook his head. “If I’d obtained a patent, sure,” Choro replied. “I thought about applying—or rather filing—if that vice-minister seemed likely to adopt it, but once he told me that, it felt pointless anyway. And more than anything, I lacked the funds.”

Bankun's eyes narrowed quietly, and he himself seemed to withdraw behind them. Tsuchikawa Haruhiko was a man of silver tongue, deft hands, and even a sharp mind. He moved about ceaselessly, his tongue ever wagging as he devised ventures even in his dreams.

"I was surprised, you know—even I was astonished last night," Haruhiko said while cooking breakfast with an expression of utter amazement. "It's not unusual for me to dream up new ventures, but last night I dreamed of one we absolutely *must not* pursue." Bankun's eyes slowly rose upward, slowly returned to center, gradually lowered downward, then shifted back to center once more.

“Up until now, I’d been plotting nothing but ventures that either caught the capitalists’ eyes right away or required more capital than I could manage—how utterly foolish I’ve been, hmm? Why hadn’t I realized this sooner? I’m starting to doubt myself.” He never specified what kind of enterprise shouldn’t be plotted by giving examples, but given Tsuchikawa Haruhiko’s intense excitement and surging momentum, it seemed he’d finally grasped something.

“In other words,” Haruhiko said, “it’s like this—you start with something tiny and ordinary-looking that anyone could notice, but nobody would think could become a real business. ‘What’s that supposed to be?’ they’d scoff. Then you steadily expand your operations bit by bit. By the time those fools out there finally catch on, it’s already grown into a monolithic enterprise they can’t lay a finger on. Even if big capital tries to swallow it up, the thing’s developed too far—they end up getting cold feet at the last second. That’s exactly the kind of venture I mean.”

“Just you watch, Bankun—this time I’ll make it big.” Haruhiko started to thump his chest with his fist but stopped as if reconsidering and said, “And I think the time has finally come for you to shine too.” Bankun’s nostrils narrowed—if he had been a dog, his tail would have curled between his legs. To put it plainly, he looked terrified.

Tsuchikawa Haruhiko went out for about two days, longer than usual. Whether he had gone to the usual stock market district or was rushing around for his new venture, Bankun had no idea—nor, as Bankun, had he made any attempt to figure it out. This Seventh Pumpkin—who embodied the very essence of pumpkin-ness—had undoubtedly prayed that Choro would refrain from business ventures altogether, or should he start one, that it would end in failure.

What had Choro’s sharp mind conceived? He went to the northern terminus of the city streetcar line, investigated river fish wholesalers, and ascertained the wholesale prices and supply conditions of live crucian carp and carp. “We’ve entered an instant age in all matters now,” he declared at a wholesaler’s shop. “Frozen foods are in vogue—most fish meat gets frozen and sold in vinyl bags. Yet while no one jumps on trends as easily as the Japanese, they also grow bored faster than anyone in the world. This instant age will soon wear people out, I tell you. Even if it doesn’t, the classes in Yamate’s mansion districts can’t normally get live river fish—bring some there and they’re bound to leap at them, no doubt about it.”

“Yamate, huh?” said the wholesaler owner. “I hear that sort of people generally dislike river fish.” “That must be from before the war,” Haruhiko insisted in a tone lacking conviction yet clear—“That must be from before the war, surely. After all, you—” then suddenly perked up—“After all, nowadays salmon and herring have become high-end delicacies!”

The wholesaler owner gave an equivocal response, muttering something like, "Well, if you put it that way, I suppose that's how things are." “Got it!” After leaving the store, Haruhiko told himself, “Even the specialists don’t realize it—nobody knows!” “Why hasn’t anyone noticed this?” As he walked, he muttered, “Major corporations run countless seafood businesses—some so successful they even own pro baseball teams. Yet not a soul’s ventured into river fish specialization? How absurd! Though naturally, that means the opportunity’s mine alone—no mistake about it, this’ll be huge!”

Haruhiko first resolved to become a seller himself, steadily secure customers, gradually increase the number of salespeople while establishing a distribution network, and simultaneously build a fish farm in neighboring prefectures to launch into diversified operations. As he dwelled on his brilliant concept and its assured success rate, he found himself thrilled alone, shaking his head proudly time and again.

Now, around ten o'clock that morning, Tsuchikawa Haruhiko went to Yamate and set up his wares beside the bus stop in the middle-class residential area. He had carefully considered his approach—dressing to resemble a farmer from a neighboring prefecture and adopting a regional accent in his speech. Clad in a second-hand coat from a rag shop, leggings, rubber boots, and a towel wrapped around his head, he pulled out a square enamel-coated container filled with live crucian carp and a bucket-shaped enamel-coated container holding live carp from his woven backpack, arranging both beneath the plane trees before settling in to wait for customers.

He was satisfied that he had successfully negotiated with the wholesaler. If sales went well, he could enter into a long-term contract exclusively with that shop; he had managed to acquire the crucian carp, carp, two containers, and backpack at a fairly low price. “The ancestor of some big Kansai capitalist,” he muttered while rubbing his hands together, “started his business by picking up rope scraps and straw mats from the roadside, chopping them up, and selling them to plasterers. It’s all about spotting what others overlook—hey, watch out, that looks like a customer!”

A middle-aged woman approached him from the bus stop sign. She wore what appeared to be rather expensive clothes; high-heeled leather sandals; an obi embroidered with gold thread; and across the surface of that obi, gourd-shaped pearls connected by thin gold chains dangled and swayed. It was likely what’s commonly called a "sagemono" accessory, but for a woman who appeared to be forty-six or forty-seven, it seemed far too girlish and incongruous. Carrying a leather handbag that appeared to be seventy centimeters long and thirty centimeters wide with gold-leaf patterned embossing, and wearing thick glasses, when she came near Choro, she pinched the frames of her glasses, pushed the lenses forward, and peered into the two containers.

“What a strange fish,” the middle-aged woman said. “What do you call this one?”

Choro answered in a rural accent that this one was crucian carp and that one was carp, both caught by himself during breaks from day labor. The middle-aged woman adjusted her glasses and stared intently at Tsuchikawa Haruhiko. "Are you from the countryside?" "Yes," Haruhiko answered. "I recognize that dialect," said the middle-aged woman. "It sounds just like my former maid Yono who worked here until recently. You're from Miyagi Prefecture, aren't you?"

Choro swallowed hard. "I ain't too clear 'bout prefectures," he stammered, sweat beading on his temples. "Folks was from round Miyagi way, see? But they shipped me off when I was knee-high to a grasshopper. How's 'bout takin' this fresh catch off my hands?" The woman pinched her glasses like she'd spotted some rare beetle, her gaze drilling into Haruhiko's face. "Where you really from?" she demanded. "Jus' nearby parts," Choro blurted, swiping at his forehead. "Caught these here crucians 'n' carp fresh this mornin'—still kickin' lively-like! Why not treat yourself to 'em?"

"What a strange accent." The middle-aged woman shook her head and, as if abandoning her inquiry into his accent, peered into the two containers again. "I’ve seen these fish before, but do tell me their names once more." “This little one’s crucian carp,” he answered, “and this big ’un here’s carp, see.” “Oh my, you call these crucian carp and carp?”

“That’s right, see.”

“How dreadful!” The middle-aged woman took out a handkerchief from her sleeve and pressed it to her nose as she said, “Crucian carp and carp and whatnot—how could you! Oh, how dreadful!” And she walked off toward the bus stop.

“Tch, country folk,” Tsuchikawa Haruhiko wrinkled his nose and spat sideways. “That’s your typical *zāmasu* type—accusing *me* of bein’ wrong without knowin’ squat! *You’re* the one with taste like mildewed barley. Hah! Flauntin’ those specs like they’re crown jewels—who’d blink an eye at that junk? C’mon back now, why don’tcha!”

He hurriedly stopped his muttering and bowed. A middle-aged gentleman approached and peered into the two containers. The suit—tailored when he was heavier—no longer fit his slimmer frame; whether from weight loss or not, the jacket and pants hung loose and wrinkled despite their expensive fabric, sagging at the hips like burlap sacks. The gentleman transferred the flattened handbag and cane from his left hand to his right, tucked only the bag under his arm, tapped the pavement with his cane tip while inspecting the fish in the containers, then fixed those same eyes on Tsuchikawa Haruhiko.

“Did you catch this by fishing?” the gentleman asked, “Or with a casting net or weir?” “I’m from a nearby prefecture, see.” Haruhiko answered while flinching. “These here’s crucian carp ’n’ carp—caught ’em myself durin’ breaks from farm work.” “This carp’s paddy-raised.” The gentleman spoke without listening to Choro. In truth, he’d made his remark while tilting his head before Choro even finished. Haruhiko didn’t grasp “paddy-raised,” but sensing criticism rather than praise, he stiffened.

“Don’t go jokin’ around now, sir—this ain’t no joke,” he retorted. “Take a good look—these here’s authentic natural catches, I tell ya.”

“This one’s crucian carp? Looks just like goldfish,” the gentleman continued without pause. “I recognize this fish—Inbanuma or Teganuma stock. Farmed crucian carp through and through. These days even peasants try acting refined.” “You’re mighty learned, sir,” Choro shifted tactics, his voice oozing flattery. “Ain’t no matchin’ a fine judge like yourself. With that sharp eye of yours, how ’bout takin’ a gander? First sale of the day—I’ll make it right cheap for ya.”

“You see, I’m an expert in this field,” said the gentleman, “not in business, but in fishing. My garden pond always has forty or fifty carp I’ve caught myself. It might be none of my concern, but you—these rice paddy-raised carp of yours reek too much to eat.” With that, the gentleman picked up his bag and cane and walked off toward the bus that had just arrived.

“What a know-it-all! What’s all this ‘rice paddy-raised’ nonsense?” Choro sneered, but still feeling uneasy, he peered into the carp container. He gently inserted his hand, poked at it, and brought his finger to his nose to sniff.

“It’s just fishy, that’s all! Spoutin’ off like he knows every damn thing—huh! ‘My garden pond’s like Inbanuma or Teganuma,’ huh? Bet that type’s some three-hundred-tongued lawyer or somethin’. Just wants to shock folks, that’s what they’re after.”

He remembered what the wholesaler boss had said. The Yamanote types seemed to hate river fish. Though he'd sounded clueless, maybe that old man knew more than I'd thought. Thinking this, he suddenly felt hollow—the whole world seemed drenched in hardship, a futureless place where only scheming bastards could survive—and he heaved a deep, drawn-out sigh.

The third to approach was a young woman of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, wearing a finely striped wool two-piece suit, a small red hat resembling a Turkish cap, and carrying a shoulder bag on her left shoulder. Her delicate features were lovely, her makeup understated, and when she drew near, a refined perfume scent wafted through the air. Noticing how the rust-colored pumps' high heels were excessively thin and tall, Haruhiko thought they looked precarious, but he smiled ingratiatingly with all sincerity and gestured toward the containers.

“What’s this?” asked the young woman, peering into the container. “Fish, isn’t it?” “Well, this here’s crucian carp, see,” answered Choro, “crucian carp—you know ’em, do ya?”

“Oh, so this is what they call a crucian carp?” The young woman bent down, her eyes shining as she gazed intently at the fish. “How beautiful! They look just like they’re alive!” “That’s right, see—they were alive all the way here, but I had to take ’em outta water for transport since my hometown’s a bit far off.” He forced a smile and gestured toward the carp container. “But instead, these carp here’re alive, see—lively as can be, I tell ya.”

“Oh my, they’re carp!” The young woman watched intently. “I remember carp,” she said. “Oh, their scales are shining gold!” “They jump when you poke ’em, see.” Choro gave one of the carp a poke with his finger. When it showed no sign of leaping, he poked the next one, then another, but they merely opened and closed their mouths—not a single one energetically leapt up, as if dissatisfied with something. “I’m a farmer, see.” Choro said in an absurdly loud voice, “I caught these here during breaks from my side jobs, see.”

“How beautiful! Truly beautiful—this is my first time seeing crucian carp.” The young woman, her eyes shining with admiration, looked at the crucian carp and then at the carp, but when she turned her gaze back to Choro, her voice suddenly turned businesslike as she inquired. “You don’t have any salted salmon?” Haruhiko’s eyes widened sharply; he opened his mouth to say something but closed it when no words came out, then opened his mouth again to speak—but the young woman was already looking toward the bus stop. As if suddenly, Haruhiko and the presence of the crucian carp and carp in the two containers had been completely erased from that space. And then, presumably having noticed the bus approaching in this direction, she glanced elegantly at her wristwatch and departed with a leisurely gait.

Tsuchikawa Haruhiko tidied up his cargo. First he placed the carp container into the wicker backpack, laid a board on top, then placed the crucian carp container inside, covered them with a bamboo-woven lid, and fastened it with a cord.

“Don’t you have any salted salmon?” he mimicked. He shouldered the wicker backpack while putting on a mocking voice, “‘You don’t got no salted salmon? Hah! These Yamanote types around here—hah! You call those Japanese?’” “I came here to sell river fish,” he muttered indignantly. Even after boarding the streetcar, he kept grumbling in a tone brimming with barely contained outrage at some intolerable injustice: “Didn’t I explain it proper? This here’s crucian carp, that there’s carp. Then that airheaded woman goes on—‘Oh how pretty! Truly pretty! Their scales are golden!’—spoutin’ all that clueless nonsense before askin’, ‘You got any salt—’”

Tsuchikawa Haruhiko glared into space.

That night after dinner, Choro delivered a fiery tirade. As always, he single-handedly launched into a spirited rant about matters neither amusing nor interesting, slapping his knees and rolling about laughing entirely on his own. Seventh-Generation Kabocha—Bankun—stood his ground unflinchingly, absorbing this frontal assault without retreating half a step or shifting sideways. "There was this farmer selling crucian carp and carp by Yashikimachi's roadside," Choro narrated. "Then comes this fancy Western-dressed madam peering in—'What's this?' she goes."

The farmer, apparently thinking this one was a promising customer, enthusiastically explained about the crucian carp and carp. After listening to all of that, the madam asked the farmer with an unperturbed face. “You don’t have any salted salmon?” Choro said in an exaggerated artificial voice. “Well now, you should’ve seen that farmer’s face at that moment!” He suddenly burst out laughing—before he could even say, “After making him explain all about live crucian carp and carp right before his eyes, you’re asking if he’s got salted salmon?”—Choro exploded with laughter, eventually rolling over and laughing again.

Seventh-Generation's lips moved ever so slightly. Choro, amid his subsiding laughter, noticed the faintest movement of Seventh-Generation's lips and, suppressing his mirth, sat back up. "Don't you find this story funny, Bankun?"

Bankun gave it careful introspection before replying that it was funny. So Haruhiko asked again. "But it's not worth laughing at?" Bankun did not think this time. He seemed to habitually exercise self-restraint in that regard. “I don’t like laughing,” he said. “—It tires me out.”

The next day, Tsuchikawa Haruhiko left and did not return home.

Choro was a restless dreamer and an easily bored chatterbox. The departure of ten—or to be precise, nine—wives, and the flight of up to six Kabocha companions who had served as his conversational partners, must have been due to Haruhiko’s Choro-like nature proving intolerable and unbearable. Haruhiko himself had declared, “I can’t last an hour without someone to talk to.” At the same time, it seemed that even with these listeners he dragged in from who-knows-where—that is, with them being Kabochas—if they didn’t run away first, Haruhiko would be the one to grow bored. Traditionally, everyone on the other side would retreat before he grew bored. Therefore, he must have assumed that Bankun, the seventh-generation Kabocha, was naturally no exception. Humans are often deceived by this sort of inertia—for instance, when someone goes to their regular bar or such place, feeling reassured that the bill will be about this much as usual, brings that amount and drinks that much, yet no—in short, Seventh-Generation Kabocha completely betrayed Haruhiko’s expectations.

Bankun was completely different from the other six Kabochas. He was different in every way and was the most authentic Kabocha.

There, their positions reversed, and Tsuchikawa Haruhiko was the one who fled. He vanished swiftly and scurried off, true to his nickname. ——And then, about eighty days later, the children playing near the oak grove in the wasteland were startled when a man spoke to them.

“Oh, it’s Choro-san!”

One of the children shouted.

It was Tsuchikawa Haruhiko. He wore a new but ill-fitting suit, a flimsy cheap soft hat on his head, clutched a leather briefcase under his left arm, and had geta on his bare feet. “It’s me,” he said with a strained smile to the children, his eyes darting restlessly as if fleeing pursuit, “—do you know what became of Bankun who was at my place?” “I know,” one of the children answered. “It’s Kabocha, right?”

“Ah, Kabocha. How’s he doing?”

“He’s just the same. Still at the same house, right?”

When the child sought agreement from his companions, they all nodded and said things like, "He's still there," or "Same as before." Choro froze for an instant, then began darting his eyes about warily.

“Still the same,” he shot back. “Has he been alone all this time?” “He’s with the woman.”

“The woman?”

“Yeah, you know,” one of them answered. “The one who was at your place before, Choro-san—that woman, you know, the one who’s always angry.”

“The fat one, right?” another child added.

Haruhiko paused to consider, then muttered indistinctly under his breath. Short-tempered fatty. If this "woman" the children meant was—he cocked his head, seeming to mentally sift through each wife he'd taken there—whether he feared discovery by Seventh-Generation Kabocha more than anything else, or whether his mind simply couldn't focus beyond the new venture plans crowding his thoughts—he soon adjusted his briefcase and offered the boys a strained grin.

“Well then, boys, see you later,” he said, lightly pinching the brim of his soft hat. “Keep my visit a secret, okay?” “Why?” one asked. “Aren’t you going home?” “Yeah, I’m busy.” He forced a smile. “I’m very busy—have to meet someone about registration at two. Now then, boys, stay well.” He began walking swiftly while scanning his surroundings, gradually quickening his pace until he vanished into the distance, growing smaller and smaller as he headed toward Nakadori.

Hajime-kun and Mitsuko

Fukuda Hajime-kun was twenty-seven years old and had apparently dropped out of some private university; he was currently working as a scrap collector on a temporary basis. He was thin and small in stature, a man with a pallid complexion whose lower jaw protruded in such a way that it constantly appeared as though his lower teeth were biting into his upper lip.

His wife was named Mitsuko; she claimed to be twenty-three, but the neighborhood wives had determined she was no younger than thirty-five. She was shorter than Fukuda-kun and thin, but what drew people’s attention more than anything were her restless, darting eyes in a face that the neighborhood wives declared "looked just like a mouse." She always applied stark white makeup, wore thick lipstick, dressed in either a Western-style dress or kimono with garishly unconventional patterns, and—again borrowing the neighborhood wives’ words—"clattered about from morning till night." she was.

This couple lived on the second floor of Aizawa Shichimio, a scrap collector specializing in scrap metal. The Aizawa family had seven children between husband and wife, with the eldest son being eleven and the youngest two years old. It was a lively household, with Masusan, his wife, pregnant once again. Fukuda-kun and his wife made their presence starkly known to the entire tenement within five or six days of moving in.—One morning around eight o'clock, no sooner had an argument seemingly broken out on the second floor than Fukuda-kun came rushing down the ladder-like stairs, slipped into someone's sandals lying in the dirt-floored entryway, leaped out into the alley, then turned back and shouted in a shrill, almost yellowish voice while glaring up at the second floor he had just fled.

“You there, Mitsuko, get out!” He stamped his feet until the gutter plank bounced up. “Mitsuko, you bastard! I’m leaving you! —Get out! Get out!” From tenements lining both sides of the alley, residents came rushing out at the commotion. Fukuda-kun wore only a sleeping yukata fastened with a thin cord—the front hung open to reveal a scrawny chest and lifeless legs. “There was a bite mark on the jaw.” Later the neighborhood wives discussed among themselves: “That must’ve been the wife biting him.”

“It might be none of my business,” said another neighborhood wife, “but I’ve never seen a marital fight like that in all my born days. It’s one thing to yell ‘Get out!’ during a fight, but for the husband to run outside himself and then shout ‘Get out!’ from out there at his wife still inside—what kind of sense does that even make?”

“No harm meant.” One of the middle-aged wives said amusedly, “We need people like that around every now and then—keeps the tenement’s air from getting too dull, you know?” Thus, Fukuda-kun and his wife suddenly swept up all the popularity in this tenement.

Every morning, Aizawa Shichimio would call them awake from downstairs, and once breakfast was finished, the two would go out to work together and return together in the evening. The one who had arranged Fukuda-kun’s scrap collection business was Aizawa Shichimio, who had simultaneously provided the vacant second floor of his own house. Aizawa seemed to hold goodwill toward Fukuda-kun, and his wife Masusan and the children appeared to feel the same way; however, toward Fukuda-kun’s wife Mitsuko, they seemed to harbor an antipathy that went beyond mere dislike. Of course, in this “town,” anyone who wore heavy makeup or flaunted absurdly flashy kimonos would inevitably face either resentment or being labeled “Okichi-san”—but Mitsuko’s case went further, resulting in even Aizawa’s four-year-old child disliking her and subjecting her to scornful looks.

Mitsuko called Fukuda-kun “Ha-ji-me-saaan” in a syrupy-sweet voice that stretched like pulled taffy. Fukuda-kun called her “Mitsuko,” and each time, Mitsuko would respond with “Naaani, Ha-ji-me-saaan” in that syrupy-sweet voice. Aizawa’s wife Masusan suffered from chronic headaches, but she would complain that every time she heard Mitsuko’s voice like that, it reminded her of how long they had gone without sugar, triggering a headache.

“My Fukuda entered the liberal arts department at university,” Mitsuko said when first speaking with Masusan. “It was private but prestigious—they say admission was harder than Tokyo University! He had to withdraw due to family circumstances, but the vice principal was so distraught—‘Even if tuition falls short,’ he said, ‘become a hakuboku and keep studying!’ Why, even the principal came repeatedly to recruit him himself!” Of course, Masusan knew nothing about education systems and had no awareness of whether universities even had titles like “vice principal” or “principal.” She recognized “chalk” from her elementary school days but had never heard of anything like a “student servant,” so what “become chalk” could mean, or why a principal would come recruiting—these things seemed utterly incomprehensible to her, far beyond even the gibberish likely spouted by Mitsuko herself.

Women of Mitsuko’s ilk shared two common traits: an uncanny ability to detect whether someone possessed pseudo-intellectual knowledge, and the nerve to deploy an adaptable—or rather, utterly improvisational—vocabulary to bamboozle such individuals. “When I was little, I was so delicate, you know—they said I had an ‘Agileru constitution.’ That’s why I was raised in my wet nurse’s hometown until third grade. They treated me so preciously, wrapped in silk floss and carted around in a baby carriage, I tell you.”

"Huh, a baby carriage," Masusan said. "Did you have polio or somethin'?" "Oh my goodness, Masusan! 'Baby carriage' is just a figure of speech—how mean of you!" Mitsuko said. "The truth is more like the whole 'butterflies and flowers' treatment." Since giving birth to her first son at nineteen until the day she turned thirty, Masusan had been honed and whittled down by the whetstones and files of life, ultimately acquiring the wisdom and endurance needed to coexist even with unpleasant neighbors.

"My family home is in Furuichi, Ise—you know, like in that kabuki play about the Yoshiwara Hyakunin-giri and that samurai called something-Kou," Mitsuko declared. "The Kiba family—we’re an old house with six hundred years of history. When I returned from my wet nurse’s hometown in fourth grade, even as a child I was stunned by how enormous and sprawling the mansion was." And then, if one were to write it exactly as she said, she would launch into such outrageous descriptions that even the most generous reader would undoubtedly grow furious. To give examples scaled down to about one-tenth: she would prattle on with such earnest sincerity and endless persistence about things like a gate resembling a daimyo mansion’s entrance leading to a main house over two kilometers away; a private water reservoir; a power plant generating electricity from said water; over a dozen servants’ quarters housing their own kindergarten and special-needs elementary school for the staff’s children; and an estate so vast that—all stories less fantastical than utterly divorced from reality.

“If I’d just stayed home quietly, I could’ve married into any wealthy family I wanted,” Mitsuko said. “But then in my third year at girls’ school, I fell for Fukuda. Our social standings were too different—my parents opposed it, the relatives kicked up a fuss, they even held five whole family meetings over the scandal! I got so fed up I just eloped with Fukuda and came here.” “Huh, so...” Masusan countered. “Is Mr. Fukuda from Ise too?”

“Oh my goodness, that’s a tale too tangled to unravel!”

“If you were in your third year of girls’ school, then Fukuda-kun was already a university student at that time, right?” “You’re so suspicious, aren’t you?” Mitsuko pretended to swing at Masusan. “That’s also a story that’s hard to tell! You shouldn’t go prying into people’s romances!” By focusing all her attention on mending the children’s shirts, Masusan just barely managed to regain her self-control. Mitsuko was like this in every way. In her stories, there was no discrimination of eras, no directions of east, west, south, or north, no front or back, left or right, no seasons, no day or night, and no distinction between old and young.

“When I think what people must imagine about Fukuda doing that sort of work now, it truly makes me laugh,” Mitsuko said. “He was in the liberal arts department, you see. To pursue literature, experiencing life among the impoverished class comes first. After all, there’s no path to annihilating human rights issues except through the impoverished class—back when I attended Ochanomizu Girls’ School—”

Mitsuko claimed she had attended Toranomon Girls' School at one time, Ochanomizu at another, and also Tsuda Eigaku. Nominally, her alma mater was established as the girls' school in her hometown of Ise Furuichi, but depending on the circumstances at hand, she could freely shift it anywhere—at times even going so far as to name music or language teachers. Toranomon Girls' School had been renowned in a considerably distant past—indeed, if the author's memory serves correctly, up until the Great Kanto Earthquake of Taisho 12 [1923]. Afterward, it presumably relocated to Shibuya or elsewhere, naturally rendering the name "Toranomon" obsolete in the context of girls' schools. As for Ochanomizu, it belonged to teacher-training institutions rather than girls' schools, or so I believe—though such matters held no more interest to the residents of this "town" than the presence or absence of a pinch of salt.

While such women are generally called vain, in Mitsuko’s case, she seemed less intent on flaunting herself to others than on becoming intoxicated by her own fabricated tales. Her aim was not to impress others or incite envy; rather, it seemed she was moved by and envious of the illusions she herself had created. She seemed to apply this not only to Masusan but to Fukuda-kun as well. Since Masusan was an outsider, she could treat it like listening to a comic monologue and find amusement in it; in fact, she had even told her husband that while more than half of it made no sense to her, it still served as better distraction than doing piecework alone.

But Fukuda-kun could not do the same. Mitsuko was his wife, and though it was unclear how long they had been married, they might very well have had to spend their entire lives together. If that were the case, he couldn’t always just meekly listen to Mitsuko’s unrestrained, outlandish fabrications. Thus, at a rate of roughly once a week, cloyingly gloomy arguments would begin.

“Hey, quit using that weird English—nothing you’re saying makes any sense.” “What’s wrong with that?” Mitsuko whispered in a syrupy-sweet nasal voice. “We’re husband and wife—you shouldn’t say such formal things.” “Formal manners—you always drag strange words into the wrong places. Fine, then tell me—what’s this ‘Natchariee’ you just mentioned?”

“Natchariee is Natchariee—you went all the way to university dropout and still don’t know that, Ha-ji-me-saaan?” Fukuda-kun, considerate of the people downstairs, did not raise his voice even when fighting. Mitsuko was the same. Mitsuko similarly did not raise her voice, but her thickly sweet nasal voice—like molten black sugar oozing out—often led Aizawa Shichimio downstairs to misinterpret, prompting him to jab his finger at his wife Masusan’s shoulder, point to the ceiling, and gesture for her to listen with a “Shh!”

"That's not it, don't be mean." Masusan showed no interest in such matters; while working on her nighttime piecework, she indifferently scolded her husband: "It's just a fight—you always take things the wrong way." "You're so damn thick-headed—ya don't feel a thing, do ya?"

“Once this one in my belly’s born, we’ll have eight kids,” Masusan retorted. “I’m done with this—getting all worked up over strange things and making a fuss? I want no part of it anymore.” “I get it, I get it already,” Aizawa shot back. “Ain’t no need to keep up with the fight upstairs. Yeah, I said I get it.” “This might sound nagging,” Fukuda-kun was saying patiently upstairs, “but could you maybe stop with that ‘Ha-ji-me-saaan’ business? There’s no need to draw out each syllable like that every time. Makes my stomach crawl whenever you do it.”

"You're such a shy one, aren't you? You've known hardship but never been loved. If we truly loved each other, even how you call me would be heartfelt, you... o-ba-ka-san."

Fukuda-kun hunched his shoulders. It felt as though the cartilage connecting his spinal joints had dissolved, causing his entire spine to contract and his torso to shrink inward. "Why don’t we visit my family home in Furuichi sometime?" Mitsuko would habitually say. "The Kiba house has passed to my brother’s generation now, but Grandfather and Grandmother loved me more than anyone—and I was the eldest daughter, after all." Her grandparents, due to their excessive doting, attempted more than once to have her take a husband and make her the heir of the Kiba family, which caused such an uproar among all the relatives that family meetings were held countless times. The establishment of a private power plant, to tell the truth, was something her grandparents had constructed by overcoming opposition from the entire clan for when she became the heir.

"That's why I can return to Furuichi anytime with confidence." Mitsuko narrowed her eyes dreamily and said, "I thought they might say something about the inheritance, so my brothers made such a tremendous fuss—to put it a bit grandly, it was like being welcomed at the station with a full brass band in tow! Isn't that marvelous? Ha-ji-me-saaan, let's go back together someday."

Aizawa Shichimio would very occasionally, on days when he made a little extra profit, invite Fukuda-kun out for drinks. He wasn't one to drink heavily, but due to his large family, no matter how much he earned, he never had enough leeway to drink.

Moreover, even when they drank, ninety percent of it was shochu; in particular, they often made a regular habit of drinking what was called "Budowari"—shochu mixed with wine—since it brought on intoxication quickly. "In this world, you know," Aizawa would invariably say when slightly drunk, "there are folks who have their evening drink every day—every single day, Fukuda-kun. I’d like to become someone like that even once before I die, I tell ya."

“I’ll only tell you this—and keep it between us—” Fukuda-kun said bluntly one day, “I don’t need any nightly drinks. All I want is to be rid of that Mitsuko.”

“Ain’t that simple? We’re in a democratic age now—if ya wanna split up, just go ahead an’ split.” “So that’s why I’m sayin’ if I could just do that—”

“If ya could do it… So ya mean there’s a reason ya can’t?”

Aizawa stared fixedly at Fukuda-kun with an expression that said he'd just heard something utterly suspicious. "Mr. Aizawa, you don't know Mitsuko," Fukuda-kun said. "That woman's got this... this eerie quality about her, like she's possessed by something. For instance, she never raises her voice—even during fights, she just smirks and says things in this... this quiet voice."

“Yeah, that’s true,” Aizawa slurped his Budowari. “—Sometimes I think I hear a little voice— Ah, never mind. So what about the quiet voice?”

“She sees right through what I’m thinking here. Let’s say I start feeling like I want to leave her deep down. Then Mitsuko smirks with her lips—‘Oh, you want to leave me now, don’t you?’—saying it in this… this quiet voice while staring straight into my face with those piercing eyes. Like this.” Fukuda-kun made such a face. “Then I’ll think, ‘My body’s so heavy today—I don’t want to go out to work.’ Right then, she smirks with her lips and says, ‘You should rest sometimes,’ while staring straight into my face with those piercing eyes. Yeah, I get so terrified that I end up going out to work after all.”

"She smirks and stares like that, huh..." "It’s been that way from the beginning." He had met Mitsuko at a suburban diner. By day he worked at an electronics company while attending night classes at a private university, visiting that diner for meals every Sunday. Mitsuko worked there tending to heavy-drinking customers, but one time when their eyes met across the room, she’d flashed that trademark smirk of hers and fixed him with an unblinking stare.

“Then my head went all fuzzy, and I couldn’t move a muscle.”

Another similar incident occurred, and the third time, Mitsuko came to him as he was eating. She placed a heated sake decanter and two whiskey glasses before him, sat down herself, poured liquor into both glasses, then handed one to him and kept the other. Drawing out each syllable—*Y-o-r-o-s-h-i-k-u*—she drove her signature smile and unblinking stare deep into his innermost being, as firmly as driving a rivet.

“Please keep it a secret that I’m working in a place like this,” she suddenly said—completely out of nowhere. Fukuda-kun pressed forcefully. “Right after she went ‘Y-o-r-o-s-h-i-k-u,’ she told me—‘My family’s obsessed with status. If they find out, they’ll drag me back to our household prison. They call it a prison, but it’s just two rooms—ten mats and eight—with a maid and manservant attached. Still, I’m too spoiled to endure that,’ she said.”

Throughout this entire time, he could not say anything, nor could he refuse the glass that had been placed before him. Moreover, strange as it may seem, as he listened to Mitsuko’s words, her status-obsessed household, her family, and the household prison with its two rooms—complete with a maid and manservant—began to feel like things he had known all along. “She’s the one who created the opportunity for us to get together too—it was the fifth or sixth time. I’d finished eating at that diner and was about to leave when Mitsuko came chasing after me—‘Not that way, Hajime-kun! This way!’—and grabbed my hand to pull me along.”

The place they were led to was a three-mat room in a certain tenement; there was also a six-mat room and a four-and-a-half-mat room. The family occupied the four-and-a-half-mat room, while a middle-aged couple lived in the six-mat one. In the three-mat room Mitsuko rented, there were only two thin futons and two furoshiki-wrapped bundles—no furnishings to speak of. “I was forced into an unwanted marriage, so I ran away from home,” Mitsuko said. “Because I was raised like some precious kept-in-a-box daughter, I haven’t the faintest idea what one needs to live—it’s like watching a turtle tumble off its log.”

"But they say if you love each other, you could boil tea in your belly button—so let's just enjoy this newlywed feeling for now," Mitsuko said. Thus began their life together—he working days at an electronics company while attending night university, she waitressing at a diner. Though they owned no proper furnishings, they could at least drink tea. They never tested the belly button boiling theory, but when he returned from night classes and busied himself organizing notes, Mitsuko would come home from her diner shift and arrange customers' leftover dishes and drinks on the low chabudai table, inaugurating their modest midnight feasts.

The feast was indeed modest, but the strange fabricated tales that gushed forth from Mitsuko's mouth—with their unceasing continuity and elusive leaps in content—produced an extraordinarily rich accompaniment effect, swiftly ensnaring Fukuda-kun in their grip.

"You've heard about her family home in Ise's Furuichi, haven't you Mr. Aizawa?" "Yeah, from my old lady." "At first it was simpler—no reservoirs or power plants. She used to boast about twelve hunting dogs and however many Persian cats. The estate was just as vast as she claims now, but get this—she says she'd never seen all the rooms despite being born there. You know that rakugo bit where you need packed lunches to tour a mansion? She claims hers was bigger than that."

When he found it hard to believe, she would say, “You think I’m lying, don’t you?” and pin him down with that smile and that stare. “Fine, go ahead and think I’m lying. You’ll find out soon enough.” When she mentioned the girls’ school, he had looked it up at the night university library. It turned out that Toranomon Girls’ School did indeed have an official name—since its campus was located in Toranomon, Shiba, it had come to be known by that nickname—and furthermore, Ochanomizu had been a normal school. As for Tsuda Juku, given the nonsensical terms Mitsuko used, there was no doubt she had never attended. But the moment he learned these facts, Mitsuko sensed it and pierced him with her signature smile and stare. “Fine,” she said. “Go ahead and think that.”

“You couldn’t possibly understand, Mr. Aizawa, but in those moments, there’s this… this indescribable force in Mitsuko’s smile and eyes—not human, something else entirely, some unknowable power. It binds me up so tight I can’t move a muscle. Even if I close my eyes, I still see it clear as day through my eyelids.”

“This might sound strange,” Aizawa said, glancing at Fukuda-kun, “but I heard you once had a fight where you ran outside and shouted ‘Get out!’ up at the second floor.”

“I just couldn’t take it anymore.” “I suppose so.” Aizawa scrutinized Fukuda-kun’s face intently as he said, “Still, for a man to run outside and shout at his wife from out there to ‘Get out!’—that’s a bit beyond the pale, don’t you think?” “But what else can I do?” Fukuda-kun retorted earnestly. “In front of that smirking, staring face, I can’t even make a sound—I just told you, I can’t even move a muscle, let alone speak.”

“I see... Yeah, I see.” Aizawa nodded deeply, slurped his Budowari, then said after careful thought: “—Tanba-san… Oh right, you haven’t met Old Man Tanba yet. Never mind—there’s this old man named Tanba in the tenement. He once said that even if there were ten million married couples in the world, not a single pair would be alike—that all ten million would be different. And he said that among them, there are couples who never should’ve gotten together in the first place—that unless they split up quick, the stronger one’ll end up devouring the weaker. Now, I don’t mean no offense—but you two might just be that kinda shouldn’t-have-happened match. Straight talk, no exaggeration.”

Fukuda-kun still held his first glass of shochu, slightly sipping at it with his lips while staring fixedly at a single point ahead without truly looking anywhere.

“The first time I met you, Aizawa-san, was at that employment office, wasn’t it?” “Yeah, that’s right. I had this bulky load to deal with and needed someone to lend a hand.” “It was a job hauling scrap metal from the burned ruins,” said Fukuda-kun. “By then I’d already quit school—before that, the electronics company went bankrupt. Then Mitsuko quit the diner too. She said—and this is straight from her mouth—‘A housewife guarding the home is the main TRAP of married life.’ Must’ve misheard some fancy term somewhere. She insisted the Japanese phrase was ‘hon-suji,’ but changed ‘main’ around to make it ‘trap.’ Anyway, that’s why she quit the diner. So I had no choice but to earn our living expenses. When I was zoning out in front of the employment office back then... I seriously considered just running away somewhere.”

"Why didn't you just run away?" "Because you called out to me, Mr. Aizawa. When I asked if there were any office jobs available, they said those kinds of positions only made up about one in a thousand listings—and right then I thought maybe this was my perfect chance to escape."

"So it was me who called out to you, huh?" Aizawa laughed. "Karmic fate, I tell you. Ah, they say a person'll bump into such destined encounters several times in their life." "That may be so, but I'm at my limit these days. When night comes, I—"

“What happens when night comes?”

“It’s no use talking about it,” Fukuda-kun shook his head. “It’s been nearly five years since I got together with Mitsuko—all that time without pause, being stared at and smirked at. No—even now, as I’m speaking with you like this, Mr. Aizawa, Mitsuko sees right through it all.” “C’mon now, don’t go sayin’ such rough things.” Aizawa leaned slightly away from Fukuda-kun, ordered another Budowari from the stall owner, then asked quietly while straining to maintain objectivity: “Where exactly was Mitsuko born?”

Fukuda-kun silently shook his head and licked his shochu glass. "Then what about her real age?" Aizawa asked, and Fukuda-kun once again silently shook his head. "How should I know? She even filed the marriage registration herself and didn't show me a thing." Aizawa stared wide-eyed in astonishment and boomed, "Are you two actually legally married?" Fukuda-kun raised his right hand, then weakly lowered it and slapped his thigh.

“That’s not the issue—it’s Mitsuko herself.” Fukuda-kun’s words snapped off there. He suddenly fell silent as if the string of a kite he was flying had snapped, and then the words that should have followed seemed to fly from his mouth like the severed kite drifting away into nothingness. “I think she might kill me.” Fukuda-kun seized a new topic. “You know how you suddenly wake up in the middle of the night? There she is—Mitsuko—propped up on one elbow, half-rising to stare down at me from above.” “And when she notices I’ve woken up, she smirks with just her lips and stares intently at me.”

Aizawa shuddered and muttered, “Just like Lady Oiwa.” “Ha-ji-me-kun,” Mitsuko says—drawing out each syllable—“You were holding a pretty girl in your dream just now, weren’t you? Who on earth was that?” “You had that kind of dream?” “I might’ve had it—I don’t remember myself—but when Mitsuko says that, I start feeling like I really did.” “Then what happens?”

"She presses herself against me," Fukuda-kun swallowed saliva and licked his shochu glass. "'That woman was being so affectionate with Hajime-kun like this, wasn't she?'" Aizawa looked up, his expression that of someone straining to hear. He wore an expression as though he were in his own home at midnight, drawn to some noise from the second floor. After giving a rough account of the situation, Fukuda-kun slowly pressed both hands to his own neck.

“And then I do this,” he said, “while she keeps staring fixedly into my eyes and smirking with her lips.”

“Were your eyes open even then?” “The whole time—she insists I keep my eyes open too. I hate it.” Fukuda-kun shook his head, pressed his lips together, then stretched them wide sideways. “It’s awful—my face turns into this Hannya-like thing. Horrifying.” “A Hannya?” “Only for a moment, but I make this terrifying face—exactly like a Hannya mask. That... I hate it. It gives me the creeps.”

“Ah... Ah, I see.” Aizawa finally nodded deeply as if grasping the situation. “Not quite Hannya—differs by person, I suppose—but that’d give anyone the creeps.” “So I try keeping my eyes shut, but that woman Mitsuko won’t have it—insists I open ’em.” “Folks got their tastes, eh?” Aizawa tilted his head left then right, his smile twisting wryly. “Tastes vary—they say humans come in ten thousand varieties. Take my old lady—ah, never mind. Anyhow, if that’s how it stands, best split quick ’fore things turn ugly. Else this might become life-or-death for you, mark my words.”

“If only I could…” Fukuda-kun let out a deep, heavy sigh. "If only I could do that..."

The above conversations did not occur in a single sitting but were compiled from exchanges during their occasional drinking sessions; in reality, there were far more nuanced and provocative details involved. However, when it came to the psychological conflicts and physical realities between spouses, merely pursuing words alone proved futile. In fact, even during the intervals between these conversations—spaced roughly five to ten days apart—Fukuda-kun would suddenly dart out into the alley, look up at the second floor, and begin shouting.

“Hey, get out—!” he shouted with a fierce expression, thrusting his right fist skyward. “Mitsuko, you bitch—get out!” Yet mere hours later, Mitsuko’s saccharine whisper of “Haaajiime-saaan...” already drifted down from the second floor. “Here—this is all I’ve got,” Aizawa said one evening, thrusting several bills at Fukuda-kun with forced camaraderie. “Take it and vanish somewhere. You made it to university—that body’s built for hardship. Even scrap collecting’ll keep you alive anywhere. Ah, the rest’ll sort itself out. You need to run from here right now, ri—”

Aizawa started to say "ta—" but trailed off. He had likely intended to repeat, "starting right now," but at that very moment, a voice called out from outside the stall. “Haaajiime-saaan...” Aizawa nearly tumbled off his stool, and then Mitsuko lifted the curtain and showed her face. "I was on my way back from the butcher’s when I heard your voice," said Mitsuko, turning toward Aizawa, "Oh, Mr. Aizawa, you’re here too? I didn’t notice a thing about you."

“See? I told you so,” Fukuda-kun said next, licking his shochu glass. “That woman Mitsuko sees through everything. She didn’t actually go to the butcher’s that time—she must’ve figured out what we were talking about and come here on purpose.” “Never been so shocked in my life—first time since I was born,” Aizawa said. “When she turned around with that ‘Oh, Mr. Aizawa, you’re here too?’ I squeezed my eyes shut tight as I could.”

“She said I closed my eyes.”

“Ah, I closed them—if that person were to fix her eyes and stare intently, or even smirk slightly with just her lips, I’d be so terrified I couldn’t possibly keep my eyes open—even now when I remember it.” At that, Aizawa fell silent, as if sensing someone behind him, then whispered to Fukuda-kun while holding his breath, “Let’s drop this talk. Ah, you know what they say—a wise general doesn’t court danger.”

Fukuda-kun drank the glass of shochu in one gulp and hurriedly nodded several times.

“My romance with Fukuda was quite the ordeal,” Mitsuko was telling Masusan at the Aizawa household. “After all, I was only a second-year girls’ school student—legally still a minor! The newspapers made such a fuss about where we ‘sipped soup’ together. Oh yes—I’ll show you those articles someday. I’ve clipped and saved every one of them. Truly, I’ll show you—even provincial papers couldn’t churn out such nonsense.”

While her hands kept moving without pause in her piecework, Masusan said in a tone utterly devoid of emotion, “So you managed not to get pregnant.” “That’s not the woman’s responsibility,” Mitsuko answered. “If she’s determined enough, there are plenty of ways to avoid getting pregnant.” Masusan suddenly jerked around as if startled. With the expression of someone drowning who had just spotted a lifebuoy right before their eyes, she asked back, “Is that true?”

“But look—the living proof’s right here. I don’t have any children,” Mitsuko said. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that?”

"I don't know about such things." "You don't know a single one? —Well, how carefree you people are!" Mitsuko straightened her posture. “Fine—your household already has plenty of children, doesn’t it? Though it may seem presumptuous for someone younger like me to tell this to an older person like you, I’ll teach you two or three simple methods.” For the next twenty minutes or so, as Mitsuko demonstrated various postures and movements while continuing to explain details about breathing techniques and points of physical exertion, Masusan yawned with the expression of someone thoroughly disillusioned, resumed her work, and muttered under her breath, "She talks like someone trying to swallow a snake." Mitsuko was still in the midst of her passionate performance.

On Frugality

In the east tenement, in the end house near the water spigot, lived the family of Shioyama Keizō. His wife’s name was Rui; they had three daughters—the eldest, Haru, was twelve, the second daughter Fukiko was ten, and the youngest daughter Tomiko was eight. —These were their ages when the family moved into the tenement; Shioyama was around forty and worked as a postal deliveryman.

Under the adept direction of his wife Ms. Rui, the Shioyama family practiced a life that exemplified model citizens, embodying virtues such as diligence, frugality, simplicity, gentleness, and cleanliness. What first astonished the residents there was how well Ms. Rui maintained possessions in good condition. As long as the weather permitted, Ms. Rui would spend nearly the entire day—one might say almost all of it—at the water spigot, washing various items and lining up utensils to dry beside her house. These included old box dining trays, bowls, chopsticks, mortars, geta sandals, tall wooden clogs, umbrellas, tabi socks with rubber soles, worn rubber boots, rubberized raincoats, and rubberized rain hats—among which thirty or forty cedar split chopsticks stood out conspicuously. The people of this "town" rarely ordered tempura dishes or similar fare, but they knew well enough that places like soba shops and diners provided cedar split chopsticks. However, no one would bring home chopsticks from such restaurants. If they had any, the tenement wives surmised, it must be because they had ordered something like soba or donburi bowls for delivery.

“They’re showing off,” one of the housewives said. “They must be thinking, ‘We used to live well, ordering tempura dishes every day back then,’ that’s for sure.”

And one time, one of the meddlesome housewives hinted at this matter to Ms. Rui. "Not at all." Ms. Rui denied earnestly with a humble expression, “How could a frugal household like ours afford such luxuries? These are just hand-me-downs.”

There had been a small soba shop right across from the house where we used to live, which closed down when their business failed to pick up. At that time, among the unsellable items they were bundling up to discard, there happened to be a bundle of split chopsticks—I took them thinking it'd be a waste otherwise. Afterward, I would bring them out when we had guests, but once they'd been split open, they couldn't very well be served to visitors again. "Still," Ms. Rui explained, "they might prove useful someday, and when I think of the person who made them... I just can't bring myself to throw them away."

“No matter how trivial something may seem, you can’t treat it carelessly once you imagine yourself as the one who made it,” Ms. Rui said. “Even a single sheet of paper—they say it takes all sorts of effort and hardship to make. Truly, not a single thing with form should be treated without care.” Thus, Ms. Rui gathered all the neighborhood housewives’ favor in one fell swoop.

Shioyama Keizō did not indulge in alcohol or tobacco and never took days off from work.

The three sisters—Haru, Fukiko, and Tomiko—were thin and had poor complexions, but they were gentle and amiable, never disobeying or talking back to their parents. “Yes, thanks to everyone’s kindness,” Ms. Rui replied to the housewives while washing dishes at the water spigot as usual. “They do listen well—that’s their only redeeming quality, really. If you notice anything wrong with them, please don’t hesitate to scold them thoroughly. There’s no better medicine than being reprimanded by others. I beg of you.”

After washing these items in this manner, she would place a door plank beside her house and neatly lay them out to dry on top of it. As for what items were laid out, since these have been noted at the beginning of this chapter, I ask the reader to refer back—but it truly could have been called a spectacle in demonstrating her love of cleanliness and good upkeep.—One time, a middle-aged woman passing by noticed this exhibition, stopped to gaze at it with deep admiration, and eventually addressed Ms. Rui as follows:

“Excuse me, but are these for sale?” The Shioyama family’s life was as neat as clockwork. Keizō’s departure and return times, the daughters’ school commutes and homecomings, meals, and baths were all rigidly scheduled as if measured with a ruler; and though quite rare in this “town,” the family’s clothing also changed with the seasons. Of course those clothes had been washed and mended countless times, their colors and patterns plain enough that changing from lined garments to unlined ones scarcely drew anyone's notice—though there were sharp-eyed housewives among them who would click their tongues irritably.

“Did you see?” said the sharp-eyed housewife. “Ms. Rui’s household started wearing lined garments today. Hmph—what a pointed display! Downright impertinent, I tell you.” As long as one lived in such a tenement, there were certain social obligations between residents. The sharp-eyed housewife pronounced her verdict: since their own household could wear lined garments as they pleased, to willfully don such attire without regard for communal harmony was nothing but inconsiderate ostentation.

Ms. Rui would sensitively catch wind of such backbiting. And she would immediately take skillful measures. “It must be nice having everyone in your household so healthy.” Ms. Rui addressed the sharp-eyed housewife with a gracious smile, “Everyone in my household is so delicate—it’s such a problem. If only we had good earnings like yours, but with just delivery work here, it barely amounts to anything. Even if I take on side jobs, we can’t afford proper food. That’s why the children’s bodies can’t build up strength—they catch colds as soon as autumn arrives.”

And she would make the other party understand that wearing lined garments was an unavoidable necessity, while repeating how enviable were those who didn’t need to mind such things. When even this failed to make them yield, she would go borrow a pinch of salt or half a saucer’s worth of soy sauce, performatively lamenting her hardships with profound sincerity as she declared, “I’ll be eternally grateful.” When returning them, she would give back roughly double the quantity and drench them in effusive thanks richly laced with flattery.

“Words don’t weigh down your tongue,” was Ms. Rui’s constant refrain. “So long as you know how to use that mouth of yours, you can make your way anywhere in this world. Mark that well now.”

And she would often say this to her daughters and to her husband Keizō as well. It was unclear how much Keizō earned or how much Ms. Rui made from her side jobs. Though assisted by her daughters in these side jobs too—with everyone’s combined efforts presumably amounting to a modest sum—their way of life remained astonishingly frugal; not one wasteful element could be found anywhere in their daily routines.—Ms. Rui would go out once every five days to purchase food supplies at the large market.

It was located in a town center reached by taking the city tram from the main street, riding north through about five stops, then walking five minutes from there. It carried everything from rice and wheat to soba noodles, udon noodles, vegetables, fish, meat, miso, soy sauce, and pickled goods, holding major thirty-percent-off sales on the 5th and 10th of each month. Ms. Rui would go precisely on those days to buy five days' worth of supplies in bulk—this earned her an additional ten percent discount off the already reduced prices, making it not uncommon for certain items to drop below half price depending on timing and product.

“Some people say that if you factor in train fare and time spent, it actually ends up costing more,” Ms. Rui would say. “That’s not entirely untrue, mind you, but staying cooped up at home all day does no good for the body either. Going out once every five days to see the world and get some movement—that alone works as medicine for the soul. And on top of that, you get things cheaper that way. In a poor household like ours, we’ve got to exercise the kind of wisdom paupers are meant to use just to scrape by.”

When buying large quantities of pickles and such, she would take her daughters along to split and carry the load, but even then they would sometimes be refused boarding on the city tram; on such occasions, the mother and children had no choice but to walk home, with the already thin, petite-framed girls sporting pallid faces slick with greasy sweat.

They used every last bit of the food they bought. Radish leaves went without saying—from carrot leaves and stems to potato skins, parsley, mitsuba roots, and butterbur leaves—they discarded none of them. Carrot and butterbur leaves in particular were said to be rich in vitamin C, and she would declare, "Throwing these away would be like discarding expensive medicine." That she spoke of vitamin C suggested she possessed some modern nutritional knowledge. Of course, the residents of this "town," with their meager incomes and families to feed, instinctively maintained balanced nutritional values in their meals. This wasn’t wisdom gleaned from modern dietary science, but knowledge passed down orally from their parents’ generation through lived experience. Yet despite appearing to embrace new ideas, whenever Ms. Rui bought sardines, she would remove their heads and bones at the water spigot, meticulously washing only the filleted flesh. Leaving the tap running, she would scrub each fish individually in repeated motions.

“Why are you washing them so much?” a neighbor remarked. “Then all that good flavor and nutrition will just go to waste, won’t they?” “I suppose so...” Ms. Rui replied, “In my household, everyone dislikes sardine oil, you see. They won’t eat it if there’s even the slightest oily smell.”

"It’s such a bother," she said, continuing to wash them with noisy splashes.

Two years passed, then three. After graduating from middle school, the eldest daughter Haru got a job at the post office where her father worked and began attending evening high school at night. Shortly after that, one of the neighborhood housewives discovered an astonishing fact and caused a great shock to the residents of this town. The reason was that when this housewife went to Nakadori Post Office to exchange a postal money order for cash, she discovered that the Shioyama family had savings.

“That mustached man is the post office manager, isn’t he?” said the housewife. “He called over Haru-chan who handles the clerical work and said, ‘Since we’ve finished entering the interest, take these home on your way back,’ handing her three passbooks! No, really—I couldn’t believe my eyes either! But then that mustached manager goes, ‘Yours has been decreasing gradually, hasn’t it?’ And Haru-chan clearly replied, ‘I need it for my tuition fees.’”

“Well, I don’t know,” said the housewife with a face like she’d seen a ghost. “I was so shaken I barely remember which way I took home.” “Saving money in times like these?” said another housewife. “There are some truly wicked people in this world.” At this point, Ms. Rui fell out of favor, and the Shioyama family came to be gently edged out of neighborhood interactions as if they carried some foul disease. —But Ms. Rui no longer flinched.

In this sort of "town," where residents came and went so frequently that three years of continuous habitation made one a veteran, Ms. Rui had reached a point where she no longer needed to mind the neighbors' sensibilities or perform unnecessary acts of appeasement.—Now she began demonstrating her extreme frugality openly, without concealment.

If poor people were to practice frugality, the first thing they would cut would be their food expenses. Entertainment expenses were of course out of the question; if they had free time, they did handiwork. Since Haru-chan attended night school and returned home around ten o'clock—instead of going to regular high school—she had to do twice as much piecework. Nor was Keizō, the master of the house, an exception—upon returning from work and finishing his evening meal, he was not allowed even a moment’s rest and was immediately driven to piecework.

There would be no need to discuss second daughter Fuki or third daughter Tomi, nor was any coercion or pressure applied there. It was said that Ms. Rui wielded her baton of authority, yet she never issued commands like "do this" or "do that" to her husband or daughters, and she herself worked harder than anyone else. If one were permitted an uncharitable description, it could be said that Ms. Rui roused her family by demonstrating her own work ethic.

The five-member family worked diligently in silence. It was as though they resembled five skilled workers seated before an assembly line conveyor belt. If we were to consider Ms. Rui the foreman, on top of that she also shouldered the duties of cooking, water spigot tasks, and detailed housework.

The second daughter, Fuki, also got a job immediately after graduating from middle school. She worked as an office attendant at a certain transportation company where mornings started early and evenings ended late—her shift was set to begin at 7 AM but could end as early as 6 PM or stretch past 9 at night on late days. There exists something called the Labor Standards Act, and while I hear all laborers are protected under this law, cases where one suspects that "the law" exists more to be abused than upheld are hardly rare—so I must ask you, dear readers, not to attack me here by wielding the "Labor Standards Act (Rōkihō)" as your shield.

Fuki indeed worked such hours, voicing no complaints despite receiving no overtime pay, harboring no aspirations for further education like her sister, commuting as obediently as a fatalist submitting to fate, and throwing herself into piecework upon returning home. The savings grew. If even with this level of labor, simple clothing and food, and frugality pushed to the limit their savings still hadn't increased, then the banking industry must have been in quite a predicament. But the Shioyama family's savings steadily increased. At the same time, from the opposite direction, something invisible crept toward this family.

Half a year after Fuki started working, Haru, who had been employed at the post office, collapsed. At first it was thought to be merely a cold; she took three days off before returning to work, but when she collapsed again with an unrelenting high fever and was taken to the hospital, tuberculosis was diagnosed. Though hospitalization was recommended, they first brought her home to rest and convened a family meeting about admitting her.

At a time when there were still few health insurance doctors and the gap between patients and available beds remained vast, the prospect of hospitalization proved exceedingly difficult. Effective new drugs were being released one after another, but they all lay beyond the Shioyama family's means to afford, with no guarantee they'd provide definitive treatment even if obtained. "In the old days," Father Keizō said, "this illness was called 'the urging disease.' They said every young woman was bound to catch it once."

Keizō rarely expressed his own opinions, so everyone stared at his face—acknowledging him as head of the household while believing he would propose a brilliant plan to save them from this crisis—and held their breath. But Keizō, having become the focus of their stares, only floundered and stroked his jaw uncomfortably, showing no sign of presenting anything resembling a brilliant plan. "So," Orui-san pressed impatiently, "—what are you saying we should do?"

Keizō slid the hand that had been stroking his chin from cheek to temple and mumbled, "Nothing particular." "In other words," he faltered again before continuing in an uncertain voice. "The 'urging disease' means when a daughter reaches marriageable age, she starts pleading inwardly—'Please let someone take me as bride.'" He explained that when these concentrated thoughts manifest as illness, rather than special treatment, simply securing marriage prospects would cure it—or so the old saying went.

“No.” Haru averted her eyes, her pallid cheeks flushing. “I’ve never once thought about wanting to get married!” “This isn’t about you, Haru-chan—it’s about people from the old days,” said Orui-san. “I’ve heard that too, and truly, whether they wanted to marry or not, it wasn’t uncommon for girls of marriageable age to catch this disease—they say it was practically like measles.”

As you have likely already surmised, the couple's thoughts had shifted from the main issue of treating tuberculosis toward how they might avoid spending money. It wasn't that they didn't want to cure their daughter's illness; the couple loved their daughter Haru, and their fervent wish to make her healthy remained unchanging. But frugality and affection seemed incapable of coexisting. The inexpensive hospital beds were completely unavailable, and the new drugs were prohibitively expensive and their effectiveness uncertain. In that case, it was not unreasonable to tentatively trust the old sayings and attempt home remedies. After all, even in society at large, responsible authorities were propagating messages like "Tuberculosis is nothing to fear" and "Tuberculosis is always curable."

Haru began home treatment. The only certainty was that she stopped going to work, stopped attending night school, and remained bedridden at home. Yet what treatments were administered—whether proper rest was maintained—remained entirely unknown to outsiders, while the lives of her family members showed not the slightest change apart from Haru's absence. “Yes, thanks to everyone’s concern,” Orui-san replied cheerfully to the neighborhood women’s inquiries as she washed disposable chopsticks at the water spigot. “—We’ve been talking about finally settling our debts next month. When you’re poor, illness strikes you hardest, doesn’t it?”

But Haru soon died. It likely hadn't even been half a year since she first fell ill. The people who attended the wake observed that Haru no longer resembled a human being, but rather a thin branch from a parched, brittle dead tree. "When I was back home in the countryside during Obon," one of the neighborhood women said after the wake, "I visited a temple and saw paintings of hell. There was one called something like the Realm of Hungry Ghosts with spirits so emaciated they looked like walking skeletons. Haru-chan was the spitting image of those poor souls."

“She didn’t die of illness—it was starvation,” said another neighborhood woman. “They didn’t even give her a single egg despite the tuberculosis.” “If they bought sardines occasionally, they’d spend half a day washing them—there’d be nothing left of either flesh or skin,” another housewife added. “Now then,” Orui-san said to her husband and two daughters once the seventh-day memorial had passed, “we must put Haru-chan out of our minds. We’ve spent too much of our savings on her, so we’ll need to work twice as hard to earn it back. You understand, Fuki? Tomi?”

Keizō nodded first, then the two daughters nodded. Orui-san had been earnest. No matter what the neighbors said, she had done everything possible for Haru. She never let Haru miss an egg each day, going to the Tori Kyū shop in Nakadori to obtain fresh blood squeezed during chicken slaughtering, which she made Haru drink daily. But more crucial than such nourishment was love. To instill through love the conviction that "I will recover." This—not new drugs or special diets—was what Orui-san had believed most vital.

“Even His Majesty the Emperor’s child would die if their time hadn’t come,” Orui-san said. “Thinking food or medicine or doctors alone can cure illness is superstition. Ask Dad—one of His Majesty’s children had doctors from all over Japan gathered, spared no expense for treatment, yet still couldn’t overcome fate and passed away. That’s what humans are.”

The Shioyama family recovered and valiantly regained their ordinary lives. And when the new year came and Tomi graduated from middle school, she too immediately found employment. Keizo worked as a deliveryman at the post office where his late daughter Haru had been employed. Tomi was the thinnest and smallest among the three sisters—during her employment exam, the bearded old director had apparently suspected she was an elementary school student. Tomi collapsed in her third month of work. The neighbors knew nothing at all. Katnuma Jirō’s wife next door—this 'town’s' foremost information broker, nicknamed “Radio Station” by other housewives—heard Orui-san’s panicked cries of “Tomi! Tomi!” one night when the Shioyama house suddenly erupted in commotion. Rushing over in alarm, she discovered Tomi had been bedridden all along and was now vomiting blood unconscious.

By the time the doctor arrived, Tomi was already dead. The doctor had diagnosed that her congenitally weak heart—overburdened by the strain of her job and side work—had ruptured somewhere, or so Katnuma Jirō’s wife broadcasted to the neighborhood. She had been asked by Orui-san to fetch the doctor, thereby naturally securing herself a front-row seat to the examination. "But really," one of the neighborhood women remarked, "Tomi-chan was more dutiful than Haru-chan. Haru-chan lingered half a year in bed, didn't she? Tomi-chan was gone in the blink of an eye. For that penny-pinching family's ledger books, she must've been quite the profitable bargain."

The neighborhood women didn't know. Orui-san had never entertained cost-benefit calculations—at least not consciously—not even slightly. If anything, Haru's precedent had made her strain herself beyond necessity. Yet the pace of Tomi's deterioration outpaced the rate at which Orui-san could deplete her nervous energy—in truth, she simply couldn't keep up.

“That child kept wanting to eat nothing but greasy food.” Orui-san said, “The doctor said greasy food is worst for those with weak hearts—even healthy people too. It clouds the blood, and when that murky blood circulates through your body, it leaves residue. That’s how you get cancer or start wasting away.”

Orui-san, perhaps doubting whether her words alone carried enough authority, read aloud to her husband and daughter a newspaper clipping titled "Medical Consultation" that she had cut out. To summarize its contents: meals should be low-calorie with ample vegetables, small portions of rice, and preferably include fruit. This was indeed what the article said—though it had originally been Dr. Somebody's response to a reader's inquiry about hypertension management—a detail Orui-san carefully omitted during her recitation.

“Look at cows and horses—they eat nothing but grass and straw, yet have such splendid bodies,” Orui-san said. “That’s right—even elephants and hippos only eat plants, don’t they? They grow so large without ever getting cancer or wasting away. Isn’t that so? Have you ever seen an elephant wasting away?”

While moving his hands in piecework, Keizo nodded expressionlessly, and Fuki, also working without pause, suppressed a yawn. Then within three years, Fuki died, and Orui-san died. Fuki had the same tuberculosis as her eldest sister Haru, but hers was a malignant galloping variety; after two months of home care, she perished abruptly. Orui-san too had tuberculosis—this had attacked her lungs, intestines, and lymph nodes, and by the time it was discovered, nothing could be done. To write it thus may seem utterly simplistic, yet the reality itself was equally plain. Though the tragedy appeared to begin with the eldest daughter's death, this was merely its visible aspect; the true cause likely started when Keizō and Orui-san married. I reject such cheap sophistries as "All living beings march toward death from birth." In the Shioyama household, Orui-san assumed control immediately upon their marriage. This came about not through schemes or violence—it occurred naturally—and their family traditions of diligence, frugality, obedience, and thrift became fixed at that moment. From Haru's death to Orui-san's own demise, these traditions operated with the precision of standard clock hands, yielding exact numerical results. There existed no romance here, no humor—not even a shred of humanity.

“I might have been wrong.” “I might have been wrong,” Orui-san said to her husband before dying. “—saving one yen a day brings family prosperity; a house without savings has no future—that’s what I believed.”

“Even now those posters are still up,” Keizō comforted her. “The newspapers run ads urging savings and statements from important figures. You weren’t wrong about anything. It’s all right—no need to worry.” “Even if I did misunderstand something,” Orui-san said, “I’m only human after all. One can’t be expected to know everything.” “You did well—never misunderstood a thing. Everything’s all right.”

Orui-san did not seem to be listening to her husband. As proof that her consciousness remained clear until the moment of death, her mind seemed filled with worry over what would become of items like her geta sandals, trays, bowls, disposable chopsticks, and other household implements she had meticulously maintained in clean condition until then. “Yes, she truly was a good wife.” At the wake, Keizō said to the neighbors who had gathered, “She never craved fancy food, never wanted fine clothes, and from the day we married, never once asked to see a play. She worked herself to the bone, lived thriftily—thriftily—all her life. Yes.”

“Now, this might come off as a joke,” Keizō forced a laugh as he added, “I sometimes think she even scrimped on her own life, yes.”

Old Man Tanba

Tanba-san must be about sixty-two or three by now, someone remarked. Some said he was still in his fifties, while others insisted he was already seventy. Tanba-san smiled gently, saying he didn't know himself—that he must have forgotten—and deftly changed the subject. Even his name was simply called Tanba-san; whether it was a family name or a nickname remained unclear. As for how resident registration was handled—no one here concerned themselves with such matters, Tanba-san least of all; the residents relied on him so completely that there was no room to doubt who he was. When they encounter trouble, when they are sad, when they suffer, when irritated, when happy—and when these feelings become unbearable—they visit Tanba-san.

Professor Kantō Seikyō had consulted Tanba-san on multiple occasions, and even Reverend Saita, the Christian missionary, had secretly gone to seek his wisdom. No one remembered how long Old Man Tanba had been living there. Even Sōsan of the Imoya potato shop, whose family had lived here for generations, had no clear memory—he tried to recall whether it had been eight or nine years ago. In the west duplex lived a violent man named Yoshi, known as "Kumanbachi" (Hornet). He had a wife and two children. At the time he was a day laborer—though it was said he had previously worked as a miner—and once drunk and enraged, he became uncontrollable. He owned a Japanese sword. The handle was wrapped in bleached cotton cloth, the blade notched along its edge. At some mine during a massive brawl, he had faced over a dozen opponents and cut down several. Such was Yoshi the Hornet's boast.—This same Yoshi, about a year after moving here, got drunk and began rampaging, chasing his wife and children while brandishing that sword and roaring, “I’ll cut you all to pieces!” Accustomed to this, the wife and children fled immediately. Yoshi flew into a frenzy and slashed at the pillar of his home’s latticed entrance. He kept hacking with all his strength while shouting “Damn you!” and “Drop dead!” There was no stopping it—even the dullest unsheathed Japanese sword carries menace. The watching neighbors turned pale; among the elderly men and women, some found their legs frozen stiff, unable to flee even when they tried.

Leaving things as they were could lead to disaster; they decided to go and call the police. "That’s when Tanba-san showed up, see," Sōsan recounted. "All the tenants had formed a loose circle around the place, their faces looking like they were about to drop dead any second, trembling like old storm shutters in a gale. Then Tanba-san walked real slow toward the bastard—calm as can be, not a care in the world. Yeah, I was watching too, and honestly—I thought for sure he’d get himself cut down."

Tanba-san calmly approached Yoshi and spoke to him. The onlookers shuddered, as if seeing the old man being slashed apart before their eyes; the women shut their eyes and clung to each other's shoulders. But nothing of the sort occurred. Yoshi—having been addressed by Old Man Tanba—let his sword droop down, muttered something brief, then retreated into his house still holding the unsheathed blade. That was all. The house fell silent, showing no further signs of commotion. Old Man Tanba returned to the others wearing a gentle smile, said "Everything's all right now," and walked away.

Everyone began clamoring as if witnessing a miracle. Some argued he must be a master swordsman, others insisted he was a hypnotist, until they finally confronted the fundamental question: just who was he? “It’s Tanba-san—don’t you know him?” two or three people retorted. “He’s been here a long time, you know. A good man like that doesn’t come around often. Did you really not know?” they pressed Sōsan of the potato shop. This was likely because it was well known that Sōsan had been a permanent resident since his parents’ generation. It was then that Sōsan first acknowledged the existence of Old Man Tanba.

Even so, Sōsan couldn't shake his bewilderment—how had that uncontrollable Yoshi, drunk and raging out of his mind, been subdued? Why had he collapsed so completely after just a couple of words?

“So I asked Yoshi when he was sober—‘What’d Old Man Tanba even say to ya back then?’ y’see,” Sōsan recounted. “Then that Yoshi fella starts scratchin’ his head like, ‘Ain’t got no face to show now, but I pulled a damn fool stunt an’ owe everyone an apology,’ and he explained what happened.” According to Yoshi’s account, Old Man Tanba had come to his side and said, “Shall I take over for a bit?” Yoshi turned around, thought he was a weird old geezer, and asked, “What?” “Shall I take over for a bit?” Old Man Tanba repeated. Then, waving one hand toward the pillar, he added that doing it alone must be exhausting.

“I was completely shaken,” Yoshi confessed to Sōsan. “When he said ‘Shall I take over?’—hell, I wasn’t doin’ no construction work! Tanba-san just kept smilin’ all gentle-like, sayin’ ‘Must be tiring work alone,’ but there ain’t nobody to relieve me, right? How’m I s’posed to say ‘Please do’ then? I looked at the sword in my hand and that pillar all scarred up, and suddenly felt so drained and ashamed I couldn’t take it. Had no choice but to slink home—spent the whole damn day sulkin’ in bed.”

When Sōsan recounted that story, he would put such fervor into it—as if he himself had become Kumanbachi no Yoshi—striving to imbue his gestures, expressions, and voice with as much authenticity as possible. Old Man Tanba was said to be a metal engraver. In his youth, he excelled at plain engraving on items like tobacco pouch clasps, kiseru pipes, and kanzashi hairpins, and for a time was quite renowned; but nowadays, as users of such items had become rare, he worked on high-end compacts, obi clasps, hairpins, and pendants. Since there were almost no orders, he would make them whenever he felt inclined and take them to his old shop to leave on consignment. And it was understood that if those items sold, he would receive payment.

“Well, I have no family or dependents,” the old man would say, “and at my age, I’ve no desires left. It’s just a way to pass the time until I die.” Within this tenement, among the few households that kept their homes tidy, Tanba-san’s house would undoubtedly be counted first. The sliding doors opened and closed smoothly, and there was no mud splattered on the clapboard. The narrow three-foot earthen floor was free of dust, with all footwear neatly arranged, toes facing the exit. Because he cooked on a kerosene stove, no soot accumulated in the kitchen area, and though the tatami mats were old, they showed no signs of fraying or wear. Both the two-mat area at the entrance and the six-mat area in the back were always tidy, with not a single unnecessary item to be seen. A tea cabinet and a low dining table. Then a sturdy workbench for his craft and a box with drawers to hold tools and raw metal. They were always in the same place. They were positioned in exactly the same spot each time, not a centimeter out of place—so precisely that one might suspect they were built-in. ――There was no hibachi.

Once each morning, he would put a small amount of tea into a large earthen teapot, fill it to the brim with hot water, and sip it little by little. When there were guests, he would sometimes prepare tea separately, but usually served the same brew.

“Something don’t sit right with me,” Watanabe-san said. “That’s just spent tea leaves, but watchin’ Tanba-san drink it—makes your mouth water like it’s the finest brew. Swear to god.” Old Man Tanba would pour just a little into a small tea bowl, cradle it in both hands, purse his lips, slowly bring them close, and sip as if it were something precious.

He never served meals to guests. It was unclear what he ate, but the old man seemed to take meals twice daily—morning and evening. His kimono was made of fine striped cotton; while he appeared to send out his mending for repairs, he always wore immaculately clean clothes free of stains, and even in winter wore no tabi socks.

At Old Man Tanba’s house, there were daytime guests and nighttime guests. Daytime guests often came with various consultations, while nighttime guests mostly concerned financial matters—or rather, loans. In this “neighborhood,” the only person one could borrow money from was the old man, and there seemed to be no instance of anyone being refused a loan request. The reason there seemed to be none was that those who borrowed money from the old man never spoke of it to others. The old man naturally kept silent, and the borrowers themselves never chattered about it to others. This was because he would admonish them with “This is our secret.”

“If others were to find out, it would cause me trouble,” Old Man Tanba said gently. “I can’t lend to you while refusing others, and besides, I don’t always have funds available myself.” He would add in a sincere tone, “There’s no need to rush repayment—if you can’t pay it back, then don’t.” This remained unchanged no matter when or to whom he spoke. One day, a wife came pleading, “Please don’t lend money to my good-for-nothing husband.” She explained that borrowing made him drink himself senseless and skip work. At this, the old man flatly denied ever lending money to anyone.

“I don’t lend money, you see,” the old man said with a smile, his tone soothing. “Men sometimes face troubles they can’t even tell their wives and children. Supporting a family through this rough world’s storms is no easy task—truly no easy thing at all.” “I know that,” she replied, “but if he doesn’t go to work, my family will starve to death.”

“That’s true—if it comes to that, it would indeed be dire.” After expressing sympathy for the wife’s concerns, Old Man Tanba continued in a gentle tone: “Let me think... Yes—this is a story from long ago. There was a craftsman—whether he was a carpenter or a cabinetmaker, I can’t quite recall. He had a wife and children, and I heard his mother lived with them too.”

The craftsman went astray, stopped going to work, sold or pawned household belongings, and became addicted to drink. It couldn’t be helped—when the wife tried to work herself, the mother stopped her. “Only when the husband works does a household hold together,” the mother had said. “If the husband drinks himself into a stupor and the wife becomes the breadwinner, that family might as well be broken beyond repair.” Old Man Tanba moved his head quietly. “In that case, the whole family might as well starve to death together.”

The wife informed her husband of this and said that if you didn’t work, both parent and child would starve to death together.

“This is just a story—I don’t know if it’s true or not,” Old Man Tanba said. “But no husband would stay silent watching his wife and children starve to death. Things are worth trying—why don’t you get him to feel that way? People can’t keep wallowing in drink forever.”

That wife never came to Old Man Tanba’s place again, and no rumors ever arose about her husband borrowing money from him.

This has become something of a legend in this "neighborhood"—though its veracity remains unconfirmed—and I believe similar tales appear in either the Konjaku Monogatari or Kokon Chomonjū collections; but since all the residents here continue to pass it down, I shall venture to present it now, fully expecting the reproof of my readers: Long ago, a burglar broke into Tanba-san's house. Some said that Dan—a man who had been around at the time—had instigated it, perhaps having heard whispers about the old man hoarding savings.

The man called Dan was a bachelor who had lived next to Old Man Tanba for about half a year. He constantly invaded the old man's home, to the point where even Tanba seemed exasperated. Dan held no steady job, yet showed no particular signs of poverty. He took all three meals at the Nakadori cafeteria and occasionally bought candies to distribute to neighborhood children. "You know," Dan would say, "there's nothing I enjoy more than conversing like this. Talk's a wonderful thing, don't you think, Mr. Tanba?"

It could hardly be called a conversation. Dan would usually chatter away by himself, and ninety percent of his talk was obviously lies. Old Man Tanba would speak when necessary, but generally tended to be sparing with words—when someone like Hira-san from the "hut" came visiting, they would sit facing each other in silence for half a day. This was partly due to Hira-san’s exceptionally quiet disposition, but it was certainly true that the old man did not welcome Dan’s visits. Old Man Tanba showed no sign of such displeasure, but Dan must have sensed it on his own—before long his visits gradually became less frequent, until he eventually moved away somewhere.

Not long after Dan had moved away, a burglar broke into Old Man Tanba's house. The old man's house lacked proper door locks—they would close the storm shutters but never secure them, making it easy for even the rawest thief to slip inside. The intruder must have been startled to find the interior meticulously ordered. Spotting a drawer-equipped box he likely mistook for a cash container, he grabbed it and tried to make off with his prize. Old Man Tanba had awoken and apparently been observing the burglar's movements all along when he finally broke his silence.

“You’ve got the wrong thing there.” Old Man Tanba whispered in a low, gentle voice, “That’s my work toolbox. The money’s over here.” The burglar stopped mid-step and turned around. Though Old Man Tanba’s hushed tone seemed to root him in place, he kept his body angled toward escape as he snarled, “The hell you say?” “I’ll give it to you now—it’s not much though.” Still speaking in whispers, Old Man Tanba quietly sat up, opened the cupboard, and retrieved his wallet. Though its leather was cracked and worn thin with age, he carried it over and placed it directly in the burglar’s hands.

“This is all I have right now,” Old Man Tanba said. “If you’re ever in trouble again, come back—I’ll set aside a little something for you.” And next time, he was said to have added, come through the front door. The burglar took the wallet, left the toolbox behind, and departed. No one had known about this incident. Half a year or perhaps a year later, that burglar was caught by the police. One day, accompanied by detectives, he came to Old Man Tanba’s house for an on-site verification. This was to corroborate his confession about having committed such-and-such acts in this house.

“That’s absurd—it must be some misunderstanding,” Old Man Tanba answered the detectives’ questions. “No burglar would target such a poor tenement, and nothing of the sort ever occurred here.”

“So there’s no fact that this man broke in during the night or stole money or valuables, is that correct?” “Yes, that’s correct.” The old man smiled at the detectives. “There’s nothing in our house worth stealing. Perhaps that person was just dreaming?”

Through this interview with the detectives, the circumstances involving the burglar became widely known. The residents here agreed among themselves that this was exactly the sort of thing Mr. Tanba would do—and what’s more, that burglar’s charges would be reduced solely because of his involvement with Mr. Tanba’s case.

“That Dan bastard must’ve been the one who ratted,” one man said. “He was always camped out at Mr. Tanba’s place when they were neighbors—no way he didn’t blab about him having some stash.” “Dan’s the kinda bastard you couldn’t trust worth shit,” another man said. “Guy was always jawing about wads of cash like he wiped his ass with thousand-yen bills.”

There were those who agreed, "Right, right," but since there was no sign they understood the old-fashioned joke, the one who had said it seemed to be seized by a sense of loneliness. When Oda Takizō, the antique dealer, had first moved here, he visited Old Man Tanba in a drunken state and raged that he was going to beat a certain colleague to death. When Old Man Tanba inquired into the matter, he learned that Oda’s prized client had been poached. This client's household produced an extraordinary amount of disposables—empty cans, foreign liquor and beer bottles, magazines, newspapers, rags and such—with quantities so vast they couldn't be transported in one trip, appearing twice monthly. They didn't charge for removing these items, claiming "you're doing us a favor by cleaning up," but rather gave three ko on average in reverse compensation.

“That’s quite an unusual household,” Old Man Tanba said. “They must be quite wealthy.” “But that’s not the case at all—they’re renting their place, the fence is crumbling, and they say their liquor store tabs are piling up. Yes, that’s what folks around here say.”

They were a middle-aged couple living together, and the husband was constantly drinking alcohol. Guests were constantly coming over, and from morning till night they drank alcohol, argued loudly, and sang songs. "At times like—" he began, but Oda Takizō reined himself back toward anger. “Clients like that—the kind who pay you to take their stuff—are rare as hen’s teeth! Not only did you steal mine, but then you had the nerve to spout off about how it’s my own damn fault for being careless—that I shouldn’t let my guard down!”

“Such people do exist in this world,” Old Man Tanba said. “When they’re ashamed of their own deeds, they lash out with venom instead. Though saying this might make me sound like I’m boasting of my own misdeeds—let’s see, was it six or seven years ago? An old man came to me saying he wanted to die, that he’d grown utterly sick of living.” He had no relatives, no wife or children, and was something like seventy years old. Though he’d once been master of a substantial merchant household, by then he was selling toys at a night stall. “He was physically robust, but when he’d wake up in the morning and think about preparing another meal—the same routine yet again—it felt like the energy drained from his body, leaving him squatting blankly before the charcoal stove for over thirty minutes at a time.” “Nothing he ate tasted good anymore, and there was nothing he particularly wanted to eat.” “There were times when he used to enjoy going out for drinks with young women pouring for him, but lately, even just seeing a woman from afar made his stomach churn.” “Especially when he went to the public bath—the revulsion of seeing his own naked body was beyond description.” “It wasn’t that he was thin or withered and covered in wrinkles—it was that his very body became so grotesque and defiled it was unbearable.”

“Well, he went on listing reasons like that—wanting to die cleanly and vanish himself from this world,” Old Man Tanba said. “So I brought out a dose of powdered medicine from the tea cabinet’s drawer. Told him it’s a potent drug mixed into base metals for engraving work, not sold publicly. ‘Drink this and you’ll drop dead suddenly after an hour—no suffering at all. If you’re truly set on dying, have at it,’ I said, then poured water into a teacup and handed it over.”

The old man expressed his thanks and drank. He acted with such decisiveness that I was genuinely startled, but perhaps having settled his resolve, he began recounting his life story as prompted. Until this recent war, he had run a kimono fabric store in a place called Himono Town. He had a wife, two sons, five clerks, and a maid, making him a well-known figure in the neighborhood. When the war began and corporate controls were implemented, he closed his kimono shop and became a director at a joint-stock company handling national uniforms and silk thread. Back then, collaborating with military connections, he struck lucrative deals—money flowed in, he took on mistresses—and lived extravagantly as if he ruled the world. But misfortune began in the winter of 1943 when his eldest son—who’d received a draft notice—eloped with another man’s wife and committed double suicide by drowning in Atami. To compound this, his second son, drafted earlier, was killed in action on the continent. Then came the air raids that left them destitute, and just days before Japan’s defeat, his wife succumbed to malnutrition.

“Even now, every night I talk with my deceased wife and children and the two women I kept,” the old man concluded. “My wife, my two sons, and those women—they all laugh and chat as if they’re alive.” Strangely enough, his wife and children and the women all held goodwill toward him, never resenting or hating him in the slightest. When he talked with his eldest son—the one who’d committed double suicide with another man’s wife—he came to fully understand the circumstances, and it became clear their relationship had been entirely natural, a fact that caused no trouble to anyone. “It’s truly strange,” the old man said, “but conversing with those now gone in the dead of night feels far more real—and carries a raw vitality of enjoyment—than when everyone was alive and we lived together.”

“It’s precisely because you’re alive,” I told him. Old Man Tanba smiled. “To put it another way—as long as you’re alive, those people remain alive too. Such things don’t seem to happen all that often.” The old man nodded as if to say “I see,” then fell into deep thought for a while before finally asking with concern, “The medicine will take effect after an hour passes, correct?” “That’s right. The effects should manifest within ten more minutes.” The old man fell into thought again, his complexion gradually paling as he stared fixedly at his own hands before asking, “Is there truly no undoing this now?”

“Ah,” I replied, “for every medicine, there exists another with properties opposite to its effects. For instance, if there’s medicine to stop diarrhea, there’s medicine to induce it; if there’s medicine to neutralize stomach acid, there’s medicine to stimulate its production—and so on.”

“Is there such an antidote for this poison?” the old man interrupted urgently. “Of course there’s an antidote,” I replied. “Though I can’t recall whether I have it on me right now—” Just as I started to say this, he lunged at me with such ferocious momentum that I thought he might strangle me. Old Man Tanba clutched his own neck while recounting, “Then he began shrieking—‘Now! Give me that antidote now!’—in this shrill voice. ‘I’ll sue you for murder if you don’t!’ No lie—that old man truly screamed those exact words.”

Old Man Tanba gave the antidote to that old man. After pretending to have considerable difficulty finding it and making the old man fully taste the terror of approaching death. One of the medicines was a fever reducer, the other a stomach remedy, and needless to say, the old man returned home safely. “Murderer, huh?” Oda Takizō laughed. “The man begged to die himself, then panicked and accused me of killing him. When death comes knocking, you can’t just keep up appearances after all.”

Oda Takizō soon left. He seemed to have already forgotten how he'd raged about beating his colleague to death. Oda Takizō later told Kantō Seikyō about that incident and remarked with admiration, "Old Man Tanba is someone who really knows how to trick people." "I was dead serious about beating one of my colleagues to death—though whether I actually could've killed him, I don't know," Oda Takizō said. "My second child had just been born, and I was starting to feel motivated in my business—thinking maybe I could finally make ends meet. Then not only did he steal my client, but he called me a fool. For someone living hand-to-mouth like me, that's a matter of life and death."

“There was no such old man six or seven years ago,” Mr. Kantō said. “I have no memory of any old man like that existing. That’s just a story.” “I later started thinking maybe that wasn’t the case—what with all that talk about desperately wanting to die and poison that makes you drop dead after an hour, I ended up cooling off while listening.” “So the boiling water’s gone tepid.” Mr. Kantō laughed and said, “Like that old man in the story, you were slipped a dose too, eh, Oda?”

“Thanks to that, I didn’t end up doing something stupid.”

One day, Sone Ryūsuke came to visit Old Man Tanba and asked for his advice about what to do regarding his wife having taken a lover. Sone was a thirty-eight-year-old plasterer's assistant with five children by his wife. This wife was called Onibaba by the local women—gaunt as a tree pipit with sallow skin, her sharp eagle-like eyes gleaming beneath a narrow receding forehead. Her cheekbones stood sharply pronounced and high, her perpetually pale purplish lips invariably pressed into a tight line like the sealed halves of a clamshell. —She was thirty-five years old, though nobody believed it. Most claimed she was forty-five or six, with some even insisting she couldn't possibly be under fifty.

She went by the name Okin but never got along with other women—she only spoke when voicing complaints or anger, otherwise never offering morning or evening greetings nor responding when greeted. Yet with men—whether old or young—she reportedly showed constant interest, her eyes gleaming whenever she saw one. Okin was often grouped with Misao, the brush maker’s wife, in the neighborhood wives’ gossip. They shared similar builds and appearances, and were said to resemble each other in their fondness for men.

“But still, the brush maker’s wife is better at least,” the neighborhood wives said. “This one’s an Onibaba through and through, but that brush maker’s wife still has some charm—she knows how to socialize properly.”

In this way, Okin was disliked by the wives. However great Okin’s interest and curiosity toward men may have been, with the appearance and temperament that earned her the nickname Onibaba, it would be rather difficult for any amorous entanglements to arise. In direct contrast to the brush maker’s wife, who was a master in that regard, Okin had until then remained pure and unscathed. All five children were unquestionably Sone Ryūsuke’s—and to those with strong curiosity asking whether this could be proven, I would suggest they meet Okin themselves—and though she was now pregnant, not a single person doubted that this too was Ryūsuke’s seed.

Such an Okin had finally taken a lover, it was said. According to Sone Ryūsuke's account, the man was a twenty-two-year-old young man renting the second floor—a fellow called Takashi who worked at a transport company by day and attended night high school. For someone twenty-two to be attending night school suggested an exceptionally strong passion for learning. He was gentle-mannered to the point of blushing even when exchanging weather-related greetings. "Yes, it's absolutely true," Sone Ryūsuke said. "It was toward the end of last month, I believe—early morning while it was still dark. I was shocked when Okin came down from the second floor wearing nothing but a nightgown tied with a thin cord."

When I asked what was going on, Okin replied with a straight face—"Oh, you’re awake"—saying she’d gone to wake Takashi because he wouldn’t get up. "At the time, I thought maybe that was the case—the man had to leave for work at six, or rather, he left the house every morning at six sharp to get to work on time, so I figured that must be why." After such incidents had occurred several times, Okin—perhaps believing she had thoroughly deceived her husband—quietly rose and went upstairs the night before last.

“I saw that and thought, ‘She’s going to wake him again—having a lodger sure keeps a wife busy,’ then began dozing off.” Ryūsuke narrowed his eyes, showing signs of drifting off, then suddenly snapped them open—“As I was dozing off, it suddenly struck me—this wasn’t morning but midnight. I’d worked late yesterday and was exhausted, so I’d gone to bed at eight. Didn’t even hear the kids making noise when they settled down. Must’ve woken up when Okin got up—that’s when I remembered hearing the clock strike one.”

He sat up and looked at the clock. The hands of the old hexagonal clock pointed to 1:15. When he looked at the bed, Okin wasn’t there—then he realized it hadn’t been a dream. "After that, my eyes stayed wide awake—couldn’t sleep a wink," said Sone Ryūsuke. "My nerves were shot too—something kept rising up my throat nonstop, and it felt like my ribs were being burned by fire from the inside out." After the clock struck three, Okin came downstairs. When descending, she cautiously muffled her footsteps, then deliberately made them louder as she headed to the washroom. After returning and slipping into bed, she let out a big yawn and fell asleep.

“I didn’t sleep a wink until morning—it may sound strange, but I felt such pity upon pity for Okin, such wretched pity that—absurd as this sounds—if I could’ve held her and cried together, I would’ve. This is truly how it was.”

After dawn began to break, he drifted into a fitful sleep. He must have just begun to doze off when Okin's sharp voice jolted him awake, as if she had struck him between the eyes. Without any exaggeration, it felt like being hit on the bridge of his nose with an open palm. "How long you gonna sleep, huh? You'll be late, you useless lump!" she shrieked.

“It was only when I heard that voice that my guts boiled over with rage,” said Sone Ryūsuke. “I thought about exposing last night’s affair and smashing his face in—but with five children, you see? Beating him would’ve been one thing, but when I imagined how shocked the children would be if I told them about last night, my words caught in my throat and wouldn’t come out. Miserable as it is to admit, I just got up without saying a word.”

He took off work yesterday and took off work again today. Every bone in his body felt dislocated, as if all his insides had melted away—he couldn’t bring himself to move. "So, well, being at my wits’ end, that’s why I came here." "I hear your wife mentioned she’s pregnant." Sone Ryūsuke said “Huh” and, as if he were the one who was pregnant, hunched his shoulders and scratched his head. "Whether rich or poor, educated or not," Old Man Tanba said, "there comes a time when all humans commit such mistakes—men and women alike. This living flesh of ours occasionally finds itself powerless, don't you agree, Tatsu-san? Well—let's consider it in that light."

Old Man Tanba reached out, poured tea into two teacups, handed one to Sone Ryūsuke, and slowly sipped his own.

That midnight, the incident occurred on the second floor of Sone Ryūsuke’s house. A little before 2 a.m., the light on the second floor suddenly turned on, startling Okin and Takashi-san. When the two turned to look, Ryūsuke, his hand still on the light switch, was gazing down at them from above. “No need to be startled, Takashi-san,” said Sone Ryūsuke. “The light’ll help show the passion better. Take your time—after all, you must be head over heels for Okin to go this far. I’ll hand her over to you clean and proper.”

Okin and Takashi-san both froze. Under the bright electric light, they might have been rendered immobile. Ryūsuke could clearly see Takashi-san trembling. "I’ll hand over Okin to you," Sone Ryūsuke continued, "along with the five kids and the one still in her belly. You understand? This is the last thing I’ll say. Now, you two take your time again." And he left the light on as he went downstairs to sleep.

A woman who fully lived up to her nickname of Onibaba, complete with five children and another on the way—there was no way a twenty-one- or twenty-two-year-old youth would gladly take her off someone’s hands. No, even if it were a middle-aged man of forty or fifty, I cannot imagine there exists a person with that much courage. Thus, Takashi-san fled, Okin tearfully apologized to her husband, and this not-so-romantic romance came to an end.

“Yes, it worked perfectly,” Sone Ryūsuke told Old Man Tanba after things settled down. “Telling them I’d throw in the five kids and the one still in her belly did the trick—he ran off without even taking his things. And Okin came crying about sparing her for the children’s sake—see? Coming to consult you was the right call. Those words worked like magic.”

As for how Okin processed this incident internally, she continued acting nonchalantly afterward, boldly facing the tenement wives and shouting at them or scolding them as usual. There was hardly anyone unaware of the matter with Takashi-san, yet Okin alone behaved as if such a thing had never even occurred in her wildest dreams, leaving even the typically sharp-tongued wives uncertain where to aim their barbs.

Now, our "town" was asleep. Kumanbachi no Yoshi had moved away somewhere, but most of those who had been under Old Man Tanba’s care were sleeping in their respective homes within the tenement. There might have been those who recalled being helped by Old Man Tanba and let out sighs of gratitude, but most had forgotten; nevertheless, they were comforted by the sense of security that came from knowing Tanba-san was there in the tenement—that they could consult him when troubled—and so they sighed.

The high cliff of Saiganji Temple that enclosed this town from behind and the trees growing thick and dark atop the cliff now felt not oppressive, but as if embracing the entire cluster of row houses and watching over their peaceful slumber. When one raised their eyes from the blackened trees, the sky blazed with stars—yet their twinkling felt cold and pitiless, less like whispers of love than like the jeering of bystanders.

“There, there, sleep while you can,” it seemed to say. “For tomorrow you’ll be trampled and kicked again, made to weep in bitter frustration.”

Afterword

I compiled a book titled Aobeka Monogatari last year [1961 (Showa 36)]. It is a story about the people of a certain fishing village and the events that occurred there, but this "Town Without Seasons" shares so many similarities in content that it could be called the urban counterpart to Aobeka Monogatari.

In our country, as well as anywhere else in the world, the destitute seem to create their own streets. They do not form them through deliberate planning, but rather through a natural process akin to debris gathering in a windblown pile—a process so organic that one cannot pinpoint when it began. Economically and emotionally, they generally do not seek engagement with those outside their own "street."

The residents here may band together as a "street" to confront outsiders, but individually they remained solitary, perpetually clinging to petty-minded self-respect. The term "petty"—as used in this work—referred to behaviors like borrowing a pinch of salt. While such acts were often genuinely necessary, there were also frequent instances where they served no real purpose—done instead to foster intimacy, grant others a sense of superiority, or simply out of miserliness.

What makes me sense the most authentically human qualities in these people is their constant struggle to secure daily sustenance—a life perpetually on the brink that leaves them no time or money for pretense, for dazzling others with false fronts or deceiving themselves, compelling them to lay bare their true selves. Of course, like those living in comfort, they too harbor vanity, pride, jealousy, slander, and greed. However, these traits prove so utterly shallow and simplistic that they are quickly seen through, often ending up counterproductive—it is precisely in such moments that human frailty and pathos reveal themselves most candidly.

The residents of such a "town" can be broadly divided into temporary and permanent ones. Among temporary residents too, there exist those inherently predisposed to become such and those driven by circumstantial misfortune; the former often turn into permanent dwellers, while the latter retain possibilities of eventually escaping from here. These groups become the source of various troubles—both practical and psychological—with long-term residents, giving rise to tragedies or comedies that, though small in scale, cut deeply between those involved.

I reunited with these people within "Seasonless Town." The characters, events, and scenes that appear were all things I saw with my own eyes, heard with my own ears, and directly experienced—much like in Aobeka Monogatari, this work could be described as a thorough compilation from my material notebooks.

As I recreated this notebook into a novel, I felt limitless affection and nostalgia for each of the characters within the work. These people once lived close to me, and now their laughter, laments, anger, and stifled sobs have returned to me once more. Without distorting them, I transcribed them as they were, as much as possible. Moreover, while these people belong to the past, I want to convey that even now there are those living through similar disappointments, despair, sorrow, and resignation right beside the readers.

Therefore, I wish to put on record that "there are neither temporal boundaries nor geographical restrictions there." It is not fixed in any particular era or location. The reason I created this "town" as a setting was that despite differing eras, locations, and social conditions, there existed a profoundly universal similarity among both the people who appeared there and the tragicomedies they experienced.