Pathway to Japanese Literature

Memories

I was two years old in the traditional count when I went to Osaka, accompanied by my parents. It was the beginning of the Taisho era. At that time, my father was a disciple of Settsu Daijō and performed at the Bunraku Theater. Father had gone blind at two years old in the traditional count. It was said to be due to meningitis he had suffered. At around thirteen or fourteen years old, Father first went to Osaka, where he initially received guidance from Nozawa Kichibee V, and later became a disciple under Kojidōju, who was then known as Settsu Daijō. The person who was my grandfather’s elder sister—a returned divorcee living off the household—accompanied Father there. Father would periodically return to Tokyo, much like a student coming home for a visit, only to head back to Osaka again. During that time, Father got married, and my older brother and I were born. The time when I—still unweaned—was taken along was during Father’s final journey to Osaka.

Where in Osaka my family lived, I do not know. In our Osaka home lived my parents, me, Grandfather’s elder sister (whom we referred to as Osaka Grandmother to distinguish her from Grandmother), and my childminder Shizuyo. Shizuyo was also from Tokyo and went to Osaka together with us. In the Tokyo home were my grandparents and older brother. My older brother was two years my senior.

At that time, the Bunraku Theater was located near Goryo Shrine. The place where we lived was probably not far from there. I remember that we used to call Goryo Shrine “Goryō-san.” Probably, the local people had grown accustomed to calling it that, and we had simply followed suit. I seem to have often gone to play in the precincts of Goryo Shrine, carried on Shizuyo’s back. “Shi-iya, let’s go to Goryō-san! Shi-iya, let’s go to Goryō-san!” That I had pleaded with Shizuyo like this—saying “Shi-iya, let’s go to Goryō-san!”—was something I was often told about by Mother after we returned to Tokyo. I could not pronounce “Shizuyo” and always called her “Shi-iya.” I would call her “Shi-iya.” I remember that at Goryo Shrine’s festival day, while looking at a night stall’s candy shop from Shizuyo’s back, when I begged for some candy, Shizuyo scolded me saying, “That’s poison,” making the candy vendor’s face appear demon-like to me at that moment, and how my childish mind wondered suspiciously why anyone would sell poisonous things. The memory of seeing the curtain hanging at the Bunraku Theater remains etched in my eyes. It was likely a memory of seeing it from the earthen-floored entrance before the performance began, while being carried on Shizuyo’s back. It also seems to have been near Goryo Shrine, but there was a vaudeville hall called Ayamekan, and I was often taken there by Shizuyo as well. When Shizuyo and I were in front of the vaudeville hall’s entrance, I saw a female performer arrive by rickshaw. We went inside and watched that female performer perform on stage. “That’s the lady from earlier,” Shizuyo informed me. I remembered too. I remember the female performer performing a dance-like routine with a flashlight in her palm. Shizuyo was apparently skilled at mimicking comic Buddhist chants while striking a wooden fish. In the evening town, while being carried on Shizuyo’s back, I have a memory of hearing that comic Buddhist chant.

Among my toys was a wooden fish—blackened and of manageable size—that remained with me for quite some time. Settsu Daijō had favored my father, and I was apparently taken to his house where he held me on his lap and fed me fish he had filleted himself. In my earliest memories, the image of the white fish flesh on that tray still lingers in my mind. Though it feels somewhat uncertain, after later hearing this story, it seems it wasn’t merely an image I had fabricated. I have almost no memory of the house we lived in then, though I do recall it had lattice windows facing the street. Once, hearing the milk seller pass by outside the window, I badgered Mother to buy me some. Even when she tried to placate me, I refused to listen until she relented—only for me to take one sip and immediately vomit it up. Mother must have said, “See there!” Likely she had tried giving me milk before without success, but unaware that what passed by outside was something I already detested, I must have pestered her relentlessly. That experience left me thoroughly chastened even as a child, and I developed a lasting aversion to milk that persisted for years afterward. I didn’t drink milk at all—it was as if I’d been raised solely on breast milk. Our family had been close with a confectionery called Setaya, and even after returning to Tokyo, their name often came up in conversation. The owner of Setaya was said to have been quite fond of me.

In the year I turned five, Father retired from the Bunraku Theater, and our family returned to Tokyo. There was a girl around my age—the daughter of a sushi shop owner—with whom I was close friends, and I was told she cried upon hearing I would return to Tokyo. Even afterward, they repeated that story to me. I remember nothing about that girl. We apparently left Osaka by night train. We traveled along nighttime roads in a procession of rickshaws to the station. Though I must have ridden on Mother's lap in our rickshaw, what stayed with me was the receding back of the vehicle ahead. I recall how before departure, a man among our well-wishers—as if struck by sudden inspiration—bought a station lunchbox and passed it through our window. I later came to remember that man as Setaya's proprietor. From Tokyo Station we returned home by automobile. This remains my earliest memory of riding in a motorcar. I remember traveling along the streetcar route. An elderly woman who had come to meet us rode in the automobile with us. She appeared to be my grandmother at first, but after later coming to live with her properly, I grew convinced she must have been someone else entirely. That day being a national holiday, our house entrance displayed the national flag. Our home stood at Suijiri—a common name for the edge of Yoshiwara's pleasure quarter—but drum-like sounds from the inspection station (Yoshiwara Hospital) made me restless; I kept pacing through our long-unseen doorway.

Even after returning to Tokyo, Shizuyo remained at our house for some time. There was also a nursemaid named Nakaya for my older brother, though she seemed to leave her post before Shizuyo did. My brother and I attended kindergarten in Negishi during those days. To reach the world beyond the licensed quarter from our home, the back gate near the inspection station would have been closest, but since it stayed shut during daylight hours, we would cut through Kyōmachi First District’s guardhouse, cross the drawbridge spanning Ohaguro Ditch, and emerge into Ryūsenji Town on our way to kindergarten. In those days, the Ohaguro Ditch still encircled the quarter’s perimeter, not yet filled in. Coming out onto Mishima Shrine’s street and slipping through a narrow alleyway—perhaps beside Nagafuji Bakery—we’d find ourselves already in Negishi, where the kindergarten stood near the yacchaba vegetable market along the road to Uguisudani. Shizuyo always accompanied us. Being painfully shy, I initially couldn’t bring myself to join games like the one where children divided into teams tossed red and white balls into nets atop poles. I simply stood with folded arms, awkwardly watching others play with such vigor. Later Shizuyo would ask why I hadn’t participated. Gradually I grew accustomed enough that during circle walks accompanied by the teacher’s organ music, I’d affect tiptoeing along in my sandals alone. All under the attendants’ watchful eyes. Later I earned a scolding from the teacher and confinement inside a classroom cupboard as punishment. This episode too became family lore recounted to me years after. Apparently when I started singing school songs from within the cupboard, the exasperated teacher released me—or so Shizuyo dramatically reported to our household upon returning home. I retain clear memory of cupboard imprisonment but remain uncertain about any singing. If Shizuyo’s tale held no embellishments, then loneliness must have gripped me initially before boredom drove me to song. Once when rain fell during class, our teacher posed a question about precipitation’s nature. I recall seeing raindrops through windowpanes that day. My answer—“It falls sideways”—drew laughter from teacher and classmates alike.

I couldn't make sense of it. Through the window glass, the rain must have been falling diagonally due to the wind. On a ceremonial day, my older brother wore Western clothes while I went dressed in crimson women's hakama trousers—a garment my aunt (Father's sister), who had married into another family, had worn as a child. Since they were too long for me, I wore ones that had been generously taken up at the waist. Though reluctant, Grandmother forced me into them. Even through a child's perspective, they felt oddly out of place—surely these were women's garments? Though no one particularly teased me, I remained unsettled throughout that kindergarten day. The kindergarten teacher was a woman I remember as "Okōya." She bore a birthmark near her left upper jaw, about the size of a medicinal plaster. Unaware of what birthmarks were, I assumed she wore an ointment patch and called her by that name—the mark resembled Bankin plaster sold at herbal shops then. If memory serves, this same plaster was available at Inamoto-ro in Tsunamachi's front desk; I recall being sent to purchase it once. The nickname "Okōya" likely carried traces of Osaka dialect—for some time after returning from Osaka, my lingering accent drew frequent laughter from my brother, or so I'm told.

Even long afterward, Father and Mother would occasionally mix Osaka dialect into their conversations. I remember being held by the "Okōya" teacher and curiously stroking that birthmark with my finger. I have a feeling she was still a young, fair-skinned woman. I vividly remember how, at a stationery shop catering to children on my way to kindergarten, I had someone buy me a wax seal stamp I’d long wanted; unable to soften it with my own finger strength, I rushed during recess to Shizuyo—who was chatting with fellow attendants on a bench in the corner of the playground—and had her soften it for me. It seems that Shizuyo left my household during the time I was attending kindergarten. By the end of kindergarten, I had come to be accompanied by an elderly woman. There is one thing I remember from when Shizuyo was at my house. At that time I had never gone outside the licensed quarter alone, but one day I ventured out by myself through the earthen floor of a closed-up shop called Kobayashi—which my family usually used when going to Asakusa—located by the Ohaguro Ditch at the edge of Kyōmachi 2-chōme, exited beyond the quarter, went as far as Komatsubashi to buy a wooden sword, and was swinging it vigorously in front of the communal toilet at Suijiri’s entrance when Shizuyo, who happened to be passing by, spotted me and blindfolded me from behind. Shizuyo stayed at my house from around fifteen or sixteen until she was about twenty. She was healthy, plump-cheeked, ruddy-complexioned, and narrow-eyed. Shizuyo’s house was located beyond the Yoshiwara Embankment—not directly connected by family ties to ours but sharing our surname—and her younger brother was my older brother’s age and attended Matsukoyama Elementary School across the embankment too. Both Nakaya and Shizuyo continued visiting occasionally even after leaving my household. The old woman who came after Shizuyo did not seem to have stayed long at our house. On kindergarten trips led by her, I pointed at clouds and explained how their movement westward turned foreign countries daytime while Japan slept—a theory I likely half-believed myself. The old woman listened with grave attentiveness, apparently convinced kindergartens taught such astronomical truths. When Rice Riots shook Tokyo, Yoshiwara too felt their tremors. That next dawn found her whispering at my pillow— this woman who’d resolved to spirit me away if flames came— recounting midnight shouts I’d slept through. Always an early sleeper, I’d known nothing till morning light showed Kyōmachi’s armored shutters jammed with rioters’ bricks, eaves lights smashed like broken teeth.

There were also eaves lights that had been smashed. At the back gate were mounted police and soldiers carrying bayonets.

When I was a child, I liked to place tuna sashimi on top of rice, pour hot water over it, and eat it. Once, someone had prepared rice for me in that way, and I must have taken an immense liking to it. When hot water was poured over it, the red-colored lean portion turned a whitish hue resembling fatty marbling. I must have heard about it from someone—called *shigure*—and whenever sashimi was served as a side dish, I always ate it that way. I remember being allowed by the old woman to eat shigure rice in the six-tatami storehouse room on the evening of Yoshiwara's festival.

On the day of my elementary school entrance ceremony, I was taken by my grandmother. On the way back, we stopped at a shiruko shop beneath Yoshiwara Embankment. Sitting on a bench with tatami matting and eating shiruko, my grandmother recounted how when my older brother had his entrance ceremony, they too had eaten shiruko here on their return. I went to school wearing a lantern hakama, my older brother’s hand-me-down satchel slung over my shoulder and a red zōri bag clutched in my hand. For me, more than the satchel being secondhand, it was the zōri bag’s red color that unsettled me. On the day of my first class, as I walked alone through Nakamachi toward school, I encountered two or three upperclassmen I knew with a new student in tow. One upperclassman peered at the group name written on the hand towel hanging from my hakama cord and announced I was in the afternoon group. At that time, those attending morning classes were called the morning group, and those in the afternoon were the afternoon group. Hearing this from the upperclassmen threw me into confusion. I lacked the courage to feign ignorance and continue to school. Dejectedly turning homeward, I told my family what the upperclassmen had said about being in the afternoon group. They asked me what the teacher had stated. The teacher had designated me for the morning group. Assured by my family that the teacher’s word held authority, I returned to school filled with such loneliness I nearly wept. I was indeed in the morning group. Still, I arrived without tardiness. The upperclassmen had spoken out of mischief. My older brother must have gone ahead without waiting for me. Afterward too, I seldom walked to school together with him. When I was a child, I wore a sarashi waistcloth. At that time, both boys and girls still followed this custom before it faded.

Nevertheless, once children began attending school, they no longer wore sarashi waistcloths. My older brother had also switched from a sarashi waistcloth to fundoshi underwear. I too disliked the sarashi waistcloth, but since I was told "you're still small," I was still made to wear it. All of my playmates were wearing fundoshi underwear too. When I relieved myself standing outdoors, I felt unbearably ashamed that I alone still wore a sarashi waistcloth. During a physical examination at school when they weighed us, I took off my sarashi waistcloth and stood completely naked. Because standing on the scale wearing a sarashi waistcloth in front of my classmates would have been worse than being fully exposed. One day while playing with friends in front of Yoshihara's fire brigade chief's house by Yoshiwara Park pond, I accidentally dropped an iron weight—the kind used for civil engineering work—that had been lying there onto my right foot. The instep swelled up until the webbing between my toes fused together. Though not seriously injured, I couldn't walk without dragging my foot. It might have been permissible to stay home from school until it healed, but my family wouldn't let me rest. Around that time, I went to school carried on the back of Haru-san—a young man in his early twenties who'd come as a live-in apprentice to my father. When the teacher saw me dragging my bandaged foot during calisthenics time, he made me leave the line and rest. I leaned against the command platform in the playground and stood watching my classmates march energetically. Being the only one left behind made me unbearably self-conscious. Some students mocked me as they passed by. Later on, I sometimes used even minor injuries as excuses to skip calisthenics.

The maid who came after the old woman was called Etsu. Etsuyo had come to our house through connections from my aunt’s marital home. She was sixteen or seventeen years old. I remember Mother saying in dismay that Etsuyo’s hair was teeming with lice.

In the entrance of the house stood a large full-length mirror. There before it, I was taught by Etsuyo to fold newspapers and insert them as padding between my obi sash. Etsuyo herself did this too. I would go to school with newspaper padding tucked into my widened obi, hakama trousers worn over it, and the cord tied so tightly my stomach bulged outward. I had Etsuyo read books to me. She always obliged without complaint. The stories were Western action tales like The Midnight Man and The Tiger's Mask, along with works such as The Wanderings of Mito Kōmon. Etsuyo sometimes stumbled over Western names, but I remained thoroughly satisfied with her recitations. At home we kept kajika frogs. They'd been caught in Yugawara or some such place. Come summer, we'd release them into wire cages placed on the veranda. Inside those cages, the frogs produced surprisingly sweet calls that belied their squat forms. At first I thought their voices belonged to insects chirping - even when told otherwise, I imagined some garden-dwelling 'kajika bug' rather than connecting those melodies to our homely captives. I'd press their bellies through the mesh to dunk them in water or sprinkle them with a watering can. We fed them flies and oil beetles - I recall being sent to a kitchen in Agemachi to collect beetles likely bred in their cooking area. In winter we stored them in large jars topped with sponge lids, left in bathhouse corners where they presumably hibernated.

When summer came and we tried to take them out of the jar, not a single one of the many creatures remained. There were signs someone had moved the lid, and it seemed the kajika frogs had escaped through the gap. The culprit became clear immediately. It was Etsuyo. When Etsuyo had taken her bath, she secretly removed the sponge and failed to properly reseal the lid afterward. Since Etsuyo was of that age, she must have wanted to scrub her face with the sponge.

One day on my way home from school, I dropped my pencil case from my schoolbag. I realized it after returning home. Grandmother said, “Since it’s probably lying on the road, go look for it.” “Someone might have picked it up and turned it in at the police box—go ask,” she added. I had Etsuyo come along with me. It was nowhere to be seen on the road. Too embarrassed to approach the police box myself, I made Etsuyo go alone. In front of the police box beneath the embankment’s looking-back willow tree, I coached Etsuyo on what to tell the officer. It went something like, “Our young master has lost his pencil case...” Etsuyo nodded earnestly. The pencil case had not been turned in.

In my house, it was customary for children to go to bed early. A short while after finishing dinner, my brother and I were made to bathe and then put to bed. When I was playing outside with friends and just reaching the climax of our game, I would often be dragged back home. When I returned reluctantly with Etsuyo who had come to fetch me, friends who had run ahead would suddenly emerge from hiding places to menace us.

I think it was when I was in second grade. One day after school, I was kept behind alone in the classroom and reprimanded by the teacher. That day, Osaka Grandmother had come to the school and told the teacher I was being willful, disobeying my family, and spending all my time playing with shell spinning tops and menko cards. "I thought you were a quiet, well-behaved boy," the teacher said to me. Hearing this from the teacher filled me with shame. I too believed that playing with shell tops and menko wasn't proper for good children. Yet I couldn't accept that my behavior warranted someone from home coming specially to school to report it. The ways of adults made no sense to me. While I was being lectured, the janitor came into the classroom to clean. The teacher turned to him and remarked, "This boy's grandmother came earlier, you know." I burned with humiliation that the teacher mistook Osaka Grandmother for my actual grandmother. In my childish mind, I'd always looked down on Osaka Grandmother anyway—she was shabby and far from impressive. Though I felt no closeness to my real grandmother either, she at least possessed qualities that fed my vanity compared to Osaka Grandmother. Osaka Grandmother lived in a four-and-a-half-mat room beside our entryway. The space felt dimmer than anywhere except the maids' quarters. I recall there being a small aged dressing table there that must have been her possession. Osaka Grandmother must have been about seventy already. She gave off an air of mild senility. She apparently had some skill with the shamisen and occasionally taught Father's female disciples. Once during a meal, I noticed Osaka Grandmother letting snot drip into her rice bowl.

When I mentioned it, Osaka Grandmother stubbornly denied doing so. I seemed to have been scolded by Mother. After Osaka Grandmother left her seat, Grandfather had someone discard the contents of the rice bowl. At the entrance of our house, in addition to Father’s nameplate, Grandfather’s was also hung. Grandfather’s surname was not our family’s. Grandfather and we had no blood connection. After the man who had fathered my father with Grandmother was divorced from her, Grandfather came into our household. Grandfather had separated his family register from our household, and even our family temples were different. The aunt who had married into another family was someone born to Grandfather and Grandmother, and while she had been in our household, she had gone by Grandfather’s surname. Since her married home was in Ushigome Haramachi, we called this person Haramachi Aunt. Since Father and Aunt were not that far apart in age, it seems Grandfather came to our house when Father was very young. Grandfather died when I was in fourth grade, but after his death, a man called Karafuto Grandpa came to visit, and even we children were summoned to meet him. However, even toward that blood-related person, I continued to feel nothing but detachment afterward. There was nothing particularly special about my impression at that time; it was simply that within my heart there had always been something looking down. The malicious words Mother spat out about Grandmother and that person evoked a sense of contempt in my childish heart. Grandmother had apparently treated that person quite harshly, but after Grandfather died they even went so far as to welcome him back into the household. From Karafuto Grandpa’s side would occasionally arrive parcels of marine products. My family originally ran a loaned lodging business in Kyomachi 2-chome—where Grandfather too seems to have temporarily served as an official overseeing the three licensed trades—but we ceased operations after the Great Fire of Yoshiwara that occurred in the very year I was born. Grandfather seemed to be quite a quarrelsome person. He seemed quite particular about things like the seasoning of stews—I even saw him come into the kitchen himself once to lift the lid off the pot and check how it was coming along.

On his left upper arm was a small tattoo of a peach. An avid collector of antiques, Grandfather had gathered quite a trove at home, but it all burned in the earthquake. Though my childhood eyes saw things one way, recalling it now makes me think his hobby wasn't so bad after all. He must have been naturally handy - carving ships from wood scraps, covering bamboo frames with persimmon-treated paper to make airplane models for my brother and me.

Behind my house stood a row house that our family owned, and in one of these units lived a family consisting of Grandfather’s brother and his household. Whether it was Osaka Grandmother or her brother, both had likely been summoned by Grandfather. Her brother worked as a metal engraver, but according to Mother’s accounts, he seemed to have been rather unfortunate despite his skilled craftsmanship. The household consisted of three people—the mistress who ran the loaned lodging house, a daughter of marriageable age named Nami—and there was also an eldest son named Taro who was somewhat unusual and in service somewhere else. To me, the mistress’s facial features are what I remember most vividly. She was the type often seen among mistresses of loaned lodging houses. The brother was a slender man with a dark complexion and a somehow somber air about him. If this man’s face had borne a cheerful air, his masculine demeanor would undoubtedly have appeared more striking. Every day, he came to Father’s place to practice Gidayū. Nami-chan’s face resembled her mother’s, and she was a quiet, shy girl. I remember Mother saying with a hint of a sneer that a name like Nami sounded like something straight out of a novel. I would often go from the rear veranda to where Nami-chan was doing needlework and such to play. One day, when I went to retrieve a picture book I had left behind, Taro-san—who rarely came around—was there holding it and looking through the pages. Nami, appearing embarrassed about Taro-san in front of me and seemingly trying to spare my feelings, said, “Please lend it to him.” Nami came to take baths at my house. While taking baths with Nami, I would deliberately say things that would make her blush, troubling her. It seems I quickly grew bored and quit, but there was a time when I received calligraphy lessons from Nami’s father.

One evening, Grandfather, Osaka Grandmother, and Nami’s father—the three siblings—had gathered in the family parlor when Grandfather and Nami’s father suddenly stood up and came to blows. Grandfather had overheard Nami’s father speaking ill of Osaka Grandmother and struck him. The mistress came and took Nami’s father back home. Afterward, her comb lay forgotten where it had fallen. I was made to deliver it. When I went around from the veranda and announced through the shoji screen that I had brought the comb, the mistress called out from inside, “Thank you for your trouble.” Relieved, I set it on the edge of the veranda and turned back.

About My Younger Brother and Mother

During the Great Kanto Earthquake, our household lost my youngest brother. My younger brother was eight by traditional count and, being early-born, was in his second year of school. Just before the earthquake began to shake, my younger brother had gone out to a stationery store near the school, accompanying the girl who had come to practice Gidayū at Father’s place as she was leaving. After parting ways with the girl and while making his way back alone, my younger brother was caught in the earthquake. We never saw our younger brother’s corpse. My younger brother was called Tatsu. He was born in the Year of the Dragon. We were three siblings: my older brother was Shin, I was Kiyoshi, and all our names had been given by our Grandfather.

My younger brother was born around the time of the March festival. I remember that Hina dolls were displayed. Having been told, I went to see the baby lying in the futon.

I slept in the same room, having spread out my futon next to Mother. I remember Mother looking at my younger brother’s sleeping face and saying, “What a cute face you have.” We often teased our younger brother by saying he was drinking the dregs of milk after we’d finished ours. My older brother and I were two years apart, while my younger brother and I were five years apart. My older brother and I played together, but I hardly ever played with my younger brother. If just a little more time had passed, he could have joined us.

When my younger brother was still unable to walk properly, he bumped into the corner of a hibachi and sustained a wound on one of his eyelids—a scar that remained unfaded even years later.

He had a slender face with gentle features. There was a nursemaid for my younger brother. She was from Sakura in Shimousa, and my younger brother had been taken by this nursemaid to that countryside. The nursemaid would take my younger brother and often go out to attend funerals here and there. Her true aim seemed to be receiving packages of sweets. The nursemaid appeared to dote on my younger brother, and he too seemed attached to her. Before long, the nursemaid took her leave and left. After my younger brother's death, this somehow came to seem to me like proof of his fleeting existence.

When I bathed with my younger brother, I would drape a hand towel over the edge of the tub, pull it through between my legs, and say, "I'm a rickshaw man!" At this, my brother would laugh uproariously as if it were the funniest thing. I repeated that gesture again and again. Each time, my younger brother found it amusing.

My younger brother also began attending school. In the neighborhood lived one of his classmates. This boy was mean-spirited; while keeping his own textbook safely stored in his bag, he would tell my brother there were no lessons that day and force him to carry his textbook home. My younger brother always seemed to comply meekly with this child.

I was shy myself, but my younger brother was even more bashful than I. Compared to my younger brother, I had a relatively stronger disposition.

On the day of the earthquake, when I rushed outside in shock, my eyes caught the brutal sight of Asakusa Park’s Twelve-Story Tower—its upper floors from the eighth story up snapped off and gone. My house stood on the outskirts of the Yoshiwara red-light district, and from the square before our home, the Twelve-Story Tower of Asakusa Park could be clearly seen.

That day, my family was scattered apart. I fled to Ueno Hill with a maid named Hanaya; Mother and Older Brother escaped to Mukojima; Grandmother and Father remained by the pond in Yoshiwara and managed to survive. It was I who first swiftly urged Hanaya to flee of my own accord and abandoned my parents and siblings. Hanaya was a Tenrikyo believer with deep reverence for deities; abandoning her own clothing, she bundled the household shrine and Buddhist altar items into a large furoshiki cloth and fled with it on her back.

Ueno Hill was crowded with refugees. We spent that night there in the open. Hanaya chatted with neighbors while occasionally glancing back at me and saying things like, “This child’s father’s blind, you see.”

My father was blind.

The next day, we went to the house of Hanaya’s relatives in the Tabata area. A young man who had apparently gone to survey the earthquake’s aftermath returned. After briefly sniffing the bamboo-leaf-wrapped rice ball he carried, he said, “It’s safe,” and made me eat it. Wondering what had become of my family, when even I began to look uneasy, Hanaya comforted me by saying that even if my father and mother had died, she would make sure I could still go to school. When told such things, I only grew more anxious, my face crumpling into tears. We stayed at that house that night.

In the middle of the night, a major earthquake struck. Everyone rushed outside, spread straw mats on the vacant lot before the house, and gathered there to wait out the night.

The next day, the uncle from that household went to search through the burnt ruins of Yoshiwara and checked on our family members' safety and well-being. Hanaya and I were guided by the uncle to the burnt ruins. At the ruins, Grandmother and Mother had put up a makeshift shelter that was barely presentable and were there. The family had taken refuge at a relative’s house in Mukojima.

Everything had been reduced to ashes; only the umbrella stand that had been placed in the hardened earthen entrance remained unburned. In the pond at the square, bloated corpses floated in great numbers. I felt like vomiting.

We ended up staying at our relatives' house in Mukojima for the time being. Because Father was blind, Mother had to handle all immediate tasks. Mother went out nearly every day. I accompanied Mother. Stopping by the shops in the burnt-out ruins that served rice curry and flour dumplings in broth was something I looked forward to.

Mother visited buildings sheltering the injured and lost children to search for my younger brother. Yet it proved a futile effort. Had he been alive, my brother would have been old enough to tell people his parents' names. "He kept wanting a coat—I should have bought him one." Mother let slip such unanswerable regrets.

About a year later, I saw a boy in a movie who closely resembled my younger brother. When I returned home and told Mother about it, she was in the kitchen doing chores at that moment, but let out a loud cry as though she could no longer contain herself.

By the time I became aware of my surroundings, I already felt that my grandparents and older brother... belonged to a different group from Mother and me. Father was blind. And Grandfather shared no blood relation with us brothers. My emotions clung most fiercely to Mother. Mother scolded me harshly. I was often struck by Mother. I endured severe punishments. My older brother never received such reprimands. Sometimes through tears, I would protest to Mother about this unfairness—why she scolded only me, never him. There was certainly resentment at being singled out for discipline. Yet I recognized this urge to complain as something sentimental. For I had instinctively understood that Mother's strictness came from caring deeply about me.

After that, there are things that remain in memory and sometimes brush past my mind... Either I had been scolded for something again, or my wish had been rejected—I was throwing a tantrum. Mother was doing some task in the kitchen. I was in the tea room. There was no one else. As I was throwing a tantrum with unsettled feelings, Mother paid no heed and continued with her tasks. Toward that Mother, I finally uttered these words: “You’re just like a stepmother.” I had let it slip out. I flinched, even then. Upon hearing those words, Mother immediately rushed over, raised her hand, and continued to hit me. I continued to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” out of fear and guilt.

In one of the row houses owned by my family lived a friend my age and his grandmother. The grandmother often scolded her grandson. My friend was a crybaby，and his wailing could often be heard. I would say things like，“You’re just like a step-grandmother.” Because that thought was on my mind，I ended up saying such things to Mother，driven by sentimental feelings. Mother’s heart was with me. I was Mother’s child. My grandparents did not love me. Above all，my grandmother showed blatant favoritism between my older brother and me.

In our household, there was someone we called Haramachi Aunt. She was Father’s sister and had married into another household. Mother seldom spoke of this Haramachi Aunt—a woman who was both her sister-in-law by marriage and a critical in-law. As a child, I often heard Mother’s complaints. Things like “She leaves soiled laundry piled up in the closet without washing it,” or “She was obsessed with Sadanji.” As a child, I sensed the hostile feelings between Grandmother and this aunt on one side and Mother on the other. And I too was caught in that whirlpool. I was at Mother’s side. Although as a child I understood nothing, I felt that I belonged on Mother’s side. And my childhood feelings clung most closely to Mother.

There was a time when Mother, us brothers, and my youngest brother’s childminder went tide gathering at Anamori. Mother, my younger brother, and the childminder remained at the rest area while only my older brother and I entered the sea. I once went out quite far offshore along that gently sloping coast. Far in the distance lay a large anchored steamship, but to me it appeared magnificent, like a warship perhaps. I lost myself gazing at it. Before long I realized I had become separated from my older brother. Feeling uneasy, I looked back to find the rest area far behind. Since all the reed-screen huts looked identical, I couldn’t tell which one held Mother and the others. I hurried back. When I finally found the hut and entered, there was no sign of them. Looking closely, I saw their luggage left untouched. But anxiety filled my chest. Had Mother abandoned me there alone? Would they never return? Wailing loudly, I ran wildly about the hut. Eventually Mother’s group returned from their walk, and my brother came back with another catch—

After we were displaced by the earthquake and took refuge at a relative’s house in Mukojima, Mother went out nearly every day, often returning late into the night. Each time, I grew so worried about her that I couldn’t stay waiting quietly at home. I would go to the steamship dock on the Sumida River and sit on a bench there, waiting for Mother’s return. After seeing off several boats, I would finally catch sight of her face and return home with her in relief. On my way to meet her, passing along Sumida Embankment, I would sometimes hear drunken men’s rowdy voices from behind the lit shoji screens of two-story houses below the levee. At those moments, I would be seized by the delusion that Mother was being tormented inside one of them.

Mother died when I was twenty. Mother was also born in the Year of the Boar, just like me, and since there were exactly two zodiac cycles between us, she left this world at forty-four. Around that time, a letter of condolence arrived from Mother’s eldest brother in Taiwan—written by a woman who was her sister-in-law (the wife of her eldest brother)—and I read that it said of Mother: "She passed away without ever seeing the sun of happiness rise."

On the day of Mother’s memorial service, a certain distant relative by marriage of our family delivered a eulogy, and this person stated that Mother had only just recently met her own biological mother, adding that from this single fact alone, it could be surmised that Mother’s life had been marked by misfortune and hardship from the very circumstances of her birth.

Mother was the child of a concubine. I saw a photograph of the woman who would have been my grandmother; she appeared about Mother’s age when she died and bore a striking resemblance to her. It seems Mother was adopted young—there was another photo showing her at three or four years old being led by the hand of the man who took her in. My older brother remarked how that face perfectly mirrored his younger sister’s; I agreed. Mother came of age under someone’s care in Shimotakai District, Shinshu. I also saw a photo of the woman who raised Mother. In it stood an elderly woman of slender elegance beside her grandson—Mother’s nephew by marriage. This nephew later came to Tokyo after Mother’s death and visited our house; he shared childhood memories of country folk teaching him about “Aunt in Tokyo” through poster-like images of women. Hearing this, I found myself sharing his nostalgia. Mother had been photogenic with her traditional chignons—a true beauty.

Mother’s biological mother, the man who temporarily adopted her, and the Shinshu grandmother. The impressions of all the people in the photographs stirred a sense of nostalgia within me.

I am now exactly the same age Mother was. Mother died right around this time of year, in the fiercest heat of summer. I don’t remember the exact dates. I’ve scarcely ever visited her grave.

I recently got married. My wife says she wants to visit the grave once, but I keep putting it off. Since it must be overgrown with weeds, we'll probably end up buying a sickle at a hardware store around there.

House.

When I was in elementary school, there was a time when our homeroom teacher had the students each write down the number of rooms and tatami mats in their houses. It must have been for some reference material after all. While everyone was writing, one student raised his hand and said with a flushed face, “Teacher! Our second floor has ten tatami mats!” That child was the tofu shop owner’s son.

My house was located on the outskirts of the Yoshiwara pleasure district. A wooden fence surrounded the back of the house, and a lattice door was installed in front of the kitchen entrance. The lattice door had a bell attached that rang each time it was opened or closed. By the lattice door was a laundry area. The image of Mother diligently scrubbing clothes still appears before my eyes. Mother would often chat with passersby while doing laundry. A boy named Shige-chan from our family-owned tenement peered over the wooden fence and called out to her: “Auntie! My nose is dripping like a folding stool, right?” “What a sharp-tongued child. “He’ll make a rakugo storyteller someday,” Mother used to say.

Outside the wooden fence passed tofu sellers and natto vendors shouldering their wares. Again the lattice door opened to admit an errand runner. The tofu seller was a man with an Ebisu-like countenance who perpetually wore an ingratiating smile. His melodious “Tofuuu!” cry seemed to please even himself. At that time his shop stood behind O-Tori Shrine in a place called Mikiya Tenement— not quite as infamous as Shiba’s Shinami or Shitaya’s Mannenchō, but still known throughout the neighborhood as a wretched row-house block. When Mother asked “Where’s your shop located?”, he hesitated. “Near Mikiya Tenement?” she pressed. “Aye,” he mumbled. “At Mikiya Tenement itself.” On rainy days he came wearing a sedge hat that suited him so perfectly he might have been Yoichibeyo from Chushingura incarnate. The natto seller was a fiftyish woman who armored herself in head towel, arm guards and gaiters. Gold teeth glinted when she spoke, her mouth perpetually stuffed with winter cherry berries. Her street cry carried decades of seasoning—a husky richness no novice could mimic. This woman nursed an unrequited passion for Sawamura Denjirō (later known as Nōshi), then performing at Miyato Theater behind Kannon Shrine. Leaving her basket by the lattice door, she’d plant herself at our kitchen entrance to regale Mother with tales of Denjirō’s Kanpei and Ranchō roles.

When I was a child, I preferred miso beans over natto. Generally speaking, my tastes leaned toward the mild—I favored cucumbers over eggplants and udon over soba. I also liked pumpkins and sweet potatoes. They were all a teetotaler's preferences. My brother was completely different from me. As he grew up, my brother became quite the drinker, while I remain to this day an unrefined teetotaler. When I returned from school, there were times when the fishmonger would set down his wooden tub outside the lattice door and handle his knife. I would often get scolded by my grandmother for standing there in my hakama trousers with satchel still slung over my shoulder, watching the fishmonger split fish bellies and slice them into sashimi. The fishmongers coming to our area arrived from beyond the embankment, while the greengrocers came from Senzoku-cho. When the greengrocer came, he would take a thin wooden slip from his apron and recite the list of goods written on it. “Well now, today we’ve got eggplant, cucumber, white melon, carrots, taro...” Then Mother would say, “Cucumbers, white melons, and taro... Let’s see—we’ll take a sho’s worth of taro.” The greengrocer would take the order and return shortly with the goods. On the kitchen pillar hung ledgers from the charcoal seller, sake merchant, and greengrocer. The greengrocer would take out his writing kit, jot down that day’s order in the ledger, then leave.

In the kitchen stood a large refrigerator like those found in restaurants or fish shops. When summer came, every day, the ice vendor from Gojūken-dōri would come to deliver ice. I would quietly open the refrigerator door as if it were a vault’s, attempting to steal the peaches inside, only to get caught and scolded often. In the sink beneath the water faucet sat a bucket filled to the brim. In summer we would put barley tea in a one-shō bottle and chill it in that bucket. I liked that barley tea. Though our household wasn’t particularly large, we used a four-to barrel for our nukamiso tub. I would stay by Mother’s side as she stirred the nukamiso, watching with fascination when she pulled out eggplants, cucumbers, and daikon radishes coated in rice bran. I never witnessed it myself but once heard Mother tell how she’d been startled when a mouse suddenly crawled up her body from her kimono hem as she stirred. Hearing that story gave me an oddly ticklish sensation.

Next to the kitchen was the bathroom. A section of wall panel exactly matching the refrigerator’s size was missing, leaving the appliance’s back portion protruding slightly into the bathroom space to serve as makeshift walling. The melted water from ice stored in the refrigerator drained directly onto the bathroom’s hardened earthen floor. Between the refrigerator’s top and the wall rail hung a lampshade bridging both rooms, its light spilling into kitchen and bath alike. One summer, while my older brother and I shared a cooling bath, Omura—the son of a soba shop owner from Nakanomachi who’d been watching through the glass door—let slip an envious remark. Mother, present at the scene, countered by noting he too had siblings, to which the boy retorted, “But she’s not my real mom.” Long afterward, Mother would mimic that boy’s plaintive tone when showing sympathy. Among our playmates, we routinely mocked him as “Doting Parents’ Pet” or “Soba Shop Wind Chime.” The bathroom window faced the maids’ quarters, but once when I was bathing, my brother thrust his head through it waving a white paper scrap and jeered, “Tch! ‘To Cousin Hitoshi-chan,’ eh?” I flushed crimson. I had just entered elementary school around then, having been taught letter-writing that very day. On writing paper, I’d composed a note to Hitoshi—a cousin two years my junior—folding it neatly with “To Cousin Hitoshi-chan” inscribed on front. I believed simply placing it in the postbox would deliver it to him. After leaving it on my desk, I went to bathe. My brother, having exited first, discovered it and taunted me. In my childish mind, I’d sensed the letter’s formal affectation—that he saw through this pretense made my face burn as if aflame.

The maid’s room measured three tatami mats, the only space in the house that never received direct sunlight. There had once been a live-in apprentice named Haru-san—a young man around twenty, son of a Yamanote liquor store owner—studying Father’s Gidayū narrative art. One day he emerged from the bath with an unusually crimson face. When we asked what happened, he confessed through stinging pain that he’d smeared Grandfather’s soap across his acne-ridden skin, making everyone laugh. Grandfather used medicated soap during solitary baths, but Haru-san had mistaken it for premium cosmetic soap, secretly applying it thickly that day. The medicinal soap offered no acne relief—only pointless irritation. I remember watching Mother scold Shizuyo, my nursemaid, in that dim room. Though ignorant of the reason, I saw her sit resentfully silent. As Shizuyo stubbornly refused to apologize, Mother’s nagging seemed endless. She often called Shizuyo “an inflatable rubber balloon that swells when touched”—meaning she’d puff up instantly when scolded. To my childish mind, this phrase seemed brilliantly apt. Mother herself delivered it with evident pride in her own wit.

After Shizuyo took her leave, Etsuyo, Makiyo, Hana, and two old women came. They all changed over about a year or so. I once peeked into the cupboard in the maids' room out of childlike curiosity. I don't remember whose tenure it was, but I recall noticing a magazine called Omoshiro Club that had been published around that time tucked away in a corner.

The maids’ room was adjacent to the tearoom, separated by a shoji screen. In the tearoom, near that shoji screen, there was a long brazier placed. There were times when small coins were kept in the long brazier’s drawer. One time, as I stealthily opened the drawer during a moment when no one was around, attempting to steal the money inside, the shoji screen behind me suddenly slid open, and there stood Mother. Mother seemed to have been watching from behind the shoji screen. Of course, I was harshly punished by Mother.

In the family dining room beneath the pillar clock hung a cupboard stocked with sweets. I would often crane my neck into this cupboard to rummage through its contents. Mostly there were treats like monaka wafer cakes and dorayaki bean-jam buns. Our family took meals together here. Only Grandfather—after falling ill—remained lying on his permanent sickbed in the adjacent eight-tatami room, taking his meals alone there. Occasionally my older brother would join him at mealtimes. While my brother was Grandfather and Grandmother’s favorite child, Mother’s affections lay wholly with me. Once when Grandfather harshly rebuked my brother, I stood nearby and said, “I’m sorry.” Grandfather then turned to my brother: “See—Kiyoshi’s apologizing in your stead.” He must have secretly scorned my precociousness. Though my brother proved even more willful and unreasonable than I was, Radish possessed an honest nature. The alcove in this room displayed a wooden statue of a demon chanting Buddhist sutras. There were nights when my brother would place this figure by my pillow as I slept—I’d wake startled and burst into tears.

The tearoom and this sitting room faced the garden, separated by a corridor.

In the center of the garden was a small pond where koi and goldfish were kept. On the far side of the pond, the earth was built up into a small mound where several cast-metal crabs and turtles crawled. A ceramic mameda also stood there. One time, while trying to water the ceramic mameda with pond water, I accidentally fell into the pond. "The mameda's curse struck back!" they all laughed. After stripping off my soaked kimono, Mother beat my naked body with terrifying fury.

When I was young, there was a song like this that adults often made me listen to. “On a drizzly rainy evening, Mameda takes a sake bottle to buy liquor.” This must be a Kamigata song. Because my father had spent many years in Osaka training in Gidayū narrative music, the rest of the family must have known this song. I was also made to hear songs like this.

"Mukōjima in full bloom. Dango on horizontal skewers; hand-rolled eggs. Sis, come here for a sec. ‘Hey now, drink up and let’s sleep.’ Also: ‘Nono-san, how old are you? Thirteen, seven.’ ‘Still so young.’ In the garden appeared weasels, Japanese rat snakes, and toads. Grandmother grabbed the Japanese rat snake over a rag and slammed it onto the stone pavement. When we set mousetraps, weasels would often get caught in them. We drowned the weasels caught in the mousetraps in the water jar placed at the corner of the garden and killed them. Compared to weasels and Japanese rat snakes, toads had an endearing quality. There were times when they would crouch quietly atop the garden clogs placed on the shoe-removal stone."

The room at the end of the hallway was four-and-a-half tatami mats in size; facing the outer garden through latticework windows, it remained dimly lit—second only to the maids’ quarters in darkness. Here lived and slept Grandfather’s elder sister. Father had first gone to Osaka for his apprenticeship when he was thirteen or fourteen, with this woman accompanying him. In our household, we called her “Osaka Grandmother” to distinguish her from our actual grandmother. This room contained a sunken hearth where we set up a kotatsu during winter. On snowy days, my older brother and I would warm ourselves at the kotatsu while eating snow we’d scooped into bowls and sprinkled with sugar.

Next to it was the three-tatami room by the entrance. Here was set up a large full-length mirror. I would often go and stand before this full-length mirror, but even in my child’s heart, I felt insecure. At that time, I was constantly being called “idiot” by my family members. “Idiot,” they would say. Also enshrined here was a household altar, and whenever Father went out, someone would take the flint kept atop the altar and click it behind him.

Next was the six-tatami room before the storehouse, which served as Mother’s and my room. At night, my parents and I would sleep here in a “river” character formation. I had been born with delicate skin that would swell terribly when bitten by mosquitoes or fleas. Whenever I cried “Itchy! Itchy!”, Mother would scratch the bites for me even at midnight. When she caught a flea, she would kill it with a sharp snap against the box-shaped pillow. Here stood Mother’s dressing table - a small, old-fashioned piece. The woman who came to do Mother’s hair was called O-sada-san, already advanced in years. On those days, two junior hairdressers would arrive first, followed in due time by the Master making his rounds. Whenever Mother had her hair done, I would always watch by her side if I was home. One of these hairdressers was the elder sister of my school friend. O-sada-san too was an admirer of Sawamura Denjirō and Ii Yōhō. As she styled Mother’s hair, she would hold forth on such topics endlessly. “If only Ii’s stature were taller by a few sun,” she’d remark critically. All the while, O-sada-san’s hands never ceased their work for an instant. Mother nearly always wore her hair in marumage style.

The storehouse door was a mesh door fitted with a lock that could be lowered. Inside were chests, long storage chests, wicker trunks, and such. There were also artworks and antiques that Grandfather had collected. Beside the entrance was a staircase leading to the second floor. The second floor was Father’s practice room. From these stairs, Osaka Grandmother fell twice, each time left gasping for breath. She recovered the first time, but after the second fall she took to her bed and never rose again. I would often sit midway up the stairs and listen to the practice sessions upstairs. Without realizing it, I had memorized the climactic passages of "Sakaya" and "Horikawa" by ear. The second floor was a four-and-a-half tatami room with an alcove where hung a photograph of Father’s teacher, Settsu Daijō. It showed him wearing a white hemp robe and court cap bestowed by Prince Komatsu. During New Year’s, rice cake offerings from Father’s disciples adorned this alcove. Though blind and unable to see them himself, Father kept many practice books there. He always shut himself away alone in this room. From its window one could see the Twelve-Story Tower of Asakusa Park and Ueno Hill. A tall ginkgo tree stood by the window—reaching out your hand would brush its leaves and branches. There was also a wisteria tree whose branches extended beyond the hedge to form a sizable trellis. When in bloom, it hung magnificent clusters of flowers. During the Great Kanto Earthquake, this house burned down.

When I went to the burnt ruins, only the umbrella stand that had been on the entrance’s shoe-removal stone and the cast-metal crab and turtle at the edge of the pond remained as they were. I took that crab and turtle to the Mukojima relatives' house where we had evacuated at the time, and placed them at the edge of its pond.