Pathway to Japanese Literature

Ie Kanazawa was my father's jōruri disciple.
Though only briefly, she had once come as a live-in disciple.
I was about a fifth grader in elementary school.
Ie was probably fifteen at the time.
That hairstyle—likely called a chignon loop—was done up like Ushiwakamaru's from the pictures.
And it suited her perfectly.
With her fair skin and cool eyes, Ie appeared in my childish imagination as Ushiwakamaru himself.
On the day she was first supposed to come to our house, when I returned from school and immediately went searching for her, I asked Mother—busy working in the kitchen—"Has Ie-chan come?" and during that brief moment when Mother couldn't respond right away while occupied with her tasks, when she hesitated to answer me right away, I felt my cheeks grow hot.

I was not a morning person.
When I lingered in bed in the mornings, Ie would often come to wake me, holding a wooden paddle and broom.
I deliberately lingered and said “Where’s my morning treat?”—that sort of thing to trouble Ie.

“If you don’t get up, I can’t clean.”

“What’s the big deal? It’s still early.”
“Well then... ten minutes... eight... five.”

Ie laughed with an exasperated look,

“That won’t do. Your brother has been up for ages.”

I slyly peeked at Ie's face,

“Then peel the bamboo shoots,” I said in a deliberately loud voice.

Ie glared at my face and fell silent for an instant.
One day when Ie came to wake me again and I showed no sign of getting up, she said, “I’ll peel the bamboo shoots then.”
With a knowing look, she said this and began folding each futon from above one by one while I remained lying there, storing them in the closet.
The petite Ie struggled terribly with putting away the bulky futon into the closet.
I lay there watching her back as she knelt upright.
Watching the small movements of her hair with its red ornament that caught my eye, I felt entranced—Ie had noticed at that moment that I was watching.

In the entrance of my house stood a large full-length mirror.
As a child, I would often go stand before it.
Looking at my reflection in it filled me with childish insecurity.
I wasn’t particularly concerned with appearances.
Nor was I by any means a precocious boy.
It wasn’t that I lamented my lack of good looks.
It’s just that back then my own face struck me as strangely foolish—unbearably so.
While every one of my friends had perfectly ordinary faces mine seemed misshapen absurd botched—I alone bore this shrinking sense of shame.
One reason was likely my constant scolding by family members.
Once during a sitting-room gathering my habit of lingering before the mirror became sudden topic.
Grandmother did not love me.
Grandmother cracked crude jokes that made household members laugh.
Grandmother again blatantly enumerated my facial flaws making me squirm.
A child stands no chance against adult malice wrapped in sarcasm.
Grandmother’s spitefulness finally drew tears from me.
At that moment—(Might I be heaven’s chosen?)—a voice descended.
“Because Kiyoshi-san has such a broad forehead he’ll surely become someone great someday.”
It was Ie.
She must have blurted it out after hesitation.
Ie wore an expression fiercely earnest verging on anger.

Grandmother said “Oh?” and fell silent with a displeased look.
Father interjected abruptly.
“So Kiyoshi has a broad forehead.”
Father was blind.
They said it had been since he was two years old.
That was why he’d taken up jōruri.
Why had Ie mentioned my broad forehead?
To me, those words stung as much as being called flat-nosed.
I burned with shame, my ears aflame.

Father’s lessons typically had disciples arriving before noon. The afternoon crowd would appear. While Ie stayed at our house, she would receive lessons during lulls in the afternoon when there were no guests. The warehouse’s second floor had been converted into a tatami room that served as Father’s practice hall. Whenever I happened to be home during Ie’s lessons, I would slip into the warehouse and perch halfway up the stairs, listening intently to the voices from above. It so happened that Ie was practicing "Nozaki Village" then. 〝The fault lies with you... Would you cast me aside?...〞 Thus did Osome’s lament come to linger in my ears through repeated hearings. As a child, I naturally couldn’t comprehend the words’ meaning nor appreciate their poetic phrasing—yet Ie’s voice when delivering those bitter reproaches held a strange fascination for me. Was it pleasure to my ears or resonance in my heart? No—it must have been the raw lyricism of that girl called Ie’s living voice. In that moment, I tasted again the same rapture I’d felt during our bamboo shoot peeling ritual.

In our house, there was someone called "Osaka Grandmother." She was my grandfather’s older sister who had ended up remaining in our house as a returned bride. When it came to the futozao shamisen, she was remarkably skilled for a woman. It is said that Father first went to Osaka for his apprenticeship when he was around thirteen or fourteen years old, and this person accompanied him. In our house, to distinguish her from Grandmother, we called this person "Osaka Grandmother." By the time I became aware of my surroundings, she was already advanced in years and somewhat senile, but she could still manage to accompany the female disciples who came to our house on the shamisen. After all, with her high rank, she was a valuable asset. She must have had that artistic blood running through her veins, for she carried herself with a touch of arrogance and was known to make cutting remarks at times. One day, I suddenly asked this person a childlike question.

“Among Father’s disciples, who is the best?”

Osaka Grandmother made a solemn face and thought for a moment before,

“It would be Ie.”
“Ie will become the best before long.”

I hadn’t expected this.
Because I hadn’t asked with Ie in mind.

“What about Koshiharu-san?”

I tried bringing up what was, for Ie, her senior disciple—Father’s oldest disciple.
That rich, beautiful voice was something all the disciples envied.

“Well...” she pondered again. “It’s still Ie, I suppose.”

“Is Ie-chan really that skilled?”

“It’s because she has good pedigree.”

I didn’t fully understand.
However, there was something vaguely perceived.
“Kiyoshi-san will surely become someone great someday.”
The words of support I had heard for the first time surged up in my chest.

“Ie-chan—Father said...”
That day I caught hold of Ie and told her: “Ie-chan—she said you’re the best at jōruri.”

Even Osaka Grandmother lacked real authority after all, I thought with childish certainty.
I whispered this truth-that-felt-like-lie to Ie.
My heart wanted to return her kindness through those words.
For one frozen moment, Ie stared at my face until her cheeks bloomed crimson, then turned away laughing—"Lies! Lies!"—showing me her back.

Ie returned to her own home after just three months.
But during that time she'd received a sake cup from Father.
One day when I came back from playing and raced down the veranda, Grandmother—stationed by the tearoom hearth—suddenly barked at me.
Feigning contrition without understanding why,
I stole glances through the closed shoji's glass while passing,
spying into the adjacent tatami room.
There—Ie pressing Father's cup to her lips.
Her tension vibrated through the paper walls.
Beside her stood Ie's own mother.
That evening when visiting a neighborhood friend's house,
Ie came calling for me.
I sent her ahead but suddenly gave chase,
catching up at our house's back entrance—

“What name did you get from Father?”
“I don’t know.”

“Hey, what’s the name?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!”

Ie dashed on ahead.

Takemoto Koshidai—that was Ie’s stage name.
My father first received instruction from the fifth-generation Nozawa Kihē, then later entered the school of Settsu Daijō, taking the name Koshidayū.
Ie had received her master’s name in full.
Father had few disciples, and moreover many were women disciples, but everyone was merely granted the single character "Koshi".
In Ie’s case, it was an exceptional honor.
It is said there were those among the disciples who voiced complaints.
Whether because of this or not, Ie subsequently found herself in an oddly isolated position among them.
After all, Ie was just a young girl.
It seems Grandmother also hesitated considerably over Ie’s name.
However, Father alone remained utterly nonchalant. "Koshidai isn't bad at all—isn't it quite a good name?"
He apparently nodded to himself like that.
If one were to consider that even Father had recognized Ie’s pedigree, then Osaka Grandmother might have secretly smiled—though the truth of that remains unclear.

When Ie returned to her own home again, I still felt a sense of emptiness.
Though it had been only a short time we had lived together, traces of Ie remained here and there in the household, and I would suddenly find myself overcome with loneliness.
Ie continued coming to practice as she always had, but during those hours I was away at school, and it became rare for me to catch sight of her.

That was, I believe, in December of that year.
It was a snowy night.
The ceremony for Ie's professional debut had been held at Higashibashitei by Azumabashi Bridge.
My older brother and I both attended.
Though Mother strictly forbade us children from visiting such places before, that night Ie's mother invited and took us there.
That night I first saw Ie wearing formal kamishimo attire - Takemoto Koshidai - upon the elevated stage.
Ie had also arranged her hair in the Shimada style for the first time.
Her stage presence seemed like a figure stepped out from a painting.
I found myself staring wide-eyed.
Ie's performance piece was "Terakoya."
Osaka Grandmother provided shamisen accompaniment.
Ie infused the dan-gire's iroha coda with appropriate sorrowfulness, skillfully delivering its lingering resonance.
As unending applause sounded around me, I felt heartfelt emotions surging up and couldn't raise my face.
That I harbored such fervent hopes for Ie's success within myself proved unexpectedly overwhelming.

...I stood in the dressing room corridor gazing through the glass door at the snowy night view of Azumabashi Bridge beyond. Suddenly sensing a presence behind me, I turned—it was Ie. She remained in her stage attire. Looking closer, she held two cups of sweet sake in her hands. One was mine, the other hers. Ie lined up beside me as she was and pressed her cheek against the glass door. Powdery snow danced in the bridge's streetlamp light. Occasionally snow-covered trains crept slowly across the bridge.

“Kiyoshi-san, are you already on break from school?”

“Ah.”

“I heard you became class leader this time?”

“Yeah.”

“Your mother came by the house the other day.”
“...Would you like more sweet sake?”

“I’ve had enough.”

I was all bravado at home but utterly spineless outside.
I could only grow flustered at the beauty of Ie in her stage attire.
That night, I couldn’t help but see Ie as someone far more adult than myself.

“Your mother said.”
“She said they’ll send you all the way to university.”
“Kiyoshi-san, what kind of person will you become when you grow up?”

Ie stared fixedly into my eyes.
I said, blushing.

“I’ll become a doctor and cure poor people for free.”

Ie nodded solemnly.
The word “university” tickled my childish heart.
Moreover, my becoming a doctor had also been my mother’s wish.
“I’ll surely become a great person someday.”
Before Ie, even I couldn’t remain unaffected.
At that moment, I saw clearly upon Ie’s face the expectations of her supporters.

The following year came that Great Earthquake.
Our family lost my youngest brother.
With the disaster as a turning point, misfortunes kept befalling us thereafter.
Father remained physically disabled regardless.
Mother's efforts stretched endlessly in every direction.
The full weight of our household settled on her shoulders alone.
One after another, new causes for anguish arose, denying her respite.
In time she wore away both body and spirit for our sake, departing this world too soon.
If only for the hardships I had endured.

After I began attending middle school, Grandmother and I grew noticeably estranged.
We clashed nearly every day.
My older brother had never been particularly studious, so he'd voluntarily gone to apprentice at a tailor's shop - but even this development seemed to displease Grandmother.
The household atmosphere grew increasingly tense because of it.
What's more, my growing academic apathy became another source of worry for Mother.
Through someone's intervention, I was enrolled at Mr. Izawa's private school in Banchō and began commuting from there.
I only returned to the Asakusa house occasionally.

One day on my way home from school, I stopped by the house. While talking with Mother, I heard the sound of practice coming from upstairs. That voice suddenly drew me in. For an instant, something fluttered across my chest. Before I knew it, I was questioning Mother about it. It was Ie. Mother told me she had resumed coming for practice around that time. After the earthquake, Ie's family had retreated to the countryside - though it was still within Tokyo's boundaries, up along the Tama River's upper reaches. There stood the main house of the Kanazawa family, where they had farmed for generations. This was why Grandmother and others would often make such spiteful remarks about Ie's family. Things like: "Acting all high and mighty for charcoal-burning Edoites."

Right after the earthquake, when we had found temporary housing in Sumida-cho, Mukojima and moved there, I visited once or twice with Mother, but after that I never saw Ie again.
Ie and her family had returned to Tokyo and were said to be living in Fukagawa at the time.
Ie had matured completely.
She still had her cool eyes.
After seeing Ie for the first time in a long while, I recalled Grandmother's spiteful remarks.
Perhaps from having stayed in the countryside for some time, there was a scent of a Musashino girl about Ie that seemed characteristic of her lineage.
When she saw me in my school uniform, she said, “Oh, Kiyoshi-san, you’ve grown so much.”
I had started attending middle school again and shot up in height.
Ie, who had heard my school was in Honjo’s Kinshibori, told me to drop by on my way home from school.
I didn’t talk much with Ie.
While sitting beside them watching her talk with Mother, I felt a slight pressure from how adult-like her demeanor was in their interactions.
As I was leaving, Ie showed a mature look in her eyes and said,
“Study hard, okay?”
I panicked and checked Mother’s expression.
It seemed Mother had already told Ie about her concern regarding my neglect of studies.

The melancholy of boyhood had already taken hold of me. I lost all cheerfulness in my spirit. Not the slightest interest stirred within me for my studies, nor could I summon any enthusiasm. School became nothing but an accumulation of hardships. Since I couldn't make close friends either, I wandered through each indecisive day without encountering anything or anyone to devote myself to, my heart perpetually unsatisfied. To someone like me, Mr.Izawa's strict teaching methods felt utterly unappealing. The very concept of self-discipline proved excruciatingly difficult for me to grasp. Exploiting my teacher's leniency, I repeatedly caused trouble through ignorant audacity. Though Mr.Izawa called me "unrestrained and uninhibited," this stemmed from his reluctance to chastise youthful impulsiveness. There was likely no one as devoid of independent spirit as myself. I existed merely as an embodiment of self-indulgence. With each passing year, the frailty of my character became increasingly apparent in every matter. Mr.Izawa has since passed away. Suddenly overwhelmed by bitter emotion, I now find myself capable of revering that serene clarity of mind he once possessed.

At the time I was supposed to advance to my fourth year, I failed.
What I had secretly feared had finally come to pass.
If I were to speak only of myself, failing a grade at that time meant nothing to me.
Only Mother occupied my thoughts.
When I considered how this would wound her, even I couldn't remain unafraid.
I didn't even apologize to Mother.
“Even if I failed school, it’s fine, really fine.”
I just muttered those words.
Mother simply forgave me.
She didn’t scold me either.
What’s more, I made Mother abandon her cherished wish for me to continue studying.
I left school and became an apprentice at a used bookstore in Kanda.
This came not long after I had left Mr. Izawa’s tutelage.
Late the next night after starting at the bookstore, I rattled the front door.
Mother’s voice calling “Kiyoshi?” pierced my chest.
She opened the door immediately.
Seeing me hesitating at the threshold, Mother smiled and said, “Come in.”
Mother was kind.
Even then, she said nothing.
Having spent a day among strangers and grown anxious, I found myself longing for Mother’s embrace.

Mother's voice calling "Kiyoshi?" still lingers in the depths of my ears.
Mother knew full well my spinelessness.

I never had any intention of becoming a merchant.
I simply hated school.
Hated it beyond reason.
If only I could quit school entirely, there would be nothing left to complain about.
I obstinately clung to my demands until things went exactly my way.
I wouldn't have to attend school for now, nor endure the agony of mingling with others.
On condition that I would surely return to school come the new term next year, I was permitted this spell of indolence.
Father made no particular effort to reproach me either.
Only Grandmother remained thoroughly displeased.
That I'd come crawling back from my apprenticeship after a single night seemed to exasperate them beyond endurance.
Though Mother's intercession kept Grandmother's displeasure contained to sour looks at first, afterward she seized every chance to drag out this incident and beat me down with it.
For my part, I had no retort to offer.

It was an indolent period, one haunted by an outcast's mentality.
Though it felt like some endless vacation had begun, even I hadn't expected to find this strangely stunted, self-abasing part of myself taking root within.
Whenever I glimpsed figures who appeared to be classmates returning from school during my strolls, I'd panic and dart into alleyways.
I couldn't restrain that compulsion.
Once when I crossed paths with four or five of them in a crowded movie theater, sweat poured from me with such intensity it felt like years were being shorn from my life.
I took to confining myself all day in the room allotted to me.
During this time I fed my congenital bookishness to excess.
Novels became my sole sustenance.

While I was browsing through a magazine at the front of a Japanese-style bookstore, my name was suddenly called.
When I turned around, Ie was standing there—I hadn’t seen Ie in a long time.
By then, Ie had already stopped coming to our house for lessons for about a year.
It seemed she had also rarely been seen together with the other disciples at teahouses and similar venues.
There was no particular reason for it.
At some point, she had ended up in such a state.
It was said that she didn’t get along with the senior female disciples, but there wasn’t particularly any animosity between them.
Among the disciples, Ie was oddly unpopular.
She wasn’t really the type to provoke such strong resentment, though.
She was diligent in her practice, but by nature, Ie wasn’t the type to try to outdo others.
In fact, after that, there seemed to be no particular improvement in Ie’s artistry.
Her youth and good looks seemed to have garnered her a fair amount of popularity, though.
There were rumors circulating, and even I, as a boy, had heard enough for my own ears to grasp them.
There was talk that Ie had become infatuated with a certain young shamisen player who had quite a reputation regarding women.
“Koshidai-san, they say she’s gotten quite deeply involved.”
There were even female disciples who would come to the house to engage in such backbiting.
Whenever Grandmother heard Ie's name from the disciples' lips, she would openly grimace and invariably grumble about how carelessly they used that worthless name.
Father was always silent.
“If you keep glaring like that, you’ll burn a hole through the book.”
With that, Ie laughed.

She held a flashy parasol and spun it idly between her fingers.
At that time, I would often become suddenly transfixed and stare at things.
Once while gazing vacantly at movie stills displayed in a theater lobby, I had my sleeve sliced by a pickpocket.
These solitary mannerisms had gradually taken root in me without my noticing when they began.
Yet whenever she happened to see me in such states, she would call out...
Ie appeared to have gained some weight.
The earthy scent she'd carried after returning from the countryside post-earthquake no longer clung to her.
Though her eyes retained their cool clarity, they now held a fierce glint that hadn't been there before.
When she smiled, the gold tooth she'd acquired flashed briefly.

“Kiyoshi-san, what grade are you in now?”

Because I started laughing, Ie looked at me suspiciously.

“I flunked.”

I said resolutely.
It was difficult to tell Ie, yet precisely because it was Ie that I could voice what was hard to say—that was how I felt.
Because I kept smiling, Ie laughed too, but immediately furrowed her brows,

“Was your health poor?”

I denied it.
I had been born sturdy and had hardly ever fallen ill up to that point.

“I hate school. It’s just so boring.”

“Don’t you find studying interesting? What subject do you like, Kiyoshi-san?”

“Ethics.”

Ie burst out laughing.
And she looked at me with a spirited gaze.
I hadn't said it as a joke.
Among school subjects, only the teachings of Confucius and Mencius had captivated me.
In fact, my grades hadn't been bad at all.

I told her I'd return to school next term and intended to at least graduate middle school.
"Still feels kind of strange somehow."
That's what I said about my carefree life back then.
I couldn't bring myself to mention having worked at a bookstore for just one day.

“You mustn’t worry your mother so much.”

Suddenly, Ie said. Her tone was so forceful that I involuntarily looked at her face. They were uncompromisingly earnest eyes. In that expression, I suddenly felt I was seeing Ie's childhood visage. "Your mother has always been single-mindedly devoted to you alone, Kiyoshi-san." Ie repeated words to that effect.

Ie had apparently been commissioned by Shinkokugeki and was performing at the Ichimura-za. The program seemed to include a brief segment where they let audiences hear jōruri. She mentioned having seen Sawada Shōjirō's real face and remarked, "He's quite handsome." I flushed without reason. I was still immature then. Hearing such words from Ie made me feel oddly self-conscious. Somehow it even felt as if she were calling me handsome. She invited me to come see the play and told me to visit the dressing room anytime. Though Sawada's name tantalized my boyish heart, I couldn't muster the will to go. Even so, I found myself unwilling to listen to Ie's stories.

It was time to part.
“Why don’t you come to practice?” When I asked this, Ie simply laughed.
To my boyish self, Ie’s expression remained elusive.
Ie bought a large package of sweet chestnuts and had me carry them, saying, “Give my regards to Master,” she said.

When the new term began the following year, I found myself going back to school again.
Two years behind the standard progression, I found myself relearning the third grade for the second time.
The friends who had entered school with me were already in their fifth year.
Meeting old friends at school did make me feel somewhat ashamed, but I felt no anxiety whatsoever.
At some point, the course of my life had been dimly foreseen within my own mind alone.
I continued to neglect my studies, and my poor grades clouded my mother’s heart.
“You’re always reading other people’s books—it’s no use.”
When relatives came over, Mother would complain about me, but when I said there were books I wanted to buy, she would give me spending money beyond our means.
As my mother, she must have found slight comfort in the fact that I was continuing my studies after a fashion and had also forgiven me.

After that, Ie still did not come to practice.
As for Ie, I could only occasionally hear news brought by the disciples.
At the end of that year when I had met Ie on the street, we suddenly heard that she was in Osaka.
It was said that Ie had followed that shamisen player to Osaka.
She apparently stayed in Osaka for about a year.
I heard that Ie had returned to Tokyo again about two months before my mother died.
And on the day of my mother’s funeral, I saw Ie.

That spring, my older brother had safely completed his apprenticeship term and finished his year of gratitude service before returning home.
He was allowed to continue working at the shop and gradually built his own clientele.
As for me, I again had a poor relationship with Grandmother and had left home to commute from our relative Dr. Nishi’s place in Kanda, but with my brother’s return home, I too moved back.
I finally reached my fourth year.
Mother died shortly after summer vacation began.
I had gone to the coast, paying no heed to my mother’s illness and leaving the house vacant.
I was not at my mother’s deathbed.

On the day of the funeral, Mr. Nishi read a eulogy.
Mr. Nishi extended his remarks at the end of those prepared words to address those left behind: he praised my older brother for his honest and earnest nature, offered encouraging words about shouldering the family's future in Mother's stead, then turned to me and expressed regret over my lack of steadfastness in abandoning studies midway—and said this: "The future still holds concerns."
After burying Mother in the grave and returning home to be alone in my room, I finally felt relieved.
Amid the mourners, both familiar and unfamiliar, I found the sunlight terrifying and felt myself fidgeting anxiously, suffocated.
If possible, I wanted to be spared from attending the funeral.
In the corner of the room lay the furoshiki-wrapped kimono Mother had taken when hospitalized, left untouched since being brought back.
Suddenly catching sight of it drew forth my tears.
I let out a sob.
Hearing footsteps on the stairs, I hurriedly wiped my tears.
I thought it might be Ie.
I had seen her still downstairs in the sitting room.
It was indeed Ie.

“I’ve asked Master to let me come back to practice again.”

“Yes.”

“Was the person who read that earlier your relative?”

“Yeah.”

“The future still holds concerns,” that’s what he said, right?

“Ah, you really have a way with words.”

Ie laughed.

“Did you go to Osaka?”

“Yes.”

“Which do you prefer, Tokyo or Osaka?”

“Osaka is nice too.”

Having said that, Ie laughed again.
When she laughed, her gold tooth became visible once more, but somehow it appeared lonely to my eyes.
Ie's appearance had grown far more subdued than before.
She must have wanted to say something to me as she left.

After my mother died, I became an even more troublesome child at home.
Conflicts frequently arose because of me.
Grandmother remained as spiteful toward me as ever.
Grandmother had always shown blatant favoritism between my older brother and me.
I felt as if childhood resentments were being reheated.
Through my dealings with Grandmother, I came to quarrel with my older brother too.
"Since your brother is so docile, you think you can look down on him," Grandmother would often say, but for my part, I never once lost fraternal feelings toward him.

One day after lunch, I kicked the washtub with all my strength and shattered its bottom.
For me, it was a substitute for smashing Grandmother's head.
My older brother, who was still eating his meal, put down his chopsticks and lunged at me.
My older brother, in his excitement, shouted "You bastard! You bastard!" and tightened his grip on my throat.
I merely defended myself.
At that moment, Grandmother said from beside us, "You might as well just disown this good-for-nothing."
Resentment welled up in my chest.
I launched an offensive.
My older brother's sewing apprentice intervened to stop us.
When my older brother saw my eyes brimming with anger, he loosened his grip.
At that moment came the sound of the lattice door opening and a sense that someone had arrived.
We released each other's hands.
The visitor was Ie.
Ie began to greet us but noticed the strangeness of the situation; she looked at Grandmother's face and asked, "What happened?"
"Oww, I almost choked to death there."
I deliberately threw out such a parting remark and withdrew to my second-floor room.

I had been seen by Ie, been seen by Ie—I felt a self-destructive despair. However, deep down, I felt relieved at having been seen. After all, there must have still been some part of me that sought solace from Ie. "He smashed through the washtub's bottom... Hey, can you fix it?" The voice of my older brother calling out—likely to the apprentice cleaning up the washtub I'd broken—reached my ears. I suddenly felt the absurdity of it all. I wondered what face my brother would make if I went downstairs right then and begged him for pocket money. My nerves were thoroughly frayed. I even felt an impulse to act on such rash thoughts. Then, from beyond the sliding door came Ie's voice: "Kiyoshi-san, I'm sorry." I instinctively made a sour face.

“You shouldn’t quarrel with your brother like that.”

“It wasn’t my brother.
It was Granny.”

“Now,”
“Grandmother is elderly already—you must show patience.”

“No.
I hate having to endure things.”

“That’s childish of you, Kiyoshi-san.”

“I’m just a kid anyway! I want to be completely selfish.
I’m not being selfish at all!
I’m tiptoeing around my own house.”

“Grandmother is concerned about you too, Kiyoshi-san.”

“That’s a lie.”
I disliked hearing Ie say such things.
“She only acts that way in front of others.
“She’s truly spiteful.
“One foot already in the coffin, yet—”
“She’s exactly like Iwane Gozen, I tell you.”

Ie burst out laughing.
During my earlier scuffle with Brother, I’d brushed against the iron on the sewing table and burned my wrist.
As the stinging intensified, I periodically licked the injured spot.
Noticing this, Ie frowned and said “Wait here” before going downstairs. When she returned, she carried boric acid and bandages.
Ie dabbed boric acid on the burn before wrapping it.
While bandaging me, she peered at my face and asked “Too tight?
“Does it hurt?”
Feeling her sincere care transmitted through the touch, I nearly buried my face in Ie’s chest.
In that moment, she seemed motherly to me.
This—this was what I’d been seeking. With that realization flooding my chest, I felt my bitter emotions dissolving.

“You read quite a lot of books, don’t you?”
Ie looked at my bookshelf and said, “Kiyoshi-san, do you intend to become someone who writes books like these in the future?”

“Yeah. I feel like it suits my nature best. But it’s pointless now that Mother’s gone. Even if what I wrote became books, nobody would be happy about them.”

“That’s not true. I’ll read them in Aunt’s place.”

Something like light flowed through my chest.

“Ie-chan, do you intend to keep performing jōruri forever?”

“No.” Ie denied with a lonely smile.
“But Kiyoshi-san, you must walk your own chosen path.
Because you’re a man.”

"The future still holds concerns."
When I reflect on it now, this phrase struck Ie's heart more profoundly than my own.
Ie turned her thoughts toward me once more.
"You'll certainly become someone remarkable someday."

Ie had once again evoked the phantom of my childhood for me.

The year after Mother died, a new mother came to our house.
The following year, my older brother married.
I too finally managed to graduate from middle school.
In my graduation year, being precisely of conscription age, I underwent the draft examination.
Though naturally robust enough that everyone assumed I'd receive Class A eligibility, the result was First Class B—enlistment as a supplementary soldier.
They said my weight was slightly low.
The year before graduation, I'd led an especially indolent student life.
That must have caused it.
I alone had held some foreboding about this.
After graduating, I took no occupation and idled about.
The family neither pressed me nor made efforts on my behalf.
In that expanded household where discord persisted unchanged, I spent days left unattended.
It clearly wasn't good.
For my sake and the family's.
Looking back, I served as quite the agent in destroying domestic peace.
Between parents and married brother too, relations fared poorly.
Our family ultimately reached circumstances requiring dissolution.
This came at year's end when I turned twenty-three.
Father and others went to Sendai; my brother to Kobe; I alone remained in Tokyo.
I too had finally come to earn my own keep.

Since then, I have relied on the help of various people to reach the present day.
During that time, I experienced my own share of ups and downs.
I have until now thought only of myself without considering those around me.
Even now, that remains true.

For someone like me, there were still no close friends even then.
There was no welcoming home that would take me in.
All of this was because I had not valued my relationships.
I should mention there was one household that still welcomed me even then.
It was Ie’s household.
It was because Ie had never stopped caring for me.
The harder you push against the shore with a pole, the further the boat drifts away.
The causes for growing distant from others all lay on my own side.
There had been more than a few times when I grew resentful on my own and lost sight of Ie.
Precisely at such times, Ie had been the one who worried about me most.
I was exceedingly timid in my interactions with people, but only toward Ie did I feel self-important.
Were I to leave Ie, she would surely be sad.
This much I could say.
No matter what fortune might open before me in days to come, no matter what connections I formed, I would never meet another like Ie.
Ie was, so to speak, the last person remaining to me.
Just as I had bungled things until then, I would likely continue to fail hereafter too.
When that time came, let people laugh at my want of sincerity.
There existed something within me that would never disappear unless erased by my own hand.

After that, Ie completely stopped performing jōruri. She married Mr. Izumi. (Shortly after the marriage, her mother died.) Mr. Izumi was a metal engraver. In time, a daughter was born. They named her Shizu. The year Shizu-chan turned five, Mr. Izumi passed away. He too had apparently been someone with few blood ties. He loved me like a younger brother. I also came to like Mr. Izumi. Somehow he struck me as resembling myself - or so it seemed to me at least.

Of course, Mr. Izumi was fundamentally different from someone like me - a man of steady and open-hearted disposition - though those who knew Ie called the couple "a demon armed with an iron club." When we grow fond of someone, isn't it because we find in them a self that isn't our own? I can't help feeling this must be so - conclusive proof that I'm a crybaby.

After Mr. Izumi's death, when I found my ever-changing addresses recorded in the margins of what could hardly be called an extensive acquaintance list - each entry written in the deceased's own hand - his many frank words and gestures during his lifetime came back to me afresh, and I thought: Ah, how I wish I'd imposed on this man far more selfishly.

Shizu-chan seems fond of me too. She takes delight in being held by me. Whenever I visit, it's always Shizu-chan who greets me first, even before Ie does.

For me, living only for my own dreams, Ie's household became something like a spiritual homeland of the heart. Whenever life daunted me, it was always the remembered image of her home that lifted my spirits.

There, even hardships dissipated like mist, and I would forget my countless burdens to join their circle of warmth.
After Mr. Izumi’s death, Ie returned to that rural area upstream along the Tama River.
“Charcoal-making Edoites” was Grandmother’s spiteful label, but they had now made it their actual trade.
However, she lived quietly, looking forward to Shizuko-chan’s growth.
Shizuko-chan was now ten years old.
She was the spitting image of Ie when she was young.
She was now a third grader in elementary school.
I saw Shizuko-chan’s school as well; country schools were nice.
It had a spacious schoolyard with many trees, and instead of a surrounding wall, there was simply a hedge—a wooden, unpretentious schoolhouse.
I was shown Shizuko-chan's report card.
In singing, drawing, and calligraphy, she had good grades.
In the conduct section was written, “Is kind to friends.”
I thought she was a good teacher.
The other day, a piece of calligraphy practice reading “Fly high enough to reach the stars!” arrived from Shizuko-chan.
The one pasted on my room’s wall was that.

I rarely went to Ie's place. However, I made sure to go once a year. On June 7th, I always went—it was Shizu-chan's birthday. I gave Shizu-chan a poor gift: a self-written fairy tale. There had been a time when even Ie, finally growing weary of my supposed late-blooming genius, mocked my academic negligence. It seemed to be my nature that I couldn't manage effort without a clear aim. "Though I can write love letters," I joked. After tossing out that remark, when I said, "Alright then—starting now, I'll write a fairy tale every year for Shizu-chan's birthday and make that my present," Ie seriously agreed. The jest became reality. This began the year Shizu-chan turned seven. For me, it became something like burning all bridges—I came to have an annual deadline like a professional writer. Therefore, there were now three practice fairy tales of mine at Ie's place. For a lazy person like me, no other crystallization of effort existed beyond these. Now I too was devoting my heart to these fairy tales.

The other day when I met Ie, I said: “I will write twelve fairy tales for Shizu-chan. By the year I finish writing the twelfth story, Shizu-chan will have grown into a fine bride. I’ll compile those fairy tales into a book and give it as a wedding gift.”

Once I said to Ie.

“I’m hopeless.”
“No matter how much time passes, I still feel like a stagnant puddle.”
“To say it sometimes reflects the blue sky would be overpraising myself.”
“What I want to write are works like pure water flowing through a bamboo flume, but—”

“It’s better not to dwell on it too much.”
“Even if you think that way yourself, others might not see it as such.”

And then Ie told me this with a comforting look.
"The qualities you keep agonizing over as flaws aren't your true nature—they're unnatural things forced upon you. You've always been fundamentally free and unburdened by nature." That was the gist of what she said.
In that moment, I trusted the look in Ie's eyes as she spoke these words.
Ie had spoken kindly.
My lucky star must keep shining with pure light regardless of my earthly self—this I believe.

Another day.

When I complained about my chest ailment with a carefree expression, Ie looked at me with clearly annoyed eyes. No matter how recklessly disgraceful my behavior had been on any given day, Ie had never once shown me a displeased expression before. And then, Ie spoke these confidant-like words and left me disheartened.

“I thought your only virtue was your physical health.”

Ie was angry that the laxity of my spirit had caused fissures to appear even in my flesh.

Another day.

“Lately, I’ve started feeling like I’m beginning to understand art a bit, and I’m so happy.”

Ie gazed at me with an approving look and showed a Mona Lisa smile.

“The future still holds concerns for your heart.”