Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was a story from long ago.

When I passed by that shopfront，the manager there，

“Hey, Maedayama.”

he called out to me. In those days, whenever I walked through the red-light district, I was always called things like “Cheer Squad Captain” or “Clogs Master.” I wore a Kurume kasuri lined coat and hakama trousers, clattering along as I dragged my magnolia-wood clogs. I possessed no other formal attire beyond that. Maedayama entered the establishment with flushed cheeks. I was already flushed and felt as though I’d taken off my footwear. The manager,

“For our student gentleman here, we’ll have you enjoy yourself once more in that manner.”

The manager said such dutiful things.
I was no longer a student but living the life of a poor working man, yet found myself increasingly overwhelmed by the melancholy that comes with sunset.
The manager studied my face,

"A young one would be best."

“Yeah.”

The manager pointed to a handbill that read "First Appearance",

“This courtesan would suit you well.”
“Today marks only her third day.”

I first wanted to get an impression of that courtesan and searched among the photographs displayed there, but couldn’t find her.
I was by no means a difficult man, but I simply thought I didn’t want to clash with women who gave off too miserly an air.

“There’s no photo.”

“Yes, the photograph is currently being prepared.
“She’s a sweet-natured, lovely courtesan.
“Eighteen years old.”

The manager spoke in a tone that seemed to see through my inner turmoil.
I felt vaguely uncertain yet ascended the stairs.
Thus I came to know her.
The word “cute” hadn’t been entirely untrue.
I found myself drawn to her narrow eyes and low-set nose.

“I hear your photograph is still being prepared.”
“Yes, it still isn’t ready.”
“When did you start at this establishment?”
“Today makes twelve days.”
“You’re eighteen, they say?”

“No, nineteen.”

She explained that at eighteen one still couldn’t be sold into contractual indenture.
The manager had fudged both the number of days and her age, but even that must have been his earnest effort as a manager.
I found her straightforward and utterly ordinary manner pleasing.
Like many of the women working in the red-light district, she too had been a farmer’s daughter.
Her pronunciation carried a rustic lilt, with something like the scent of wild grasses and freshly turned soil still lingering about it.
As I looked at her face, I thought how well a headscarf would suit her, and could easily picture her working in fields where skylarks sang overhead.

The next morning, I went to the washroom accompanied by her.
While I was washing my face, she held my sleeve with both palms to keep it from getting wet.
Next to me was another guest, and their companion was similarly attending to details.
Among them lingered an air of mutual attentiveness toward their clients.
It was likely a routine scene throughout the morning red-light district.

As I was leaving, she held my sleeve while I was putting on my clogs,
“Come again, okay?”

she whispered.

I began visiting her regularly.
The K楼 where she resided was, by her own account, a third-tier establishment in this red-light district.
Being an old establishment, it somehow exuded precisely that measure of dignity and human warmth that made it easy for someone like me to frequent.
It possessed what one might call conservative virtues—while not money-grubbing, their hospitality remained excellent.
Both the attire of the working women and all their appellations retained an old-fashioned quality.
Her professional name bore the character 'yama' appended beneath, much like the heroine of Tsuyagatari Monogatari.

When I would visit, she would say she had thought it might be me, or that she had known beforehand it was me.
When I asked how she knew, she said it was because there were Clogs with Magnolia Wood Teeth in the footwear area.
There were likely no other customers besides me who wore Clogs with Magnolia Wood Teeth.
Once when leaving, I was terribly flustered when a pair of sturdy guest clogs had been neatly arranged at my feet.
Then she and the manager—who had been dozing at the courtesan's platform and just awakened—shouted in unison, “Clogs with Magnolia Wood Teeth! Clogs with Magnolia Wood Teeth!” causing us to exchange glances and burst out laughing.
At this establishment, my Clogs with Magnolia Wood Teeth were unmistakably that sort of article.

When I went to visit, lively singing and shamisen music would sometimes drift over from other rooms. Since some had been geisha before, there were courtesans skilled in shamisen and such, it was said. She had no artistic talents to begin with but had begun learning the Taishō-era zither. Even for that time, the Taishō-era zither felt decidedly old-fashioned. When I once asked her to play something for me, she performed the tune "Spring Streamlet". Listening to her play in fits and starts with clumsy hands, I felt an idle restlessness, a sense of being utterly overwhelmed.

“Oh, you’ve got sweat beading on the tip of your nose.”

“Hehehe, it’s hard.”

“Is there someone teaching you?”

“No, I have a practice book.”

And then she said she could play both “Kimigayo” and “Hibari”.

One day when I went, she was said to be sick in bed. As I was about to leave, the new attendant suggested I call another courtesan to entertain me. Persuaded, I became inclined. The substitute courtesan who appeared was an unremarkable woman—physically frail in appearance, timid in disposition, perpetually downcast. Even when I carelessly let slip an insensitive remark, her face only clouded faintly before she quickly mustered a timid smile. She didn’t seem spirited enough to take offense. Not so much shy as gloomy in demeanor; one couldn’t help feeling this disposition would only invite contempt from both peers and clients. Yet when leaving the next morning, she showed a peer’s compassion by urging me to visit her where she lay ill. Finding it too bothersome, I left without paying respects. According to this substitute courtesan’s account, she enjoyed good repute—said to have loyal regulars and reasonable popularity among colleagues too. Hearing this made me nod in agreement. She was naturally likable after all—her personality calm rather than exuberant, yet maintaining bright rapport when facing others. When next we met face-to-face, she immediately showed genuine astonishment in her eyes at my having chosen a substitute.

There were also times when we had conversations like this.

“There was a clerk at my village office named Mr. Ōyama.”
“When you called him ‘Mr. Ōyama,’ he’d always answer with a gruff ‘Ō.’”

“Was he your sweetheart?”

“Oh, that’s not it at all.”
“He was studying law.”
“Once when he let me ride on the back of his bicycle, I ended up flipping over.”

To me, that person seemed like some rare gentleman.

“Did he resemble me?”

She shook her head, but her eyes were laughing.
Surely that General Ōyama must have resembled me.

About four months had passed since I began visiting her when something went awry at my workplace, forcing me to abruptly leave Tokyo.
I hurriedly settled my affairs and left Tokyo.
I spent a year in a remote backwater.
When I saw the face of the young patrol officer at the town’s police box, I somehow felt I had seen him before.
Before long, I realized.
It was her he resembled.
It was a face as though she had been made into a man.
The eyes had a strong resemblance to hers, and the mouth area, on a man’s face, was indeed too gentle.
Every time I saw that patrol officer, I couldn’t help but find it comical.
One day, when I caught sight of him standing beneath a bakery’s eaves doing his shopping, I was suddenly struck by an intense longing for home.

Once again, I found myself back in Tokyo. One day when I went to Asakusa Park and drank a citrus drink at a stall by the pond, the old man there pressed money into my palm. When I looked, it was the amount of change for one yen. I had only paid money for the citrus drink. In my pocket was only that much money. I looked at the old man’s face in surprise, but he turned away with a sullen expression. I left that place without a word. To me, it seemed less that the old man had made a mistake than that he had taken pity on me and given me money. Even as I wandered through Rokku, the old man’s deeply lined, idiosyncratic countenance lingered before my eyes for some time. I was utterly exhausted in both body and mind by the hand-to-mouth existence of each day. That day, I survived another day. After some time, I joined a newspaper shop and became a deliveryman, but there I was finally able to settle down. That newspaper shop was located in the backstreets of the red-light district where she resided.

On the New Year's holiday after the year had turned, I suddenly felt the urge and went to K楼.
She should have still been there.
The Manager was there.
The Manager also remembered the customer with magnolia-wood clogs.
I peered at the displayed photographs just to be sure, and immediately found it.
Her photograph was displayed second from Oshoku’s.
She had become quite the proper courtesan.
When she saw my face, she said, "Oh."

“What were you doing?”

“I wasn’t in Tokyo.”

“Where did you go?”

“I was traveling around.”

“Is that so.”

She nodded with deeply contemplative eyes.

“I came to this neighborhood.”
“The neighborhood?”
“I’m at the newspaper shop out back here.”

“Really?”

“I mean it. I’ll deliver the newspaper to your place.”

She assumed a thoughtful expression again.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Nuh-uh.”

She shook her head.

I asked a colleague who delivered newspapers in the red-light district to deliver the newspaper to her.

I started going to see her again.
In the short time since I'd last seen her, she had become a full-fledged courtesan.
The childish act of playing the Taishō-era zither with sweat beading on her nose tip had vanished completely.
To me, she even seemed older than I was.
When I visited, my routine became borrowing entertainment magazines from her, losing myself in them on the bedding until drowsiness overtook me.
When I'd startle awake, she'd have slipped in unnoticed and be lying beside me breathing softly.
At the newspaper shop during lulls before evening deliveries, when everyone congregated to swap stories about women, I'd try keeping pace with them,

"My woman's always snoring away and does nothing but sleep."

When I made this declaration, one of my colleagues—who usually boasted of having a thorough understanding of courtesans' psychology—

“That woman must be head over heels for you.”
“She’s quite something.”
“Treat us.”

Teased like this, I was flustered.
As I tilted my head in puzzlement, perhaps even my own conviction had begun to falter,

"At the very least, it was certain I wasn't disliked."

I corrected myself. According to that psychologist’s theory, courtesans cannot sleep soundly unless beside a man they’re truly fond of—but how true could that be? Between her and me, there had been no lingering moments of sentimental entanglement whatsoever. Once she’d said something like this:

“At first, I thought you came to my place because things weren’t working out with some decent person you had.”

What nonsense—there was no such person in my life.
But her words were something I could nod in agreement to.
Perhaps as a regular customer, my being inexperienced yet indifferent left even her feeling unsatisfied, I wondered.

One day, from the shop’s collection auntie,

“Today, I saw your sweetheart.”

When told this, I found myself bewildered about what she was talking about,

“What are you playing dumb for?”
“You know, that… uh… what’s-her-name at K楼?”

When told this, I thought, Oh—it's about her.

I had asked a colleague to deliver newspapers to her place but later stopped doing so.
Yet that month, my colleague had taken it upon himself to resume newspaper deliveries and even issued a receipt in her name.
And so that day, the completely unaware Auntie had come to collect payment.
She had paid the fee without saying a word, I was told.

Auntie adopted an exaggerated tone as if praising cherry blossoms in full bloom,

“She’s a real beauty, isn’t she.”

“Cut it out.”
“I’m no match for you, Auntie.”
“That’s so exaggerated.”

“Oh, I do like that sort of person. Makes her eyes sparkle like that.”

“What’s this ‘sparkle’ you’re talking about?”

“She’s always smiling like that, isn’t she.”
“She’d make a good wife.”
“Her disposition seems cheerful enough, and she’s not bad at managing a household either.”
“When the new year comes, you should take her as your wife.”

“What’re you on about?”

Auntie kept effusively praising her while tallying the collection payments.
I didn't feel bad about it.
It was, so to speak, akin to hearing favorable talk about my own circle.
Spurred on by Auntie's words, I went to her place that evening.

When I expressed regret over having made her pay for the newspaper subscription,

“It’s fine. Since I’m following the serialized stories, I’ll have you keep delivering them,” she said.

“The collection auntie had been praising you, you know.”
“Oh? What’d she say?”
“She called you a looker.”
“Oh, stop it.”
“Apparently, your payment manner impressed them.”
“What’re you on about?”

I had Auntie’s words from earlier in mind, so—

“What kind of person’s wife do you want to be?”

“What do you mean by ‘what kind of person’?”

“Like—say—a salaried worker? A merchant? A schoolteacher? That sort of thing.”

“A merchant.”
“A merchant. I don’t want to marry into some salaried worker’s household.”

Though merchants came in all sorts, I still felt I could understand her feelings. She had a gentle disposition, but deep down I sensed a flamboyant generosity about her. She probably preferred working alongside her husband rather than staying home to mind the house in his absence. This might’ve been the diligence inherent in someone from a farming family.

“What exactly is a newspaper shop, anyway?”
“I suppose it still counts as a merchant’s trade after all.”

She laughed and didn’t answer that,
“You’re studying something, aren’t you?”
“I’m not studying anything.”
She acted as if minding my feelings,

“But you don’t intend to keep working at the newspaper shop forever, do you?”

Some time before, in a tipsy mood, I’d had my palm read by a street fortune-teller who’d put on a grave face and told me I shouldn’t change occupations before turning forty.
Whenever I recalled it afterward, I’d found it amusing, but now, just as I was about to mention it, I suddenly changed my mind.
Suppressing my embarrassment and worrying she might laugh at me,

“I, um, want to become a novelist.”

I could tell my own face had turned as red as scattered maple leaves. Wanting to lend some dignity to my embarrassment,

“Look—Rōroku, you know him, right? I mean, that’s the sort of thing.”

I had once borrowed Rōroku’s "Genroku Woman" from her instead of a magazine and read it. She nodded silently, but there was none of the scornful look I had feared.

“I’ve always thought you were studying something, you know.”

So it turned out there had been someone overestimating me in an unexpected place.

It was summer.

I too enjoy a drink.
Three cups are the proper amount.
That day, I drank a bit too much.
I had been drinking with colleagues at the shop, and as the Collection Auntie skillfully plied us with drinks, ended up carelessly downing cup after cup.
My face instantly took on the fearsome countenance of Shuten-dōji.
Under that guise, I headed out.
She burst out laughing.

“My, what a heavy drinker you are!”

“Not really that much, though.
The drinks were poured too freely today—I might’ve gone a bit overboard.”

“I’ll take you to a nice spot.”
“It’s nice and cool.”
“A little breeze would do you good.”

The nice spot turned out to be the laundry drying area.
Indeed, it was a good spot.
A cool wind was blowing.
Under the deep night sky, over roof after roof of the red-light district, even the distant lights of Asakusa could be seen.

“Nice here. This is paradise, isn’t it?”

“It’s cool, isn’t it.”
“I often come here to cool off.”
“Come here for a sec and take a look.”
“You can see your shop from here.”
“There, see?”

When I stood on tiptoe and peered out in the direction she pointed, the faint outline of the shop’s roof and signboard came into view.

“Oh, you’re wearing a ring.”
“Hehe.”
I took the hand she offered,
“Is it a diamond?”

She nodded, then said abruptly.

“It’s meant to be a wife’s memento.”

“Hmm.”

In my drunken haze, I connected that ring to her earlier mention of a 'merchant'.
By midnight I’d become a pitiful wreck.
I vomited up everything I’d eaten.
She threw herself into nursing me.
Summer nights break early, yet I remained limp when colleagues from the shop came to retrieve me.
The morning paper delivery loomed as my unavoidable duty.
Against my pride, a whimper escaped.

“Ugh, this is one hell of a trade.”

“Oh, if you’re going to say that, isn’t my job much harder than yours?”

And then she said.

“You’re not going to come anymore, are you?”

I was merely making a pained expression to endure my stomachache, but that must have caused her to harbor such anxiety.
It had to be called a harsh trade.

That morning I somehow managed to finish my deliveries.

Autumn came.

At that moment, lying face down on the bedding as we were poring over a movie magazine, suddenly she—

“Hey, you.”

“What?”

“Hey, I can get time off the day after tomorrow—won’t you take me somewhere?”

“Is it all right to go out with a customer?”

“Yes, it’s fine.”
“It’s rude to say this, but there’s no need for you to worry about money. So won’t you take me?”

“That’s abrupt.”

“You’re being difficult.”

At that tone, I instinctively peered at her face—but she abruptly turned away,

“Is there some issue with the establishment’s schedule?”

Since both the turned face and voice remained calm, I found myself somewhat relieved,

“I guess so.
“I guess we could go, but where to?”

She too immediately broke into a smile,

“You know, I’ve never seen Nikko.”

When she spoke like that, she seemed like an elementary schoolgirl.

“I haven’t seen it either.
Then shall we go to Nikko?”

“You’ll take me there.”

And then she said in a bashful tone.

“They say you shouldn’t call something splendid until you’ve seen Nikko, don’t they?”

That day I went out wearing the shop's head's outfit from head to toe. She had on a coat over her attire, her hair arranged in a Western-style coiffure I'd never seen before. There was something impeccably harmonious about her appearance. When I remarked how well it suited her, she complimented my borrowed suit and said I should grow out and part my hair.

Upon arriving in Nikkō, we immediately went to Tōshōgū Shrine and toured the grounds while having a guide explain things to us.
Before Yōmeimon Gate, she let out an admiring gasp and stood there with a satisfied expression for some time.
We had meant to go to Yumoto for an overnight stay, but having lingered too long at Tōshōgū Shrine, we reached Lake Chūzenji just after the last Yumoto-bound bus had departed.
With no alternative, we stayed at a lakeside inn.
In the guest register, I wrote my occupation as newspaper salesman and recorded her as my wife Sumi.
Sumi was her registered name.
The next morning we walked along the lakeshore.
Though not meaning to take them home, she picked flowers whenever she saw them.
At a dry goods store she bought tabi socks and changed into them.
We purchased various souvenirs.
She picked up an oversized jar of wasabi pickles and asked me, “What do you think about giving this to the house staff?”
I’d obtained a bookmark of wild plants that might serve as a science reference, so when I asked what she’d do with such a thing, she replied, “I’ll give it to Shizu-chan.”
Those words rippled through my heart like a single drop of water.
I didn’t press further then, though there might have been a schoolgirl daughter in the brothel owner’s household.
Our rushed return meant we missed seeing Kegon Falls.
We’d taken the train there, but she proposed returning by steam locomotive.
We stopped in Asakusa for soba noodles before parting at the red-light district’s entrance.
“Thank you for everything,” she said with a formal bow.

Four or five days later, I learned an unexpected truth from a colleague who delivered newspapers in the red-light district.
She had been bought out of her contract and retired from the trade, I was told.
When my colleague came to K楼 to deliver the evening edition, the Manager asked him to stop newspaper deliveries and relayed this news.
My colleague brushed past me as I stood stunned,

“Time to change shores, eh?
I’ll find you a proper courtesan.”

he said.

I am a shiftless idler who to this day remains utterly stagnant at my core.
When I find myself struggling along this thorny path, I contemplate the uncertain trajectory of my fleeting existence and feel utterly wretched at my own being.
At such times, I involuntarily let out a groan.
Among these groans, there is one that goes like this.
“I’ll give it to Shizu-chan.”
I mutter it like a farewell address to the outside world.