Pathway to Japanese Literature

The name Ryusenji Town in Shitaya Ward would not be entirely unfamiliar even to those unacquainted with the area itself.
It lies not far from Asakusa Kannon Temple, has the Yoshiwara Red-Light District right at its doorstep, and serves as the headquarters of the Otori Shrine.
Should that person happen to be fond of novels, they might recall this town with nostalgia through its connection to *Takekurabe*.
Some years prior, a monument to Ichiyō had been erected at her former residence's site, and a memorial lecture for the late writer was held at Saidekuji Temple along the tram line.
Baba Kochō, Kikuchi Kan, and Hasegawa Shigure attended as speakers.
I still remember Old Man Kochō—who had been close with the deceased Ichiyō—commenting on the penny candy store she once operated for neighborhood children: "What trifling commerce."
That was also when I first saw Kikuchi Kan in person.
When Ms. Shigure used self-deprecating phrases like "someone as insignificant as myself," the young woman seated beside me exclaimed: "Oh! How dreadfully modest!"
She must have been acquainted with Ms. Shigure.
All these are now dreams from another age.
On March 10, 1945, an air raid destroyed this town entirely.
Only one small section along the Yoshiwara embankment escaped incineration.

Though many new houses seemed to have been built among the scorched ruins, seeing how the residents' faces differed from those of former times felt like having nostalgia chipped away—a thoroughly disagreeable sensation.

In the summer of Showa 12 (1937), I became a deliveryman for the Y Newspaper Shop on Chayamachi Street in Ryusenji Town.
I remained there until March 10, 1945, when I was burned out.
Though strictly speaking, for the final three years I had been conscripted and commuted to Nippon Ken Steel Industry Co., Ltd. in Mikawashima.
Thus I spent five full years working as a newspaper deliveryman in one district.
This spanned from age twenty-seven to thirty-two.
At surface level those years passed uneventfully, yet looking back now, my life’s Alt-Heidelberg seems contained within that span.
There exists a poem called *Town* by a certain young poet that goes like this:

It was a small town.

Even so, the smell of the town lingered.

Soot drifted.

The scent of white face powder lingered.

I intend to record my memories of Ryusenji Town and its vicinity—where I spent five years of mornings and evenings as a newspaper deliveryman—and of the people who lived there. This was likely the most fitting way for me to reminisce about my youth. People unfamiliar with the matter might find it surprising, but the relationship between subscribers and deliverymen overflowed with unexpected warmth. Especially in the downtown areas. And even more so in densely packed neighborhoods. In places like Yamate, for instance, it was simply a matter of placing newspapers into mailboxes attached to entrances—so even after delivering for one year or two years, there could be cases where you never learned what the homeowner looked like. In other words, it was an impersonal arrangement. Yet when it came to downtown areas—particularly a place like the Ryusenji district—there were many shops, and even in ordinary homes, you often found houses where swinging open the front door gave a full view of the entire household at a glance. Since this happened daily, people naturally grew familiar enough to exchange friendly words. We deliverymen too referred to our subscribers as "customers," just like regular merchants did. I believe there was a passage like this in old elementary school textbooks: "The rice shop's neighbor is the fish shop. The fish shop's neighbor is the greengrocer. When you turn right at that corner, there is a kimono fabric shop." Following this pattern, I will introduce my customers to the reader one after another. Deliverymen each carried something called a route book—a ledger recording customers' names in delivery order within one's assigned area. I now intend to leaf through this route book within my memory, page by page, as if flipping through an old album's leaves. Some might worry that dawn would break before I finished, but since the world holds tales like *A Thousand and One Nights*, let us save what remains untold for tomorrow evening's pleasure. I mean to let nostalgia steer my pen self-indulgently—so if readers imagine themselves patient kings and refrain from reproaching my ease, I shall count myself fortunate.

337 Ryusenji Town, Shitaya Ward, Tokyo City.
There stood the Y Newspaper shop where I was stationed.
First, one would get off the Toei Streetcar at the stop called Ryusenji Town.
The trains passing through there shuttled between Tokyo Station and Minowa.
After Ryusenji Town came the terminal stop, Minowa, with Senzoku-cho on this side.
Beside the tram stop ran a road crossing over the tracks east-west.
Both sides were lined with shops, forming a lively thoroughfare.
To the east of the tram line lay what people called Chayamachi Street; this road stretched about one chō before connecting to a thoroughfare that passed through Kyōmachi First District, Ageyamachi, and Edomachi First District—where Yoshiwara Red-Light District’s emergency gates stood—ultimately meeting the Yoshiwara embankment.
The western road extended two chō before joining Showa Avenue, an improved road running from Minowa to distant Nihonbashi.
At Chayamachi Street’s tram-facing corners stood two large shops befitting their locations—a pottery store on the right and a hardware store on the left.
I knew little about these establishments.
They lay outside my delivery route.
Others’ customers, in other words.
Still, I feel compelled to note my impressions.
Both shops appeared long-established in the area, their facades imposing yet lacking vitality—prosperous perhaps, but devoid of warmth.
They simply had no spark.
A common trait among old merchants?
Their owners seemed disengaged from commerce.
I did have one interaction with the pottery shop.
At year’s end during my first delivery year, I bought eighty lidded containers there to distribute to customers.

I hadn’t particularly intended it that way, but there were those who said, “This is the first time I’ve ever received a year-end gift from a newspaper deliveryman.” There was also a proprietress who happily said, “These are just right for storing pickled plums and preserves.” While this was a self-funded service to readers, for my part—having become engrossed in mahjong that month and neglected my solicitation duties—it amounted to nothing more than an apology to the shop and a salve for my own conscience. The total cost came to just over seven yen. The Sino-Japanese War was finally reaching its peak, yet it was still an era of low prices. At that time, I received a sober impression from this pottery shop owner. He had a slightly plump build and was middle-aged in his prime years, yet there was a dullness about him, his expression unfriendly. I had also shopped at the hardware store, but the girl minding the shop had a sleepy face and cracks on the backs of her hands. I somehow imagined that the master of this house might be miserly.

Along Chayamachi Street, a short walk past this hardware store brought you to N Newspaper's shop—our trade rival in the same business.
It had the standard newspaper shop layout: glass doors set into a two-ken wide storefront.
We at Y Newspaper considered them formidable competitors.
Back then in downtown Tokyo, Y Newspaper held overwhelming dominance with N Newspaper trailing second; A Newspaper barely registered as competition by comparison.
A Newspaper found its readership concentrated in Yamanote's affluent districts.
Here in Ryusenji Town though, N Newspaper proved a tough rival despite our numerical advantage.
Though we boasted twice their subscriber count across our broader delivery area, they'd made worrying encroachments into our territory.
Their relentless pressure constantly weighed on us.
A butcher shop called Harada stood a stone's throw from N Newspaper's premises.
Its prosperity showed at first glance.
The young proprietor—a strapping fellow resembling actor Furukawa Roppa—could always be found behind the counter wearing his cooking apron, either wielding a meat cleaver or frying up cutlets and croquettes for ready-made dishes.
During busy hours, housewives clustered about his shopfront while his booming voice carried clear out to the street.
Next door stood Fujita Clinic, its front yard housing Ichiyō's memorial monument.
Local elders had erected it here based on collective memory—this being roughly where they believed Ichiyō once lived while writing Takekurabe and selling penny sweets to neighborhood children.
The clinic's windows overlooked a token garden no larger than half a tsubo where the monument stood.
Though an appropriately symbolic tree grew beside it, I've forgotten now what species it was.
Kikuchi Kan's inscription graced the stone surface in Mr. Kojima Seijirō's calligraphic hand—text recounting how Ichiyō dwelled here while composing her masterpiece, how townsfolk raised this monument honoring her virtue, and how her spirit might still visit these grounds.
This memorial undoubtedly perished in the air raids.
Given its location near Yoshiwara's pleasure quarters, Fujita Clinic even saw courtesans coming for medical consultations.

I had never seen this doctor’s face, but according to Mr. Iida—who ran a used bookstore along the tram line and with whom I was acquainted—he was fond of art and would occasionally come to Mr. Iida’s shop to browse art books. He couldn’t have been that elderly of a doctor.

Next to Fujita Clinic was a dye shop, and next to that stood a stationery shop called Mori that also ran a tobacco business. This stationery shop had an old man with a thin mustache and darting eyes. Looking back now, he had such an utterly vacant expression. Between this old man and me, there had been some trivial trouble. I once struck the old man’s cheek. One day at the shop, when I opened a colleague’s route ledger and found Mori Stationery Shop’s name missing, I grew suspicious and pressed for an explanation—the colleague delivering in that area replied that they hadn’t subscribed that month.

“What? Aren’t they regular subscribers?”
“Don’t mention it.”
“What about next month?”

“First off, it’s risky.”

“Alright. Then I’ll go make them subscribe starting next month.”

“Well, go try if you want—just know it’ll be a wasted trip.”

I sometimes shopped at this store.
I was on joking terms with both the old man and the proprietress.
I had reasoned that if I asked, they wouldn't outright refuse.
But my calculation had been off.
The result took me by surprise and backfired instead.
The old man suddenly spat out, “I can’t subscribe to an ungrateful newspaper.”
What truly shocked me was how this “ungrateful” label applied directly to me.

“The other day, you bought something at the Kokubo Paper Shop across the street, didn’t you?”

“You know very well. I bought a lined notebook and thumbtacks.”

“Sitting here watching makes it perfectly clear. You’ve completely written off this shop. Isn’t that cruel?” He was considerably offended. “Don’t you think your behavior shows a complete lack of gratitude?”

“But this store never has any lined notebooks, does it? Buying the thumbtacks was just incidental. In our daily lives, I think that incidental actions hold significant meaning. Where exactly lies the boundary between fortune and misfortune, happiness and unhappiness? There’s just no figuring it out. I think even the slightest bit of people’s goodwill is something hard to accept.”

“Stop with the logic.”
“You’ve grown quite steeped in the newspaper trade yourself.”
“N Newspaper knows its obligations.”
“They always make their purchases at this store.”

That day, perhaps the old man was out of sorts for some reason.
He droned on and on about my being dim-witted on top of narrow-minded.
The old man’s response was so utterly unreasonable that at first I thought he might be joking.
I too reached my limit.
I left after delivering a parting shot about how he’d managed to run a business in this town with such a stingy mentality, but it left a bad taste in my mouth—unintentionally, it felt like I’d picked a fight with a colleague’s customer.
Four or five days later, when I passed in front of Mori Stationery Shop, the old man was sitting in the store. But the moment I walked by, he muttered in a voice barely above a whisper, “There goes that half-wit.”
I reflexively spun around and, without a moment’s delay, struck the old man’s cheek.
The old man blinked rapidly and let out a cry—“Ah, he hit me!”
“He hit me!” he shrieked shrilly and grabbed me by the collar.
It felt like poking some cheap rubber doll—utterly anticlimactic.
From the back room came the proprietress flying out.
Neighbors poked their heads out.
Passersby halted.
A crowd had instantly formed.
I explained my actions.
“I’ve never been one for fights by nature,” I thought, “and I hardly ever pick them myself.”
The old man was the one who had insulted me.
I’d had no room to hold myself back.
“It was unavoidable,” I told myself.
Though I may look imposing with my sleeves rolled up like this—well, that’s just the family trade talking—this radish here’s a peace lover at heart.

I strenuously insisted that I was by no means a habitual brawler.
Then the old man, with a straight face, denied it, saying, “I don’t recall ever saying such a thing.”
“This man has such a foul temper,” the proprietress chimed in.
“He came to pick a fight just because we don’t subscribe to the newspaper,” she supported her husband.
It was a gross distortion of the truth.
Even a mean-spirited third-rate novelist couldn’t have topped this.
I was stunned speechless.
And I regretted having struck the face of the man who had just now denied what I had said.
I absolutely detest people who twist the truth.
I have no desire to associate with such people.
Even so, the old man had a nasty way of putting things.
“Why hadn’t he simply chosen the bold insult of ‘You idiot!’?”
If that were the case, could it be that I had mistaken it for an expression of affection?
If he hadn’t simply called me mean-spirited but instead said petty-minded, wouldn’t it have sounded all the more sneakily malicious?
In this case, precisely because the poison had been diluted, it instead exerted its full efficacy.
When confronted with such vividly tangible expressions, even I couldn’t possibly misinterpret them.
I once read a novel in which a character’s most solemn lament—“Might I be a half-wit?”—struck me to the core.
I thought there was absolutely nothing to pardon in the old man.
The act of striking another person’s cheek was, for me, nothing short of a groundbreaking act.
Yet four or five days later, when I saw the son of Mori Stationery Store—likely a senior in middle school—in his school-bound appearance, having his mother brush off his uniform’s back with a brush, my resolve wavered.

And we found ourselves caught up in compromising thoughts like, “Why can’t we just get along?”
A man like me is exactly the kind who’d be called indecisive.

When I reached this spot by Mori Stationery Store, my shop’s sign came into view—a freestanding board attached to the first-floor window declaring it the Y Newspaper Ryusenji Direct Distribution Office. Yet reaching my shop required crossing one more intersection along this street that spanned Chayamachi-dori, stretching south past Washi Shrine’s rear to Senzoku-cho and north through Kanesugishita-cho all the way to Minowa. Four or five houses beyond that crossing stood my shop, perfectly centered along Chayamachi-dori—an ideal location offering easy access everywhere.

The place had once been a coffee shop—or rather, what people then called a “specialty café.” Beyond converting the earthen entryway to wooden flooring, laziness had left everything else in its original state, making it oddly unconventional for a new business. Its door-style entrance featured a brass handrail instead of a knob—likely designed for drunken patrons to grip while entering. The shop area had four south-facing vertical glass windows and two on the west wall. By these windows sat a single desk—a hulking black monolith that no lever could dislodge.

Downstairs comprised this shop space, a six-tatami supervisor’s room, and a kitchen, with staircases at both front and rear entrances. Upstairs held a six-tatami front room and four-and-a-half-tatami back room adjoining a drying area. We deliverymen would remove the sliding doors between these rooms and lounge about there aimlessly. Flimsy mirrors clung to every pillar—lingering traces of this building’s former trade where women must have once preened morning and night.

In the past, women must have lounged around there and peered into these mirrors morning and evening.

I entered this shop in summer, but bedbugs swarmed about making peaceful sleep impossible.
Everyone slept in places like the shop area or drying area.
When I joined the shop, I bought pants and tabi shoes.
At the time, pants cost twenty sen and tabi shoes around ninety-something sen.
Shortly after I began deliveries, the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out, and we ended up distributing extra editions nearly every day.
The delivery fee for extra editions was thirty sen per delivery.
There were times when extra editions were issued twice a day—it was hectic beyond measure—but we also earned considerable temporary income.
As we delivered the extra editions drenched in sweat, some customers would say, “Newspaper man, thank you for your hard work,” and treat us to chilled barley tea sweetened with sugar.
At such times we would feel overjoyed, and everyone’s courage would multiply a hundredfold.

My shop was a branch of K Newspaper, whose main office was in Kappabashi, Asakusa, and when I joined, a Korean man named M was serving as supervisor.
Half of the delivery workers were Korean.
When I first joined, I hadn’t noticed this fact, but after some time had passed, a mainland Japanese colleague pointed out my carelessness, and I was startled.
Up until then, I had never had any opportunity to become familiar with Koreans, so I hadn’t known that these people were so close to us.
I still feel a closeness to Koreans, but that stems from the camaraderie during my time as a newspaper deliveryman.
The person who took over my district was also Korean.
While working as a deliveryman, he attended Hosei University’s liberal arts department; he was a gentle person and quite manly.
Ever since I started making deliveries, I was often asked by the wives of our customers things like, “What happened to that nice man who used to deliver here before?”
Having come to mainland Japan from a very young age, he rather had an uncertain grasp of Korean.
This senior colleague kindly taught me various things during the handover, instructing me as a newcomer to regard this cluttered district as the foundation of my livelihood and to understand that it was the unpretentious, humble people living there who provided me with my daily bread.
Then my senior said I’d understand soon enough, opened the route book, and marked the names of fixed readers and those who changed subscriptions monthly.
Fixed readers refer to devoted readers of the newspaper—people who, aside from the paper they habitually read, do not occasionally switch to different ones.
Moreover, even among readers who switched papers every month, they didn’t necessarily want promotional gifts each time.
If anything, it was precisely because competition among businesses was so fierce at the time that we delivery workers ended up forming such a habit—so to speak, falling victim to our own solicitations.
Looking back now, there were no customers who weren’t particular in this way; though they might say any newspaper would do, since it was a monthly commitment, even readers must have been rather fussy about it.
There are also what we call *problem readers*—in other words, readers with payment issues—and these are what the collection lady finds most vexing.
Even these readers weren’t so brazen as to try reading the paper for free without paying—they were simply late with their payments. But having receipts remain unsettled indefinitely must have been irksome for the collection lady.
There were those who postponed payments to the following month, and in worse cases, even to the month after that.
According to the collection lady, they were “stingy and shameless,” but in truth, it was because they were struggling.
One might think it’s just the cost of a newspaper, but it’s not that simple.

There were households that didn’t subscribe to newspapers at all.
Households without newspapers were dreary places.
I once went to solicit at such a home and felt gut-punched.
The housewife holding a nursing infant saw my face and silently shook her head.
At first I didn’t grasp her expression, so I rattled off sales pitches until suddenly understanding.
Throughout my torrent of words, her face held no spite or stubbornness—only bewilderment and shame.
Her eyes had pleaded from the start: “We can’t afford it.”
Feeling like I’d barged into O-Iwa’s house while Iemon was away, I retreated hastily, yet found myself contemplative walking back.
This strengthened me more than gaining ten regular customers.
I couldn’t help seeing myself as spineless.
“Don’t despair.”
I told myself this.

The day after my senior taught me solicitation basics, he was transferred to a new branch of the same company in Arakawa as reserve staff.
Being someone who relied on others quickly, I felt forlorn when he first left.
When I attempted my first solo delivery after his guidance, I tripped before a hairdresser's house, crashed into the glass entrance door, and broke one pane.
I cut my finger.
The hairdresser's proprietress told her assistant to bandage my injury.
I kept bowing apologies in mortification, but my senior declared: “This bodes well.
That house took me two months to finally convert—now they’re fully committed subscribers.
They’d been rigid H Newspaper loyalists, but we’ve claimed them.
You must cultivate deeper ties with customers.
You might see this as failure, but that’s precisely what we call a fortunate mishap.”

The senior deftly arranged for a glazier to visit the hairdresser that same day. When I organized the receipts the following month, the glass cost had been deducted from her payment. It was settled that I would cover the expense—all surely orchestrated by the senior’s discretion. I found myself vaguely impressed; his words hadn’t deceived me after all. That hairdresser became my long-term customer thereafter. Whenever I delivered the evening paper, the proprietress would greet me with an amiable smile and nod. “You know,” she’d say while tending to a client’s hair, “when this one first started delivering, he tripped right outside our place—shattered the glass, cut himself up good.” Smoothing the customer’s strands, she added warmly, “Hey, newspaper guy—I’ll keep my subscription as long as you’re on the route.” Customers truly were a blessing. Their household included a fair-skinned boy with cherubic cheeks—a mischievous second-grader at Ryusenji Elementary known for his spot-on impersonation of Torazo’s *Mori no Ishimatsu*, leaving teachers and classmates wide-eyed. Whenever we crossed paths, he’d chant, “Hey, newspaper guy! Hey, newspaper guy!” No doubt fancying himself quite the tease.

At my shop, we divided the delivery area into eight sections.
From No. 1 to No. 8—in other words, eight deliverymen were assigned.
The eastern side of the tram street—where areas like the Yoshiwara Red-Light District were located—had a larger coverage, encompassing six town names: Senzoku-cho, Shin-Yoshiwara, Nihon-zutsumi, Ryusenji Town, Kanasugi-Shitamachi, and Minowa. The shop divided these into five delivery areas.
They were numbered from No. 1 to No. 5.

The western side of the tram street spanned six neighborhoods: Minowa, Kanasugi-Shitamachi, Ryusenji Town, Kanasugi-Kamimachi, Iriya-cho, and Senzoku-cho.
It was divided into three areas: No. 6, No. 7, and No. 8.
At the shop, deliverymen were sometimes called by their assigned area numbers rather than personal names.
Like saying “No. 1” or “No. 3.”
I was “No. 4.”
The No. 4 area consisted of parts of Ryusenji Town and Kanasugi-Shitamachi.
It was the most compact.
The area’s outline roughly formed a right triangle, with deliveries starting from the base edge and progressing block by block until reaching the apex.
I had strictly followed the method inherited from the senior who passed this route to me.
The delivery starting point lay where Chayamachi Street ended, precisely outside Ageyamachi’s emergency gate.
In triangular terms, this marked where hypotenuse met base.
The line forming a right angle with the base aligned with Yoshiwara Embankment, so reaching the apex meant concluding both deliveries and the so-called Dote Hatcho stretch.
Such was my territory.

The houses at the start of the delivery route nearly all subscribed to Y Newspaper.
The first was a bakery with a postbox out front that also sold postcards and stamps.
There stood an old man whose face always seemed locked in a scowl.
Next door was a geta shop.
This household occasionally took K Paper.
Though K Paper’s influence remained feeble and its readership sparse, their expansion crews would sometimes materialize like gusts of wind—pots and washbasins in arms—to ambush us with surprise tactics.
When we lifted the lid on the monthly collection box, we’d occasionally find prized customers whisked away, every last one defected to K Paper.
We often adopted the swagger of Shinsengumi warriors who’d struggled against Satsuma-Chōshū rifles at Toba-Fushimi.
“Pots and washbasins trump us every time.”
Yet even customers felt ashamed to subscribe to K Paper—the motive behind it glared too nakedly.
“A pot?”
When I pressed, “A washbasin?”, he flushed crimson and shot back, “Your lot ought to haul over a pot now and then yourselves.”
At this geta shop, I sometimes took geta sandals or zori in lieu of newspaper fees.
This proved handy when funds ran low, and apparently suited their business too.
Once we grew acquainted, such bartering became second nature.
Adjacent stood a candy store.
A household of two—a wizened granny and her pallid son.
The son worked somewhere despite what appeared to be a chest ailment, his complexion perpetually sallow.
They only took the evening edition.
Other homes subscribed solely to the morning paper, so pairing them made two households count as one full subscription.

Even when combinations didn’t work out conveniently, whichever half-used paper remained could still be utilized as so-called “discard paper.” By that time, paper restrictions were already in place, and service copies for subscriber recruitment were no longer being sent from headquarters. I would stop by this candy store on my way back from deliveries to draw prize lots with neighborhood children. One day, the old woman said: “Newspaper guy. Sorry to ask, but could you just deliver the evening edition?” “Thank you for that,” I replied. “We can deliver either just the evening or morning edition.” The next house was a scroll-mounting shop. This household kept their subscription regular, but I never grew close with either the old man or his wife. However, I became friendly with their son—a handsome lower-year middle schooler. Pretty boys generally tend to be willful and sharp-tongued, and this one was no exception. When I slipped my hand into my jumper pocket and teased, “Want some Tokiwa Theater tickets?”, he lunged at me with “Gimme! Gimme!” But upon realizing it was a lie, he snapped: “Liar! You’re a fraud, you old newspaper geezer! If you don’t bring tickets next time, I’ll cancel our subscription!” Next door stood a barbershop. What left the deepest impression here was an old man. His face still floats vividly before my eyes. Every time I saw him, I felt I was gazing at old-age loneliness incarnate. He had a daughter and grandchildren. Yet such family warmth existed in a world apart from him.

The look in his eyes told that this person had resigned himself completely.
An indescribable loneliness clung about him.
I had also seen him giving his grandchild rides on his back.
He must have passed away by now.

The next door was a tent shop.
The owner was fat—a large-framed man with a big head and face.
The mistress was tall with a slender face and a kind, good-natured appearance.
There were three or four children.
The household gave off an air of modest savings.

I became a deliveryman in the very month when newspaper subscription fees were raised from one yen to one yen and twenty sen.
Whether this increase hadn’t been properly implemented or not—as a novice—I couldn’t quite tell, but some customers did voice complaints.
The owner here too muttered grievances and stopped taking the paper the following January.
Yet after that I continued deliveries without pause.
They ranked among our more valued subscribers.
In the war’s final stages misfortune struck this household.
Their child—a Ryusenji Elementary student—was killed by a train while heading to school.
I believe it was a girl.
That day I heard the full account from Mr. Iida at the used bookstore along the tram street—it felt pitiless.
Misfortune could lurk anywhere unseen.
When reaching this tent shop on my route I’d backtrack to the first bakery’s corner before continuing along Yoshiwara’s outer edge.
The route ledger bore a ‘Re’ mark.
This signaled backtracking.
Neighboring houses were ‘To,’ one-over neighbors ‘Ichi-To,’ across-street ‘Sumu,’ alley entries ‘Ro-Iri’—such symbols we used.
Of course relying on the ledger lasted only until novices learned their routes; once proficient you could memorize any new district after one day’s delivery.
Delivering long enough bred peculiar instincts.
Something like a dog’s olfactory sharpness seemed to awaken.

Next to the bakery was a sushi restaurant called Azuma Sushi.
Azuma Sushi had the reputation of being the best in the vicinity.
However, it wasn’t one of my customers.
This shop frequently delivered to Yoshiwara and had an air of formality.
In other words, it must have been Class A.
A woman I knew had said the soba sushi there was good, but I had never gone to eat at that shop.
If I had been delivering newspapers there, I might have gone.
We often went to Ebisan Sushi—located in Area 1 of our shop district, along the tram street in a row with the bathhouse called Take no Yu.
This shop at the time offered four pieces for ten sen with large nigiri, making it the best option for people of our class.
There were no fancy offerings like soba sushi here.
I would often stop by Ebisan on my way back from the bathhouse, down a glass of that plum wine stuff until my face turned bright red, and then proceed to eat voraciously.
Since I was getting tipsy on plum wine and such, things were peaceful and uneventful.
In addition to these sushi restaurants, there was a high-volume, low-margin stall in the back alley called Seven Pieces for Ten Sen.
True, the nigiri were small and left someone like me unsatisfied.
The old man here also resided in Area 1, and every night he would go out to his stall.
He was friendly, always grinning and constantly chattering about something, but there was something forced about this old man’s affability—a lingering resentment I couldn’t quite internalize.
To me, Ebisan—who was rather blunt and Manchurian-like—felt more approachable.
After Azuma Sushi came Ro-Iri.
It was a small dead-end alley, with two single-story houses at the back.
The front house was subscribed to Y Newspaper.

I don’t remember what this household’s residents were called or what sort of people they were. They were likely office workers. My impression remains vague, but I recall them being good customers. I seem to remember they moved elsewhere around my third month of delivering. After that, I hardly ever stepped into that alley again. Even when delivering in one area long-term, there are always houses you never visit for solicitations—places where occupants never show their faces. Every delivery route strangely keeps a few such holdouts. Geography makes us pass them by unintentionally, or their unapproachable air keeps us at bay. Our hunches about sizing up these houses usually prove right. A household’s habit of keeping gates tightly shut showed in their exteriors, subtly affecting us lower-tier deliverymen’s instincts. Promising houses already seemed open-hearted just by appearance. My neglect of this alley stemmed mainly from geography—it marked my route’s starting point, the area’s threshold. In such spots, solicitation work never resonated with me. I couldn’t muster enthusiasm—it felt like trying to pick up a woman on a doorstep. The alley being a cramped dead end likely cooled my spirits too. Backing out to the street brought me to a barbershop on the corner. The old man there had a slightly intimidating look, with a lump under one ear. When I became a deliveryman, this house didn’t take Y Newspaper.

I once went to solicit them, but after receiving a curt response at that time, I learned my lesson and avoided the place for a long time. However, some time later, a colleague making rounds in Yoshiwara secured a subscription request, and from then on we began delivering there.
The old man might have also found it somewhat difficult to approach me about a subscription.
That household also had a boy attending Ryusenji Elementary School, and I became friends with him.
He was a naïve-seeming boy with gentle eyes like those of a small animal.
According to his classmates, he was skilled at the harmonica.
The next door was a tobacco shop.
There were beautiful sisters.
The older sister had an oval face and the younger one a round face, but both possessed refined features.
The older sister was the spitting image of the women depicted by the painter Ryo Tanaka.
In terms of beauty, the older sister was likely superior, but I preferred the younger sister’s cute face.
When I became a deliveryman, both were attending girls’ school, and the younger sister in particular was still quite young.
When I first went to solicit this household, my awkward yet overly earnest approach—so unpolished it bordered on comical—must have amused them. The older sister maintained her composure, but the younger one stifled laughter, leaving me breaking out in a cold sweat.
I once heard these sisters were both adopted and found it surprising, but even afterward I remained half-convinced, and now it feels even less reliable.
It may well be a completely baseless story.
The father was a sickly-looking man with a mustache who seemed to be employed somewhere.
The mother’s face bore some resemblance to the older sister’s.
After that, the older sister graduated from girls’ school and began working somewhere.
She retained her beauty but had grown somewhat thin, her limbs as delicate as mosquito legs—a touch too fragile.
It was suspected she had a lung disease.
Looking back now, that refined, sorrowful face of hers brings to mind the heroine of *Hototogisu*.

After being conscripted and quitting deliveries, I met the younger sister again after some time, but the illness had consumed this girl too. Her flower-like face had become distorted. It pained me to see. If her status as an adopted child were indeed true, I felt profoundly sorry. Next to this tobacco shop stood the neighborhood association's fire pump storage area. The pump waited silently with no attendant in sight. Since pumps don't read newspapers, this spot required no pause. Next door was a diner—the sort that served simple breakfasts for customers returning at dawn from night excursions. It took me half a year after becoming a deliveryman to secure this shop as a customer. When I solicited them, the proprietress said, "You mustn't plead like this." She added, "Doesn't it make you seem pitiful?" Though initially resistant, she finally relented with a yes. Outwardly tough yet tender within—Daikon was kindhearted indeed. There was a daughter whose Cupid-like face mirrored her mother's. Likely due to maternal upbringing, she retained an amateurish air with no trace of being steeped in the family trade. Next door stood a hat shop specializing in student cap production and sales. I once bought a ski cap there—a high-quality fabric piece. Though purchased for outings, I soon found it ideal for winter morning deliveries and thereafter used it exclusively for work.

This hat was simply something like an air-raid hood.
It was warm, and whenever I wore it for deliveries, my face would grow flushed with heat until I’d be drenched in sweat by route’s end.
Among the craftsmen at this shop was one with a bad leg.
He was middle-aged and had a timid air about him.
When I delivered evening papers, he would invariably pause his work and unfold the newspaper as if he’d been waiting all day.
If our eyes met while I passed carrying solicitation materials, he’d acknowledge me with a nod.
We shared an unspoken goodwill.
This shop too had a daughter of marriageable age who wed into a fruit shop in Iriya Town around the Pacific War’s outbreak.
I saw her transition from bride to mother.

When I delivered to this area, it meant I’d turned over the first page of the route ledger.
This was still just the beginning; the road ahead stretched boundlessly.
I decided to leave the route ledger as it was for now and change my mindset.
The N Newspaper deliveryman who patrolled this area as my business rival was a Korean student.
He attended the law department at Nihon University.
Having become familiar with the area six months before me, he proved a tough opponent.
Throughout his deliveries, I remained constantly outmatched.
There was a fierceness particular to Korean laughter, and his laughter especially pierced through the heavens like a clear channel. Whenever bathed in that laughter, I felt thoroughly overwhelmed and thought, *I’m no match for him.*
Tall and brisk in movement, his delivery style made for pleasant watching.
He also excelled at that newspaperman’s special skill.
He’d flip through papers with his fingers, producing sharp snapping sounds.
Then he’d fold a paper small, smack it against his knee, and lob it up to second-floor windows.
Truly masterful.
As for me—clumsy as I was—I never managed to learn this technique.
Back then I’d constantly repeat, “Snapping newspapers and drawing mahjong tiles—these aren’t things a gentleman does,” but this was pure sore-loser talk.
In solicitation skills too, I must have been his inferior.
Initially I’d worried whether I could handle solicitation work at all.
Walking into strangers’ homes to say “Good day—please take our paper” felt excruciatingly awkward.
Yet surprisingly, it proved easier than expected—within days I grew accustomed.
I still retain that stubborn streak of mine.

For example, when borrowing money.
At such times, memories of when I worked as a newspaper deliveryman would suddenly surface.
In my unremarkable career history, the occupation that sustained me longest was newspaper delivery.
When I finish my earthly duties and pass to the next world, if God asks me, "What did you do?" replying "I delivered newspapers" would be my most truthful answer.
If human demeanor is like a tail—each of us dragging our pasts behind—then I must surely be trailing the newspaper deliveryman's tail.

The other day, a senior colleague said,
“I can’t forget the first person who ever praised my work.”
Being able to sustain such tender feelings struck me as something truly special.
Even toward the first customer I solicited after becoming a newspaper deliveryman, I still carried that same peculiar fondness.
Not that we’d grown particularly close...
It was a sawshop on Yoshiwara Embankment—a family of four: husband, wife, son, daughter.
The husband had fair skin and gentle manners; his wife radiated kindness through her welcoming smiles.
Both children seemed good-natured, making the family seem flawless at first glance.
Father and son always stayed at the shop filing saw teeth.
The daughter attended girls’ school.
We’d exchange greetings whenever our paths crossed.
Strangers might find this surprising, but customers and deliverymen back then greeted each other like proper neighbors when meeting on the street.
In shitamachi districts, delivery work carried a certain prestige.
The sawshop boy hit his growth spurt during my rounds—I watched him shoot upward before my eyes.
He’d apparently been practicing judo at a dojo across the embankment.
I imagine he got drafted toward the war’s end, but after my own conscription I scarcely walked that route anymore—never learned what became of him.

When I became a deliveryman, the shop used materials like Tokiwa-za theater tickets, maps of the Shina Continent, along with calendars and actor caricatures for solicitation.
I had a tendency to rely on materials when soliciting.
I couldn’t help flaunting promotional gifts right before customers’ eyes.
It was probably because I myself was such a petty fellow.
One day, when I bowed what felt like a hundred times, someone said, “What a cheap head.”
That person hadn’t intended to humiliate me, but even so, I flushed crimson with shame.
They must have meant someone like me lacked noble spirit.
But deep in my heart, something kept muttering: There’s no such thing as a cheap head or a high-class head.
That person was a cabinetmaker but soon became independent and set up a new household within my delivery area too.
The wife was a petite, kind-looking person.
They became good customers of mine.