Pathway to Japanese Literature

In early March 1945, when B-29s attacked Tokyo’s Shitamachi district, I fled together with an old man.
I have called that old man Uncle for many years now.
At that moment, Uncle was unfortunately suffering a flare-up of his chronic neuralgia and limping, so I took him by the hand and fled.
Both of us fled with nothing but ourselves.
Uncle once called me his lifesaver, but there was no reason for him to thank me so much.

We were both working at a newspaper sales shop where the manager had been called to military service and his family evacuated, leaving us to guard their vacant house.
All staff had been conscripted for the war effort, so only Uncle and I remained staying at the shop, with deliveries being handled by elementary school students through labor service.
Though I stayed at the shop too, I was conscripted and commuting daily to a munitions factory.

I had moved into that shop in Ryusenji Town, Shitaya just before the Japan-China War began.
There among the young staff, I noticed an old man - Uncle - blending in with them.
Uncle’s primary duty was paper sorting.
Paper sorting meant dividing newspapers delivered from headquarters by region according to subscriber numbers.
We delivery workers would sling the papers Uncle had sorted onto our shoulders with shoulder straps and set out on our routes.

Even on winter mornings, Uncle would rise while it was still dark and keep at his post by the office desk near the street-facing window.
He waited for the transport truck from headquarters to complete its rounds and pull up in front of the shop.
Over his jumper he wore a grimy padded robe, his figure swollen like a plump sparrow yet carrying the imposing presence of a beggar king.
Sometimes he’d sit there with a headband tied around his brow, cheek propped on his hand at the desk, dipping in and out of sleep.

If Uncle happened to oversleep, a voice from the truck would call out,

“Ryusenji, Ryusenji.”

I could hear the call.
Uncle would let out a groggy “Oh,” bolt upright, then clack, clack his way down the ladder stairs in his rubber-soled sandals.
While listening to this in a dreamlike drowse, we delivery workers would once again greedily snatch more sleep.
In the middle of sorting papers, Uncle stuck his face out at the top of the ladder stairs,

“Hey.
“Everyone, the papers are here.”
“Get up.”
“Get up.”

Uncle called out.
But no one would actually get up from that.
Even so, the time when we would reluctantly get up one by one and head out for delivery was around when Uncle had finished sorting the papers and crawled back into his own bed.
And by the time we returned from our deliveries, Uncle, having taken a short nap and woken up, had already finished cleaning the shop.

I took up long-term residence at the shop and grew particularly close to Uncle.
Amidst the constant comings and goings of deliveries, we were old-timers to each other.
The difference in our ages was like that between parent and child.
By nature, I’m bad at getting along with others—stubborn to the core—and quickly end up in awkward situations, but with Uncle, that never happened.
We often quarreled over trivial matters, but such things never led to lingering resentment between us.
This was entirely thanks to Uncle’s tolerant nature.

Uncle was from Nanao in Noto who had fled his hometown around age thirty to come to Tokyo, and had been engaged in this profession ever since. He was born in Meiji 10 (1877), making him our senior by a wide margin. It was said he had once delivered papers to Kikuchi Kan during the writer’s obscure years, when Kikuchi lived in some back-alley shop in Koishikawa. Uncle had long devoted himself to this trade. In secret, I had even drafted an epitaph for him—

“Here lies the tomb of Deliveryman Reijirou.”
“A mark of a blameless life; shoulder straps and tabi work shoes are carved.”

Reijirou was Uncle’s name.
I believe there had once been a Prime Minister who shared Uncle’s name, Reijirou.
But given how hale and hearty Uncle remained even then, this was hardly to say I had begun concerning myself with matters beyond his death.

What Uncle had been doing when he was in his hometown—I never got around to asking about that. He wasn’t one to talk much about his past, but he once mentioned a woman who had been his wife, saying, “Because something improper happened.” Though I don’t fully understand, it seems that such a thing was what made him flee his hometown.

Even when we started talking about women, he would almost never join in. Walking down the street with Uncle, I remarked on a passing woman,

“Not bad, huh?”

When I said that, Uncle turned his face away and spat with a bitter look.

“Uncle’s quite the handsome man—you must’ve been quite the ladies’ man back in the day.”

When we joked,

“Oh yeah, I was popular back then.”

He laughed without malice.

Even so, it had already been thirty years since Uncle had left his hometown.

Uncle was hale and hearty.
He hardly ever fell ill and took to his bed.
Even so, by the war’s end, neuralgia had set in, making walking difficult, and to outward appearances he had visibly withered—though this was likely due in part to advancing age but mainly to the malnutrition of those times.
His constitution remained robust, and by no means did he lag behind younger men.
Moreover, Uncle had not a trace of the bitterness typical of old people in his circumstances.
He never flattered others or tried to ingratiate himself with his superiors.
He faced everyone one-on-one.
Because of this he was stubborn and unyielding—but this very spirit showed in his appearance and bearing, carrying an air of carefree detachment from worldly concerns.

When I went to the public bath with Ojisan one winter day—there in the bathtub, he began lecturing with an air of gravitas about something utterly obvious: that since our bodies were cold at first, we should enter the lukewarm water before moving to the hot. As he spoke, a middle-aged man soaking in the bath alongside us gazed at Ojisan with a deeply moved expression,

“You, sir—who toil in secret for the sake of society—are you not a man like Mr. ○○?”

“You, sir—who toil in secret for the sake of society—are you not a man like Mr. ○○?” he said.
Mr. ○○ was likely a teacher of something like Shingaku moral philosophy or Dōgaku ethics, but at that moment, Ojisan sat there with a face as composed as if he were that very Mr. ○○.
That man too had a slightly peculiar look about him, but even so, Ojisan truly possessed the character worthy of being held in such high esteem.
In the bath where everyone was naked—since even Ojisan wasn’t wearing his newspaper shop’s logo-emblazoned jumper—his inherent worth must have shone through plainly.

Ojisan’s head was already quite bald, but even so, his temples and the back of his head still retained some hair. His nose was high and prominent, and he must have been quite a handsome man in his youth. His back was straight, and one could see Ojisan’s mettle.

Once, I saw Ojisan get into a grappling scuffle with a shop colleague.
They had been playing shogi, but unexpectedly, it turned into a physical altercation.
The opponent was a hot-tempered, rough man among the shop staff, but Ojisan did not yield and retaliated.
They were quickly restrained, but the windowpane shattered, and blood streamed from Ojisan’s forehead and lips.
As I watched, I found myself thinking, “He’s so full of life.”

After returning from delivering the morning edition and eating breakfast, we delivery workers would take another nap, but Ojisan—once he finished his breakfast—would change into what seemed like a threadbare kimono, put on a similarly discolored fedora, hang a small bag from his wrist, and head off toward Nihonbashi’s Kakiragarachō.
Kakiragarachō was a place where stockbrokers were located.
Except on Sundays, holidays when the stockbrokers were closed, or rainy days, he went out without missing a single day.
Ojisan was not exactly working as a clerk at a stockbroker’s.
Whether this should be called a pastime for Ojisan, or perhaps a business venture, or even an illness—regardless, it was something he pursued with fervor.
If it was an illness, it already felt like it had reached a point beyond cure.
I don’t know the details, but Ojisan would go to his destination and, under the pretext of that day’s stock fluctuations, engage in forbidden gambling with like-minded individuals.

Uncle carried a worn notebook filled with various notes and graph paper—also quite frayed—with charts drawn in colored pencils. This was, so to speak, Uncle’s tools of the trade, and the contents of the bag he carried hung from his wrist were precisely these. Uncle would occasionally rely on reading glasses or a magnifying glass, lick his pencil, put on a troubled expression, and peer into his notebooks and graph paper.

“How’s it been lately?”
“Making any money?”

When I asked,

“Not making a single yen at all.”

He said with a pained laugh.
I wasn’t particularly fond of gambling myself, but even so, I could understand why Ojisan couldn’t stop.

Uncle’s figure—changing into his kimono, dampening his scant remaining hair to smooth it down with a comb, meticulously donning his hat before heading out—appeared brisk and eager, as if he were a respectable salaried worker. When I returned from my delivery route and collided with Uncle just as he was about to leave, I said, "Off to work?" Without so much as a grunt, he put on an exaggeratedly serious face and slipped into his sandals to head out. On the way there, Uncle went on foot. In the fresh morning air, he would go from Ryusenji Town to Senzoku Town and pass through the precincts of Asakusa Kannon. This was something like Uncle’s daily constitutional walk.

“It’s good exercise.
“It’s good for the body.”

Uncle said.
The reason Uncle remained so hale was due in part to this daily, regimented exercise.
On the return trip, Ojisan would take the train back.
At that time, there happened to be a streetcar running from Minowa to Suitengū, so it was convenient.
By around noon, when the bento shop “Hamano-ya” in Minami-Senju would deliver our lunch, Ojisan had already returned to the shop.
We who had slept soundly after delivering the morning edition would also begin to stir around that time.

One day, Ojisan had not returned for quite some time.

“Oh, Uncle still hasn’t come back?”

Then suddenly, someone remarked, and for the first time, everyone realized how late Uncle was in returning.
Even so, they had thought he would return by the evening edition, but even as the clock hands advanced, Ojisan still did not return.
Wondering what had happened, we too began to grow suspicious and worried.
This was the first time something like this had happened, and Ojisan was never one to be careless under normal circumstances.

“Surely Ojisan hasn’t absconded, has he?”

And we joked.
Among us newspaper shop workers, we called leaving without permission *shoppan*, and referred to such a person as “Pan-kichi.”
It was a self-deprecating term typical of newspaper workers.
When someone *shoppaned*, they inevitably acted somewhat disloyally toward the shop, so that lingering guilt naturally manifested in the term’s very sound.
By then, among the transient delivery workers, there were hardly any who didn’t have a prior record of *shoppan*.
So even if someone had gone out to the pleasure quarters the night before and ended up returning late for the morning edition’s delivery, we would immediately suspect them.
However, Ojisan had no reason to *shoppan* against this shop.
Just to be safe, I peeked into the closet where Ojisan’s luggage was stored, but there was no need to check—it hadn’t been taken out.
There was no doubt that an accident had occurred either at Ojisan’s workplace or on his way back.

“Could he have been hit by a car or something?”

I worried about such a foolish thing.
In the end, before Ojisan returned, the evening edition truck arrived first.
Even after we returned from our deliveries, Ojisan still hadn’t come back.
We finally settled on one conclusion.
Ojisan’s forbidden gambling at his workplace must have backfired, landing him in trouble with the authorities—there was no doubt about it.
Even so, we couldn’t shake the feeling that Ojisan would pop back in at any moment wearing that awkward look of his.
That night, we waited in vain for Ojisan to return.

The next day, the shop manager went to Ojisan’s workplace, but upon returning soon after, reported that Ojisan was indeed in the custody of that police station.
That day, more than ten people had been rounded up in one fell swoop, it was said.
Even so, Uncle was detained for about two weeks.
From the police’s perspective, they must have been teaching him a lesson.
During Ojisan’s absence, I took over the paper sorting.

“Uncle… I wonder what he’s up to right now.”

We often talked about Uncle while arranging the morning and evening editions on the shop’s wooden floor.
Among those of us who slept under the same roof and ate from the same pot, there existed a sense of closeness in every heart.

On the day Ojisan was released，I went to meet him.
Ojisan was in good spirits；he hadn’t become particularly emaciated or dirty.
After leaving the police station，we stopped by a soba shop near Suitengu.

“The soba here’s good.”
“I always eat here.”

Ojisan said.
Ojisan, having lost face, said something faint-hearted about not being able to return to the shop anymore.

“I caused trouble for everyone.”

“You don’t need to worry about a thing.”
“It was just bad luck, wasn’t it?”
“The paper sorting just can’t be done without you, Uncle.”

During the morning edition paper sorting, I once made a major mistake and was complained at by my colleagues.

“Was the supervisor handling it?”

“No, I was the one doing it.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Ojisan resisted returning together, telling me, “Go back first—I’ll come in the evening; broad daylight’s too awkward,” but I grew anxious he might succumb to weakness and never return to the shop at all, so I hurriedly tried to bring him back with me.
Ojisan said he wanted to tidy up a bit and stopped at a barber.
I went in with him and waited restlessly while he had his beard shaved.
Somehow I felt like Ojisan’s bill collector.
The shop was modestly shabby yet quaintly old-fashioned, and my shoulders stayed loose.
I caught myself gazing absently at the poster of a full-figured Chinese beauty plastered on the wall.

While waiting for the tram at Suitengu’s trolley stop, Ojisan suddenly—

“I’ll just go over there for a moment.”

Having said this without giving me any chance to speak, he briskly entered Suitengu Shrine’s grounds right before my eyes.
Even so, I couldn’t very well chase after him.
Moreover, I didn’t think Ojisan would leave me behind like this.
I stood there waiting for him to return.
By the time four or five trams had passed by, Ojisan came back.
When I saw his face, I understood—Uncle had gone to check on it.
The gambling bug in his belly had already begun stirring vigorously; there was no doubt he’d been growing impatient since earlier.

Even after returning to the shop, Ojisan remained meek for two or three days. Leaning his back against the shop’s wooden lattice panel, Ojisan stifled a yawn—his demeanor carried the pitiable air of a kappa stranded on land.

“Uncle, your patience has lasted quite a while.”

When I said that, Ojisan gave a wry smile and shot me a look that seemed to say, “That’s a mean thing to say.” Even as he endured, his thoughts seemed to wander far off toward the skies of Suitengu. Before long, once again, Ojisan’s attendance at work began without anyone noticing when. Ojisan’s daily life had completely returned to its old ways. From the shop’s perspective, as long as the police did not detain Ojisan, there were no particular inconveniences. And for a while after that, things remained uneventful, but when the tide of the war had finally turned against Japan, one day Ojisan again did not return home. This time, I went to the police to check on his situation. When I went to the detective’s office, reported Uncle’s name, and inquired about his situation, the detective put on a blank face and—

“I don’t know.”
“He might be here.”
“Or he might not.”

he said.
As I stood perplexed,

“But he’s an old man.”

When I pressed him further, the detective looked at me with an expression that seemed to say, “What a slow-witted man you are,” and—

“So I’m telling you—he might be here, he might not be here.”

he said with a suggestive chuckle.
I finally understood that Ojisan had once again taken shelter there without incident.
This time, Ojisan was detained for twenty-nine days.
No one went to meet him this time either, but on his release day, Ojisan wandered back to the shop alone.
Once the commotion died down, his regular attendance at work resumed as before.

At the shop, Ojisan’s duties beyond paper sorting consisted of two daily tasks: entering into the ledger the names and addresses of subscribers we deliverymen had recruited in our assigned areas, and filling out a statistical chart on the shop wall with our recruitment numbers.
Ojisan carried this out meticulously every day.
On days when our recruitment results were good, even Ojisan seemed energized.
When we returned from recruitment work and placed subscription cards before him—pulling them from our jacket pockets like bundles of banknotes as he sat entrenched at the office desk—Ojisan would beam cheerfully and...

“Good work. Thank you,” he would say energetically, as was his custom.

And then, whether because we slacked off on our recruitment work or even if we put in effort, couldn’t secure a single new client,

“Ojisan, no cards today.”

When I said that, Ojisan visibly made a dejected face,

“I see,” he said in a lifeless voice, speaking politely.
At other times, when we returned dejected after a day of futile solicitation, Ojisan would himself—

“Hey, got an application here.”

Having said that, he would sometimes provide us with a card.
That was from a regular customer who had come all the way to the shop to subscribe.
At our shop, even subscriptions became part of that area’s delivery income, and just like those we had solicited ourselves, we were able to obtain our card fees.

Ojisan’s work otherwise consisted of creating new subscription ledgers each month by area and preparing receipts in quantities matching the number of areas.
Ojisan utilized newspaper insert advertisements to create the subscription ledgers.
From the advertising flyers brought in by various shops and eateries, he would set aside a portion of each to use as material for the monthly subscription ledgers.
This was something every shop did.
Advertising flyers were generally uniform in size.
From these, he would select sheets with blank reverse sides unprinted by advertisements, fold them in half with the white side out, then gather thirty or forty folded sheets and bind them together to complete one subscription ledger.
Ojisan was dexterous and particularly skilled at tasks like Kanze-twist binding.
Into the ledgers Ojisan had securely bound using Kanze-twist, we deliverymen would write our respective area’s client names.
By month’s end, Ojisan’s handmade subscription ledgers for the following month would already be fully completed and hung in area-number order on nail heads driven into the shop’s lattice-paneled wall.
When the month changed and client numbers stabilized, we would set that month’s quota and enter it into the ledger; but if we grew lazy and left it undone, Ojisan would write on the shop’s blackboard, for example:

“Area 4, Area 7.”
“Please enter into the subscription ledger.”

he would write in large letters like this.
Our shop’s delivery area was divided into eight sections, numbered from 1 to 8, which meant only two people had failed to make their entries.
If Area 7, upon seeing this notice on the blackboard, were to make their entry, the text on the blackboard would change as follows.

“Area 4.”
“Urgently, the subscription ledger must be entered.”

The truth was, since "Area 4" referred to the district I delivered to, the one still letting Ojisan take care of the ledger entries instead of doing them myself was none other than me—but being a lazy man, I’d make this kind of request to Ojisan.

“Hey, Uncle. Sorry, but could you write it for me?”

Though well into adulthood, I said this in a wheedling voice.
Ojisan looked at my face and made a thoroughly pained expression.

“Hopeless, you are. Do it yourself. Do it yourself.”

True to form as a spoiled brat, I shrewdly detected that even within Ojisan’s look of utter exasperation still lingered some residual goodwill toward me, and I pounced on it without hesitation.

“Don’t say that and just write it for me. Please.”

“Why don’t you write it yourself?”

“But it’s such a hassle.”

Ojisan clicked his tongue in annoyance, but he was already more than halfway inclined to grant my request.

“Fine then.
“I won’t show it.”
“I won’t show it.”

Ojisan said.
He meant that following suit, he wouldn't show me the original used for entering the ledger on my behalf.
I spread out last month's subscription ledger before Ojisan as if declaring I'd been waiting for this.
Within it were written the names of new subscribers who'd begun that month, while ink lines crossed through those who'd canceled by last month.

“So I just need to copy it exactly like this, right?”

After confirming this, Ojisan would solemnly take up the pen and enter the details on my behalf.
As for me, having pushed such troublesome work onto the old man, I would go out to Asakusa Park during that time and spend it watching discounted movies.
By the time I returned from Asakusa, the shop’s interior was dark, the lights out and silent.
In the darkness, I removed the Area 4 subscription ledger from the nail and peered inside.
Even in the darkness, I could tell that something was written in black on white.
Even so, I couldn’t help feeling somewhat sorry.
I returned the subscription ledger to its place and went up to the second floor.
In the space where the sliding door between the six-tatami and four-and-a-half-tatami rooms had been removed, burly men lay sleeping in whichever direction they pleased.
Some hadn’t returned yet.
Ojisan’s bed was located closest to the top of the ladder stairs.
Ojisan was already fast asleep.
I entered my own bed next to Ojisan’s, nibbled on the salted beans I had bought, and read the detective novel I had borrowed from an acquaintance’s bookstore.
After reading five or six pages, I would grow drowsy and then fall asleep.

I also often had Ojisan write out receipts for me.
To be fair, this wasn’t limited to me—there were other lazybones and shirkers who had him do it for them as well.
One reason was that Ojisan voluntarily took on writing the receipts himself.
Unlike the subscription ledgers, receipts required entering subscribers’ names first before binding them; thus, unless the entries were completed, the receipts could never be compiled.
And if the receipts weren’t compiled, the collections would naturally be delayed.
Ojisan made covers from the paper the head office used to wrap and send the evening edition and bound the receipts into them.

Ojisan must have had a general fondness for competitive pursuits.
He was particularly skilled at games like Go and Shogi.
At the shop, there was no one who could match Ojisan’s prowess.
Near the Toden tram stop in Ryusenji-cho stood a milk hall where the proprietor’s love of shogi had led him to set up several boards, drawing local idlers who gathered to battle over matches.
Ojisan too had frequented the place for a time.
Yet this habit proved equally short-lived.

Ojisan usually went to bed early at night.
We had all developed the habit of staying up late, but Ojisan alone—partly due to having to rise early in the morning—would promptly go to bed by around eight o'clock.
Ojisan didn't smoke at all and drank only a little alcohol—and even that was only on occasions when he drank together with the shop's staff. He never went out to bars on his own and came home tipsy.
Even so, Ojisan's alcohol was good stuff—when he drank it, he'd immediately cheer up and, just like a drunken loach, go limp and fall asleep.
He never went out to Asakusa to watch movies or listen to naniwa-bushi performances.
"When I was at the A Newspaper shop in Kuramae long ago," Ojisan said, "there was a permanent naniwa-bushi hut nearby. They'd often bring insert advertisements from there, so we'd get free tickets pretty regularly. Back then, I went to listen to naniwa-bushi almost every night."
Needless to say, Ojisan was no longer at an age where he would engage in womanizing.
If one were to speak of Ojisan's pleasures, they would no doubt have been his regular visits to Kakiragarachō.

One day, a middle-aged man of respectable appearance came to the shop looking for Ojisan.
Ojisan changed into a kimono and left together with that person.

Someone coming to visit Ojisan was both the first and last time that ever occurred.
We didn’t probe into who that person was or why they’d come to see Ojisan, nor did Ojisan speak of anything after returning, but we knew only that they were from Ojisan’s hometown.
Some time after that incident—about two years later, when the war had intensified and most shop members had been conscripted, leaving the place desolate—Ojisan suddenly took out a photograph from the large clasp purse he always kept tucked in his waistband and showed it to me.
It was a picture of a young woman around thirty years old.

“She’s my daughter.”

Ojisan said.
And Ojisan spoke.
When that man had come by earlier, he had met his daughter.
When Ojisan fled his hometown, his daughter had still been in her mother’s womb.
Though now married, she had come to meet this father from thirty years past—a father she had never seen.
Considering this, it seemed that throughout her upbringing, his daughter could seek no father other than the one who had abandoned her before her birth.
Had the man from his hometown—once acquainted with Ojisan—come along on a Tokyo sightseeing trip, or had he accompanied her specifically to facilitate this meeting?
There must have been some incidental reason.
Even so, for both Ojisan and his daughter, it had been a parent-child reunion after thirty years.

“I went to Yasukuni Shrine,” Ojisan said.

“I gave you twenty yen.”
“Can’t bring myself to be stingy.”
“Really splurged there.”

Ojisan said.

The photo was likely the one his daughter had given Ojisan at that time.

As the war intensified, as previously mentioned, the shop staff were being drafted into the war one after another, and I too was conscripted into a munitions factory. Even so, since my conscription location was in nearby Mikawashima, I was able to stay at the shop and commute. Around that time, the newspaper distribution had also changed from a monopoly to a joint system, and deliveries were being handled by nearby elementary school students taking turns. Among them were also sons of my regular customers. Ojisan continued sorting papers as always and looked after the troublesome boy delivery workers. One day, when I returned from the factory, Ojisan said to me with a grin.

“Something good will happen soon.”

“Something good? For me?”
“Yeah.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Can’t you think of anything?”
“What on earth could I possibly think of?”
“It’s a happy occasion.”
“Huh?”

I just couldn't make sense of it.
To me, looking perplexed, Ojisan explained the reason.
That day, a credit investigator had come and apparently questioned Ojisan extensively about me.

"There's no need to worry."
"It's a happy occasion."

the credit investigator had said.
If a credit investigator's inquiry about a happy occasion meant anything, it must have been a marriage proposal.
Yet I couldn't think of anything at all.
Who in the world would investigate my background over such a matter?
If true, it would be like rain falling from a clear sky.
Still, the fact remained—a credit investigator had indeed come.

Ojisan looked at me with an overly serious face,

“Here’s what I think,” he said. “Isn’t there a girl in the area you used to deliver to?”

“There are several girls like that.”

“No—just one would do.”
“That girl’s taken a liking to you.”

According to Ojisan’s account, it went like this: In a household within the area I used to deliver to, their only daughter had grown despondent for no apparent reason—her appetite waned, and she barely slept at night. Her body grew thinner by the day. The parents, worried, took her to a doctor, but he found nothing wrong anywhere. “This is outside my area of expertise,” he said. There, when the mother quietly pressed her daughter, what her daughter said was: “The truth is, I’ve actually had feelings for that Mr. Deliveryman for some time…” I burst out laughing. It was like a story straight out of rakugo, where a back-alley retiree teases Yotaro.

“You shouldn’t joke like that. Ojisan, you’re such a tease.”

“This isn’t a joke. There’s no other way to think about it, is there? If their daughter fell ill, as parents they couldn’t just abandon her, so they ended up asking a credit investigator to look into your background.”

When he said that, I began to feel that maybe it could be true, and I tried to recall the faces of the girls from the area I used to deliver to. The daughter of the corner tobacco shop, perhaps? Or perhaps the tofu shop in the back alley? There was a house with a large gate and a storehouse under the embankment—was there a daughter of marriageable age there? ……As if to prove my own foolishness, I began to feel as though I’d somehow turned into a male Cinderella.

“How about it? Isn’t this something you’ve vaguely considered yourself?”

It wasn’t that I was made of wood or stone either—there had indeed been one or two girls I’d privately felt some affection toward—but those were my own secret thoughts, and the girls themselves knew nothing of it. As I tilted my head with a look of half-belief, Ojisan too assumed a pensive expression before speaking again.

“No—this mightn’t be about a girl at all. Could’ve started from the parents’ side.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“It’s adoption.”
“They want to adopt you.”
“Either way, it’s not a bad proposition.”
“You’ve been chosen, after all.”

“Is there really someone who’d take a liking to a newspaper deliveryman?”

“That’s exactly what it means to be taken a liking to, isn’t it?”

“But adoption… doesn’t sound too promising.”
“Haven’t they always said ‘three scoops of rice bran’ since olden times?”
“They’re really lowballing my worth here.”

“Don’t spout nonsense.”
“Since antiquity, great men have come from those who were adopted.”
“Look at those whose names fill ethics textbooks—many were adopted sons.”
“Ōishi Kuranosuke, Inō Tadataka—all adopted.”
“When people adopt, they adopt great men to bring prosperity to their houses.”
“Half-measure men aren’t fit to be adopted.”
“Only failures who couldn’t get adopted would badmouth it.”

“You’re really going to bat for adopted sons like that? You’re not an adopted son yourself, are you, Uncle?”

“I’m the type who couldn’t become an adopted son.”

“But Uncle, while household prosperity is all well and good, if the adoptive family turns out to be a tofu shop, that’d be hellish.”
“A tofu shop’s early mornings make newspaper shops look lazy!”
“And you can’t keep your hands in your pockets just because it’s winter.”
“Even in Takada Town in Echigo, don’t they say tofu shops are the only ones working bare-handed?”
“I’ve got weak skin from birth—when winter comes and I dunk my palms in water, they crack something awful.”

“You really aren’t cut out to be a great man, are you?”

“By the way, Uncle—what did you tell the investigator?”

“You don’t need to worry.”
“There’s the usual rapport there, so I didn’t say anything bad about you.”
“I phrased it well.”
“I kept it hidden that you have a connection to Matsubaya.”

That night, even after crawling into bed, I felt restless and couldn't fall asleep for hours. The idea of a daughter taking a liking to me resonated more deeply than any parental approval ever could. Why do I keep living like this—stuck in this rut—yet still shamelessly clinging to life? These thoughts I rarely entertained during daylight hours now flooded my mind. I must be waiting for something. But if so, what exactly? When it struck me that this "something" might be hearing one honest word—her true feelings—from some shy girl out there, my chest tightened painfully. Where could she be? This girl afflicted with such unfashionable lovesickness in these modern times—

However, this story ended there and then. After that, there was no word at all. In other words, it must have ended in a broken engagement. Cinderella was a virtuous girl. That is why the miracle came to pass. I am a man who, if tapped, would release endless dust. Even if Ojisan had managed to smooth things over, the information that had come from elsewhere must have been unfavorable. At first, I felt as though I’d lost three hundred mon coins, but as days passed, only a lingering sweetness remained in my heart. The image of a young lady—whose whereabouts I did not know, whose name I did not know, whose face I did not know—would often suddenly cross my mind. A story altogether elusive, unreliable—one that may well have been pure delusion. Yet it lingered in my heart with a faintness too subtle to even be called faint, momentarily putting me in a dreamlike state. Even now, I still sometimes find myself thinking such foolish things. Having been persuaded by her parents, the young lady changed her mind, married into another household—even had children—and now, having built a happy family, has long forgotten the past. Yet even so, while washing her child’s diapers, she might occasionally recall that deliveryman—wondering how he was doing now.

As the food situation worsened, Ojisan and I found ourselves constantly starving.
When the two of us got together, we talked about nothing but food.
Since both of us were big eaters with crude appetites.
Needless to say, since the rationed amount alone wasn’t enough, we would somehow seek out connections to obtain food and make up for the shortfall.
One time, when some meal coupons came into my possession, I took them to a rice shop to exchange for rice. However, due to some misunderstanding on the rice shop owner’s part, he handed me an amount of rice equivalent to about a month’s worth of those meal coupons.
Even as I watched him measuring out the rice from right beside him and realized the mistake, I thought *Got it!* and accepted the rice with an innocent face before returning home.
I stored that rice away in the closet, and every day when I returned from the company where I was conscripted, I would take out a little at a time, cook it, and eat it.
I ate my three meals at the factory cafeteria.
I worried a great deal that someone—though when I say someone, there was no one but Uncle—might take out and eat the rice in the closet while I was away at work, meaning Uncle would sneak it out.
After all, this rice seemed like a gift from heaven—I thought about giving half to Ojisan, but it was too precious, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
One day, when I had business at a factory subcontractor and left the factory, I stopped by the shop on my way back. There, Ojisan—who had been sitting at the desk in the shop’s office—caught sight of me appearing at an unexpected hour and, flustered, retreated to the back.
Finding it strange, I followed after Ojisan, and he climbed up the ladder stairs leading from the kitchen to the second floor.
The gas stove in the kitchen caught my eye, but on it were traces of something having been placed there until just moments before.
I thought *Aha!* and followed Ojisan upstairs. There, he seemed to have hurriedly stuffed something into his own half-mat closet and closed the door, wearing a pale, guilty look.

“Hey, you’re back awfully early today, aren’t you?”

he said.
I said I had to return to the company immediately, and we chatted idly for a moment. But when Ojisan went downstairs, I peeked into the closet and found a small pot of freshly cooked rice perched atop the futon.
It grated on me, and I thought about devouring it all right then, but even I couldn’t bring myself to do that.

On the night of an air raid, Ojisan and I fled to the underpass of the Shosen railway in Mikawashima, where we spent the night with a crowd of evacuees.
After daybreak, we visited a fellow newspaper shop in Mino.
Eventually, Ojisan ended up settling at that shop, and I slipped into house-sitting a friend’s home in suburban Mitaka Town after they had evacuated.
I commuted from Mitaka to the factory in Mikawashima, but then the air raids became frequent, and I could no longer make the trip punctually.

Uncle came to take charge of a district at the Mino shop and deliver newspapers there.
Even when his neuralgia flared up, he would drag his leg and continue making deliveries.
I would sometimes stay over at Uncle’s place.
Once, accompanying Ojisan to obtain beer coupons, I joined the line in front of a national tavern.
Ojisan wasn’t drinking beer; he would get in line like that to obtain beer coupons and sell them for cash.
In such queues, there were drinkers who weren’t satisfied with just a single glass of draft beer—they would plead with those who didn’t drink to line up for them, trying to obtain extra coupons.
While I was standing in line, the man came close and whispered in my ear.

“When you get the coupons, pass them to me.”
“I’ve already settled things with your father.”

Having said that, the man jerked his chin toward Ojisan, who was standing about three people ahead of me in line.
He seemed to think I was Ojisan’s son.
When the transaction was completed, Ojisan told me to go back to the shop first and wait, as he would line up again.
While waiting at the shop, Ojisan soon returned and gave me my share from earlier.

After the war ended, I lived for a while on the severance pay I received when quitting the factory.
Before long, that too ran out.
My friends had returned from their evacuation sites, and with no more need for house-sitting, I suddenly made up my mind and went to the coal mines in Hokkaido.
I left for Hokkaido without even bidding farewell to Ojisan.
Before that, I had done something like deceiving him, which made me avoid seeing him altogether.
I took two bottles of beer Ojisan had kept, saying I’d exchange them for money, then pocketed the cash without a word.
I spent two years at the coal mine, where I became convinced Ojisan must have died by then.
Before going to Hokkaido, I’d seen how Ojisan had completely declined—lacking energy, appearing to have little time left—and how even the shop owner viewed him as a burden.

I returned to Tokyo again.

One day, when I went to the shop in Mino, the owner said Ojisan had left the shop long ago—over a year prior—and that his whereabouts were now unknown.
I thought Ojisan must have died by now.
I thought he might have died a vagrant's death.

One day, when I went to Komagome on an errand and entered a meal coupon cafeteria, Ojisan was there.
Against all expectations, we had managed to meet.
I thought it must have been divine guidance.
Ojisan looked well.
I supposed my constant imagining of dire scenarios stemmed from my own lingering guilt.
Ojisan said he was staying at a carpenter’s house nearby.
When I asked further, I learned he still went out to Kakiragarachō every noon as he always had.
He seemed to scrape by through trading meal coupons and collecting cigarette stubs.
The cafeteria’s patrons were mostly day laborers—this was Ojisan’s marketplace.
Even as we spoke, several men came to obtain coupons and tobacco from him.

After that, I went to see Ojisan from time to time.
If I went to that cafeteria at dinnertime, I could meet Ojisan.
When I was a bit early, I would visit Ojisan’s lodging, and we would go together to the cafeteria.
The Mr. Carpenter who was letting Ojisan live with him was himself living in someone else’s house—meaning Ojisan shared the six-tatami room Mr. Carpenter rented.
Because Mr. Carpenter had a wife and children, he too often kept Ojisan around.
It was said Ojisan paid Mr. Carpenter a hundred yen a month for room and board.

Ojisan would wake around five in the morning, leave the house while Mr. Carpenter’s family was still asleep, and go straight to the cafeteria.
And he would eat breakfast, conduct business on the side, and then take the national railway to Kakiragachō.
There, he would engage in his usual activities and procure meal coupons for his business from a certain contact.
Ojisan, even while walking down the street, would constantly keep an eye out for discarded cigarette butts and collect them into the zudabukuro pouch he carried.
He made quite a haul in a single day.
He returned home around three o’clock and, using the collected cigarette butts as material, hand-rolled cigarettes.
And he would pack the finished products into an empty box he had also picked up on the street and head out to the cafeteria when dinnertime arrived.
If he stayed from around five o’clock until past seven, his business would do quite well.
Ojisan earned ten yen per box of cigarettes and two yen per meal coupon.
There were those who bought a whole box of cigarettes, those who asked for three, and those who took just a single one.
I saw another elderly man, slightly younger than Ojisan, saying, “Could I get a single cigarette for two meal coupons?”
After finishing his post-meal smoke, the man bid Ojisan farewell with “I’ll be on my way,” and left.
Ojisan’s way of life might even have to be called part of the black market, but to me, there seemed to be no room for criticism.
On Sundays, since Kakiragachō was closed, Ojisan would make his way to Ueno Hill and watch amateur baseball to pass the time.
At Mr. Carpenter’s house, he seemed to make an effort to do nothing but sleep.

Once, I even asked such an Ojisan for a loan.
Though I had a weakness that made even Ojisan’s displeased refusal inevitable, he accepted my request.
Ojisan appeared as though he had forgotten that I had once deceived him.
I let out a sigh of relief and felt considerably more at ease.
Because I realized Ojisan was forgiving me.

The customers at the cafeteria Ojisan frequented were mostly regulars, and everyone would stop by there morning and evening to see each other.
They were all people with simple livelihoods.
After finishing their day’s work, they would gather there, eat meals, enjoy a pleasant time conversing, and then each return to their lodgings.
They were people who could find a day’s repose and liberation in a single bowl of rice and a single bowl of soup.
That Ojisan had found his path in life among such people seemed to me perfectly suited to his character.
Among those who gathered there, Ojisan seemed to be the oldest.

One day, when I went to the cafeteria, Ojisan was nowhere to be seen. When I asked the cafeteria owner whether Ojisan had already gone home or hadn’t arrived yet, she told me that Ojisan had been admitted to a hospital further up the road yesterday. “It’s intestinal catarrh—or maybe even dysentery,” the owner said. When I asked how he was doing, she replied, “Well, he is elderly after all…” I asked the owner where the hospital was located and immediately went there. In Ojisan’s hospital room, there were four beds, all occupied, but aside from Ojisan, the others were all two- or three-year-old children, each accompanied by someone who appeared to be their mother. Ojisan’s illness was intestinal catarrh, but the doctor said that given his age and the risk of complications, it would be better to have his relatives come. “He has no relatives,” I said. Ojisan was quite weakened, but I felt that he would be all right. “The nurses are taking care of everything from top to bottom—even looking after my personal needs,” Ojisan said pitifully. When I went about ten days later, Ojisan had already regained considerable strength.

“Yesterday, the nurse gave me a bath.”
“I feel so refreshed,” Ojisan said cheerfully.
“What a miserable state I’m in.”
“I can’t stand on my legs.”

“That’s because your body has no strength,” I said. “Once you can eat properly, your strength will return—then you’ll be able to walk again.”

“The nurses carry me to the bath,” Ojisan replied, his voice brightening. “They look after me just like a daughter would.”

Then Ojisan said something quintessentially Ojisan.

“Hey, you, I’m so hungry I can’t stand it.”
“Every day I get nothing but rice gruel.”
“Could you buy me some rock sugar?”
“I think I’ll just suck on it.”

“Isn’t this a critical time?”
“Hang in there.”

Ojisan’s desire for rock sugar wasn’t merely to satisfy his sweet tooth; lying in bed all day made time stretch endlessly, and it seemed he wanted something to suck on to distract himself.
I asked the nurse if it would be acceptable, and when she said there was no problem, I bought rock sugar from the hospital shop.
Ojisan immediately stuffed it into his mouth.
Perhaps having seen the attendant’s mother or someone else in the ward putting it in their mouth, Ojisan had come to crave it like a child.

Ojisan’s condition progressed smoothly after that and improved steadily each day. Even so, he remained hospitalized for a little over a month. It was said the cafeteria owner had come to visit him once. Afterward, I neglected to visit Ojisan for some time, but when I went to see him almost a year later, he sat dejected and spiritless.

“You’ve grown tired of me.”

Ojisan said this timidly. It was I who should have been uttering those words to him. Can one truly grow so completely weary of another person? If anyone deserved to be wearied of by others, surely it was me.

When I heard what had happened, Ojisan’s business had been declining steadily, and there seemed to be almost no demand left for food coupons or cigarettes.
Even so, it appeared some people still used food coupons, but now that tobacco was being sold freely, there must have been no one left smoking that low-grade tobacco.
As for Kakiragarachō, he only seemed to go there occasionally.
To register as a day laborer, Ojisan was somewhat too old.

“Some people tell me to go to an old-age home, but I don’t feel inclined to,” Ojisan said.
“If it had been a little earlier, I could’ve easily become a day laborer—but back then, my business was thriving, so I never got around to registering.”
“Moreover, I have to leave the place I’m staying now, you know.”
“Right now, the landlady has a large belly, you see, and I’ve been told to find another room before the child is born.”
“It’s pitiful, you see.”
“I’ve been looked after for a very long time, you know.”
“She says she feels like I’m her father.”

Ojisan was visibly struggling.
As for me, I was living off borrowed money while writing a novel that still hadn't seen the light of day.
My residence at the time was being tolerated out of pity on the second floor of a milkman's shop.

After that, I once again didn't visit Ojisan for some time.
Then one day, unusually, a postcard arrived from Ojisan addressed to me.
When I looked, it contained news of both employment and relocation.

"The season has arrived when Mount Aoba’s fresh leaves grace our eyes，the lesser cuckoo calls，and the first bonito are caught.
I trust you are well and thriving.
I am deeply grateful for your exceptional consideration during that time.
I have taken up residence at this temple.
My health is also in excellent condition，so please rest assured.
I sincerely await your gracious visit at your earliest convenience.
Yanaka ○○ Temple，Nobechi Reijirou．P.S．If you come using the five-story pagoda as a landmark and inquire in that area，you will be directed here immediately.”

Such was the text as written above.

First and foremost, I felt relieved.
Judging from the wording of this postcard, the new environment seemed comfortable for Ojisan, and he appeared completely satisfied.
This postcard stirred in me a desire to see my friend’s current state with my own eyes.
I promptly set out for Yanaka.
I got off at the National Railway’s Nippori Station, walked using the five-story pagoda as a landmark, and when I asked at a flower shop, I found it right away.

This area had escaped both the Great Kantō Earthquake and wartime destruction, leaving all its houses looking terribly antiquated.
○○ Temple was a relatively modest temple.
Its gate structure was elegant without pretension.
I fell for its appearance at first glance.
I felt certain its head priest must be a noble-hearted soul content with simple poverty.

Beside the entrance to the priest’s quarters stood a single chestnut tree, then in full bloom, its scent sharply stinging the nose. I asked for directions.

“Excuse me.”
“Excuse me.”

There was no response.
A faint sound of a koto could be heard from within.

“Excuse me.”

The sound of the koto stopped.
Before long after waiting, a young woman in Western-style clothes appeared.

“I’m someone acquainted with Mr. Nobechi.”

“Ah, Uncle?”
“Uncle has just stepped out for a moment.”

Even at this temple, it seemed Ojisan was now being called “Ojisan.”

“Then I’ll come back later.”
“No need—he’ll return any moment now. Please wait if you’d like.”

“Then I’ll gratefully wait.”

When I tried to sit on the edge of the entrance platform there, the young woman—

“Ah, please wait over here.”

Saying this, she slipped into her geta and stepped outside the priest’s quarters.
I followed behind the young woman.
Beside the priest’s quarters there was a low-eaved small house resembling a storage shed, and as the young woman passed under its eaves, she glanced back at me.

“Please wait here.”

she repeated.
The interior of the small house measured about six tsubo (approximately 20 square meters) and consisted of a tatami room and an earthen-floored entryway.
The tatami room measured four-and-a-half mats, with a small desk placed by the latticed window and a zabuton cushion beneath it.
On the wall hung Ojisan’s undershirts and trousers that I recognized.
From what I could gather, Ojisan must be living and sleeping here.
The elder daughter took the cushion and offered it to me,

“Please make yourself comfortable,” she said, then left.

I sat down on the upper threshold but found myself at a loss for what to do.
In times like these—if only one had tobacco—they would take some out from their pocket and have a smoke.
In one corner of the earthen-floored area were placed a hoe, a shovel, charcoal bales, a charcoal stove, a hand bucket, and such.
On the wainscoting, a shelf had been attached at a suitable height, and on the shelf were placed cooking utensils and other items.
This shelf showed signs of having been recently set up there.
This was doubtless Ojisan’s handiwork.

I stepped up into the tatami room and sat before the desk. On the desk lay an inkstone box. When I lifted it, I found a Thousand Character Classic and a stack of hanshi paper. The paper showed traces of writing practice. Seeing he’d even taken up calligraphy—though I couldn’t fully grasp his situation—it seemed Ojisan had been enjoying days of quiet leisure. I felt almost envious. A cool breeze drifted through the window. Beyond it, through a grove of trees bathed in early summer light that looked refreshingly cool, lay the temple cemetery. I left the cottage and walked among the graves. It was during this stroll that I composed an epitaph for Ojisan. When I’d finally shaped it in my mind, the wind carried the koto’s sound to me again. Then came singing.

Beloved little one whispers
Today again, return to me here
Gentle little one whispers
Today again, return to me here

I was entranced.
When I returned to the small house and, out of restlessness, began practicing writing at the desk, the elder daughter brought me tea.

"I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting."
"My younger sister started attending the kindergarten up ahead this year, so we have Uncle handle her drop-off and pick-up."
"I think he should be back soon."

"How long has Uncle been under your care here?"

“It’s still been about a month.”

“I haven’t heard anything from Uncle yet—what connection brought him here?”

“We heard about Uncle through a carpenter we’ve been commissioning for work for some time. We happened to need help ourselves.”

“How is Uncle’s health? The postcard said he was doing well, but… Is he helpful?”

“Yes. He works very diligently for us.”
“Father is pleased too.”
“And since Father loves Go, he’s delighted to have a good opponent now that Uncle’s here.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Uncle really is a good person.”
“My little sister’s grown quite attached to him too.”

“Was it you playing the koto earlier?”

“Yes.”

“Is that piece an old one?”

“No.”
“The piece isn’t old.”
“My koto teacher arranged it from a Muromachi folk song.”

“How lovely.”

“Yes.”
“I’ve grown quite fond of it myself.”

Just then, Uncle returned with a girl.
She was a fair-skinned, cute girl with clear eyes.
She closely resembled her older sister.

According to what I heard from Ojisan that day, the temple’s family consisted solely of the Head Priest and his two daughters, their mother having passed away last year, with the nineteen-year-old elder daughter serving as the household’s substitute homemaker.
“How about becoming an adopted son?” Ojisan joked.
I still did not know the Head Priest’s face.

(“Shincho” July 1953 issue)