Pathway to Japanese Literature

I Even after getting into bed last night, he had turned over various possibilities in his mind, but no plausible lie had come to him. He had decided to go to town under the pretense of wanting to buy a newly advertised book from the newspaper—a rather uninspired excuse for wasting half a day, though he was well aware—but regardless, that’s what he settled on. As his mother—still working to light the hearth fire with just a thin cord—struggled with the flames, Tomota casually brought it up while lighting his first smoke upon waking.

“……Well, if I don’t buy it soon, it’ll sell out…” “I know… But everything’s like that these days.”

He pitied his oblivious mother, and whenever he considered the tremendous burden being thrust upon him, he found himself resenting his brother Sōkichi anew. When he had suddenly received a letter from Toshie the day before, anxiety that she would inevitably bring some complication had already been gnawing at him—leaving Tomota’s heart leaden with dread. There’s something I must discuss—please come to the previous inn. I’ll be there without fail by two o’clock. She asked him to understand why she couldn’t visit the village herself—a request phrased in surprisingly composed prose. The envelope bore the name Yamada Toshihide—likely a masculinized variation of Toshie—written in deliberately angular script. To his sister Yoshi, suspicious of this unknown sender, he quickly lied that a Monopoly Bureau colleague had inquired about Sōkichi’s deployment. Though clueless about her intentions, having once told her to speak freely if troubles arose, he couldn’t refuse the meeting. For her part, Sunday was indeed a proper rest day. Yet in their village work—now at peak season—weekdays held no such distinction, and her apparent disregard for wasting half a precious day initially infuriated him. But upon reflection, he conceded that a factory girl like her couldn’t have grasped such concerns.

The fact that his younger brother Sōkichi, while concealing this woman’s existence entirely from their parents, had confided in Tomota alone and entrusted everything else to him before departing did demonstrate Sōkichi’s complete trust in Tomota as his half-brother. For instance, even if there had been a somewhat self-serving calculation in Sōkichi’s heart—a narrow-minded cleverness that sought to use, as a kind of buffer zone, the complex psychological shadows their parents must have harbored toward Tomota from their respective positions, should any trouble arise with the woman’s circumstances during his deployment—such a thing was not beyond forgiveness. It was when Sōkichi was still twelve or thirteen that relatives had whispered among themselves how contrary it was—Tomota not being the resentful one while Sōkichi turned out twisted.

“So, Brother—heard your ma ran off leavin’ your pa ’n’ you behind? That true?” “So it’s true then—they’re handin’ over the family’s entire property to you, Brother? And what about Ma?” The fact that he had dared to make such impertinent, spiteful remarks was due to being egged on by a malicious middle-aged woman in the neighborhood. After graduating from higher elementary school and taking a job at the Monopoly Bureau in Kōriyama, Sōkichi stopped even mentioning Tomota’s birth mother from around that time.

The conscription order came for Sōkichi in the sweltering peak of last summer. On the evening when he sent a telegram stating he would return immediately on official business, a letter arrived for Tomota from Ōtaniya Inn in Hachikenchō urging him to come at once. After somehow managing to calm his mother—who was making a fuss about why he’d come all the way to Hachikenchō, a ri and a half away, yet hadn’t come straight home—Tomota went to Ōtaniya Inn. There, in the back room, sat Sōkichi with a woman, scratching his head sheepishly.

Sent off to Adachi Station by Tomota and Sōkichi, the woman returned to Kōriyama that night. She looked thoroughly poor, her hair slightly curled, yet there lingered a beauty about her reminiscent of a flower that had never fully bloomed. When the train began moving, Tomota could still vividly recall how she had stared at Sōkichi with those desperately frightened eyes. At that moment too—perhaps because Tomota himself was among those soldiers who had returned—an uncharacteristic swell of emotion rose within him, and he found himself compelled to pat his brother’s shoulder as he stood there dazed and motionless, unable to stay silent.

“Don’t worry. I’ll handle everything.”

“Mm—countin’ on ya,” Sōkichi replied, averting his eyes.

“If word gets out ’bout this happenin’ ’fore your deployment… keep quiet ’bout it till I’m back.” If he were to die in battle—even regarding Sōkichi’s request to properly ascertain the woman’s feelings and settle matters as she saw fit—yes, he understood it all. Tomota nodded deeply. Thanks to a friend from the Monopoly Bureau sending word, they managed to cover things up in front of the family by claiming they’d had Tomota come over to Ōtaniya Inn to raise a toast again—and while that settled matters in its own way, for Tomota, it meant shouldering a burden unknown to others from that moment on. He constantly thought of confessing everything to his parents alone, but he considered how that would callously trample his brother’s feelings, and he also disliked the prospect of acting hastily only to be resented later. In the end, there had been no choice but to keep it all locked within his chest—and that was what had finally culminated in yesterday’s letter.

“...Well then, Brother, maybe you could stop by Kato the blacksmith’s while you’re out.” “I reckon the mochi Father ordered should be ready ’bout now.” “Sure, I’ll make sure to stop by.” From Mother blinking her smoke-irritated eyes, Tomota guiltily averted his flustered gaze and, with a somewhat hurried air, grabbed a hand towel before stepping outside.

The pale frozen sky was pierced by stabbing stars; the ice that had formed in the garden’s hollow shattered sharply beneath straw sandals. The well stood midway down the slope leading from the garden to the road. From the water drawn into the tall washbasin, peering through the lingering darkness before dawn, a faint white something rose.

Around this very time, from the well at Yumi’s house too, the creak of the well bucket reached him like a pursuing echo. Every morning—though it happened daily—he found himself gripped by competitive urgency, charging up the slope in one breath to enter the paper mill; yet when he twisted on the electric light and peered at the thermometer reading minus seven degrees, the renewed assault of cold drew an involuntary shudder from him. Even as he poured two shoulder-loads of water into the vat, an involuntary cry rose unbidden within him. By the time the front shoji screens began paling with dawn’s approach, he had already moved to the second vat; yet the temperature, with sunrise still impending, dropped lower still for a time. When he occasionally squeezed the bag of viscous mucilage mixed into the vat, the thick liquid clung tenaciously—slithering persistently over both hands that had nearly lost all sensation. The morning sun slanted through the window, and only then did he feel salvaged relief wash over him.

The amount of paper mulberry heaped into a small bowl—known as a kobachi—constituted one vat’s worth, producing thirty to thirty-five sheets of paper. From age fifteen, when he had begun papermaking by alternating shifts with his father, Tomota was now counted among the skilled craftsmen even within the younger generation. While fifteen vats—450 to 520–530 sheets—normally required working from five in the morning until around seven at night, Tomota managed seventeen vats daily, reaching nineteen when fully in his stride. The extraordinary record of 950 sheets that Father often boasted about had in fact been achieved by working late into the night until eleven.

The papermaking vat measured seven shaku in length and four shaku in width, with a depth of one shaku and two sun. Above the vat installed by the window of the paper mill, a spring bamboo pole jutted upward, suspending the screen frame fitted with its papermaking screen. As he bent the pole, the moment the frame submerged into the vat, his hips, shoulders, and wrists moved with precise coordination—three or four agitations of the viscous pulp later, fibers destined to become a sheet already lay captured on the screen, perfectly uniform in thickness. After tilting the frame to drain excess liquid, he used its base hook to pull it onto two spanning beams while filtering out most water—then flipped off the upper rim, removed the screen, and turned sharply to peel the sheet onto a drying board for stacking. This was the nagashizuki method. Screen and frame dimensions varied slightly by paper type. Once dried, shōji paper would be cut into two sheets, hanshi writing paper into four.

“Brother, lunchtime’s here!” When his younger sister Sen called out from beyond the paper mill, Tomota wrapped up his work. Even so, nine vats had been completed. To make up for what remained, he would inevitably have to work three nights straight. As he removed the screen frame from the spring bamboo cord and rubbed his cracked hands, the sound of water dripping incessantly from the freshly stacked paper finally reached his ears. This had also become a habit—as Tomota left the shed, he gave the screw on the back pressing machine one final tighten.

Even while telling himself there was no need to be nervous—this being no shameful secret of his own—Tomota left home with a choked feeling in his chest, unable to eat his lunch as usual. When faced with even minor things, he found himself pitifully agitated. During his deployment—and this hadn’t been mere self-delusion—his squad leader had indeed praised him; being second to none in the platoon for boldness and bravery had made him proud. Yet the moment he returned, he found himself reverting to his old timidity, a regression that frustrated even him.

Two days of clear weather had passed, and though the snow that had once piled nearly two shaku deep had significantly diminished, the resulting mud was all the more treacherous. The narrow slope path of a little over two chō leading to the road still fared better, as stepping stones had been laid down. As soon as he stepped down onto the road below, his rubber boots were instantly caked with mud. Through several rounds of road repairs, the main thoroughfares alone had ceased to be as they once were, but once one turned onto the side paths leading to the hamlet, they became utterly beyond negotiation. It was called Kawasaki Road and was notorious among nearby villages as a terrible path. It was not only due to the mud but also because the path continued with one winding slope after another. Of course, this could be inferred from the numbers alone: out of the village’s total area of 873 chōbu, 338 chōbu were farmland and 368 chōbu were forested mountains—a topography that spoke for itself. Hills of varying sizes—half forest, half fields—undulated in overlapping waves, while the rice paddies scattered across the narrow lowlands between them amounted to a mere 165 chōbu. As for the village houses, they all stood in places that demanded one look upward—perched high up slopes terraced with steps rising steeply from the road. While the village’s topography did play a role, it was ultimately the unique sideline of papermaking that inevitably drove the houses to such elevated locations. In other words, since approximately seventy percent of the over five hundred thirty households made paper, Kamikawasaki Village—located about one ri southeast of Adachi Station on the Tohoku Main Line, which runs roughly through the center of Fukushima Prefecture—could truly be called a paper village. Those who did not engage in this were limited to no more than a few wealthy households or, conversely, those restricted to day labor or cart-pulling. In a hamlet of around ten households, those who owned even a small amount of paddy fields numbered barely two; owners of upland fields did not exceed four; and the rest were purely tenant farmers—yet regardless of which category they fell into, their livelihoods depended on papermaking as a sideline.

When Tomota stood in Ōtani-ya’s old-fashioned, cavernous earthen-floored entryway, his body—swaddled in a mantle’s hood and layers of scarf—was thoroughly damp with sweat. To eyes still seared from the snow’s glare, the storehouse-style building’s inner room seemed doubly dark. “I’m sorry to trouble you when you’re so busy.” Tomota flinched involuntarily at the woman standing right at the threshold. Even through a man’s eyes, that body was unmistakably a woman’s. Averting his gaze in panic and sitting down awkwardly, he gradually regained composure as he received her composed greeting—one delivered with apparent readiness for this moment. What he privately called his goddamn resolve settled stubbornly in his gut when pressed; this time, to put it grandly, he’d been thrust unavoidably into the crucible. Now that matters had reached this point, there was no need to consider his brother’s calculations—and regardless of what arguments his parents might muster, things would inevitably settle where they must.

“I’ve been worrying all this time on my own, but you’ve never once treated me badly.”

All along the way here, and up until this very moment, Tomota had been anxious and troubled about summoning his brother’s woman—agonizing over how to interact with someone he’d met only once. Yet now, with a calmness that made him seem like a different person altogether, he managed to broach the subject. “I’m sorry, Brother—I’ve been causing you nothing but trouble…” Toshie adjusted her haori collar. It had inevitably become known to her parents in Sukagawa Town as well. Though they refrained from making a fuss since the man in question was a conscripted soldier, they had been sternly instructed to settle matters properly before the child was born. Last month, her brother quit his job at the Monopoly Bureau, and she moved into a rented room with him after leaving the factory dormitory. She had some savings and had no intention of quibbling over living expenses; it was simply that continuing like this would mean giving birth to a child without a known father—a prospect framed in the worst possible terms. She repeated at tedious length that she had long since informed Sōkichi at the front, that Sōkichi would surely acknowledge this, and that she swore to God she was protecting Sōkichi alone. When Tomota apologized for having left her alone until now, completely unaware, and for truly causing her hardship, Toshie pressed her sleeve to her face for the first time.

“No, we were at fault. …We knew we were troubling you, but we had no choice but to consult you, Brother.” When called “Brother” by this woman who had been a complete stranger until now, Tomota felt an electric freshness grip his chest. Saying nothing, he let his eyes drift toward the alcove while turning that word—Brother—over and over in his mind.

II Once again it began—were it not for Mother occasionally calling out "Stop it already!", the quarrels between Sen and Sōzō, those perfectly matched sparring partners, would have no end. During such times, though their hands kept moving mechanically, their work inevitably left patchy remnants of coarse bark behind—a lapse that would later earn them another scolding from Yoshi during the kōzo bleaching. The bark stripped straight from paper mulberry trees was called kurokōzo. After soaking in water for half a day and being lifted out—once thoroughly drained—the removal of that black outer bark constituted "bark stripping." Placing it on a tightly bundled straw platform they called *ate*, they scraped away the bark one by one with drawknives—in papermaking terms, this marked the initial process. Due to kōzo shortages since three or four years prior, mulberry bark had come to be used extensively as substitute material. The scraped-off coarse bark wasn’t simply discarded either—it served as raw material for items like wrapping paper (*tsunagami*).

The whole family, bundled up in layers, surrounded the hearth for their night work, buried in coarse bark they had stripped from around themselves as they labored. The village children were made to perform this night work from around the time they entered national school. A bundle of black kōzo weighing approximately six hundred momme—adults would finish four or five of these in a single night, while even a first-year child somehow managed to complete about one. But with the dim electric lights kept on and the fire tending to smoke constantly, the children would before long mostly end up with sore eyes. The school doctor from Hakkemachi would always repeat in his hygiene lectures that the number of national school students suffering from trachoma reached approximately five times that of nearby villages. Admirably, since entering higher elementary school, Sōzō never forgot to wash his eyes before bed after finishing night work. Though the fashionable Sōzō was always teased by Sen about it, this became his diligent precaution after hearing trachoma patients were unwanted in any factory.

After finishing his contracted four bundles of work for the night, even as Yoshi and Sen had retreated to the inner bedroom, Sōzō remained hunched over the earthenware bottle of boric acid solution—until Tomota, with growing irritation this evening, urged him: "Hey, get to bed already."

While waiting for the bedroom to grow quiet, he tilted his head back to peer at the soot-blackened clock where the hands were barely visible—it was past ten-thirty. Since it was running over an hour ahead, the correct time would be just past nine-thirty. By village custom, no household would consent unless they set their clocks ahead by one hour—or in extreme cases, nearly two hours—from the correct time. Villagers referred to the correct time as “noon,” and even households with radios accepted their own version of time, remaining completely unfazed by this temporal double life. That "noon" did not precisely indicate twelve o'clock but was instead used to mean "the exact time" was, upon reflection, a rather peculiar custom.

“Mother, shall I have you make some miso soup? …What about Father?” “Hasn’t it mostly settled by now?”

Crouched before the stove installed at the rear of the earthen-floored room, Father—his silent face half-reddened by the fire’s glow as he boiled kōzo—murmured, “Hm, seems it’s settled,” then slowly straightened his back and shifted the pot lid slightly, peering through the steam that clung to his upper body. The white bark obtained from bark stripping is washed once in water to become "white kōzo," which is then boiled with soda ash in a process called "kōzo boiling." In a large pot with a diameter of two shaku and five sun—capable of holding about one koku of water, equivalent to four shoulder-loads or eight hand buckets—fifty bundles of white kōzo were loosened and tossed in one by one. Once the mixture reached a vigorous boil, a measured amount of soda ash was added. Boiling a single pot required approximately four hours.

As fuel, they used thin brushwood, making this a routine task as well, but the boiling method required considerable skill and was generally entrusted to elders who had retired from active papermaking. “To tell the truth, Mother—I must apologize for lying to you—there was an important reason I went to Hakkemachi today.” “Hmph. Did you go meet some woman or somethin’?”

While handing over the miso soup bowl, Mother Otoki spoke in her usual feigned-innocent tone.

“You’re right, Mother—exactly as you said… But she’s not my woman—she’s Sō’s.”

“What’s that?” Sure enough, Mother let out a strained voice. Father’s bowl, which also seemed startled, shook, creating a small pattering mound of ash. “No matter what… there’s a baby formed in the belly after all.” He blurted it out after a moment’s hesitation, but couldn’t bring himself to face his parents’ stunned silence. “Brother, is that true?” “I met her properly today.”

“Wh-what girl…? Where’s she from?” Tomota’s hurried speech kept skipping around and stumbling over itself.

“I apologize for keeping it from Father and everyone.” “But no matter what you say—those two are truly in love with each other.”

“Is that true…? I had no idea at all,” Mother eventually muttered in a slightly hoarse voice. “Making you worry all by yourself…” “That Sō… what a piece of work…” “Mother, my worry isn’t a problem at all.” “After all, Sō’s on the battlefield… Of course you and Father have your objections, but now that it’s come to this—we’ve got to settle it properly.” “But…”

Until then silent, Father suddenly showed a strangely cold smile. The shadow that grazed the twisted edge of his mouth was so unnerving it inadvertently sent a shudder down Tomota’s spine.

“But… Mother, Tomota—ha ha ha—what’re we s’posed to do if that Sō bastard goes an’ repeats *my* blunder? Eh?” “My failure.” “Th-that’s right—bringin’ that up now?!” It wasn’t toward Father, nor was it toward Mother—the one who’d abandoned both Father and him. But confronted with the revulsion of havin’ that damned past—which he’d thought neatly buried—suddenly dredged up before his eyes, Tomota was seized by a flare of rage.

“If you’re gonna say that—then do whatever the hell you want! If you’re gonna say that—!”

“Brother—oh Brother—” Mother stammered, flustered. “It’s Father’s fault—what’re we s’posed to do with you bringin’ that up now of all times?” “Sō’s business ain’t got nothin’ to do with this here matter.” “Now of all times… th-that’s right… how absurd…”

Muttering “Right… right…” with eyes now hollow with sorrow—as if snapping from a trance—Father Sōjirō shook his head and picked up his pipe with quivering hands. “Tomota, cheer up now, will ya.” “...But Sō’s matter ain’t the same.” “She’s a good girl—no doubt ’bout that.” “Make sure to consult proper with Mother.” “Hey, Tomota, cheer up now, will ya.”

Tomota shed tears in streams. At this moment, Tomota realized for the first time that he had harbored within some corner of his heart a premonition—one he had been unable to grasp—that he might have to face this storm of emotions someday. So it was after all. It was inevitable that parent and child had to undergo this baptism by storm at least once for things to settle.

——Father’s elder brother, who had barely made a living through day labor since Grandfather’s time, developed pneumonia after a cold worsened—naturally without seeing a doctor—and died abruptly on his sickbed’s third day, muttering delirious words all the while. Villagers who had witnessed him laboring through constant coughs spread rumors that Sōtarō had succumbed to consumption. As the second son, Father Sōjirō had gone to work in Iwaki’s coal mines. While this tendency existed across rural areas, in Kamikawasaki Village second and third sons—those not inheriting households as eldest—faced particular mistreatment. Typically they helped at home only through elementary school before conscription exams, after which they were compelled to choose occupations and leave the village. At that time factory jobs proved scarce, making so-called laborer status commonplace. Becoming policemen or certified elementary school teachers marked one as exceptionally diligent. For second sons to receive property shares and establish branch families occurred only among rare wealthy households; even instances of them being given papermaking tools worth seven or eight hundred yen for this purpose numbered few enough to count on one’s fingers.

When he rushed over in shock at Mr. Anzai’s telegram reading “SOUTA DIED RETURN IMMED,” no sooner had he crossed the threshold than the master abruptly delivered his pronouncement. “Sōjirō, you’re gonna take over after Souta, you hear?” “Huh? Me, you mean?” When he asked back blankly, the master’s face turned solemn. “Of course—since the eldest son has died, you must take over the Yoshifuru household this time.” Rather than dwell on the future hardship of shouldering a debt-ridden, impoverished household, Sōjirō—strangely captivated and prideful at the unanticipated fact of inheriting the Yoshifuru household—found himself bowing to the master and the gathered estate residents with a mumbled, “I’ll… I’ll do my best to honor this duty.”

He had entered into a de facto relationship with a woman—the sister of a fellow miner who worked sorting coal—and she had just given birth to a boy. When he timidly proposed the matter to the master, the man simply replied, “Then I’ll serve as matchmaker and make you two an official couple,” and with that alone, he readily agreed without any complaints. “I thought it’d be a somewhat nicer house.” Back when there was no Adachi Station near the village yet—when he had gone along the tracks to Nihonmatsu Station to fetch her and bring her for the first time—O-Kimi stood at the edge of the garden, slovenly carrying her baby on her back, and for a while made no move to go inside.

“Just bear with it for now. I’ll work and figure something out, you’ll see.” Sōjirō flushed red with a desire to shrink away and said in a low, apologetic voice. He had a younger brother who was also working away from home, as well as a sister. The mother, who had been helping at the master’s household, was still active. The sister-in-law, now a widow, left with her daughter, declaring she would enter domestic service with a merchant family in Nihonmatsu. Neither going out for day labor nor knowing even how to hold a hoe, O-Kimi spent all day idling around with the child. Whenever Sōjirō said anything, she would shout at the top of her lungs—“You liar! Deceiving me!”—and make a scene. Even when the younger sister called out “Sister-in-law, Sister-in-law” kindly, she never gave a proper response. Licking the pencil repeatedly and taking a long time to write letters, she would send them off to the brother in Iwaki.

Sōjirō, for his part, weighed down by the suffocating pressure of debt-ridden existence, found himself reflecting deeply on how much more freely he could have lived back in the coal mines—where O-Kimi’s temper had been milder and simply persisting through brute strength alone would have spared him all these worries. But now it was all water under the bridge; he had no choice but to resign himself completely. Since he had returned to the village and taken over the household after all, Sōjirō began to think that he had no choice but to take up papermaking. After realizing that even his fellow villagers looked down on day laborers—those who couldn’t make paper—as beneath them, he only strengthened his resolve further. When Sōjirō approached Mr. Anzai for consultation, the latter replied after some consideration, “I see… Shall we give it a try?” After some consideration, he said this, provided the capital, and even took care of arranging various tools.

At first, it was "recycled" paper made by buying and collecting tissues and scrap paper. However, even though he was born in this village, Sōjirō—lacking any such experience—couldn’t possibly produce decent paper readily. When he showed the master the first sheet he’d made, the man laughed uproariously: “Ha ha ha! You can’t even wipe your ass with this!” Admittedly, recycled paper-making could rather be said to be difficult. Unlike regular paper pulp—which lacked stiffness and clung stickily—if one layered it directly, they later found the sheets impossible to peel apart when drying. Thus between each sheet they had to insert thin splits of Ryukyu rush called *okigusa* separators. On top of all this extra labor, the sheets were prone to tearing at the slightest provocation, and adhering them to drying boards required technique that was anything but simple.

The villagers called it swollen wrist. It was when the wrist maneuvering the sugeta would swell and become immobile. When pushing oneself to complete many vats, one would often develop this swollen wrist—and needless to say, beginners were especially plagued by it. Rubbing his eerily swollen wrist, Sōjirō tossed and turned repeatedly.

It was around the time when camellias began to bloom amidst dark leaves in the thicket.

When he returned home at night after gathering scrap paper from town, his sister was struggling to soothe a fussing Tomota. By the next day, it had become clear that O-Kimi had fled. The master, trembling with anger, dispatched a single quick-witted farmhand to pursue her to Iwaki, but the man returned having gained no useful leads. Sōjirō, who had carried Tomota on his back to Iwaki, not only failed to meet O-Kimi in the end but was even confronted by her brother with a forceful demand for divorce and returned home dejectedly. By then rumors already spread that she had swiftly become the second wife of a fifty-year-old man with some savings in a nearby town. As the master raged about taking them to court—Sōjirō instead tried to calm him while admitting he had long anticipated this outcome—he sank into despondency. Even so for about half a year there lingered hope she might return; when even that faded they cleanly finalized the divorce.

Before long, through the master’s arrangements, Otoki was brought from Shimokawasaki in the neighboring village. Her looks weren’t entirely bad, and though she appeared somewhat dull on the surface, she was in fact a diligent worker with strong resolve—above all, her devoted care for Tomota led the master to occasionally boast, “See? She’s a fine wife, isn’t she?” After just two years of recycled paper-making, Sōjirō managed to achieve ordinary paper production. At that time, there existed no association for handmade paper craftsmen, and materials could be obtained freely. Day after day they ate crumbling meals of barley-dominated rice mixed with dried radish—meager fare that scarcely clung to chopsticks—and even as neighboring women, themselves subsisting on the plainest of diets, whispered behind their backs that “Sōjirō’s household doesn’t even eat proper food,” by the fourth and fifth years his family steadily prospered. This was an era when papermaking was considered a trade that allowed one to subsist but not build wealth. Even if a household’s output at the time amounted to around 4,000 yen, raw material costs would consume 2,800 yen of that, leaving an income of just 1,200 yen. But when converted to take-home pay after deducting food and miscellaneous expenses, this amounted to a mere daily net profit of 70 to 80 sen. Despite this, ten years later Sōjirō had not only cleared all debts but also rebuilt the papermaking workshop into a spacious two-by-three-ken structure. Not only did he expand the house, but he eventually even acquired a two-tan field. And when it came to Sōjirō’s shōji paper from Ukitake, he had come to sell something respected even in the village.

Three

It had started snowing around noon yesterday, and after raging fiercely all night long, the blizzard gave way to a morning so clear and deeply blue that the ridges of accumulated snow glittered dazzlingly. Having had her brother-in-law tread down the snow on the slope, Yumi—carrying a heavy bucket—arrived at the hut across the road to find Yoshi was just about to begin work.

“When’s the person from Kōriyama coming?” “Still not here yet?”

Though no one else was present, when asked in a naturally hushed tone—a habit of hers—Yoshi shook her head in small, precise movements. "They say everything's been settled with that household through letters." "They say they'll likely come before New Year's." The village's New Year now loomed just over ten days away. Of course, given that this great war had come to pass, there was no room for observing Bon festivals or New Year's—a directive to that effect had been circulated from the town hall merely two or three days prior.

The hut stood over a pond—dammed from a stream beside the rice fields and no larger than one tsubo—with a miscanthus-thatched roof and three sides enclosed by straw. On the floorboards protruding over the water, seats spread with straw bundles sometimes had tattered zabuton with cotton spilling out—their origins unclear—laid upon them.

Such huts were scattered across the village's lowlands. In the village, they called it "kōzo bleaching"—the process of removing any remaining coarse bark or tough fibers from white kōzo boiled in soda ash, using sickle tips to scrape them away while washing and rinsing thoroughly to eliminate the lye. While manageable on warm days, the kōzo bleaching on days when Adachitarōyama's downslope winds howled could become work more grueling than papermaking itself.

The Abukuma River flowed along the southeastern boundary of the village. The kōzo rinsed in the great river's current was considered particularly effective for lye removal, and though over a dozen households shared a bleaching area on its bank there, the cold wind sweeping unimpeded across the water's surface proved unbearable. Compared to that, the shared hut belonging to Yoshi and Yumi's household—backed by a high embankment filled with sunlight—remained a relatively comfortable workspace. From bundles of kōzo left thoroughly soaked in water as two sickle tips deftly trimmed them, lye seeped out in faint whiteness, dissolving without trace into the blue sediment.

“Yumi-chan, what kinda person d’you think that gal Sō-nīcha’s got involved with?” After they’d sat wordless awhile, Yoshi blurted it out again. She must’ve been stewing on it something fierce. First she’d come tearing over to Yumi’s place without so much as a hello, dragged her behind the shed all secret-like—then gone breathless telling her, “It’s huge, Yumi-chan! There’s a bride comin’ to our Sō-nīcha’s house!”—and ever since kept pestering about what sorta woman she must be.

“Mother’s been all fidgety, I tell you.” “It’s nothing—‘Sister-in-law this, Sister-in-law that,’ they keep telling me to be nice to her.” “No matter how much of a country bumpkin I am, I’d understand even without being told something that obvious!” The next time they met, she puffed out her cheeks with an ambiguous look that could be either resentment or jealousy while saying such things. A woman who was in love with Yocchan’s brother—she was bound to be a good woman—there was no other way to answer. When Yoshi first heard about it—that the woman was already with child—she found both Sōkichi and her utterly contemptible. But as she kept thinking, she began to feel an odd envy toward her. Compared to someone like herself—constantly tormented by anxieties about marriage—wouldn’t everything become clear if she simply let things take their course? When she had thought that far, her blood burned with intense shame. Ryōsaburō—now working at a printing company in Fukushima City and betrothed to Yumi—treated her with outright coldness, dismissing her with a flick of his nose. At every turn, he spoke as though village girls like her couldn’t even watch newsreels, as if it were somehow Yumi’s failing. During the recession era of Shōwa 9, Yumi’s father had borrowed a considerable sum from Ryōsaburō’s household; though this old-fashioned arrangement had been decided unilaterally by their parents, she resigned herself to it as inevitable, making no effort to resist, and now intended to marry Ryōsaburō—a man she could never bring herself to love. But with Ryōsaburō—whom she couldn’t find a way to approach—and moreover, the thought of leaving the village to live in Fukushima City pressed down on her with an indescribable gloom.

“……Everyone’s happy.” “Yocchan’s already had his provisional wedding.” The relationship between Shigeharu—now stationed on the northern frontlines—and Yoshi from their hamlet was an open secret; while others might laugh about it, they themselves felt no particular awkwardness. Yet for Yoshi, there lingered an unreciprocated constraint—the sense that Yumi too must have her circumstances settled similarly, though she couldn’t voice this immediately. She knew Ryōsaburō and Yumi’s relationship had become thoroughly strained, and beyond that, she would occasionally wonder—in such moments—whether Yumi might secretly harbor feelings for her brother Tomota. Of course, her brother could do nothing about Yumi—another’s betrothed—and Yumi herself was undoubtedly resolved to marry Ryōsaburō in the end. In other words—was it the easing of resolve born from Yumi’s resignation to this insurmountable boundary acknowledged by all—that would unwittingly expose her innermost heart? In any case, Yoshi found it safer to immediately go along with her own matters whenever they arose before Yumi.

“The other day, I got a letter from that person.” To Yumi—who had said she’d rather not hear it if forced—she explained that around when Shigeharu had been deployed, material rationing had intensified; he’d sent the letter out of concern for how they’d manage this year, her explanation matching parts of his wording verbatim. “So we’re not at any dead end worth worrying over—everyone’s working earnestly with what we’ve been given.” Particularly since starting military-use paper production, the villagers’ mindset had completely transformed. Having conveyed this meaning through two nights’ writing for him, Yoshi wore a faintly proud expression.

“Brother also says—if we buckle here, what’ll become of us?” “It’s a great war, so rationing materials is only natural.”

Yumi also found herself nodding emphatically in agreement. Around the time when rationing of kōzo and soda ash began tightening, there had been an occasion when someone had told Tomota about how Father kept grumbling that things would never work out this way. “Huh—not exactly acting like Yumi-chan’s Father,” Tomota gave a bitter smile. The village used ninety thousand kan of paper mulberry per winter—nearly three-fourths of the prefecture’s production of one hundred forty-five thousand kan. With their own output barely reaching three thousand kan, they had to depend on others for most of it, yet now couldn’t obtain even half of what they needed. The mitsumata used to produce that durable paper had long been banned. Whether it was mulberry bark for kate or the washi and Western paper scraps rationed through industrial associations—all followed the same pattern. As for pulp, they had at best forty percent of what existed at the Incident’s outbreak. Until ten years prior, every villager had known Branner Mond Company’s moon-marked soda ash—now vanished from sight, its quality degraded and rationed at a mere third of required quantities. Soda ash made from near-shore salt in China’s Rehe and Shandong or Mediterranean deep-sea salt grew scarcer due to the war, with the union chairman estimating next year’s supply might halve again. Compounding this was the clumsiness of distribution systems—prone to chaos after establishing a Kōzo Commercial Association between material firms and Washi Producers’ groups, worsened by stakeholders’ poor understanding. Yet that all must be endured gladly—the villagers had gradually resolved themselves. However long this great war dragged on—decades even—one couldn’t imagine Japanese life without handmade kōzo paper. Thus papermaking had ceased being just a side job enriching village life.

However, it remained an undeniable fact that the villagers’ resolve had undergone a marked transformation since being compelled to produce military-use paper. The pride that their village’s paper would directly aid the war effort, coupled with their sense of responsibility, abruptly tightened in people’s hearts. Though never voiced, their envy-tinged feelings toward others hailed as industrial warriors were swept away in an instant. Moreover, the raw materials for military-use paper now arrived at the association without complications. When an urgent summons came to the union chairman’s house and they were finally told—“Now we’ll be of direct service!”—everyone set down their pipes and straightened their postures in unison, as if rehearsed. That story she had heard from her father—Yumi now recalled it too.

The snow on the roof began to melt in scattered patches.

“But still, we’ve got to work even harder.” “No… Yocchan, I… I really don’t want to marry into some city or anything. Honestly.” “I still want to spend my whole life making paper here in the village…”

Yumi had suddenly brought it up, and Yoshi, finding no words to respond in that moment, swallowed down a futile fluster.

“Yocchan… Actually, I…”

Something urgent and pressing resonated in Yoshi’s chest with painful intensity. When the premonition flashed that hearing the next words would render matters irreparable, Tomota’s voice suddenly called out, “Yoshi!” While distinctly sensing Yumi’s body twitch, Yoshi—who had raised her voice—felt a wave of relief.

“What is it, Brother?” As he prepared to leave for Kōriyama, Tomota peered into the hut.

“You already know this, Yumi-chan… Today I’m bringing Sō’s bride here, so I’m counting on you from now on.” “Oh? You’re bringing her today?” No wonder his parents and brother had been discussing something late into the night last night. Even knowing she wasn’t someone to be included in such talks, being told this as he left felt thoroughly unpleasant to Yoshi. He’d meant to bring Sōkichi’s bride tomorrow or so—she’d wanted him to say just one thing about taking good care of her. After muttering how Mother and the others had been sneaking around yesterday, she couldn’t help but let some spitefulness show through—though not overtly.

“Whenever Sō’s situation comes up, everyone makes such a fuss.”

“Ha ha ha.”

The psychology behind his sister’s sulking face suddenly stirred a sense of sympathy in Tomota’s heart, weighed down as he was by various concerns. “Absolutely—they sure do make a fuss.”

“You might as well just bring her over soon.” “Then everyone’ll settle down.”

Yoshi made a rough splashing sound with the water.

IV

Regarding their daughter—not to mention the man himself—they must have harbored grievances they could scarcely contain, extending even to her parents and siblings. From the tone when he’d last met Toshie, it seemed they were prepared to take a hardline stance. He’d heard from Sōkichi that her father worked as a cart driver for a transport company. If they met face-to-face, it would likely start with their usual transparent self-deprecation about their parent-child relationship—even if the young couple’s situation was deemed unavoidable—and he might well find himself grilled relentlessly over how the modest remittances would cease. Tomota had prepared for this through discussions with his father, steeling himself to maintain a submissive stance as a last resort before final resolve—that stubborn grit of his now firmly set. Yet when confronted in the second-floor room of an amateurish boardinghouse on the town’s outskirts by a fifty-year-old man—stooped over packing bedding, offering an awkward smile that didn’t know where to look—Tomota found himself flustered instead by this anticlimactic disarray, his composure crumbling further.

“On account o’ arrivin’ one train late, things ain’t settled proper yet.” Mumbling half under his breath—a habit he seemed to have developed—he sat brushing the hem of his clothes with a hand towel, but when his daughter said, “Father, offer Brother a cushion,” he hurriedly stood and went downstairs. Even to the young Tomota’s awkwardly formal greeting, he kept offering amiable nods—“Indeed,” “May your fortunes in battle endure above all”—as if affirming each word. “We won’t have ’er doin’ any hard labor—so I can rest easy ’bout that.”

“Why, you see, movin’ ’round more’s just what’ll make for a sturdy baby.” One might have interpreted his words as carrying some hidden meaning, yet they came without a trace of sarcasm—conveyed purely through a father’s sincere affection. When Father went downstairs briefly, Tomota—who had blurted out an earnest “What a good father he is”—was told “You’re not being considerate at all,” and Toshie too looked pleased.

Toshie’s brother—who had been let out through the factory’s special gate during lunch break—kept glancing up furtively at Tomota even as they ate the specially ordered oyakodon bowls together, all four of them. Toward his sister’s transgression, he harbored the fastidious contempt typical of an eighteen-year-old, and his dissatisfaction with their father’s handling of the matter seemed to spill over even onto Tomota. He hardly spoke up on his own, offering only curt replies. While Tomota could partly sympathize with the notion that this young man had both the capacity for generosity and a brooding indignation shaped by wartime exigencies, he still couldn’t help feeling dispirited. The father’s clumsy attempts at mediation and Toshie—visibly cowed under her brother’s pressure—made for a pitiful sight. When Tomota tried placating him by remarking that factory work must feel purposeful, the brother sneered with transparent spite: “Seems there’s still some who don’t grasp the gravity of the times.” He rose without proper farewells when the hour came—yet still tossed out a parting remark as if struck by sudden inspiration.

“Take my share of the soap too. I’ll manage to get some from my buddies.” “Well then, I’ll take Zenchō’s share too.” When Toshie answered with slightly exaggerated cheerfulness, he called out again from halfway down the stairs. “Sis, did you take the blanket?” “If Zenchō’s going to be troubled by it…” “Idiot! I told you I don’t need it!” he fumed, stomping down the stairs and slamming the front door with a violent clatter.

The father began to untie the painstakingly prepared bundle again.

At Toshie’s suggestion, the three of them—having left considerably early for the 3:30 train—visited Anzu Kunitsukuri Shrine. “When he went off to war, we visited the shrine together too,” she whispered. Toshie’s words reached only Tomota’s ears. Though Tomota insisted on pulling the cart himself—“No need for that,” came the dismissive reply—her father ended up hauling it all the way to the station. He repeatedly stressed two things: the postcard confirming their safe arrival must be sent, and they must immediately notify him whether the child was a boy or girl upon birth. When they reached the station, Toshie fell silent, offering only mute nods.

“Give my regards to Mother!” When the bell rang, Toshie—wearing a smile that mingled tears—hurriedly leaned out the window, and this time her father responded with nothing but a silent nod. “Thank you for everything.” After the train began moving, following an extended silence with no conversational thread to grasp, Toshie finally spoke up. “No—” Tomota began with a slightly flustered shift of posture, yet still turned toward her with the compassionate gaze befitting a brother-in-law. In both his speech and bearing lay an awkwardness, yet he carried a maturity that belied his twenty-seven years of bachelorhood—a quality making this earnest young man seem all the more approachable and reliable. As for the father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law she would now meet for the first time, she found herself thinking that if she could shelter beneath this brother-in-law’s protection, then perhaps—

“Ah, you’ll get used to village life soon enough, I tell you.” “I’ll do anything needed.” “Well now, you’re an important charge to look after ’til Sō gets back.”

To Toshie, who said “No, I’d be troubled if you treated me that way,” Tomota nodded repeatedly. “Father and Mother ain’t a bother at all—though it’s odd comin’ from me—they’re truly good people, I tell ya.” Even so, she felt both uneasy and an indescribable loneliness—the sorrow of knowing even this brother-in-law could never understand any of it. When she lowered her eyes, the vivid image of Sōkichi parting from her at the small station surfaced—their transgression had been undeniable. But Toshie wasn’t regretting that now. After the overwhelming shock of first noticing the changes in her body had come nights of fierce anguish where sleep eluded her—until she reached the point of muttering that there was nothing to do but resign herself—she had at last regained a semblance of composure. Whatever hardships she must endure, she had to bring the child in her womb safely into the world. Once she had mustered that courage, an unexpected warmth began unfolding before her.

“Papermaking… Is there work someone like me could do right away?”

Trying to dispel the swarming thoughts, Toshie shook her head and raised her eyes. “Well now,” Tomota said, pausing as if to consider, “they’re all water-based tasks—daunting for complete novices—but bark stripping at least should be manageable.” As he explained how labor costs had risen from about two sen per kanme to twelve or thirteen sen—no trifling sum—Toshie began asking various questions. Having heard about it once from Sōkichi too, she’d never thought papermaking easy work, nor did she fear its hardships. Had this been an ordinary farm household, she might have grasped what to expect; but thrust into this utterly unfamiliar trade, she felt herself becoming someone who could neither contribute nor find her proper place. That papermaking existed solely in Kamikawasaki Village—with others refusing to touch it—only deepened her sense of entering a peculiarly alien way of life.

When someone laid out the general sequence of processes—from bark stripping, paper mulberry boiling, bleaching, and fiber beating (excluding sheet-forming), to sheet-forming, trimming, and packaging—the reality remained that for a complete novice like her, a woman not far from her due date, it still came down to either bark stripping or clumsy attempts at packaging. Its veracity unknown, the village’s work—said through legend to have continued for a thousand years—saw households venerating Prince Shōtoku as papermaking’s founder hold the Taishikō festival each November to mark their labors’ commencement. Tomota laughed that the red rice with dumplings eaten during the festival must seem peculiar fare to unaccustomed tongues.

“But why don’t they do it in other villages?” “Well, how should I put this…” Tomota hedged. Yet he did have his own perspective on the matter. Within the prefecture, paper was also produced in other regions: Date, Ishiro, Sōma, Ishikawa, and Aizu. But in Sōma they had barely thirty workers, and apart from Aizu’s seventy, none elsewhere exceeded forty to sixty. The Adachi region’s three hundred thirty workers—far surpassing all those combined—were nearly monopolized by Tomota’s village, which yielded less than ten percent to neighboring Shimokawasaki. Of the prefecture’s total output of six hundred eighty thousand yen, nearly five hundred thousand came from his village. Varieties included shōji screen paper (divided into sizes from eight-sun-three-bu hassanban to nine-sun-three-bu, nine-sun-five-bu, and one-shaku), Mino paper, hanshi writing paper, umbrella paper, lantern paper, striped packaging paper, dust paper—now supplemented by military-grade stock. In quality terms, known as Kawasaki or Iwashi paper, they ranked first in Tōhoku. Yet why was papermaking here strictly confined to parts of Kamikawasaki and Shimokawasaki? Step into any other village—even a mountain hamlet with farmland as scarce as Kamikawasaki’s—and you’d find not one drying board. Everyone wondered this, but to Tomota, their agricultural limits and resulting poverty proved papermaking was no mere side job. Even an industry needing little capital or technical mastery remained beyond outsiders’ reach—unless they could endure winter’s brutal cold while battling water like ascetics. The people of Kamikawasaki carried winter-conquering blood in their veins—a legacy inherited through generations. This was Tomota’s proud conviction.

“Well… No need for you to help with papermaking. We’ll have you do some sewing instead, I tell ya.” “I’m worried whether I’ll be liked by everyone.”

When she looked out the window, beyond the undulating expanse of hazy fields, Mount Adachitarō loomed nearby, bathed in lingering sunset and glowing faintly red. “This makes the third time.”

When they disembarked at Adachi Station growing dim in the twilight, Toshie murmured under her breath. After retrieving the checked luggage, Tomota brought the carrying rope he had left at the station-front shop. “I’ll carry it.” “No—let me carry your luggage, Sis.” As Toshie—who had been repacking her hand luggage by the bench—turned around in surprise, a blushing boy approached with shuffling shoulders. “I’ll carry it,” he said, extending a hand that had been holding a lantern. Before Toshie could even adjust her shawl—as she bowed slightly with a “Please take care of me”—the younger brother doffed his tattered combat cap.

As they left the station, the Adachitarō-oroshi wind stung their skin with its bitter cold.

Five

From miscellaneous mending tasks to perfectly serviceable alterations needing redoing—one after another they were brought out, and in the end, she had no choice but to meekly accept the mother-in-law’s consideration meant to keep her from doing physical labor. On the first night of her arrival, the mother-in-law—who had gone out to the dark path at the foot of the slope, repeating “It’s so cold, so cold”—entered the house only to head straight for the kitchen, where she kept chattering in a high-pitched voice, never settling by the hearth. Come to think of it, even the father-in-law kept restlessly rising from his seat and pacing to and from the inner room. They neither asked about her family home nor brought up Toshie’s past life. They spoke as if agreeing with themselves—about how the distance from the station to the house was a bit over one and a half ri but must have felt terribly far for someone new walking at night; about how cold it was this evening; things like that. Sen and Sōzō kept their faces down, doing nothing but tending the fire. Yoshi, who had composed herself and greeted her properly, disappeared into the back for some time. When she briefly reappeared, she wore a different ornate apron.

Toshie slept in the inner room with Yoshi and Sen. “I’m still so hazy about everything. Please take care of me.” As she said this while taking off her kimono, Yoshi—for the first time—turned an unreserved gaze toward her and said, “Oh no, I should be saying that!”

The next day, she was made by her mother-in-law to make neighborhood rounds. At every house, pure white drying boards filled the yards, propped upright so thickly they went in ducking beneath them. She couldn’t hide her swollen belly and had resigned herself to this, yet still found herself unable to lift her face. "When Sōkichi comes home, we’ll hold a proper celebration then," the mother-in-law declared loudly at each house she visited. At the master’s house, they were served soba noodles as an auspicious offering.

“Whatever happens, just focus on bearing a healthy baby.”

Tilting his bespectacled face upward slightly, the master’s slow-spoken words were a jumbled mix of village dialect and standard Japanese. On the wide veranda, packaged paper was stacked like a mountain. All of the village’s paper was shipped out from there under the cooperative’s name. They renovated the adjacent storehouse, and it became the cooperative’s office. To the master—chairman of the prefectural handmade paper industrial association—people kept arriving even as Toshie and the others ate their soba. The father-in-law and mother-in-law had been under the care of the grand master in their youth; now they also visited where he had built a separate house to live in retirement.

With Yumi—who had been mentioned in Yoshi’s conversation the night before—they exchanged glances of unusual warmth for a first meeting. When people from town called the village “truly yabashibe” (dingy), she answered, “No, it’s so invigorating here you could live forever!” What had initially seemed surprisingly manageable—the bark-stripping work—left her shoulders so stiff by the next day that she could barely raise her arms. To make matters worse, the raw stench of kōzo and mulberry bark she encountered for the first time churned her stomach with nausea.

In pulp processing, only the final dissolving seemed manageable. The water-soaked pulp was thoroughly pounded in a mortar and then dissolved again in water; once rendered mushy in this way, it was placed into bags and filtered before being blended with paper mulberry fibers in ratios specific to each type of paper. The pounders were Father and Sōzō, but Yoshi and Sen handled the dissolving. Though her mother-in-law had stopped her with “You shouldn’t do that,” Toshie tried taking Sen’s place anyway because it looked interesting. Mid-slope by the well stood a pulp-dissolving trough exposed to the open air. Smaller than the papermaking vat—about five shaku by four—twenty-four or twenty-five bamboo stirring rods hung above the trough; they taught her this apparatus was called “Magwa.” Though the water’s clamor sounded vigorous, stirring offered no reliable resistance—yet an odd thrumming vibration traveled from her shoulders down to her waist. Leaden clouds hung low as she worked thirty minutes in snow-threatening cold until her lower abdomen tightened unbearably. Having barely climbed the slope, Toshie crawled to the hearth and lay motionless.

“I told you not to overdo it!” The mother-in-law, who had been pressing paper sheets, tossed aside her straw brush and wrapped her arms around Toshie’s back. “We can’t have anything that’d shame us before Sō.”

When Tomota emerged from the paper mill and addressed her with an irritation she’d never heard from him before, Toshie’s sorrow spilled over into tears. Even the kōzo bleaching she’d attempted beside Yoshi—sitting on a cushion she’d brought—proved useless after that night’s agony from freezing abdominal pain. From then until childbirth, no papermaking tasks remained within Toshie’s reach. “Once we’re past the equinox, this work gets easier. But more than that—after you’ve delivered, we’ll let you help with everything,” the mother-in-law said, her voice softening with consolation.

Soon the village's New Year arrived. Though the special rationed sake had already been drunk up by the second day, they nevertheless wore bright faces as they stuffed themselves full with mochi.

Yoshi and Yumi took Sen and went to Fukushima to see a movie. When Yoshi said, “You should come too, Sister-in-law!”, Toshie laughed and replied, “How could I go in this state?”

“Those moving pictures—all that flickering—what’s even supposed to be fun about ’em, I tell ya.”

The mother-in-law seemed intent on comforting Toshie, who couldn’t go. She likely thought sleeping would prove far more restful than watching those flickering pictures. Given the wartime circumstances, there were no formal New Year’s callers. Sōjirō returned red-faced from some feast or other, dozing obliviously by the hearth in carefree slumber. Tomota frequently attended national school meetings. Though they owned a radio, daytime electricity restrictions meant they could only tune in at night, and newspapers never arrived before noon. Toshie finally wrote multiple letters to Sōkichi without restraint, having held back until now.

After the modest village’s New Year had passed, Toshie had finally begun growing accustomed to her place in this household. At night after entering the bedroom, she would talk endlessly with Yoshi lying side by side. She heard they had become owners of 1 tan and 3 se of rice fields for the first time last year. With few rice fields in the village, households needing to buy rice to supplement shortages accounted for sixty percent of all homes—they couldn’t even tenant-farm enough for subsistence. To Toshie, who had simplistically assumed villages wouldn’t buy rice at all, this proved an unexpected revelation; yet even Yoshi’s household had until then fallen short by nearly three bales annually. They had over three tan of fields—enough for household vegetables and neri production—with the rest converted to mulberry plots. Sericulture brought nearly four hundred yen last year; paper prices kept rising yearly, surpassing around twenty-two hundred yen from two years prior despite reduced raw material allocations. Yoshi cited precise figures—having developed an interest after being made to handle tedious bookkeeping during Tomota’s military absence. These livelihood discussions Toshie initiated to indulge Yoshi ultimately drew them closer. With some exaggeration, Toshie recounted private chatter among factory girls at the Monopoly Bureau. Soon they whispered matters only women shared—exchanging hushed sighs of “How dreadful”—until Sen, thought asleep, would startle them awake. Yoshi earnestly probed the unknown world she’d soon enter. “Sis’s little one—hope it’s a boy.”

As for Sōzō, he would come to Toshie’s side while she cooked and abruptly say such things. Feeling a half-dazed gaze fixed upon her body, Toshie stiffened suddenly and reflexively clasped her hands over her front.

“Is it bad if it’s a girl? Do you hate that?” When he casually asked that, she suddenly blushed and looked away. “Well, even a girl… either’s fine, really.” No sooner had he said that than he abruptly asked how many hundred thousand people Kōriyama had. He wasn’t particularly trying to test his sister-in-law; instead, he muttered to himself about whether there were more factories in Kōriyama or Fukushima. “Do you want to go work at a factory?” “Yeah… Once I finish higher elementary, I want to go.”

At this, she looked bashful. When Toshie peered into the kitchen water jar and I went to draw water for her, she quickly lowered the bucket. Sen—now seventeen—had a certain difficult quality about her; though one might say she resembled Sōkichi most closely among them all, she remained somehow hard to rely on. As soon as Sōzō returned from school each day, he would throw down his bundle of tools and invariably ask Toshie if there was any work needing done. Then he would head off munching on a potato or such toward the paper mill, taking over from Sen at kozo beating. When she first heard that sound—a dull thudding rhythm—Toshie couldn’t place what made it.

Against the paper mill wall, at the low height suited for seated work, lay a flat stone approximately three shaku by two shaku—this was the kōzo-beating platform. The one in their household, according to Tomota, was an exceptionally high-grade granite slab gifted by the master as a congratulatory present when his father Sōjirō returned from the charcoal mountains and finally began papermaking. While those in other homes were generally around three sun thick, theirs was specially over five sun. They would place small amounts of bleached kōzo onto this platform and beat them thoroughly with a thick round rod, reducing the fibers to a sticky pulp. This marked the completion of the kōzo processing. One small bowl at a time—beating enough for one vat took around an hour. On the wall there, splattered kōzo fragments clung in pale patches across the entire surface. Thud, thud, thud—the simple, dull reverberations would sometimes lure Toshie, sewing in the main house’s living room, into a helplessness reminiscent of nostalgia. At times like these, even with Mother-in-law Otoki diligently pasting paper in the earthen-floored room, there existed a tension that rarely permitted conversation, leaving Toshie utterly alone.

The paper drying referred to as kamitsuke had generally become Otoki’s responsibility. The bundles of paper—their moisture sufficiently squeezed out by the pressing machine at the back of the paper mill until they reached a faintly damp state—were placed on a board and carried to the earthen-floored room of the main house. Peeling them off one by one, workers would spread the sheets onto drying boards laid over mortars serving as bases, using straw brushes. For Shōji screen paper’s large format, two sheets could be pasted on one side of a board; hanshi writing paper’s large format allowed three sheets, while Mino or umbrella paper permitted four. The pinewood drying boards—two shaku two sun in width and seven shaku five sun in length (which villagers called kamiita)—weighed over four kanmonme, yet when hoisted onto kamitsuke workers’ shoulders, they appeared as light as a single long sheet of paper. Even on sunless days, they would dry in about an hour. Since they were used alternately on both sides, every household kept around thirty of them. When the household first began this work, they could barely afford five boards—which then cost just two yen each—and only the kōzo-beating stone gifted by the master stood out incongruously shiny, Mother-in-law once reminisced.

Father-in-law Sōjirō would go out to assist with office work at the master’s residence. The master’s younger brother and a middle-aged clerk who had risen from farmhand labor handled affairs there; overwhelmed by processing each paper bundle carried in by groups of three or five along snowbound paths impassable to handcarts while also disbursing payments. When called from the office desk—"Sōjirō, sort this out"—he would rise lightly with an "Aah, I’ll see to it." Their longstanding bond now permitted interactions akin to relatives—a secret pride for Sōjirō and his wife that never let them forget their debt of gratitude.

On the other hand, from the perspective of union chairman Mr. Anzai Yasuo, Sōjirō—an honest man he had taken special care of since his father’s generation—was someone he could entrust with work more than anyone else.

Whenever Sōjirō returned home with his usual calm expression, he would invariably sit down and slowly drink his leftover tea. A man of few words, on warm days when mending papermaking screens on the veranda, he would remain silent for half a day at a stretch. At first, she worried whether he was in a bad mood, but Toshie gradually grew accustomed to that too.

“Well, five years at most, I suppose.” “By the second year, you won’t need to reweave ’em anymore.”

When Toshie asked how even after five years of use the screens and frames would become unusable yet could yield a hundred thousand sheets of paper if pulped, he methodically explained it to her. Though Toshie marveled at the papermaking screen’s beauty—so exquisitely crafted it seemed unmatched among all things called “screens”—he remained utterly indifferent to such matters, merely muttering “That’s how it works.” It was another truly fine day when Toshie—wearing Tomota’s rubber boots—followed Sōzō’s guidance along thawing paths to deliver lunch to Sōjirō charcoal-burning on a hill five or six chō away. He spoke as tersely as ever, yet his face clearly showed concern as he asked whether walking that distance was too much.

“They say a little exercise would be good.” When she showed him the butterbur sprouts she had found on the embankment along the way as they sat down side by side, he narrowed his eyes and murmured, “Hmm... So it’s already that season.” “How’s Sō doing, I wonder?”

“He’s surely fine. I don’t even have dreams, you see.”

And with that, the conversation ended. Their charcoal burning required nothing more than open fires—they only needed to produce three or four bales annually for household use, burning them on a mountain borrowed from the master. Chirp-chirp went a small bird on a withered branch as wispy blue smoke curled up from the makeshift kiln. Though patchy snow still lingered in shaded hollows, sunlight from the deep azure sky held spring’s tender warmth—and Toshie, who had long dwelled in a provincial town’s outskirts, felt herself captivated by this reawakened spaciousness; yet more than that, the quiet warmth of her father-in-law sitting wordlessly beside her seeped profoundly through her chest.

Even in Sōjirō, this father-in-law of such character, when he brought out the large willow cutting board to the center of the living room and trimmed the large-format paper, his movements remained slow; yet there was a resoluteness—a dignified thread of resolve—that could be sensed. Trimming was regarded as the next most important technique after sheet-forming. They would stack about a hundred sheets at a time to trim them, but even if the surrounding scraps were recycled, the quality would degrade, and above all, they would leave visible seams. To minimize waste scraps as much as possible, Shōji screen paper in the 9-sun 3-bun size was formed with its dimensions slightly extended by one sun vertically, leaving not a single rin of deviation permitted for the trimming plane. Meanwhile, the large-format Japanese paper—stacked solidly in hundreds of sheets—emitted an overwhelming luster of dignity, as though responding to that tense trimmer.

Yet in those moments when Sōjirō himself was about to begin trimming, a deep joy welled up in his heart—unnoticed by any family member, let alone discernible to someone like Toshie. Before starting to trim, Sōjirō would always stroke both sides of the paper several times, immersing himself in solitary reflection. This might well have been called Sōjirō’s private delight. From two years prior when Tomota had been conscripted until now, there had not been the slightest difference between the paper he himself had made and what Tomota now produced. When he once mentioned this to his wife, only to have her dismiss it as obvious—mere proof that Tomota’s skill had matched his father’s—he resolved never to speak of it again. Yet for Sōjirō, this explanation could never suffice. Needless to say, even for Grade 1 shōji paper of identical composition—80% kōzo and 20% pulp—experts could discern quality differences at a glance based on material treatment and the papermaker’s skill. Grade 2 products with 50% kōzo and 50% pulp would have their own gradations of merit. Sōjirō’s secret joy did not lie in such measurable equivalences. At first he thought it might stem from identical textures left by the brushing on the paper’s reverse side. The drying process had been handled both times by Mother Otoki, whose twenty-plus years of experience had rendered her movements machine-like in precision. But he gradually realized this was no simple matter of drying techniques—it ran deeper, more intrinsic. Still, Sōjirō found himself unable to articulate it. —It was something akin to the paper’s very soul. What he sensed in their father-and-son paper was a shared essence flowing equally through military-grade sheets, shōji screens, Grade 1 and Grade 2 products alike.

Six “Auntie, hurry up and come here! It’s terrible!” The child from the neighboring house came shouting and found Sōjirō lying face down under the eaves of that house. “Tomota! Yoshi!” Otoki raised her voice in a frantic shout. Toshie, who had been learning packaging from Sen by the living room’s shōji screen, restlessly descended to the dirt floor on trembling knees. It was an afternoon in mid-March—not even a month and a half since Toshie had arrived—when Mount Adatara glowed dully under a cold, sunless sky.

About four years prior, he had been struck by a similarly severe attack. The doctor said it seemed to be cardiac asthma and gave an injection. The family members made unconvinced faces at the diagnosis of asthma despite his usual lack of violent coughing fits, but afterward there were no further incidents—he would simply lie by the hearth on occasion when experiencing slight palpitations.

Carried on a door plank, Sōjirō had a forehead now completely ashen, oily sweat beading on it. By the time Tomota brought the doctor from Hakkemachi, he had long since lost consciousness. Toshie—who had been trembling uncontrollably with Sen out of sheer terror at the patient’s face—was called into the inner room, where hollow white eyes turned toward her. It was a death one could hardly resign oneself to. Until the day of the funeral, Otoki remained in such a daze that she couldn’t even shed tears.

“Telling you to give up is no use… I’ll handle Father’s share too, so you gotta hold yourself together, Mother. If even you start weakenin’, we’ll be ruined.” Even so, when Tomota said this to her after the funeral, she answered, “I know, but I mean to earn Father’s share too,” her words contradicting the reality that her inner strength had completely drained away. Reflecting on everything from when they began paper recycling to building their lives up to now, she found her husband—who had vanished into death here—infinitely dear. There had been rumors years ago, heard through some letter, that a woman named Okimi—who’d abandoned her husband and Tomota—had died of typhus, but until now it had never even crossed her mind; yet since Sōjirō’s death, she found herself occasionally recalling it. Was that woman meeting her husband again in the afterlife? No—such a foolish, detestable creature who’d abandon such a good husband must surely inhabit a different realm from where her husband dwelled, she concluded.

“Really now, to die without even seeing his grandchild’s face… What a foolish Father he was.”

While drying paper, Otoki muttered to herself. By late March, the paper dried noticeably faster. Though constantly occupied with drying boards during the day—having Yoshi help shuttle between the dirt-floored workspace and garden—she managed well enough. But come nightfall, an unbearable loneliness would overwhelm her. Sometimes Tomota’s silhouette—crouched before the kōzo-boiling furnace as he broke kindling—startled her with its sudden resemblance to her husband’s form. Even when accompanying Toshie and Sen in one group and Yoshi with Sōzō in another to the outdoor toilet at night, she found herself inexplicably irritated.

“But you all—is Father’s presence so frightening?” “Mother here… I keep thinking if only Father would show up somehow.” When faced with such deadly earnestness in her expression, Toshie and the others could find no words to respond. In truth, Otoki wasn’t merely paying lip service—when she stepped outside at bedtime, she would stand peering through the darkness for some time, seeking her husband’s form.

The reply to their initial report about taking Toshie into the household finally arrived from Sōkichi in Central China after nearly two months. He wrote that if he could return safely, he would formally apologize to his parents, but in the event of his death, he entrusted everything to their care. “Apologies mean nothing now—Father’s already gone,” Otoki said through tearful smiles as she placed the letter before the new mortuary tablet. “Apologies don’t matter—Father understood everything. But to go without even seeing his grandchild’s face…”

Without wiping her overflowing tears, she lapsed into her usual soliloquy, but faced with Mother in such a state, Yoshi and Toshie could find no words to offer, left only to shrink into the distance. “It would’ve been better if Brother had married long ago.” “It’s just that I ain’t got no tact—makes us look bad.”

She would abruptly bring up such matters, mentioning names of those Tomota’s age who already had two or three children. At twenty-seven this year and being the heir, he was indeed considered late by the village’s customs. Whenever the topic arose, Tomota himself would remain evasive, leaving the matter unresolved—but now that her husband was gone, Otoki suddenly began dwelling on it as if it were her own failing. Moreover, though she had never felt any reservation toward Tomota during her husband’s lifetime, now alone, she found herself hesitating to voice her thoughts, a restraint that had taken root unnoticed. Of course, there was no reason for Tomota’s demeanor to have changed; with Father’s death, she had simply become foolish—or so Otoki secretly believed.

For Mother, who had grown visibly irritable, it was Yoshi and Toshie who were most burdened.

“Ever since Father died, Mother’s become so much more prone to complaining, don’t you think?”

As Yoshi spoke, making Toshie fret beside her,

“Who do you think made you the young woman you are now, Yoshi!” Her voice came out more shrill than anticipated. Though what Mother said struck Yoshi as somewhat misplaced and hard to grasp in this context—and though she wanted to snap back—the unexpected ferocity in Mother’s demeanor left her swallowing her words. Mother remained sullenly quiet, clattering dishes roughly in the kitchen.

“If Brother were to bring a bride, I think Mother’s mood might improve.”

When Toshie spoke in the sunlit spot before the shed, Yoshi blinked with an air of discernment. “Even if Yumi-chan isn’t suitable, there are plenty of others.” “Yumi-chan would be nice, I suppose.” “Brother’s rigid… not like the rest of us.” After saying that and laughing, Toshie entered the papermaking hut. “Brother, you should get married soon.” Even when addressed so abruptly, Tomota didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow. Maintaining his slightly stern profile—that of one wholly absorbed in his task—he submerged the suketa frame into the vat with a splash. “Is there a decent girl available?” he responded nonetheless.

“If it’s Brother, there are plenty of candidates right there, Sen-chan.” When Toshie said this with a straight face, Sen—who had been beating kōzo bark beside her—hunched her shoulders and stuck out her tongue.

Yumi still showed up from time to time. Whenever she seemed to be chatting with Otoki, she would then come over to Toshie’s side and peer at the infant clothes being sewn. Back when I was in Kōriyama, I’d somehow managed to gather a basic set by timing it when my younger brother wouldn’t notice, but since coming here, my mother-in-law had provided various old items, so now I had several cotton pieces that were hard to obtain these days. Due to some instructions from the village office, a midwife familiar with the village had come by about twice.

“What’re you feelin’ right now?”

Even when asked by Yumi, Toshie simply smiled. Whether the baby was a boy or a girl didn’t matter to her; all she felt was an utterly simple desire—to be able to send news of a healthy child’s birth to Sōkichi on the battlefield and to her mother in Sukagawa. “You look so happy.” Having heard everything from Yoshi, she could immediately grasp the true sentiments behind Yumi’s words, yet precisely because of that, all she could manage was to respond to the superficial meaning—“Yes, I’m truly happy.”

One day: “Yocchan?” With that, Yumi entered in a somewhat flustered state unlike her usual self. When asked “What’s wrong?” and answered with “I’m bleaching kōzo downstairs,” she hurriedly left as she was. The sound of someone dashing down the slope filled Toshie—now so near her due date that even daily movements were laborious—with an inexplicable envy. Even climbing from the well to the garden required her to pause for breath once. She tried to break off a plum branch blooming there but couldn’t quite stretch high enough, only catching the scent that melted and drifted in the balmy sunlight. At the edge of the mulberry field, the red buds of peonies were being incessantly stroked by the antennae of a small beetle. When she raised her eyes, the distant woods blurred into a pale green haze. On such days in April, even the sound of water from the papermaking hut carried a heartening warmth.

Sister-in-law was at her wits' end, and Yoshi, who had soon returned, came over after all but tossing the kōzo bucket onto the dirt floor. The story that Yumi, who had rushed into the bleaching shed, suddenly began telling was about her quarrel with her fiancé Ryōsaburō. Ryōsaburō—who had returned to the village on company leave—treated Yumi in his usual manner; due to some tangled exchange of words even meek Yumi seemed unable to endure it. "If that's how you feel then just marry someone you like," she finally told him. There was no reason she should endure such thorough ridicule from him. First of all—Yumi kept reiterating while growing increasingly agitated—Ryōsaburō himself was just a village-born man who'd merely lived five or six years in Fukushima. At first uncertain how to respond,Yoshi later joined Yumi in thoroughly badmouthing Ryōsaburō. As she spoke,Yoshi's eyes too burned with agitation. Toshie too felt anger rising within her as though this were her own affair.

“If things get this tangled up, what on earth will happen later?” Though she didn’t voice it aloud, the absurdity of being bound by such parental agreements made Toshie’s frustration unbearable. On an evening two days before the midwife’s predicted date, labor pains began in Toshie’s belly. She had to step outside repeatedly—so often it grew embarrassing. Still, she worked in the kitchen alongside Sen. When Tomota’s visiting friend made crude jokes while leaving, she forced loud laughter to hide her state, but soon the intermittent pains became intolerable. When she called “Yocchan,” Yoshi—finally noticing—shouted “Mother!” in an excited voice.

“Is it time?” Otoki entered from the rear bathhouse while tightening her waist cord, lifted the prone Toshie with brusque efficiency, and said, “Yoshi, lay out Sister-in-law’s futon quick.” But then—“No—Yoshi can’t handle this—Mother should do it”—she rushed into the inner room. This mother—who had lately seemed drained of vitality—now moved with startling ferocity as she barked orders at Tomota and Yoshi between panting breaths. Reaching the midwife’s house in Hachikenchō took over an hour even at speed. Tomota ducked into the inner room to see Toshie off—his cheek tingling oddly as if brushed by the thought that Sōkichi’s child would finally be born—then removed the lantern from the earthen wall. To Sen—who had abandoned her packaging work to pace aimlessly—he called: “Yoshi!” After instructing them to assist Sister-in-law, he stepped out beneath stars sharp with lingering winter chill.

Seven Wanting only to hide his spirit utterly sapped by dreariness, he found himself seen through by Yoshi and Toshie instead—yet whenever anything happened, he would raise his voice in forced vigor. One moment she sank into vulnerability where pride meant nothing; the next she deliberately aired petty grievances before her daughter and daughter-in-law. Yet from the day Toshie’s child was born, something raw and vital revived in Otoki’s very bearing. The midwife came only three days; after that, Otoki herself tended to the postpartum care. It was a big-eyed girl who looked just as Sōkichi had when he was born.

“Hey, Katsuko, your grandpa was a fool to go and die without seeing such an adorable baby’s face.” Muttering her habitual monologue to herself, she caressed the infant in the basin.

But something awaited that would test Otoki once more, forcing the household’s daily fabric to shift entirely—Tomota had received another conscription order.

“Mother, listen—I’m off to war again.” When Tomota thrust the red paper at her with wide eyes, she gasped as if struck through the chest and stood gaping like a fool. Though there had been men in the village called up twice before—though people might have steeled themselves for such possibilities—for a woman like Otoki, that reality had never truly drawn near until it now loomed abruptly before her. After barely managing to say “Wait” and drag her buckling body to the bedroom, Otoki sank down wearily, murmuring “Father… Father…” For a time she remained motionless with closed eyes,

“Is that so? Then I’ve got my own plan for the materials.” “You’ll see, Father—I ain’t just some fool of a woman, y’know.”

And this time, she muttered in a slightly louder voice.

Mr. Yasuo Anzai, the union chairman who had rushed over, busily looked over Yoshi and the others by the hearthside. He asked, “Where’s Mother?”—*What kind of situation is this, her sleeping at a time like this?*—and without hesitation headed into the inner room, only to be addressed in a clear voice by Otoki, who sat properly upright there.

“Mr.Chairman, what’s to become of our military-grade paper?” “Military-grade paper? No need for such worry—most has already been settled. We’ll distribute what’s left elsewhere properly to avoid any inconvenience.” This was naturally the union chairman’s responsibility. “After all… a woman like me just ain’t cut out for this work.” “Mother?” He thought with mild exasperation—so that’s how she felt—but pity outweighed his frustration, making direct confrontation impossible.

“It’s not that it’s impossible… I know full well how exceptional Mother’s hanshi paper is…” Even as she was told this, she knew all too well that someone like herself—who had only occasionally made paper in place of Sōjirō—could never manage to produce military-grade paper that would pass inspection. If only Father were still alive—as this spineless thought threatened to well up once more, Otoki steeled herself and shook it off.

At night, with Yoshi before him, Tomota brought out the ledger and examined each item from the previous year—food expenses 365.61, housing 40.15, clothing 180.81, public dues 10.40—giving instructions for their livelihood while he would be away. First came allocating the field work that would soon begin, along with coordinating the timing for silkworm rearing. Then there was next year's paper production. As they wondered how much paper the women alone could possibly make, they gazed with deep emotion at the production records from the 15th year—a time before military-grade paper existed. Shoji paper: 191 bundles (93-sheet bundles at ¥19.10 each) ¥3,757.80; lining paper (3,100 sheets) ¥64.07; miscellaneous paper ¥153.00; total ¥3,974.87. Expenses: kōzo mulberry bark, soda ash etc.—¥1,367.24; labor wages—¥200.50; fuel—¥80.00; net balance—¥2,292.13. With six family members working 200 days, the daily labor wages had come to just over eleven yen, but with Mother, my sisters, and Sōzō, I had to admit that managing even half of that would already be commendable.

“Shouldn’t we halve the nori usage too?” “Yeah…” Whenever nori was mentioned, Tomota felt a certain melancholy—one he would occasionally recall and gently caress. On the Central China front, when he discovered a cotton field in full bloom, he momentarily fell into the illusion of standing in his hometown’s nori fields. The roots were crushed into bags, their squeezed mucilage serving as the paper’s sole adhesive—villagers often called nori “nire” in dialect—and though their palmate leaves resembled cotton’s, their lobes split far deeper. Upon closer inspection, these lobes bore coarse serrations, their stems differed in shape, and compared to cotton’s rounded forms, one side had stiff hairs along elongated pointed ovals. Yet the single-petaled yellow flowers—plump and open like nori blossoms—evoked those fields without needing to glimpse their crimson-tinged purple bases.

Muttering "Nori, huh... Yeah," Tomota stepped down into the earthen-floored workspace and looked up at the remaining nori bundles hanging overhead, still caked with soil. His household consumed about eighty kan annually, requiring just three se of cultivated field. Though securing fertilizers like potassium and phosphate grew harder each year, without nori there could be no paper—so villagers labored frantically to produce it. Even maintaining previous output levels would prove futile without him present; the harvest would simply rot. Yet bound by lingering attachment that kept him from insisting they needed less than half the usual amount, Tomota kept gazing up at the beams indefinitely—he already knew too well the battlefield's unspeakable horrors. From this day, he had reverted to being a soldier. Now that his sole purpose meant advancing through bullet storms with bayonet fixed—all else reduced to meaningless trifles—Tomota found himself vexed by this other self that had heedlessly split off: a separate mind still agonizing over nori cultivation, which he could hardly contain within himself.

The person who would soon cross beyond life and death within days lay staring at the ceiling with an expression wrestling with thoughts far removed from that harsh reality—Toshie, still confined to her childbed, watched him with profound dissonance. As for the nori adhesive and such matters, he ought to simply leave them to others. Amidst the disarray where no one could properly grasp their tasks, while the rest of the family fidgeted nervously, her brother-in-law—whether from dulled nerves or something else—showed none of the urgency befitting someone holding a conscription order, appearing almost disturbingly composed. When she had learned of Sōkichi’s conscription, there had been no trembling exhilaration—but now, with Tomota’s impending absence leaving her unmoored, Toshie found herself driven by ceaseless restlessness that kept her knees shaking uncontrollably.

The next day, as Tomota was slipping on his uniform sleeves to go make his farewell rounds, Toshie peered into his face and asked, "What's wrong?" "Brother... aren't you lonely?" Yumi asked.

“Why?” When asked this, he found himself momentarily at a loss for words. He had discussed things late into the night with Yoshi as well. At Tomota’s age, villagers typically deployed leaving behind wives and children—or at least women they were promised to—yet here was Tomota being conscripted again without ever having so much as touched a woman’s hand. One might dismiss this as trivial sentimentality from some young woman’s perspective, but still, one couldn’t help but feel a heartrending loneliness. Even so, Toshie harbored deep within her heart an admiration for that very wooden stoicism—a man departing for war without a trace of romantic entanglement—finding in his emotional detachment a masculine allure worthy of reverence.

“I spoke with Yocchan last night too.” When Toshie said this laughing, Tomota responded, “Hmm… I think keeping things plain’s better anyway.”

“Unlike Sōkichi, I never managed to grab hold of a good girl.”

It was an unusual joke coming from Tomota.

“But there might be someone.”

In the heat of the moment, even Toshie couldn't help letting a teasing remark slip out. "Are you talking about me?" she retorted without flinching—but Tomota, who immediately grasped her implication, averted his eyes all the same. If this continued any further, things seemed likely to get out of hand. "You're too carefree by half." "I've no time for women's talk now."

While tying his shoelaces with Toshie’s “I understand” at his back, he tried to picture Yumi—who had learned of his conscription just yesterday—standing quietly in the earthen-floored entryway with an urgent look on her face. If Tomota were to call out “Yumi,” her eyes would immediately threaten to well up with tears. Had she gone to Ryōsaburō?—the words lashed at himself instead, and he felt with piercing clarity the spasming cheek of the other, watching it rapidly turn cold and pale. As a conscriptee, he did possess an uncompromising moral conviction. Yet wasn’t there also a vulgar vanity at play—a desire to proudly maintain an outward purity entirely devoid of romantic entanglements, diametrically opposed to his brother who had marched off leaving behind a woman with his child, unknown to their parents? However, even this was ultimately nothing more than a self-comforting realm his escapism had desperately conjured—and thus, on the other hand, there lingered the cloying sentimentality of one who marched forth secretly cradling a heart steeped in passionate attachment. (Moreover, how foolish such vanity and sentimentality were as mere mental games—something Tomota himself should have already known all too well from his battlefield experience, having learned it the moment he first faced combat.)

The day before his departure to the garrison town dawned with a beautifully clear sky after the night’s rain, and the airplanes that had been crossing over the village daily these days traced brilliant arcs high above. Had they kept up papermaking through the entire summer, they would surely have been able to produce military-grade paper by winter this year. That’s right—we’ll keep making paper through this summer no matter what, Otoki resolved aloud as she carried the baby’s soiled clothes to the well.

As November arrived and the autumn work reached its conclusion, without a moment’s respite came the Taishi-kō ritual marking the start of papermaking. From there until early May’s 88th night—a full six months constituting the papermaking season—though rare households would persist through the remaining half-year too, juggling farming and sericulture alongside while carefully managing pulp prone to rapid spoilage in summer heat. For Otoki, whose sole purpose was honing her skills, processing two or even three vats daily posed no issue. With that modest amount of materials, consulting the master would surely resolve everything.

"(You're the mother of two soldiers now, and you've got a first grandchild—hang in there, Mother.)" The master's words had greatly pleased Otoki.

Along the narrow path worn by straw sandals along one side, Otoki called out loudly from the well to Tomota, who had returned from the national school’s send-off ceremony with a soldier’s stride. “This diaper’s from Sōzō’s time—I recognize it.”

To this, she remarked that she remembered it well, then composed herself slightly. “Brother, I reckon I’ll try keepin’ at the papermakin’ all summer long, I tell you.” “I’ve thought it all through, but if we don’t…” “Summer paper or such, Mother—” “No—it’s a whole different matter, I tell you!” Otoki hurriedly interjected. Seeing his mother’s eyes—shining with childlike simplicity as she squared her shoulders slightly, declaring she’d now honed her skills enough to make paper this winter that wouldn’t lose to Father or Brother—Tomota found himself at a loss for words.

“Right… If you keep at it all summer, you’ll surely make fine paper by winter.” He could only nod in agreement. There were several households that had sent all their men to the front and were being run entirely by women. Driven by Mother’s determination not to be outdone by such families, it would only be a matter of time before military-grade paper was produced by her hands at the Yoshiko residence too. It occurred to him that perhaps Mother wanted to hear words assuring her he could depart with peace of mind—but voicing such sentiments felt somehow shameful, and what emerged in the end was an offhand remark.

“But still, Mother—don’t push yourself too hard, I tell you.”

“Mm, I’ll be fine.” “Brother, you be careful now.” When he looked toward the vat where pulp was dissolved, clustering yellow narcissuses—past their peak, wilted and shriveled—swayed heavily in a wind that had just begun to rise.

“After all, this is a great war—don’t you dare count on me returning… Whether it’s Sōkichi or Yoshi’s Shigeji… As Mother, you shouldn’t have to bear that burden… Yoshi’ll manage the household… No matter what comes… understand, Mother?” “I understand,” Otoki’s eyes remained fixed ahead. “Even if three trials line up before you from now on… Brother… Mother won’t falter one bit.”

“Then I can rest easy.” The words he had been unable to say now flowed out smoothly for the first time— The materials for first-grade shoji paper, prepared solely for papermaking, still remained in about four vats’ worth. Though it had been on his mind, he had let himself be consumed by the busyness—but now that the time had finally come, it had grown into an inescapable regret. When Tomota said, “Well then, maybe I should just finish that much,” Yoshi—listening nearby while thinking there was no need to spend his last evening engrossed in papermaking—understood his desire to settle everything before leaving, yet couldn’t help finding his persistence somewhat pitiful.

Though called a farewell dinner, after finishing the modest meal attended only by the master and branch head, Tomota entered the papermaking hut. When Mother said, “Leave it as it is and let Mother handle the papermaking,” he deliberately replied, “But this is first-grade paper—Mother might not manage it well,” to which Otoki laughed, “You said it yourself, Brother—remember that.” Twisting on the twenty-watt electric lamp, Tomota gazed intently around the hut that loomed starkly in the unseasonable chill. The scent of papermaking liquid he hadn’t smelled these past few days struck his nostrils with startling freshness. Noticing this, he bent down and peered into the gray-sedimented vat where two or three winged insects—slightly larger than mosquitoes—drifted on the surface. That such insects had fallen into the vat was proof the 88th night—marking the season’s end—would soon arrive.

As he wrung out the nori from the second vat, Yumi’s voice reached him from the main house saying something. With a start, he placed his hands on the papermaking frame, but as he continued forming sheet after sheet, he soon slipped unwittingly into his usual papermaking trance—and even when footsteps abruptly halted outside the hut, Tomota’s mind remained still as a deep pool. “You’re making paper even though you leave tomorrow?” “That’s exactly why I’m making it now.” With just her usual soft, stifled laugh—“Fu, fu”—she seemed poised to remain standing there motionless, but after a while, without so much as a goodbye, the sound of Yumi’s straw sandals slowly faded away from the front of the papermaking hut.