Pathway to Japanese Literature

It was about what happened when they had been submerged at sea bottom for extended periods and finally prepared to surface. After all, submarines by their very nature had their air supplies completely cut off while underwater. The air would grow increasingly foul until every breath left them feeling clammy and suffocated - though none let it show on their faces - clinging desperately to hopes of fresh air like gasping goldfish. Thus when surfacing became imminent, everyone would grow restless waiting for that instant when the hatch opened. The vessel would push through seawater and surge upward. When the lid burst open with a pop, briny fresh air came cascading down through the hatch. This was about that precise moment.

“They gulp it down—you’d think how wonderfully refreshing it must taste.” “But that’s not how it is.” “The moment they inhale, they’re hit with a gagging surge of nausea, and greasy sweat pours out.” “That’s one hell of an awful feeling.” “Their throats just won’t accept the new air at all.” “About a minute—that goes on.” “Finally their throats and lungs adjust, and then they truly come to realize—this thing called air really is delicious.” “You’ve got to experience this yourself to understand that taste.”

The Reserve Officer with the trimmed mustache looked around at our faces and concluded this story with a somewhat proud expression. This Reserve Officer was a decent guy, and I liked him. He was a guileless man who had a child attending middle school. This was unusual for a Reserve Officer. Typically, Navy Reserve Officers had a strangely twisted disposition and harbored an odd resentment toward us cram-course Reserve Officers. When you thought about it, that was only natural. We had only a year or so of training and couldn't even do decent work in practice, yet we put on airs as full-fledged officers. For those who had worked their way up over ten or fifteen years in this field, there must have been nothing but infuriating aspects from every angle. I could understand their urge to nitpick. But I hadn't joined the Navy out of any desire to be there, and since I knew I'd end up dying as expendable anyway, I didn't pay it much mind. In other words, we were like brides entering a house teeming with sisters-in-law. Even if they didn't genuinely intend to bully us, they'd naturally start looking for faults. So even among us, the one with the most flaws got treated the most harshly. The one who was treated the most harshly was Futami, a reserve officer who had been in the same class as me.

I will now tell the story of Second Lieutenant Futami.

The man called Futami was, to put it simply, completely unsuited to military life. A man who lacked the qualifications of a soldier to that extent must have been rare indeed. In that regard, even among the reserve officers of the same class, there were many who looked down on Futami. However, this must be said: a man who tried as hard as Futami to become soldier-like must have been rare indeed. For that reason, he had been piling up agony that seeped blood. (Let me clarify—this didn’t mean he wanted to build a military career or that he loved the army.) (In truth, he was the complete opposite.) And his efforts to become more soldier-like would, in his case, invariably manifest in decisively opposite results. It was like a man cursed with a losing streak at gambling—the harder he tried, the deeper he sank into loss.

Futami was four or five years older than us. Unlike us—drafted straight into the Navy from school—Futami had first been conscripted as a private soldier before being half-forced into becoming a reserve officer from the naval corps. He should have stayed a soldier. A soldier just follows orders—the physical strain would’ve been brutal, but the mental burden of responsibility would’ve been lighter. Screw up and you’d get beaten on the spot—end of story. But as an officer? Not so simple. As officers of the prestigious Imperial Navy, make one careless mistake and they’d come down on you hard—no mercy. The Navy—seemed easygoing at first glance but was crawling with petty tyrants. Futami had lived through that with nerves stretched taut like ice. It must’ve taken tremendous effort.

Futami’s physique was not particularly frail, but it gave off a somewhat misshapen impression. There was an imbalance somewhere in his build. His limbs had a slightly elongated feel, giving the impression that his joints might slip out of place. He had woman-like sloping shoulders and, as if compensating for them, thrust out his thin chest. I think Futami must have been slouching when he was in the countryside. I don’t know where he had been employed before, but ever since joining the military, after being subjected to a litany of complaints—that he wasn’t soldier-like, that he lacked a go-getter spirit—he must have forced himself to thrust out his chest like that. So that posture had an unnatural feel to it. What supported that thrust-out chest wasn’t Futami’s spine—it was his own stretched-taut nerves. He walked with his neck held straight atop sloping shoulders, lips pursed as if biting down, eyes fixed straight ahead. His gaze was fixed straight ahead, but his eyes always held a frail, frightened look. As if desperately trying to protect something.

Take Futami’s way of walking, for instance. This had become the target of scornful laughter from Reserve Officers and sometimes even soldiers, but he would swing both legs forward and walk with vigorous clattering. Just like a marionette, he swung both arms correctly and marched forward with rhythmic clattering. Futami’s face was utterly serious, the strain of meticulously calculated effort contorting his delicate features. And when saluting or returning salutes, he would snap his right palm up to his face in perfect sync with his stepping foot—exactly like a marionette controlled by strings. The momentum was perfectly coordinated. That had an extremely comical feel to it.

Such things would happen. For instance, the more real hair you add to a mannequin or make its skin color lifelike, the further it strayed from resembling an actual human and became grotesque. Second Lieutenant Futami’s case bore some resemblance to this. Were one to describe it using only the language from the manual, not a single flaw could be found in Futami’s every movement and gesture. His chest was properly thrust out; his arms were swung correctly; his salute met regulations like a first-year soldier’s—not a single imperfection could be pinpointed. That was precisely why it felt so decisively strange. It struck you viscerally. Spiteful petty officers would even detour just to make Futami return their salutes. Matching their footwork with a swift raise of their palms, he would return their salutes. Then, in sync with his step, he lowered his palm with equal swiftness. All while oddly straining his feeble facial expression.

Of course, Futami was fully aware they were saluting him precisely for that reason. For Futami, maintaining such posture and movements demanded his utmost effort—he couldn’t afford to let them slacken through familiarity like other officers did. If he were to slacken and reveal his true nature, he would truly become unlike a soldier—this he had learned through and through from over a year of military life. If you needed momentum to perform a proper salute, then anyone would have no choice but to do exactly this. Even if laughed at, there was no other choice but to persist. When I think how much nerve Futami—a man so utterly devoid of motor skills—expended to preserve himself as an officer, I always grow somber. He had lived what amounted to twenty ordinary years within his single year in the military. Because I had been with Futami since officer training, I knew well the process by which he had come to be that way. Not one of our classmates messed up as much as he did or got chewed out as often. And as for a man who tried as desperately as he did to twist himself into military shape—

However, as I mentioned earlier, that effort of his often manifested in completely opposite results. For example, overwhelmed by tension, he would end up shouting “Right dress!” when he meant to say “Eyes right!”. And he would be scolded by the captain so fiercely that his eyes might pop out, or invite the laughter of the petty officers and soldiers. Even in his duties, he frequently made such blunders that the Chief Petty Officer would come over and briskly reprimand him. When that happened, Futami would listen to the complaints in an upright, motionless posture. With a tense expression as though performing a solemn duty. Second Lieutenant Futami, in front of the Chief Petty Officer. Even if soldiers had come to complain, Futami might have listened in an upright, motionless posture. He must have been well aware of the military’s ideology and system—that lower ranks must absolutely obey higher ranks—but he could only perceive them as something external to himself. He couldn’t properly position himself within it. For him, the world of the military existed solely as an oppressive force demanding his obedience. Therefore, Futami’s efforts to be soldier-like differed from what ordinary people might imagine. He knew he was utterly unsuited to this world and wanted somehow to paper over the humiliation arising from that deficiency. That was the kind of man Futami was. He had a pathological fear of things going wrong in the worst possible way. He had a pathological sensitivity to humiliation. That could be seen in Futami’s expression whenever he messed up.

For instance, when he messed up a command, he would suddenly turn deathly pale. It looked exactly like the face of a child caught stealing food. Because he sensed the voiceless ridicule around him, he would try to laugh it off in embarrassment—but even that proved impossible. His cheeks only twitched stiffly. I still cannot forget the expression he wore in those moments. He was trembling violently while waiting for the humiliation-steeped time to flow away quickly. The navy is truly a peculiar place—once you enter that world, your capacity to sympathize with or defend others’ failures gradually wears thin, while the urge to censure or mock them grows stronger. Even I am like that. In a military that so emphasizes unity, what was this phenomenon? And within that system, what position a man like Second Lieutenant Futami occupied—you can probably guess without being told.

Regarding Futami’s lack of motor skills—as I mentioned earlier—the navy had something called navy gymnastics. It was a somewhat complex exercise, but still not particularly difficult. Once you got used to it, anyone could do it. Futami was never able to perform this gymnastics properly until the very end. The only thing he could manage was the Yūdō-furi exercise; when given commands like “Yūdō-furi: Swing arms forward in circular motion, stop at sides, bend body forward four times each,” he would have no idea what to do. No—even when he did understand, his body simply wouldn’t move properly. When you became an officer, there were times you had to stand on a platform and lead calisthenics by barking commands—but even in this unit, he somehow managed to persist without ever doing this. He knew it well himself. Though the spiteful special duty officers tried to force Futami onto the platform,

This unit was stationed along the coast—the mainland was still the mainland—but after Okinawa fell, Grummans began coming daily, so they had dug numerous caves into cliff faces where both officers and soldiers lived. If there were ever a mainland landing, this area would likely have become ground zero. Yet life in those caves was oppressive. The humidity clung thickly year-round, turning viciously muggy come July and August. We stayed jittery around the clock with no respite. It felt like an iron hand constantly pressing down on our skulls. Even in officers’ quarters—inside caves naturally—ordinary talk took on jagged edges until some blameless orderly inevitably got slapped. When you sink into that mood humans stop seeing past their own noses. Everything binding people together starts looking counterfeit. That’s how we lived there in that unit. Wondering when enemy boots would hit these shores making it a battlefield one moment—trying not to think about it at all the next.

However, that was a coast where the sunsets were truly breathtaking. When dinner was over, I would sometimes go out to the coast and gaze at the sunset. The indescribably delicate and resplendent spectacle of colors covering the heart of the sky shone upon the sea, gradually shifting their hues. Gazing at it, I felt as though I were slipping free from somewhere and journeying to a faraway place. However, that time too lasted only about ten minutes. When the sunset sank into gray, I would feel like a fallen fox and head back to the cave.

It was also on that sunset-drenched coast that Futami let slip to me how before being conscripted, he had written fairy tales as a hobby. Whether Futami too had come out to gaze at the sunset, I do not know. We found ourselves together on the shore and, while watching the sunset, exchanged brief words. Futami was normally a man who spoke little even in the officers' room and kept to himself, so this sudden urge to share personal memories might have come from being momentarily bewitched by the sunset's magic. That day too, massive cumulonimbus clouds had piled up in the southern sky, stained crimson by the sunset. Their color shone reflected in Futami's fragile yet clear eyes.

“When I see clouds like that, I feel like writing a fairy tale again.”

Futami murmured those words almost to himself. Then, as if flustered, he returned his gaze and formed a strange smile. Then, as if to add, he murmured again. “Of course, I can’t write them anymore.”

“You want to go home, don’t you?” “You too.” Without any particular feeling, I answered like that. Then Futami seemed to stiffen as if startled. But he said nothing, immediately averted his gaze, and once again stared at the sunset for a while. The sunset clouds were swollen round like the back of some animal. Futami stood at attention in the “at ease” position, but even now kept both palms pressed against his thighs as regulations dictated. Backlit by the sunset, his figure stood out blackly, and the uneven silhouette of his sloping shoulders suddenly seared itself into my eyes. It was an indescribable feeling of loneliness. Remaining in that posture, Futami said in a low voice:

“Enemy, sir, won’t you hurry up and come ashore?” “I can’t wait.” “Planning to die valiantly by the sword?”

“No—” Futami threw back his head and laughed wretchedly. “I just thought it would be funny.”

I hadn’t seen Futami laugh much before, so it felt strange. That laugh made me strangely aware of the age difference between us. He always gave the impression of a peer who strained to act tough yet constantly bungled things, but in that moment alone, I sensed Futami as a person existing in a realm entirely apart. That was actually a perfectly ordinary feeling, but when you’re in the military, such sensitivities inevitably grow dull. When the sunset ended, he wiped that smile from his cheeks, silently stepped away from me, pressed his lips together as if biting down, and headed back to the cave with his usual clattering gait. It was nothing significant, but this particular evening’s events remain strangely vivid in my memory. Looking back, the fact that he and I ever spoke alone about anything beyond military duties must have been because of that time. Perhaps it was because I felt I had glimpsed the true face of that guy—always stiffly strained, always hiding his raw self beneath the surface. But then again, that too might have just been my sunset-induced sentimentality—I can’t say for certain.

About ten days had passed since then, I suppose.

The war ended suddenly—

The Emperor’s voice on the noon radio crackled and broke up so badly we couldn’t make it out properly, but when the communications officer brought a copy of that military telegram to notify us in the officers’ room, each of us was struck by an intense shock. Everyone present fell completely silent. Encountering such a strained silence must be something one rarely experiences in a lifetime. Looking back now—though that shock likely differed slightly for each person—for me it felt like walking against a gale only to have the wind abruptly die, leaving me staggering from the sudden loss of resistance before being gripped by an acutely unstable sensation. And when that moment passed, a sense of liberation—as though everything that had constrained me had shattered into dust—gradually welled up within me. But as that feeling expanded endlessly and I seemed to swell along with it, an anxious sensation suddenly tightened around me—like losing my footing on unsteady ground. Then the year and some months I’d spent in the military began feeling excruciatingly long. Such silence persisted for a full minute. Then came the voice of that Reserve Officer with the clipped mustache standing beside me—

“So then—are you saying we lost?” “Yes.” “Yes. This Japan—”

The communications officer tossed a copy of the telegram—its characters scrawled in crude handwriting—onto the table. Beside it, skimming his body along the cave wall, Futami was exiting the officers' room. His arms swung in their usual precise rhythm. But with lips clenched tighter than normal, creating a distorted expression, he left silently—footsteps clattering behind him. That man's walk only knew one rigid pattern, utterly devoid of individuality. Viewed from behind, you'd think Futami was strolling along completely unruffled.

“Heh.” “Putting on a face like it’s nothing.”

While watching that retreating figure, the Chief Meteorological Officer or someone muttered as if spitting out the words. And some stood up in scattered fashion as if prompted by it, while others leaned against the table and kept their eyes tightly closed. Those who had stood up likely had no clear purpose for doing so, and I think those who had kept their eyes closed probably couldn’t grasp their own thoughts.

But humans are such mercenary creatures. Three days later, with preparations underway for the unit’s disbandment, the entire unit became terrifyingly vibrant and animated. The captain here was a man who put on an arrogant face but was timid at heart, and he must have hastily decided that it would be dangerous not to disband quickly. By around the third day, the entire unit had taken on a rickety looseness and was buzzing with commotion. The Accounting Section took their share and dumped the remaining supplies, so all day long, shouts like "Squads, come get your canned goods!" or "Send representatives for captured boot distribution!" were relayed one after another, people moved in response, and it was utter pandemonium. The cave’s passage doubled as the soldiers’ living quarters, and there they were stuffing distributed supplies into duffel bags or pulling them out again—some even brought canvas to make new duffel bags, all trying to take as much extra as they could. With daily routines and everything else gone, they had become a disorderly mob. Officers and petty officers too, having lost sight of how to control it, found their days ending with nothing but securing their own shares. The psychological state of people during such times must have been something else entirely. Even though they had no idea what their lives would hold from then on, they were intent on taking as much as they could get their hands on—there were even petty officers packing up communication generators, though who knows what they planned to use them for. When the organization disappeared, everything that had connected people to one another was gone. Everyone was completely preoccupied with their own affairs and seemed utterly indifferent to anything else.

As for me, I gradually regained my composure, spending days organizing distributed supplies, going out to the coast to gaze at the sea—idly passing time like that. The fact that we had lost the war still hadn’t fully settled in my mind, and the prospect of crossing to the opposite shore to return home once a ship became available lacked any sense of reality. That said, I felt neither aversion nor comfort toward the current state of disarray. I remained in a daze, as if something stood between me and it all. I suppose I too was still somewhat unsettled.

Futami’s orderly came to me saying Second Lieutenant Futami’s condition seemed rather off—I believe it was three days ago now. When I asked what was wrong, the orderly made a slightly disgusted face and replied that there was nothing specific, but something just felt off. “He has hardly slept since that day.” Today as well as yesterday, Second Lieutenant Futami had spent all day walking around inside the cave and along the coast with that clattering gait of his. I had seen it too. That guy’s walk was recognizable even from a distance, so I’d naturally noticed it. Each time, the thought that he must be happy too would fleetingly cross my mind, but I never paid it any particular heed. After all, I was preoccupied with my own affairs, and since the organization’s dissolution had left everyone equally unmoored, there’d been no reason to give Futami special attention. Yet upon hearing this from the orderly, I immediately recalled Futami’s face as he left the officers’ room on the day of our defeat—a distorted expression, as though he were desperately holding something back. Though at that moment, everyone might have worn similar looks.

Futami’s quarters were a place like a dead end dug sideways into the cave. Guided by the orderly, when I entered there, Futami was sitting on a crude chair, arms crossed. The area was neatly organized, with none of the cluttered state seen in other living quarters. What shocked me was how Futami’s face had become shockingly gaunt. Futami’s eyes as he looked up at me were not their usual weak, timid selves but bore a sharp, scorching hue.

“I’ve got it. “Hey. “I’ve got it.” The moment he saw my face, Futami said that. His tone was firm and showed no sign of disorder. “What have you figured out?”

However, Futami did not respond; he suddenly stood up, arched his chest, and began pacing around the room. His cheeks seemed to bear a shadow of an eerie smile. Then without so much as a greeting to me, he abruptly exited into the passageway. I made to chase after him but checked myself. Seizing the young orderly—whose face was etched with concern—I pressed him for details about Futami’s condition. According to his account, Futami had spent that surrender night either sitting hunched over with his head in his hands or endlessly circling his room, never once closing his eyes. From the next day onward, whenever someone noted something amiss about him, he’d suddenly break into grins, ignore those delivering rationed supplies, and flit between his quarters and corridors—here one moment, vanished the next. No further explanation was needed; a palpable delirium had clearly taken hold of him. After instructing the orderly to alert me of any changes, I returned to the officers’ room. Though I told myself this was temporary, a dark shadow nonetheless pierced my heart. Even were I to notify medical staff, what proper examination could they conduct amidst this bedlam? He’d declared “I’ve got it”—but what exactly had he grasped? Yet as I pondered why such madness had claimed him—even temporarily—the full weight of Futami’s year-plus military service struck me not as scattered memories but as visceral immediacy. We’d shared a squad since officer training and wound up here through sheer chance, yet back then I’d only resented being saddled with an inept fool, never fostering camaraderie. That his derangement now bound us together felt intolerable. That other officers remained oblivious to his breakdown—preoccupied with their own survival—and that this knowledge burdened me alone pressed down like leaden weight. I’d striven to cast it off, yet—

The next day also began with a tumultuous morning. Second Lieutenant Futami seemed to frequently leave his room early and walk all over the place. Despite his pallid cheeks having lost their flesh, his gait only grew more vigorous; swinging both arms in perfect rhythm, he walked with a clatter-clatter-clatter of stomping boots. He would occasionally stop to gaze intently at soldiers stuffing duffel bags or call them out to ask questions and jot down their answers in his notebook. It seemed he had hardly slept the previous night either; his eyes were bloodshot, and within them, his black pupils glittered brightly. By now, no matter who looked at him, it was clear Futami’s condition was no longer normal. Even when passing others, he showed no sign of recognition, his entire body radiating a chilling aura.

“That guy’s acting a bit strange. What’s wrong with him?” That Reserve Officer said this while wiping his mustache with a handkerchief and entering the officers’ room.

“Second Lieutenant Futami. Is the heat getting to you?” At that moment, I—who had been deep in thought in a corner of the officers’ room—suddenly became worried upon hearing those words and rushed out into the passageway as if driven. I made my way through the passageway while searching and emerged outside. There, I suddenly encountered Futami. Futami sharply arched his chest and was walking in a measured rhythm, swinging both arms alternately with such vigor that it appeared almost exaggerated.

“Futami.” “What’s wrong?” I called out to stop him while slightly out of breath. Futami stopped and looked at me, but he just kept staring without saying anything for a while. And suddenly he reached out and grabbed my arm.

“It’s the Red Camel.”

In a quiet, steady voice, he said it. His eyes had eerily dilated pupils and were staring at something over my shoulder. I shuddered and turned around. It was sunset. A crimson sunset rose from the horizon, its reflection spilling vermilion across the sea as if dyeing the waters. Towering cumulus clouds formed layers stretching southward, and there too they were beautifully stained a delicate rose-pink. His eyes had been fixed on that sight. It wasn’t unlike a camel’s back, depending on how one looked at it. I recalled, with a faint shudder, that Futami had said looking at such clouds made him want to write a children’s story.

I then dragged Futami to the medical department. We entered amidst medics noisily cramming medical supplies into duffel bags. Empty boxes and medicine bottles were scattered, leaving no place to step.

But in such a state, there was no way to make a proper diagnosis. The chief medical officer’s mind was unsettled too, and he seemed more preoccupied with handling the medicines than with the patient. In the end, he just gave some sedatives and said it would be best to send him back home once arrangements could be made. Then again, when I tried dragging Futami back to his quarters, he—for whatever reason—put up considerable resistance. However, when I brought him to his room, he suddenly quieted down. He sat down on the chair and silently took the sedative with the water the orderly had brought. As I sat on the chair watching his face, he slowly stood up and blocked my path.

“You…” “Still hiding something.”

Futami said in a low, hoarse voice. His gaze wavered as if unable to settle, yet his eyebrows were darkly clouded.

“I’m not hiding anything.” Obediently, so as not to resist, I answered. Then Futami nodded, went to the corner of the room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and cradled his head. After watching that for a while, I returned to my own quarters.

At dawn the next day, I was violently shaken awake by Futami’s orderly. I startled awake.

“I’ve been persistently told to come ask when the sortie time is, so—”

“A sortie?”

I sat up, sensing something ominous. And hurriedly put on clothes.

“Did Futami sleep last night?” “That medicine hadn’t worked very well.”

We hurried through the deserted dark passageway. But it was too late. Futami lay face down on the desk, the entire area drenched in blood. The dagger had fallen to the floor, the wound at his throat. It still seemed faint breaths might remain, but by the time the chief medical officer arrived, they had completely ceased.

That afternoon, Futami’s corpse was buried. Except for the two or three who had been ordered to handle it, no one showed any interest in Futami’s death. The ship transport had arrived. By the time they finished burying him, the first Daihatsu had departed from the coast. We watched it from the hill where we’d buried Futami. The soldiers in the Daihatsu kept waving toward us again and again.

That was the end of Futami’s story.

We disposed of all Futami’s belongings, but I kept the notebook. This notebook had addresses and various writings in it, and as it progressed, the writing became disordered and illegible. They were probably writings from after his mental breakdown. Among the characters that still appear to be from when he was sane, the four characters "Red Camel" are written on one page. Now that I think about it, he might have come up with the idea to write such a children’s story and jotted it down as a reminder. Whether that was before the defeat or after remains unclear. However, this phrase—regardless of when it was written—strangely resurrects that sunset vividly within my chest. And there stood Futami’s dark figure. Sloping shoulders, slightly elongated limbs, joints seeming dislocated—the figure of a crippled-looking loner.

A taut string snaps at the slightest stimulus. Futami’s taut nerves must have snapped in much the same way. Just as the submariners’ throats and lungs rejected even the fresh air they had longed for, causing them to vomit violently, so too Futami’s heart must have been unable to endure the freedom that suddenly fell upon him. The disparity between those two worlds—even imagining it here and now—still sends a shiver down one’s spine.

[October 1948]