Pathway to Japanese Literature

The cousin repeatedly praised how beautiful Kyoto girls were.
And when he returned,

“When this rain lets up, Gion’s cherries’ll be just right.”

Hearing such talk, Kinroku grew all the more eager to see Kyoto for himself.

On the veranda, his brother-in-law—still in official uniform—was crafting a fishing float.
Kinroku crouched down beside him.

The brother-in-law tentatively placed the roughly carved float on his palm,

“I’ll have you eating baby moroko—catch fifty, sixty of ’em and bring ’em back, yeah?” he said.

“Is it delicious?”

“Delicious doesn’t even cover it—if you’re stuck in Tokyo, Kin-san, you’ll never get to eat ’em.”

He thought he wanted to try that too, just once.
He suddenly shifted his gaze to the aucuba buds in the garden.
The buds extended about two sun above the black soil, cylindrical as if impaled.
When he first came here from Tokyo and found those vivid buds in the corner of the garden, he had thought he would look at them every day.
And he had already forgotten for three days.
He stood up, resolved to make up for three days’ worth.
Then, deep within his body, he felt something melt away and begin oozing into collapse.
When early spring came every year, he would feel this kind of thing.
That had been particularly severe lately.
It’s getting dangerous, he thought.
Remaining like that for a while—hands thrust into his sash, posture slightly tilted forward—he stood there until he felt that unless he shifted his feet, his body would naturally pitch forward and collapse.

This was absurd.
He desperately needed a wife.

When he thought such things, he felt that even if it wasn’t a wife, he at least wanted a lover.
He still did not know love.
However, he knew at least to some extent that it must be something like this.

“Damn, this rain’s really coming down. If the moroko head out to open waters, that ain’t good, I tell ya,” said the brother-in-law.

“Would it be better if the rain stops?”

“Yeah, ’cause bait’s been gathering by the shore, see.”

He tried to think why, if the rain stopped, the bait would gather by the shore.
He didn’t understand.

In the inner room, Kinroku’s sister, stealing time from her daughter Mieko’s nap to sew,

“Brother-in-law keeps saying he’ll make you eat vinegared moroko when you come over—he’s been going on about it all day.”
“You don’t really wanna eat that stuff, do ya, Kin-san?”

She said in a hushed voice.

"What're you on about? Delicious doesn't even cover it."

When Brother-in-law said this,

"Oh please, if you like something yourself, you think everyone else must like it too," Sister laughed.

"It's obvious, ain't it?"

Brother-in-law stood up and knocked the wood shavings that had accumulated on his knees with loud thumps.
Sister frowned.

"You're making such a racket—Mieko's gonna wake up, ain't she?"

"You're one to talk!
"You're the one shouting so loud!"

Kinroku’s brother-in-law went around to the inner garden.
Sister also stood and went around that way.

Kinroku squatted down and, while looking at the garden buds, thought that romantic love was still what would make him happiest.
But why did that happiness—which should be an equitable share—persist in avoiding only him?
This was because there had been no opportunity.
All the happy people in the world had appropriately seized this opportunity and not let it slip away.
No—more than anything, I'm a coward; that's the worst of it.
When he thought that, it seemed as though countless opportunities had been ceaselessly advancing toward him all along.
But next, he desperately wanted to look in the mirror.
The mirror stand was in the corner of the engawa, so all he had to do was stand up.
Just then, Sister returned and began sewing again.

“Kin-san, let’s go to the theater tonight. What’s playing now is called ‘Unrequited Love,’ y’know. You know it?”

He answered that he knew and stood up.
Only his obi and chest were reflected on the tilted mirror’s surface.

"What’s vinegared moroko like?"

Having asked the question that had just occurred to him, he went to the mirror and gave its top a slight push so that his face would reflect properly.
Sister was saying something using words like vinegar and miso.
When he returned to his original position and looked in the mirror, three oil-paper umbrellas on the shelf were reflected.
Still, the face was not visible.

“So that’s what vinegared moroko is like.”

Even as he said this, he had to go push at the bottom of the mirror.

“It’s not particularly tasty, but it’s an unusual thing, y’know.”
“You might like it, y’know.”
“Oh right! You did like vinegared dishes, didn’tcha?”

“Rather than vinegared moroko fish, it’s love,” he thought, and when he looked at the mirror again—this time—the angle of its tilt aligned perfectly and his face came into view. He thought his complexion was a bit dark. The distance between his eyes was too wide. Moreover, the tip of his nose—upturned as if searching the sky—appeared somehow voracious and vulgar. He cautiously kept an eye on his sister while tightening his face as if posing for a photograph when suddenly—his features conjured the image of a dugout canoe. With this face, he could scoop up five shō of water. When he thought about such things, the world somehow began to feel untrustworthy.

“Quit starin’ at that mirror,” Sister said.

Kinroku felt slightly embarrassed but, while stroking his cheek, went over to his sister’s side.

“I’ve gotten thin lately, haven’t I?” he deflected.

“Exercisin’s good for ya.”

“Hmm. Maybe I’ll try eating a whole bunch of vinegared moroko fish.”

“Vinegared dishes’ll just make ya skinnier, y’know.”

“Hmm… I wonder—do women really dislike thin people?”

Sister stirred with the spatula while replying, “That’s just a matter of taste, y’know.”

“What about you, Sis?”

“Well… I guess I don’t care for someone like you, y’know.”

“You don’t like me?”

He laughed, and Sister laughed too.
But Sister’s words struck his heart quite hard.

“I really haven’t heard of anyone sayin’ they like me yet—what a bother.”

“Better not to be liked, don’tcha think?”
“Folks who get liked—ugh.”

“Ah come on, bein’ liked ain’t half bad.”

“Then why not make yerself likable?”

“But I’m tryin’ like hell to do just that!”

Feeling his exchange with Sister had gone lukewarm yet in all seriousness,

“How’s my face, Sis?” he asked.

Sister briefly looked at his face, then looked down,
"Ain't no good," she answered.
He felt somewhat irritated.
But as he violently stabbed the pincushion cloth with a needle and remained silent,

“Shovel-face, aren’t you.” Sister said again.
“Do women really not like me?”
Sister hunched her shoulders and said, “Tsk.”

Kinroku suddenly felt shame intensify.

“You’ll wreck the pincushion, won’t ya?” Sister snapped.

He flopped onto his back.
Utterly hopeless—the moment this thought came, his body went limp.
Sister adopted a detached expression,

“Oh, the rain’s stopped,” she said.

He extended one hand with a slap onto the tatami mat.

“Gah!”

Sister peered at Mieko’s sleeping face with eyes that had just glared at him.
“Shovel-shaped face,” he spat.
After a while,
“But you’ve had letters come for you before, haven’t ya?” Sister said.

Kinroku couldn't make any sense of Sister's words.

"As if any would come."

"But I've seen 'em, y'know."

"There's no reason you'd see letters that never came."

"Lies! I—sometime back, when I saw a woman's letter had come to your place, y'know—it really was just like that."

"Is that true?"

"True."

“What did you do?”

“If I showed this to Kinroku, I thought it wouldn’t do any good, so I tore it up.”

“Got ’em!” he thought.
His chest pounded.
Sister was letting out a faint smile.

“What day was it?”

However, he thought he needed to calm himself.

“That was Tsu—?”

Sister put the end of the measuring tape to her lips and looked up.

"I did it in my third year at girls' school—no wait, was it when you were in sixth grade, Kinroku-san? Ah, right right, sixth grade! They came many times, didn't they?"

Was it something from years past? At this thought, Kinroku suddenly felt his energy drain away. Yet when he considered that even he might still harbor some chance at love, a faint vigor stirred within him again.

“Who sent them?”

“You don’t know?”

Sister wore a puzzled expression.

“I don’t know, I tell you! Who was it?”

“It was Okinu-san.”

Kinroku didn't know a single one of those names.

“There! She’s Mitsu-chan’s little sister.”

Sister’s words conjured the image of an ugly, shovel-faced girl in his mind.

“Oh, that one.
“That one’s got a shovel-shaped face too, y’know.”

Sister started to laugh loudly but suddenly hushed her voice, her face turning red as she peered again at Mieko’s sleeping face.

“I’m glad you tore them up for me.”

“For this and that, it said to please not show it to Sister.”
“Moreover, that very person’s sister was watchin’ over it, y’know.”

Having said that, Sister laughed again.

However, Kinroku thought Sister too was unscrupulous.
Had the sender not been Okinu-san, he might have made Sister his eternal enemy then and there.
But that his chest had merely trembled for a few seconds lay in whether Okinu-san's face was shovel-shaped.
This had been fate's turning point.
Should matters progress thusly, his own shovel-shaped face might sever a similar destiny hereafter—in such manner, with such vividness.
Thinking this, Okinu-san—whom they'd both just been insulting—now seemed like his mirror image.
Rather than pitying Okinu-san, he grew unsettled with himself.
What a wretched man he must have appeared.

“O sad, sad shovel-shaped face,” he muttered as he stood up.

After a while, Kinroku thought of going to the bathhouse.
When he asked his sister to lend him soap, she informed him that his usual bathhouse was closed for the day and he should go to the smaller one instead.
He went to that bathhouse.

At the counter sat a pale, timid girl of seventeen or eighteen.
Kinroku immediately came to like the girl.

When he removed his kimono, he became concerned about how terribly soiled his undergarments had become.
He stood for a while with his obi undone, pondering how to remove them most quickly, but upon realizing that the girl would inevitably see the undergarments at least once, he summoned his resolve and stripped naked.
He deliberately tried to remain calm as he entered the bathroom.

Kinroku washed his face first.
The more he washed it, the whiter it would become.
The whiter it became, the less his shovel-shaped face would show.
When this thought came, each time he emerged from the bathwater he scrubbed his face until the soap bar visibly shrank.
In a corner of the tub floated a pumice stone.
He even considered how scrubbing his forehead and jaw with it might make the shovel shape less apparent.
The bathhouse attendant's face surfaced in his mind.
Imagining himself wedded to that girl, he vowed he'd obey her every word.

Even after exiting the bathhouse, he never once looked toward the girl while taking constant care not to let her see his shovel-shaped face.
He had to put on the undergarments.
This became yet another troublesome matter for him.
He put on the kimono without wearing the undergarments.
When exiting the bathhouse, he finally glanced toward the counter only to find an elderly woman busily counting bath tokens there, though he couldn't tell when the change had occurred.

He rolled the undergarments into a ball and tossed them up.
He shook his body violently and laughed.
He also grew sad.

In the early evening, Kinroku’s brother-in-law began gutting the moroko fish he had caught.
Sister said, “Since I’m goin’ to the theater, you can just do that tomorrow.”

“Nah—leave ’em overnight and they ain’t fit to eat.”
“You lot can go wherever the hell y’want.”

“It’s just ten measly fish—no need to make such a fuss,” Sister laughed.

“You’re talkin’ nonsense—even this here’s a proper feast for Kinroku alone, y’know.”

“Well then, you take care of that while we head out.”

“Go on now, get goin’! Get goin’!”
“Kinroku—you enjoy yourself proper out there. I’ll fix up somethin’ good for when you get back.”

At supper time, Brother-in-law kept turning over the skewered moroko on the brazier beside him while eating his rice.

When Kinroku and Sister—with Mieko strapped to her back—were about to leave for the theater, Brother-in-law emerged from the back room holding his workman’s coat.
“Gonna get cold—take this along,” he said.
He had never once worn a workman’s coat before.
When he tried it on and looked at his shoulders, they appeared thoroughly those of a full-grown man.
He looked up at his brother-in-law and asked, “How’s this?”

“That’s a proper coat,” he laughed.

Mieko looked at Brother-in-law from Sister’s shoulder.
“Hiya! Hiya!” she called out and bowed.

“Hiya! Hiya!” Brother-in-law answered back.
Then,

“Go on, get goin’! Get goin’!”

As he said this while placing his hand on the girl’s round chin and bringing his face close, Mieko laughed, swaying her body on her mother’s back.

“Come on, come on,” Sister said and went outside.

Outside, the wind was a bit strong.

The movie had already begun.
Kinroku and Sister sat in the corner near the exit of the women’s seating area.
In the earthen floor space, a straw mat lay spread.
Kinroku propped his elbow on the aisle.
Sister sat beside him and settled Mieko on her lap.

An automobile raced across the screen.
Then Mieko suddenly stood up and shouted loudly, “Pohts! Pohts!”

The cry reverberated through the quiet theater.
Kinroku grew frantic with anxiety.
Sister remained comparatively unruffled.
Yet each time an automobile appeared, Mieko would cry out anew until Kinroku reached complete exasperation.
He kept wishing they would switch to a period drama already when a comedy began instead.
He hoped desperately for no more automobiles only to see them multiply endlessly across subsequent scenes.
At first Mieko had been making noise on Sister’s lap, but when Sister relaxed her hold while engrossed in the film’s appeal, she slid down and seized the shoulder of the woman in front while shouting again, “Pohts! Pohts!”

The woman who had been watching the film and laughing turned around, frowned, and leaned forward.

“Sis.”

Kinroku was now genuinely angry.

When Sister tried to pull Mieko close, Mieko pushed against her chest while arching her back and cried out, "Yahts! Yahts!"

Kinroku thought about running away and going home.
And then,

"I can't take this anymore," he said. As soon as he spoke, Sister gave a bitter smile,

"It's always like this—nothin' to be done," she said.

Then, amidst this, a boy about Mieko's age near him also began making noise.
He steadied himself and tested how the boy's voice registered in his own ears.
It didn't particularly bother him.
When he felt somewhat settled, he imagined a scenario where Sister and he were complete strangers who happened to be sitting side by side.
And thinking this might bring some relief, he mentally adopted such an attitude toward his sister.

Then, Mieko once again grabbed the shoulder of the woman in front and chattered loudly in unintelligible speech.
When the woman saw Mieko, she pulled a bitter face and adjusted her hair at the temples.

“What’s this now—you won’t behave.”

Saying this, Sister pulled Mieko, but Mieko wouldn’t listen.

Kinroku had finally reached his limit.
He made a terrifying face and looked around.
Then, from among those faces—from a spot about two ken diagonally away—he came upon the face of a beautiful town girl with large eyes staring at him.
He jerked his gaze back to the screen.
His heart pounded violently.
Why is that girl looking at me? Could it be love? No—perhaps love is sprouting from that.
Love itself was watching me now—thinking this, he felt he mustn’t let this opportunity slip away.
But now, what should he do? This was difficult.
But regardless, he thought he mustn’t let Mieko’s voice disturb the girl’s ears.
What a beautiful face!
It was serene.
If that girl were to become my wife.
While thinking this, when he imagined that girl being another’s wife, he became tormented.
I must make her my wife somehow.
Is it impossible? Is making her my wife truly such a difficult thing?
While thinking such things, it suddenly occurred to him that having Sister by his side would be a major cause for carelessly letting this opportunity slip away.
Moreover, he had borrowed his brother-in-law’s Tonbi and was wearing it.
This won’t do.

"My sister and I must look exactly like a married couple," he thought. Having thought this, he resolved not to speak another word to his sister.

The comedy ended and the hut brightened.
"This is it," he thought.
He considered signaling the girl with his eyes, bringing her to the restroom, and handing her his business card there.
——

"I should say, 'I love you.'"
"No—better to say, 'I humbly adore you.'"
"That has a good ring."
"Wait—no, perhaps I should phrase it: 'If I were to tell you I've come to hold feelings for you, what would you do?'"
"Yes, that's better."
"That's the most refined approach."

Kinroku edged forward cautiously, his heart pounding as he let only his eyes dart about before turning his head toward the girl.
The girl rested both hands against her nape, face tilted slightly downward as she gazed at Kinroku.

He immediately averted his eyes again, but suddenly confidence surged up.
"Look!" he wanted to shout to everyone.

“Kin-san, let’s get Mieko to sleep, ain’t?” said Sister.

Kinroku was angry.
While keeping his eyes fixed on the distant stage, he pursed his lips and gave a low reply: “Mmm.”

Sister tried to nurse Mieko by holding her sideways.
Mieko gave a tentative lick at the breast and then immediately tried to stand up again, attempting to push through the shoulders of the people in front to get out.

“Look at that.”

Sister looked at Kinroku and simply burst out laughing.
He made a fearsome face, deliberately showing his displeasure as he peered at the girl—only to find her beautiful face turned toward the second floor as she searched for something.

(I’ve been cast aside! I’ve been cast aside!) Kinroku came to curse his sister as if she were an enemy.
The Tonbi of Brother-in-law’s kindness had become as irritating as a summer futon.

Once again it grew dark, and the hut fell silent.

“Perhaps we should step out over there?” Sister asked in a small voice.

“Go on!”

That was all Kinroku said, driven solely by the urge to chase her out.

“We’re already out,” Sister said, then went all the way to the bright end of the hanamichi and set Mieko down to play on the spread-out floorboards near the geta area.

On the screen was projected a Shinpa tragedy.
It was the one Kinroku’s sister had wanted to see since leaving home.

When Kinroku looked toward his sister, she remained crouched with her back against a pillar facing the screen, but Mieko was no longer beside her.
"Leaving her unsupervised is dangerous," he thought.

At that moment, it suddenly occurred to him that when facing his sister, his face must appear most shovel-like from the girl’s perspective.
He immediately turned back to face front.

“Sad, sad shovel-shaped face.”
Such self-coined phrases of his own kept surfacing incessantly.

The film was gradually becoming more interesting.
However, he was still concerned about Mieko.
Sister must have been engrossed in the film.
Thinking this, his head naturally began to turn toward Sister.
However, out of fear that the girl might see his fully shovel-shaped face, he had turned his face away from the screen—yet couldn’t bring himself to face Sister directly either—and instead kept it angled hesitantly toward one corner of the hut.

Beside Kinroku, someone began to cry with a sniffle.
Beside them, there was another sniffle.
Soon, white handkerchiefs began bobbing up and down here and there throughout the hut.

At that moment, from behind the door that had been left ajar, came the sound of a metallic object rolling.
Kinroku’s sister shouted, “Ah!”

When Kinroku turned to look behind him, Sister was no longer at the pillar.
He sat with his knees raised, looking toward the entrance, when Mieko’s crying pierced sharply through the air.

“Quiet! Keep it down!”
Angry shouts erupted from all corners of the theater hut.

Kinroku quickly came out to the pillar where Sister was.
Sister, her face pale, appeared from beside the stairs at a trot, holding Mieko in one arm while using her other hand to press the handkerchief placed over Mieko’s face.
And she, who presumably still didn’t know that Kinroku had come, kept looking at Mieko,

“Get Brother-in-law here right away—and Yamadera-san!” she said rapidly to him.

“What happened?”

“Mieko’s eye was crushed by glass.”

With that, Sister ran out barefoot from the gate toward the street.
Kinroku also ran out.
And from behind,

“Is it true? Is it true?”

he asked, but Sister wordlessly hurried off in the opposite direction of the house.
Kinroku also followed along, walking.

“Go get Brother-in-law—hurry up!” Sister said sharply.

Kinroku retreated two or three steps toward the house.
But when he stopped again,
“Is it true?” he asked.
Only Mieko’s crying could be heard.
“Lies!”

Muttering "Lies!" under his breath, Kinroku once again ran toward the house.

To strengthen his belief that it was a lie, he deliberately slackened his pace.
But he immediately started running again.
The image of a blind Mieko surfaced.
A lifetime of misfortune clinging to her rose before him.
Sister's tear-streaked face materialized.
Brother-in-law’s grief became visible to his mind’s eye.
It was all his own doing.—Kinroku felt he might crash into something at any moment.
Tears spilled out.

"I’ll make her my wife."

Such a thought suddenly surfaced in Kinroku's head.
He compared his own age with Mieko's.
There was a twenty-year difference.
"I'll wait twenty years.
But can I really wait that long?"
Kinroku recalled how his excitability always proved unreliable.
Then he forced himself to believe the tears came from wind hitting his eyes.

(No—I can wait twenty years.
I'll wait without fail.
Please let my heart stay unchanged.) He prayed earnestly to some unseen force.
He kept running like that for a while.
Then again—what redemption would making her my wife even bring?!
he thought.
He no longer had anything left to think or do.

Before he knew it, Kinroku stood before his sister’s house.
Brother-in-law chanted a Noh utai.

When Kinroku entered inside, Brother-in-law—
“That was awfully quick—what about Mieko?” he asked as he stood up.
Kinroku remained silent.
For some reason, his feet began moving toward the toilet as they were.
Brother-in-law brought out a small dish heaped with fish from the cupboard and,
“Tonight’s vinegared moroko is actually edible.”
With that, he picked up a piece himself and ate it as he placed the dish on the edge of the brazier.

When Kinroku came to the sink, a white gleaming thing caught his eye.

"The kitchen knife," he thought.

"It's because of this face!" he then thought.

He wanted to use the kitchen knife to make his own ugly shovel-shaped face even uglier by wounding it.
He picked up the kitchen knife.

"If Mieko became my wife, she might come to like my face's beauty."

Suddenly Kinroku conceived such an idea.
Then it struck him that having entertained this notion even now meant he still wished to preserve his face's comeliness.
This struck him as utterly foul-minded.
Then afterward came another thought—perhaps Mieko's eye hadn't truly been crushed after all.
If it remained intact, he found himself terrified to forcibly mar his face.
And now he had utterly exhausted all tolerance for his own heart.
He came to detest it.

Kinroku shuddered, clenched his teeth, and drew in a single breath.

“Do it!”

The kitchen knife swished through the air.
But it was just a pretense.
Kinroku raised his voice and burst into tears with a “Wah!”