Pathway to Japanese Literature

Author: Tsuboi Sakae

I Across a wide asphalt road stood large buildings on the side spared from war damage, their street trees flourishing verdantly. These structures that had once been barracks were now said to serve as quarters for Occupation forces, their repainted white walls lined with crisp blue window covers against the clear summer sky—as though arranged to subdue the heat itself. The colors dazzled the eye. The sight of multiple jeeps parked beneath lush street trees contrasted so sharply with this side of the road—where even burnt rubble remained uncleared a year after war's end—that the mere width of asphalt between them felt impassable, like viewing some distant foreign country. What appeared as a single road bifurcated ahead toward the tram thoroughfare, where blue window shades faced off against cornfields. Along pavement so uneven it threatened to trip the unwary walked a group of four or five that included Mine. They were returning from a small gathering. The men's faces burned crimson from unexpected drinks served there, their moods buoyant beyond measure. Only Mine remained unflushed—the sole woman among them—and her fixation on Nomura walking clustered within their midst left her strangely dispirited. She watched the men in an odd mental state where their cheerfulness refused to register with its usual ease. The gentle upward slope forced sweat from Mine's heat-sensitive constitution. As she panted behind a white fan shielding her face from evening sun, a roadside corn leaf stung her hand with unexpected sharpness.

“Ah!”

As she let out a small cry and stroked the scraped back of her hand, Mine immediately fell behind. Resigned to her own walking pace, she continued slowly. While walking with feigned indifference toward herself, she found herself unable to resist watching with profound emotion the retreating figures of the two men gradually increasing their distance ahead. The two men—one being Mine’s husband Yūkichi, the other Nomura who had recently married Mine’s younger sister—walked dazzled by the evening sun; Yūkichi’s white shirt beneath his navy suit jacket slung over his arm contrasted with Nomura’s white tie-dyed undershirt visible below his plain indigo kimono hitched up at the hem. Both bareheaded—one bald, the other with unruly thick hair—shared equally in betraying their near-fifty years through Nomura’s disheveled white strands as much as through Yūkichi’s polished scalp. Nomura was a novelist, Yūkichi a poet. And Mine herself, gazing at their retreating forms while lost in contemplation, likewise wrote fiction. These three had attended today’s gathering in shared pursuit of aligning themselves with postwar new literary movements—three who had each weathered an era’s violent storms in their own ways. At that juncture where four could no longer be counted due to Nomura’s great misfortune of losing his wife, fate had intervened through Mine’s sister Hiroko marrying Nomura just recently. Nomura’s former wife had passed after a long illness shortly before war’s end during such intense air raids that holding a funeral proved impossible; when they received the notification postcard already half a month had passed. Carrying dwarf sunflowers from her garden while wearing air-raid gear, Mine had visited Nomura’s house. In those days when even altar flowers were scarce, the blossoms adorning the white parcel on the alcove desk seemed pathetically inadequate—and Nomura sitting dejectedly before them with downcast eyes appeared utterly pitiful. On their way back, Mine said to Yūkichi:

“Mr. Nomura looks completely worn out.” Mine, who had heard rumors about Nomura weeping hand-in-hand at his critically ill wife’s bedside, found herself astonished to see him now—so withered after finally losing her that he could barely speak properly. To regard this as marital affection felt too bizarre; his appearance seemed utterly disheartened. Their interactions with Nomura had been so sparse that they couldn’t fully comprehend why he appeared so devastated. As for Nomura’s wife, their usual dealings had been so infrequent that they rarely even recalled her existence. Only through death had Nomura’s wife clearly entered Mine’s consciousness—leaving behind, in her perception, nothing more than the impression of an ordinary spouse. Married twenty years, she had departed mid-war, leaving her husband four children with the eldest just twenty—a sorrow so profound that even clasping hands and weeping could never suffice to mourn it. Yet if this was how a bereaved husband like Nomura carried his grief, Mine found it somehow unsatisfying. Was it a lack of compassion?

“Even if I were to die, would you still end up like that too?” Having spent a marital life with Yūkichi spanning nearly the same duration as Nomura’s own marriage, Mine gazed at her husband with measured intensity.

“That might be so. When a couple’s been together twenty years, they become like one body, I suppose. But Nomura’s case—that’s special. He’s just a timid man.” “I suppose so. When you look at him, Mr. Nomura seems so dejected—like a wife who’s lost her husband. She must have been quite a capable wife. When she died, her husband was left wandering aimlessly—she must have held the reins that tightly.”

Having just left Nomura’s house now, the friendship with him up to that point had not been deep enough for such callous remarks to be uttered. It was neighborly interaction between fellow writers, so to speak. That Nomura and her sister would be united—Mine had never even dreamed of such a thing at the time. However, just one year later through strange circumstances, Hiroko ended up going to Nomura’s place. The intense social upheaval immediately following the war’s end swept away pressures that had weighed on writers including Nomura and Yūkichi in their literary activities, advancing toward a direction where they could openly share once-hidden hearts. Could it be that plunging into this new current made them feel fresh friendship flowing between their hearts? Nomura sent Mine a letter requesting assistance in finding a wife. Mine read the letter on the train during her trip.

Thank you for having me the other day. Has Yūkichi declared his candidacy? This may seem abrupt, but I’m looking for a wife (though I haven’t told anyone yet)—do you know of anyone suitable? In any case, at present I find myself utterly unable to manage and am at my wit’s end. In cases like mine, I know there are examples where siblings or relatives who fully understand the circumstances find someone for you—a sort of matching a cracked pot with a fitting lid—but both of my sisters married into families in Manchuria and Guangdong and are out of contact, both my brothers were killed in the war, and though I do have old friends, after twenty years of living such different lives, I find myself hesitating to approach them, unable to gauge how they might react.—

With this opening, he enumerated the hardships of widowerhood while raising four children, clarifying that while he wasn’t considering this marriage solely for convenience’s sake, he was truly at his wit’s end; that abruptly making such a request would be like adopting a stray kitten out of nowhere—startling though it may seem—but if Mine knew anyone who might consider coming to a household like his, he wished to ask for her help; that personally, he intended to finish the novel he was writing and lay his late wife’s memory to rest first, but his children pleaded with him, so he hoped to marry after June’s first anniversary passed; that searching for a wife laden with such pragmatic motives might well be a hallmark of this era and men like him in middle age, but he assured her he harbored no careless intent—and concluded with: “She needn’t understand literature. If she is a kind person skilled in sewing, that would be ideal. Please consider this letter nothing more than a casual inquiry—if by chance you know someone suitable, that would suffice; if not, simply disregard it. Tonight, after discussing various matters with the children, it suddenly occurred to me that writing you a letter might be easier—so I wrote this—though I haven’t yet mentioned it to anyone else. Good night.”

With a surge of emotion, Mine read the letter three times. The joy of being first entrusted with such a weighty matter—combined with Nomura’s frank words that felt like throwing open the doors to a wifeless home’s chaotic closets—pierced Mine’s heart. Through this single sheet of paper, she shed her formal reserve toward him so completely that she now viewed Nomura with an intimacy she’d never permitted herself before.

The trip was for Yūkichi—who had been urged to run in the first postwar general election and had returned to his hometown—a purpose of the most troublesome sort for Mine, as it required her involvement. There was another purpose as well. That was to bring her sister Hiroko from their hometown to Tokyo. Shortly after the war’s end, Mine had found herself obliged to take in and raise an orphaned infant from a distant relative; now, with childcare’s added bustle, she was at her wit’s end. The plan had been to enlist Hiroko’s help with this all along. Hiroko was a woman born in the year of the Fire Horse. She was a woman who had grappled with the unjust persecution this brought, burying her youth far more than necessary—in Mine’s words—and aging through single-mindedly preserving her chastity alone. Now having quit her long-time work as a sewing teacher, she persisted in the loneliness of living alone at Mine’s family home—but it was this Hiroko that Mine suddenly connected with Nomura’s letter in her thoughts. A woman who can sew and is kind. A woman who can sew and is kind. Ah, is she not indeed the very kind woman skilled in sewing? Mine began to feel that Hiroko, now forty and having remained single all this time, had almost been waiting for Nomura, and she even wondered whether Nomura had sent this letter after hearing about Hiroko from someone. However, given their limited interactions with Nomura, he could not have known of Hiroko’s existence. Hiroko, however, had come to know Nomura through his writings. When Mine showed Nomura’s letter,

“Someone like me? I couldn’t possibly.”

Her face flushed crimson as she recoiled violently. But after discussing it two or three times, she said she would leave it to Mine. "But you know," she continued, "even if I agree like this, it's still just us talking unilaterally. We don't know how he'll respond—if it doesn't work out... please bear with me." "Of course," Mine replied. "It's just that I've been thinking about various things myself lately." "I'd meant to live alone my whole life, but reaching this age makes me anxious about the future—I've started thinking maybe I should find someone suitable after all." "During the war, I grew so tired of being alone." "And yet unless I depend on others' help, I can't manage anything by myself."

In a tone tinged with regret for having flatly rejected the numerous marriage proposals that had come her way until now, Hiroko said. It was the first time Mine had heard Hiroko voice such vulnerability. Mine, keenly sensing Hiroko’s emotional softening, returned to Tokyo determined to find her sister some other place to belong—even if things with Nomura fell through. But now that things had reached this point, Mine found it somehow difficult to bring herself to tell Nomura. Mine confided the circumstances to Kawashima Sadako, a fellow member of their literary group with whom she was close. She had wanted to hear Nomura’s thoughts.

“Oh, that’s perfectly fine.” “That’s really quite wonderful.”

Sadako smiled as she read Nomura’s letter and accepted Mine’s proposal. Even Sadako—for whom Nomura was, in a sense, an old comrade—had rejoiced just as Mine did over his having sent such a letter to her, her buoyant tone revealing a desire to act in Nomura’s interest. Yet her response may have contained some reflection of Mine’s own feelings—feelings given added momentum by Hiroko being her sister. Compared to Mine, who had sunk to the level of an ordinary woman’s sentiments, Sadako—though sharing her joy—maintained a third party’s detachment and a writerly complexity in her consideration of Nomura, a contrast Mine abruptly perceived. It was the moment when Sadako’s smile vanished like a breath. Mine blushed faintly,

“It’s because he’s putting the condition of a woman who can sew first and foremost.” “My sister may be an utterly ordinary woman, but doesn’t Mr. Nomura have that same ordinariness about him?” “That’s the impression I get.”

“That’s right.” “So in that respect, Ms. Hiroko is perfectly suited, though...”

Mine felt a slight unease at Sadako’s words and fell silent. What did she mean by “perfectly suited” in that respect? Whether Sadako knew of Mine’s inner turmoil or not—she, “Mr. Nomura’s wife was beautiful, wasn’t she.” “I went to pay a New Year’s visit once, you know.” “Mr. Nomura was out, and his wife and three daughters trooped out—wearing beautiful kimonos, they lined up in a row at the entrance.” “They were all beauties, right?” “They were so striking.” “They were truly beautiful.”

Was Sadako also weighing that beauty in the balance? That beauty would naturally come to mind—but Mine, who had never met Nomura’s wife or children and thus remained ignorant of their loveliness, found herself fixating instead on the plainness evident in Hiroko’s appearance. This very plainness had caused Hiroko to miss her chance at marriage long ago. Once during a trip with Sadako when they visited Mine’s hometown, Mine—fully aware of how effortlessly Sadako compared Nomura’s wife to Hiroko—ached with an unaccountable sense of inferiority. Could those blessed with beauty ever comprehend the silent grief of women denied fair features? The misfortune of lacking physical charm—the efforts of an unbeautiful woman striving to cultivate invisible virtues—yet such efforts rarely earned recognition, yielding instead to humanity’s natural preference for comeliness. The sorrow of having even this humble striving go unacknowledged. Surely Sadako’s keen intellect would grasp this truth. Yet Sadako herself was a writer whose own beauty rivaled her literary fame. Might she not contemplate Nomura’s feelings—Nomura who had lost a wife even Sadako admired—with some private emotion of her own? But Mine’s commonplace logic treated Nomura’s widowed state as a given condition to be balanced against a woman’s homeliness. This might have been recklessness on Mine’s part—she who had never laid eyes on Nomura’s first family. Nomura’s country bumpkin air—his audacity in committing to paper what he couldn’t voice aloud—this inexplicably drew Mine’s interest.

“I could speak to him myself, but I think Mr. Nomura would find it painful if he had to refuse me directly.” “That’s why you should be the one to tell him.”

Having thought that far, Mine asked Sadako. While Sadako, being a writer, seemed unable to convey it to Nomura with the usual forceful approach of a matchmaker, Mine ended up getting an opportunity to meet Nomura. Yūkichi happened to be there as well. When Mine saw signs of Nomura’s widowed existence—the bedding left haphazardly unrolled, simply folded in half and shoved into a corner of the room as if preserving his sorrow—she grew uneasy about not having replied to the letter she had received, and mustered the courage to broach the matter of Hiroko. She also emphasized that Hiroko was a plain woman. For a moment, Nomura’s face brightened, but he suddenly straightened his posture, placed his hands on his knees, and listened intently. Then, with a quick bow of his head, he said, “Well, I’m simply grateful that she would agree to come.” Mine took her leave, asking that he consult often with Sadako. As they walked, Mine looked up at Yūkichi walking beside her, lightly regretting the outcome that had seemingly outmaneuvered Sadako.

“I wasn’t being pushy or anything.” “I did tell Ms. Sadako about it.” “If he wants to refuse, he can easily discuss it with Ms. Sadako.”

“Ah, enough of that.” “You’re being overly self-deprecating—Hiroko’s quite commendable as she is.” “Modesty is fine, but there’s no need to belittle yourself.” “But…” “The fact that she remained single until forty—depending on how you look at it—could be seen as a point of shame.” “But Mr. Nomura is the type who can’t find a wife on his own, right?” “So when it comes to remarriage, he has to rely on others even more, right?” “That timidity is what makes him reliable in this case.” “Hiroko’s a straightforward woman without pretenses herself.”

A year after visiting Nomura’s house with flowers for the anniversary, Mine and the others were walking that same path at that time.

It was two or three days later that Mine received a request through Sadako from Nomura for a photograph of Hiroko. Due to a kind of indifference born from her lack of confidence in her appearance, Hiroko had always been a woman with few photographs. From her student days through her years as a teacher, she had only ever been photographed wearing hakama skirts; there were none she could readily show someone on short notice. There was just one picture of her holding a neighborhood child and smiling—the one Mine handed over. However, after four or five days, the photo was returned, and through Sadako’s mediation, the matter was tentatively concluded. The reason—though unclear from the photo alone—was that she fell far short of the type he had envisioned. While Mine fully understood this explanation, she felt disappointed. She also grew vaguely ashamed toward Nomura and Sadako. More than anything, she regretted having hastily pried into Hiroko’s feelings without first consulting Nomura’s intentions and wrote an honest letter of apology to Hiroko. Yet at the same time, Mine found some relief in learning through this opportunity that Hiroko would not stubbornly cling to her longstanding commitment to singlehood. However, before long, Nomura approached through Sadako again, expressing his desire to revisit the matter. By then, Hiroko had already notified Mine of her impending move to Tokyo—planned solely to help at her sister’s house for a while—and was on the verge of leaving the countryside any day now.

“I’ve already made it clear to my younger sister.” “That’s why she intends to come unencumbered.” “I don’t know what to do.” “In that case, the luggage to bring would also change accordingly, I suppose.”

With brows furrowed in her heart, Mine received what seemed like half a hope while remaining conflicted.

“Isn’t that just fine? If it’s decided, we’ll have them go pick up their luggage together during their honeymoon…… So when your sister arrives, talk to her again.” The fast-talking Sadako said this haltingly. Though Mine didn’t know what conversation had passed between Nomura and Sadako, Sadako’s straightforward manner of speaking dispelled even the shadows in Mine’s heart. And then, the matter was revived again. Hiroko initially protested with some agitation, but ultimately consented—as if declaring that society’s marriage arrangements were simply like that. And once it came to pass, she suddenly revealed a startling femininity, all while humbly feeling ashamed of her own ignorance in various matters.

“Even someone like me—who knows nothing about literature or politics—if by helping those who do such things I can become part of everyone’s circle, then I’ve made up my mind. I’m just a simple person who knows no other way to live than by what I’ve learned.”

Even Hiroko’s sole wish—to postpone the wedding until autumn—succumbed to the man’s impatient proposal, and the ceremony came to be held in August’s sweltering heat. This was also because Sadako had advised that since Hiroko would be going regardless, it would be better for her to arrive even a day earlier to help him. At that time, whatever calculations Nomura may have harbored, Hiroko—desired and ultimately encouraged by others—had entered into this marriage. Even if there had been stumbles along that path, Hiroko’s feelings had to be considered. At forty, there might have been societal pretenses or calculations at play, but Mine gently wrapped those away and tried to instill in her an ordinary woman’s pride. That Nomura—with his four children—required a woman who could sew; what joy this must have brought Hiroko. Mine could find no man in her circles who would set such conditions. Rather than questioning why Nomura placed such weight on sewing skills, Mine became consumed by pushing forward Hiroko—who could truly thrive through that very task. Had Nomura the writer sought merely a wife, Mine would likely never have thought to connect him with Hiroko. Before the wedding ceremony was held, Nomura had requested that Hiroko see his home once. And on that day, Nomura’s three daughters came to fetch Hiroko. Aged seventeen, fifteen, and thirteen, they giggled shrilly while shyly flitting in and out of Mine’s front entrance—a place they were visiting for the first time. Their childlike demeanor brimmed so thoroughly with the joy of gaining a mother that Mine rejoiced for Hiroko’s sake, even tearing up. Though somewhat delicate in constitution, they were indeed beautiful children with gentle, well-defined features—just as Sadako had described. Their fair-skinned urban looks contrasted starkly with Nomura’s rustic simplicity. As these children’s mother, Hiroko still seemed mismatched. It carried an undeniably contrived air of mother and child. Yet Hiroko herself appeared oblivious to any unnaturalness and chatted amiably with everyone. And Mine accompanied them. That day, Hiroko had used her trusty sewing machine to craft shorts for the eldest boy and slips for each girl—gifts she brought along.

The boy promptly put on the shorts and smiled. This profoundly soothed everyone’s hearts, and even Nomura began consulting Hiroko about matters like futon repairs. It spoke volumes about how long the position of housewife in the Nomura household had remained vacant. Mine felt that from that day onward, Hiroko had gained clear confidence and awareness of her place within this household. How could anyone have realized then that such things would later hinder Hiroko’s position as a wife? Hiroko was, so to speak, a good-natured soul. Up to this point, she had not been informed that Nomura had wavered again after their arranged meeting. Mine believed that while responsibility for proceeding without telling Hiroko of Nomura’s minor anxiety lay with those around him—including Nomura himself—the greatest blame rested with Nomura’s own indecision over what was ultimately a trivial matter. It might have been Sadako who had harbored deeper concerns about this than anyone else from the start, but out of reserve, she likely could not fully voice her thoughts. Though Mine vaguely sensed this apprehension herself, she interpreted it as Sadako’s delicate consideration—a woman’s compassion toward Hiroko. Moreover, their mutual reserve had been swept away by the torrent flowing beyond those emotions. At that time too, Nomura appeared to have hesitated considerably, sending a letter to Sadako. It stated that Hiroko’s features resembled those of Nomura’s sister—a woman notorious for stinginess. He had therefore inquired: if Hiroko’s very nature proved similarly miserly, it would be most troublesome—what did she think about that point? Even then, Sadako said.

“Because she was a beautiful wife after all.”

Mine intuitively sensed that it was already hopeless.

“Let’s put an end to this discussion for now.” “I think that would be better.” As she was being led toward Sadako’s house, Mine stated this clearly in response. “But what’s the truth?” With a laugh tinged by her own awareness of this bitterly ironic twist, Sadako pressed the question. “Having to say it after being asked—somehow I don’t like it. “You understand, don’t you?” “I do understand. “I’m only asking because I can’t help it, you know.”

“I do understand—that too. But you know, my sister isn’t really a tightwad. In fact, sometimes she’s so lacking in it that it causes trouble.” Mine spoke of how Hiroko, during her time as a teacher, had failed to get along with colleagues due to her impartiality; how she had decisively quit her teaching career just six months shy of qualifying for her pension, rebelling against marriage candidates who always sought her as a woman of financial means; and how she had lamented why none of these proposals would accept her as a housewife.

“But you know, there are times when she comes across as an eccentric.” “Even then, she just clams up completely.” “Even if it’s an arranged meeting—she’s forty years old—you’d think she could at least manage some sort of conversation starter, but she can’t.” “She’s terribly awkward like that.” “In my hometown, we call people like that ‘cat-got-your-tongue.’” “So stubbornly shy.” “Yet once she warms up to you, she becomes quite lively.” “She sings in a loud voice and can even play piano at an amateur level.” “You know how schools have arts festivals?” “They said that among all the teachers, Hiroko the sewing instructor was the only one who could play two-part arrangements.” “So the teachers’ chorus at the end of the program would have Hiroko accompany them like that.” “You wouldn’t imagine it looking at her, would you?” “My sister may be difficult to approach at first, but I believe she’s the sort of woman whose true qualities emerge gradually—like a flavor that deepens over time.” “Though this probably reeks of a relative’s bias.” “But I truly despise having to explain all this now.”

“Well then, let’s just say that’s how it is.”

“But you can still call it off, you know.” “It’s not like we absolutely have to decide—I’m just putting that out there too.” “But I don’t like that either.” “It feels like some kind of haggling.” “Oh, I can’t stand this!” “That’s exactly what I say.” The two of them laughed helplessly. Even as she laughed, Mine still found it distasteful. It somehow left a bad aftertaste. Mine had no way of knowing about Nomura’s sister—the tightwad he so disliked. However, if Hiroko had resembled a beautiful woman instead of that person, would the matter have been settled without any concerns—her heart also being beautiful—even if she were a tightwad? Is that really how these things work? Juxtaposing such feelings on the man’s side with Sadako’s existing apprehensions, Mine could no longer maintain an honest frame of mind. If she were told this, Hiroko would absolutely refuse it; nor was Mine’s own resolve so firmly inclined one way or the other.

“I still think it’s better to call it off for now.” As Mine declared resolutely, Sadako calmly held her back. “But that’s simply not how these matters proceed.” “Hiroko has already warmed to the idea, and if she isn’t stingy, shouldn’t that suffice?” “Regarding this issue, wouldn’t it be wiser not to inform your sister yet?” “Wait—just a moment.” “As you suggested earlier, I’ll attempt speaking with Mr. Nomura again.”

Probably this entire exchange had reached Nomura. The matter was finally settled. Unaware of these circumstances, Hiroko accepted it modestly. Mine felt troubled by that. She hadn’t exactly lied. But she couldn’t feign ignorance.

Seizing the opportunity, Mine said to Hiroko, who was busily occupied with meticulous tasks for the day:

“Mr. Nomura dislikes penny-pinchers, you know. Since it’s you, I’m sure it’ll be fine—apparently you needn’t believe a wife’s virtue lies in ordinary household frugality. Well, that’s fortunate.” “Just focus on making full use of your strengths to bring everyone joy.” Unaware she’d been likened to a tightwad woman, Hiroko appeared innocently pleased.

Amidst the sudden flurry of activity—as if a bird had taken flight from beneath their feet—they settled on holding a conventional wedding ceremony on the eighth day, an auspicious date symbolizing expanding fortune. On the day they left home, Mine applied a light coat of lipstick to her lips. Pitying Hiroko’s half-lived life—her lips’ dull natural color never brightened by rouge—Mine gave her that imported lipstick. Both her accepting it so readily and Mine making her pucker her lips like a child to apply the lipstick must have been unexpected for them. Until now, Hiroko had been a woman who did not wear lipstick. As Mine suddenly recalled an old song—"Who do you rouge your lips for?"—she found herself gripped by unease, wondering what hues Hiroko would bring to her life with Nomura. The bride wore Mine’s dark-gray summer silk kimono, borrowing Sadako’s obi to fasten it. Her hair, casually arranged by her own hands; her makeup, so faint as to be indistinguishable—both lacked the vibrancy one would expect of a woman heading to her wedding. It was Hiroko’s natural appearance—one that had remained unchanged since the day before. Hiroko seemed to consider it something befitting Nomura. Though she made for such a plain-looking bride, the guests at the wedding banquet consisted of socially prominent writers and painters who had bonded with Nomura through his twenty-year literary career. They were also common acquaintances and friends of Mine and her circle. At that gathering, the words Sadako offered for the bride’s future went like this: she had noticed that whenever Hiroko was seen at Mine’s house, she was always working on something; however, she hoped Hiroko would now become a mother who played with the children rather than immersing herself too deeply in work. Sadako spoke these sentiments while drawing parallels to her own girlhood experience living with a stepmother. These were words that wrapped the feelings Sadako had held toward Hiroko from the beginning in kind consideration and hope, and they struck a resonant chord in Mine’s heart; but how had Hiroko herself perceived them? After that, when Hiroko came to Mine’s house two or three times, she was always busy.

“It’s truly exhausting.” “I barely have time to catch my breath.” “The five of them don’t even have enough underwear to wear each day.” “Just getting up at four-thirty to make four lunchboxes and send them off wears me out.” “I feel like my body might give out completely.” “Living alone carefree for so long makes this adjustment terribly hard.” “I haven’t even a moment to scribble a postcard.” “Now don’t say that—you must take some time to rest.” “Didn’t Ms. Sadako tell you that?”

“I know.” “But sis, come inside and see.” “To play with the children, I’d have to get even busier.” “A housemaid.”

“I suppose so.” “It’s after such a long period of hardship, after all.” “But they’ll be happy for you in return, I suppose.”

“Only the children seem to find everything I do either novel or delightful.” “And Mr. Nomura?”

“Well...”

Without bashfulness, Hiroko averted her eyes. The second time too, the third time too—whenever asked about Nomura, Hiroko would lower her gaze and say little. Mine, now gripped by decisive unease, could no longer remain still; at one point, as if chasing after Hiroko, she abruptly visited Nomura’s house. Mine could not forget Nomura’s flustered expression in that moment. Even after regaining his composure, Nomura engaged in mundane small talk with a guarded air, as though bracing himself against some impending revelation. Unable to endure his standoffish aloofness, Mine took her leave without heeding Hiroko’s attempts to stop her. The moment she stepped through the gate, fresh anxiety surged forth. Something was wrong. He must have had some justification. She absolutely needed to know it. To understand what Nomura’s heart seemed to conceal, she had no choice but to confront him directly. For the past month, Mine had worried and pondered without respite.

It was from such feelings that Mine came to today’s gathering—an event she could have skipped without issue, one that was merely a casual social meeting. Both Nomura and Yūkichi were chatting amiably enough—perhaps due to the effects of alcohol—but their conversation never rose beyond perfunctory literary talk, and to Mine, it seemed Nomura was on guard against even Yūkichi, a fellow man.

Even when their eyes met at the venue, Nomura had a cold look and said nothing. There was no reason they shouldn’t be closer. Couldn't he at least mention Hiroko? It wasn’t as if he expected her to read his mind through silence—if he disliked the arrangement, she thought, he could have at least hinted she should keep her distance. Nomura, who had remained silent since the marriage—that same Nomura was now talking with Yūkichi about who knew what, though Mine, a hundred paces away, could no longer hear them; yet seen from behind, he looked completely like a stranger. When they reached the tram street, the two stopped and waited for Mine. The rest of their group had vanished from sight. Mine quickened her steps and approached as if noticing Nomura there for the first time, drawing up beside him. And she steeled herself to speak.

“How is Hiroko?”

“Ah,” Nomura nodded. “She’s having trouble with stiff shoulders right now.” “She had a headache and stayed in bed today.” “Oh, is that so.” “Isn’t there a massage therapist nearby?”

“Well, there are some, but she says she can’t stand having a woman do it.” “The children were massaging her quite a bit, but...” Nomura’s face, turned straight toward the evening-glowing sky as he spoke, was as red as an old man in an oil painting, the tired wrinkles on his forehead standing out prominently. “She’s been enduring terribly, hasn’t she.” “If it’s all right, why don’t you have her come over to my place for a day?” “There’s a good massage therapist nearby.” Then Nomura suddenly smiled—then timidly erased it as he did so—

“I see. Then let’s do that promptly.”

He looked terribly relieved. With Nomura at the center, the three walked shoulder-to-shoulder down the rarely visited street, peering into bookstores as they made their way to the next stop. After that, Hiroko’s name never came up again. The next day, just before noon, Hiroko arrived. It was the first bright expression Mine had seen on her since the marriage. “I get to stay two nights.” She looked as delighted as a child. Having made arrangements the day before, the massage therapist arrived punctually at one o’clock. Even after the treatment ended, Hiroko didn’t try to rise, sleeping straight through into the night. She lay there snoring loudly. Unaware of Mine standing by her pillow, she kept sleeping—hair spilling beyond the pillowcase in waves, mouth slightly agape in slack-jawed slumber, her large face sallow-skinned, reddish-brown hair already threaded with white strands as she snored on. Watching this, Mine felt her chest tighten.

“Auntie, you’re terribly tired. You’re snoring.” Even Masako, Mine’s daughter, gazed at her with eyes filled with compassion. The next day just before noon, when Hiroko finally awoke, she attended to her needs and then burrowed back into bed. And this time, she continued sleeping with quiet breaths.

"She’s really exhausted," "What should we do about lunch?" In response to Masako’s inquiry, Mine said: "Let her sleep until she wakes." "It’s her day off."

Seeming to have heard the voices, Hiroko—who had finally gotten up—still wore Mine’s yukata, her hair disheveled and her appearance unkempt,

“Ah, I slept so well! I’ve made up for a whole month’s lost sleep!”

As she sat leaning against the pillar by the threshold, Mine said, "You should take a nap every day, even if it's just twenty minutes." "Your eyes lately—they've gotten tired and haggard." "If I could manage that..."

“Don’t they take naps at Mr. Nomura’s house?”

“They do take naps—everyone does. “Only I don’t take one. “I can’t afford to—I’m just a day-laborer housemaid.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” “But that’s how it is. It really is.” “It really is.”

Though Hiroko had said it as a matter of course, Mine was startled. She hated it. If Masako hadn’t been there beside them, she would have pressed further with her questions. Whether aware of Mine’s feelings or not—Mine, who was privately resolving to find the right moment to ask, even if it meant waiting until night—Hiroko stood up,

“Well, I’ll wash my hair and be on my way soon. I’ll just have the meal and then go.” “Oh? Weren’t you staying two nights?” “But I’ve already recovered. Instead, I’ll come again another time.” To Hiroko, who had suddenly begun bustling about preparing to leave, Mine took out the requested fabric for futon covers and—seeing Masako wasn’t present—ventured her question.

“Is your bedroom the study?” Hiroko’s expression clouded over slightly,

“No—that’s wrong,” she corrected sharply. “I sleep with Nomura’s children.”

Mine looked at her in disbelief. “Really?” Mine asked in return. “That’s right. Because the children won’t listen when I say we should sleep together.” “Is Mr. Nomura staying silent about that?” “He doesn’t say anything at all.”

Mine couldn’t reply immediately, but in a quiet voice,

“That’s a mistake, Hiroko.” “You should tell him that.” “That’s not how it is.” Hiroko flushed, “I mean to be the children’s mother.” “That’s why I’m a housemaid.” After Hiroko left, Mine found herself unable to shake the matter from her thoughts. The vague unease she had felt now crystallized into clarity—Nomura’s inexplicable attitude returned to haunt her mind, making her chest feel heavier than ever. What should she do? The more she dwelled on it, the more Hiroko’s profound unhappiness pressed down on her consciousness; that night, she lay awake restlessly twisting in bed. Though aware it might be unjust without hearing his reasons first, her desire to resent Nomura refused to abate. She knew intervention was too late now, but rushing to reclaim Hiroko—considering how her sister had cut short her two-night visit—required careful deliberation. Even if she acted, what path would remain for Hiroko then? For one as prideful as Hiroko—a woman who clung to appearances—such an outcome would prove devastating. Half-resigned yet recognizing Hiroko’s stubborn resolve to mother the children wouldn’t easily fracture, Mine concluded she must appeal to Nomura once more. However burdensome this might be for him, Nomura bore equal responsibility for Hiroko’s plight. There existed no alternative but this appeal. With this resolution, Mine sprang upright.

When I handed over the fabric for futon covers that Hiroko had requested today, our conversation about bedding led me to hear that she sleeps together with your children. I cannot help but think this constitutes a grave situation. Please let her fulfill her role as the children’s mother only during daylight hours, and allow her to occupy her proper place as your wife at night. You may well take offense at this meddlesome appeal of mine, but I beg you to comprehend these feelings that I cannot leave unspoken.

――

Having tried to write in an exceedingly bright tone, Mine ended up writing it—and then she wept silently. At her work desk, on the same manuscript paper she used for her writing, she could not help but weep from the anguish of having to write such things without telling a soul. The sadness of having to plead this to Nomura without being able to speak of it even to Yūkichi or Sadako. It might have been a futile effort to try to mend what had been shattered, but when she thought of Hiroko, she could not bring herself to abandon it. And, not wanting Hiroko to find out about this, she sealed the letter tightly with rice grains and went to mail it herself the next day. That striving solely to please others would result in this—and yet, it should not have been entirely unexpected. Sadako’s loaded words lashed back like a whip. Why hadn’t I considered that more fully?

Mine tried to go directly to Sadako’s house. If it were Sadako, she might offer a different solution. With a head so flushed that even blinking made her eyelids feel hot, Mine wrapped it in a hand towel like a farm woman and walked with downcast eyes, keeping to the shade. As she turned toward Sadako’s house along the uniformly lined concrete walls facing the street, she unexpectedly came face-to-face with Sadako.

“Oh, I was just on my way there.” In Sadako’s smiling face as she turned back with a laugh, Mine detected an indefinable shadow—something that made her start—but taking it as Sadako’s consideration toward her, she silently walked shoulder to shoulder with her. Mine’s face, having barely slept last night, must have laid bare unmistakable fatigue.

“Hiroko stopped by, but she returned home yesterday.”

“I see.”

After that, they walked in silence. After circling around the garden and climbing up from the damp veranda of Sadako’s room, the two sat facing each other wordlessly for some time until Sadako drew out a white envelope from her kimono fold, “I’m at a loss.”

and placed it before Mine. Mine felt her chest constrict again.

“Mr. Nomura wrote not to show this to you, but I think I have no choice but to let you see it.” “I’m at a loss.” In suffocating agitation, Mine tremblingly took out Nomura’s letter. It really was no good after all. It really was hopeless after all. A letter read through in haste could not possibly sink smoothly into Mine’s heart. Mine read the single sheet of letter paper over and over again. “It’s not that Ms. Hiroko has any shortcomings. It’s that I cannot adjust. The presence of my late wife of twenty-one years clings to me, and that hinders me from growing accustomed to Ms. Hiroko—Even when I try to immerse myself in some part of Ms. Hiroko—her hands, feet, the line of her waist, her voice, eyes, hair—I find myself searching for points in common with my late wife. Ms. Hiroko is completely different. My late wife was a woman who wore nine-*mon* tabi*. She was a woman who would nestle into my arms. The children have already grown as attached as kittens. However, a man does not easily fall in love simply because a woman can sew and manage a household well.—”

Unable to endure it any longer, Mine folded the letter, her hands trembling. Sadako said in a voice that pressed down, slightly shrill-edged,

“Even if we say such things now, there’s no path left but to move forward, don’t you agree?” Then, slightly lowering her voice, “It really wasn’t meant to be after all… She was such a beautiful wife.” She let out a deep sigh. With an odd, disembodied feeling—as though hearing empty words—Mine returned the folded letter to its envelope, forced a smile, and spoke in a low voice.

“Well... I’m at a loss.”

She looked at Sadako in a manner that strangely seemed to have calmed her feelings. And once again she took the letter in hand and gazed at it. She did not have the courage to read it again but could infer Nomura had written this during Hiroko’s absence—the end had finally come, she thought. When Hiroko lay snoring asleep too exhausted even to eat—that was when Nomura had written this letter. My late wife was a woman who wore nine-mon tabi. She was a woman who would nestle into my arms. Was he implying Hiroko had concealed being a large woman with nine-mon-seven-bu feet? Had Nomura married her without knowing this? “He truly wanted a beautiful wife after all,” said Sadako. Did Nomura mean he only realized this after marriage? Or did he feel forced into accepting plain-looking Hiroko? Or worse—had he written that foolish letter asking her to share his bedroom unaware how this tore at Mine’s heart? Unaware of these circumstances Hiroko had returned to Nomura’s home—bearing souvenirs packed neatly after cutting her visit short by one night—how had Nomura received her? Now every baffling gesture of his came rushing back; Mine’s lips trembled as she fought down shame anger regret flooding her body while Sadako sat silent head bowed.

Two

In late October 1946, over three days, the literary group Mine belonged to held its second national convention at Shibuya Public Hall. The young poets from regional branches who had come up to Tokyo for this occasion and were staying at Mine’s house, along with her husband Yūkichi and the others, left home early in the morning. Delayed by preparing everyone’s boxed lunches, Mine set out alone later than the others. Then she found herself walking with unexpected ease. As she was leaving, Mine recalled the words her daughter Masako had spoken with a kind of sympathy.

“Dad has a name like Yūkichi but he’s really so impatient.” “There were only about five minutes left—he could’ve waited for you, don’t you think? So selfish.”

Just because lunch preparation was slightly delayed，men can yell without considering the reason. Women cannot do the same. Normally she could have yelled back，but out of consideration for their guests，she stayed quiet and sent them off，saying she’d bring the lunches later. Even if they wake together，the man reads the newspaper in bed while the woman must rise to work in the kitchen. While the men are waking up and washing their faces，the woman finishes cleaning and prepares breakfast and lunch boxes. Only men can complain about a five-minute delay，while women end up carrying three lunchboxes and leaving later. Neither husband nor wife found this strange；only their daughter Masako considered it male selfishness. Even so，it was nothing more than backbiting between women.

“Carrying three lunchboxes must be such a strain on your shoulders. Let me take them for you.” Out of concern for Mine, who had suddenly grown weaker lately, Masako had said such things. “Come now—during the war, I even went out to buy provisions.” “Compared to that, this is a piece of cake.”

However, as the crowded vehicle swayed, the three lunchboxes were quite heavy, and Mine kept switching hands. But this didn’t make her angry. Far from it—today, Mine even found it pleasant. For the first time in ages, she had prepared her own lunchboxes: scrambled eggs, minced ham, rationed baby shrimp simmered anew in soy sauce, grated kelp, pickled baby turnips—even red pickled ginger as garnish. The yellows, pinks, browns, and whites shone as beautifully as young turnip leaves bursting with life. She had arranged the vibrant colors with such care—and that was why the lunchboxes had been delayed. The lunchbox she’d entrusted to Masako the previous day had contained only umeboshi rice balls. They had seemed too pitiful, so they resolved to make an effort—after all, this was their special occasion. Yūkichi couldn’t possibly know that. Would he be surprised when he opened his lunchbox? Yūkichi, who never complained about the umeboshi rice balls, might show no particular interest in today’s meal either. This might be nothing more than a woman’s sentimental fancy. But Mine was happy. Within that happiness lay not only the joy of being a wife who delivered lunchboxes but also the delight of being a woman who could share this food with the large crowd gathered for their shared purpose. The one who had lifted Mine—an uneducated daughter of a poor laborer—to become a woman participating in such gatherings was ultimately Yūkichi’s doing above all. Yūkichi who shouted; Yūkichi who felt no qualms about ordering around his wife and daughter—yet within him also dwelled something striving to pull his wife up to stand beside him as an equal. They might be a married couple so mired in old ways they didn’t even notice their complicity, but few couples attended such events bearing matching lunchboxes. There was Chieko Takagi—Mine’s senior—and her husband, and there had once been Sadako Kawashima and hers. But Chieko Takagi’s husband likely wouldn’t come today, and Sadako Kawashima was no longer part of any couple now. The three couples had endured countless trials through their long association and survived the war.

And so today it was Chieko Takagi who stood ceremoniously on the podium. Compared to Mine and her group—who had endured the war years covered in mud, their way of life marked by shame—the dignified presence of Chieko Takagi, who had stood chest-out against the wind, seeped into everyone’s hearts like a spring overflowing with great force and shadows with the war’s end. Now Mine could no longer witness—even from a position of personal closeness—the couple living vibrant days amid the sudden upheaval in their lives after welcoming home her husband liberated from long imprisonment. On her way back from visiting her husband in prison, Chieko would often come to stay at Mine’s house. In those harsh times when she would don an air-raid hood and work trousers, ostentatiously presenting gifts like a single bag of rice, a slice of beef, and an apple—Chieko, who seemed to suppress her intensity within, approached even Mine with an almost childlike familiarity.

“Oh… How…?” “Ms. Mine.”

Chieko placed both hands on Mine’s shoulders, laying bare her fatigue without pretense. Declaring her visits to Mine’s house as a “day off,” Chieko would immediately undo her obi, remove her tabi socks, fasten a navy serge apron, and even take off her thick myopic glasses—a sight Mine simply delighted in, exerting herself fully to entertain her guest. There, Mine wondered if they were letting their guard down, and they revealed their true, unguarded hearts to one another.

“Takagi’s already making all these plans about getting out in less than a year.” “When he comes back, I’ll be flustered.”

She said this as innocently as a young wife, her eyes shining. In the midst of war, these were the words spoken with conviction by a wife whose husband had been sentenced to life imprisonment for violating the Peace Preservation Law and was soon to be sent to Abashiri. And that is exactly what happened. What many people had failed to conceive, those inside the prison had properly understood indeed. After Takagi returned, there was no longer any need for her to lean on Mine’s shoulder and sigh “Ah, ah” with a weary face. It had been quite a long time since they had last met, Mine thought. She would get to see even Chieko today. Mine had heard murmurs that Chieko—rumored to be in poor health—had demanded a car be arranged to attend today’s event as a speaker. Automobiles being scarce at the time likely caused no small grumbling, but to Mine, Chieko’s very act of demanding a car felt so characteristically her that she couldn’t help but smile. Chieko was larger than life. Everything about her defied ordinary measures. If that comparison fell short, then at least she was a woman who—unlike Mine now carrying three lunchboxes alone—would never have considered such a task lighthearted. Yet even Chieko held one small thing that made Mine harbor suspicion. In their wartime letter exchanges during Takagi’s imprisonment, only Chieko’s name lacked honorifics. In Takagi’s recently published correspondence, not one letter bore an honorific on Chieko’s name in the address. This disregard for convention felt unnatural—giving the impression that only the man’s presence loomed large. Moreover, through her autobiographical works, Chieko sometimes gave the impression of being like an old-fashioned Japanese woman in devoted service. Recalling this, Mine compared some aspect of herself holding lunchboxes with Chieko and found it amusing. These two women differed in everything they had acquired—as if their births and upbringings stood at polar extremes.

Sometime in the past, the two of them had taken a trip lasting about ten days through the mountains of Shinshu. This was not long after Chieko had been released from prison. Though they had gone out to escape Tokyo’s heat, Shinshu already carried a thick autumn chill, and the peaks of the Japanese Alps stood white with snow. During their morning and evening walks, Chieko would always gaze at those Japanese Alps peaks and puff out her chest with pride, while Mine found her eyes drawn only to the alpine plants at her feet and the comical sight of tiny tree frogs napping on yatsude leaves. Mine often recalled that this difference was the very difference between the two of them. Chieko, who had brought a mountain of books, and Mine, who had packed knitting yarn into her luggage—when they settled onto the grassy field, Chieko spread open an Iwanami Bunko volume, and Mine took out her knitting needles. This difference was not only one of education and temperament but also of the circumstances they had been placed in. At that time, Mine had no intention of writing novels. Even when they went to hot springs in Shinshu and such places, the financial burden was borne by Chieko, and Mine knitted yarn for her. The yarn became Takagi’s tabi socks, or sweaters, or Chieko’s cold-weather undergarments.

More than ten years had passed since then. Chieko, who stood like a towering tree in an open field, and Mine, like a weed in an alley’s corner—both had gathered at the same meeting. When Chieko stood on the podium, she became an orator whom even men could not rival—yet as a woman and wife, she must have carried some private thoughts. They must exist—.

From a woman’s perspective, Mine exited Shibuya Station while contemplating the women depicted in Chieko’s literary works. Then at the exit, she noticed Hiroko Mitani—a woman novelist loitering restlessly outside—and called out to her. Hiroko Mitani turned her slender, emaciated face toward Mine,

“Oh, thank goodness.” “My apologies for the other day.”

Having evacuated to her hometown of Hiroshima during the war and endured the atomic bomb there, she too had come up to Tokyo in time for today’s gathering. Now over forty and about to enter married life, she—perhaps through her connection with the man being a Communist Party member—had come straight to Mine’s place upon arriving in Tokyo. Having experienced married life before, she knew the bitterness of divorce. Having been liberated from the complicated emotions of being both a working woman and a wife, and having lived alone for many years, she was now trying to enter a new marriage. Had witnessing human lives vanish in an instant under the atomic bomb brought her life philosophy to this point? Mine regarded her with a certain fondness.

“I should be thoroughly done with marriage by now, but I suppose a woman can’t just have her way like that.” “But Mother also says that if it’s a Communist Party member, they wouldn’t do incomprehensible things like ordinary men.” “What do you think?” She spoke matter-of-factly, blending a country accent as if discussing someone else’s affairs—yet even from Hiroko’s thickly rouged makeup, Mine perceived that her mind was already made up. In the midst of marriage becoming something of a trend, Nomura and Hiroko’s wedding had even been announced in the newspaper bulletins. Perhaps it was also due to such circumstances that Hiroko had come to visit Mine with a carefree air. She was the same age as Hiroko. However, as for Hiroko, now was in no position for such things. Now, two full months into their marriage, Nomura was already treating Hiroko as a cumbersome burden. Moreover, precisely because they had not yet brought it to the surface as an open issue between them, Mine’s feelings were in disarray. Seeing Hiroko Mitani, Mine suddenly remembered Hiroko. Nomura’s feelings expressed in his letter to Sadako—asking Mine not to speak of it—were unlikely to settle matters, yet what could Mine possibly say on her own part? When Mine thought she would have to face Nomura at today’s event, her heart grew agitated. From the very name Shibuya, Mine could not help but recall Nomura and Hiroko. If one were to take the train, it would take about twenty minutes to reach Nomura’s house—what was Hiroko doing there now? If one were to go now, both Nomura and the children would be out. Perhaps I should go check on her properly. While her heart wavered, Mine walked side by side with Hiroko Mitani toward the venue, wearing a cheerful facade. Basking in the pleasant autumn breeze that enveloped their entire bodies while squinting against the strong sunlight, the two of them walked. Mine with her large, stout frame and the slender Hiroko walked on as men—their gait immediately marking their identity—approached from behind them and then overtook them.

“That’s someone from the meeting, isn’t it? You can tell at a glance.” “The people further ahead must be too, right?” Hiroko said in a thick Hiroshima dialect. “Oh, that’s Mr. K., the poet.” “That one even further ahead—isn’t that someone called S?” “He wrote a novel called *Farmers’ Almanac*.”

While ascending the wide stone steps of the building—opened toward the road—Hiroko adopted an air of having just noticed something,

“What about Ms. Sadako?” she asked curiously, noticing they weren’t together.

“She’s tied up with work, you see. She should come in the afternoon.” As she spoke, Mine chuckled quietly and pulled Hiroko’s hand while descending the steps. “The ward office is here. Because you began climbing up so confidently.” “But I thought since it’s a big event, it’d be the one with the grand stone steps, you know.”

The entrance to the public assembly hall was the narrow steps beside it. The venue's posted sign caught the eye with its unassuming appearance. The meeting had already begun. Coming in from outside felt like entering a movie theater—dimly lit enough that the faces of those seated farther back couldn't be immediately recognized. When Mine sat down beside Hiroko on the nearest chairs, Nomura—who seemed to have been waiting in the front seats as if anticipating her arrival—approached. Moving along the wall-side aisle with a slight stoop, he spotted Mine and gave a quick nod of his head. Recognizing this as a summons, Mine rose at once. Nomura guided her to an inconspicuous corner near the exit and extended a white envelope with ceremonious formality, saying simply, "Here." He then drew back smoothly, took a long breath with his chin lifted upward, blinked several times rapidly, and dipped his head in another brief bow. Though his lips moved as if muttering something, Mine couldn't catch the words.

At last, it had come!

The pounding in her chest grew so violent that it made a sound. Mine went to the restroom and opened the letter.

When I think of what sorrow this letter will bring you, I cannot easily write— Mine hurriedly returned the letter to its envelope.

――How cruel. To hand this over so abruptly in a place like this.

While feeling something akin to anger at having her composure disturbed, Mine returned to her seat. On the platform, Tazawa—the critic who had been Sadako’s husband—continued speaking in his sonorous voice. At the chairman’s seat beside him, Yūkichi waited with a stern expression. Before anything could sink into Mine’s mind, Tazawa’s report concluded, and Yūkichi stood up to say something in a low voice. Then Nomura stood up from a seat in the front right section while calling out “Chairman.” Showing a sunken pale profile as he began his question—whether due to Nomura’s low voice or Mine’s distant seat—she couldn’t discern a single word. He cupped his hand to his ear like an old man, but she still couldn’t hear. Yūkichi’s voice too remained unintelligible. Mine grew flushed and overwhelmed, convinced her ears were failing. As she watched Nomura’s face, the marital dreariness seemed to stagnate in his very complexion—something oppressive bearing down. Mine silently stood up, left Yūkichi and the others’ lunchboxes at reception desk storage, and went outside. Blinding sunlight flooded the white road so intensely it made one want to cast off their haori. Walking slowly while covering her head with a handkerchief, tears suddenly overflowed. Ever since Nomura’s letter to Sadako, Mine’s tear ducts had grown abnormal—undisciplined. There were nights she truly wept until dawn for Hiroko’s sake. She shed such tears that pillows became drenched enough to require changing.

“Enough already. You’re going to ruin your body.” Yūkichi, forced to endure Mine’s lament and at a loss as he spoke, faced Mine—who nevertheless smiled through her tear-swollen face— “Soaking a pillow with tears—I thought that only happened in melodramatic novels, but here it is in reality.” “They’re scalding, these tears.” “When they spill over—truly as hot as boiling water.” “They gush out.” “It’s the first time in my life for me.” “No—this makes it twice now.” “That time, remember?”

That time—it referred to when Yūkichi had encountered a stumbling block involving another woman. When Mine mentioned it, Yūkichi would always respond with a silent, bitter smile. For Yūkichi and his circle, this was a matter from ten years prior—a perilous era when they seemed on the verge of losing their footing. Even so, for Mine—who had been nothing more than an ordinary wife by society’s standards—it must have been a tremendous blow. Mine often cried. By narrowing her eyes sharply, thrusting the other woman aside, and restraining herself, she overcame that crisis. She didn’t know whether she had truly won or lost. The bond of their long marital years had merely placed Mine in a superficially victorious position. Yet from there, Mine felt she had made a new beginning. It was right after this that she began writing novels. Through this act, she believed she had shed some of the oldness that had become ingrained in her. That mad antics like grabbing lapels and shoving each other could arise over years of marriage; that even from such clashes, something called marital affection might well up—this was a mystery Mine had never understood. Through such strange human psychology, they had now become a fearsome, indomitable couple—one that could not be shaken by trifles. And the scalding tears she shed now for the first time in a decade were tears she wept on behalf of her sister Hiroko. The pity of Hiroko still unaware of this woman’s tears; the anguish of knowing she too must someday shed them; imagining how Hiroko would collapse when that time came—all this made Mine weep. It pained her too that should the truth emerge, Hiroko would only comprehend it through antiquated notions of what novelists ought to be— A woman who had prized moral rectitude like the Golden Kite Medal until forty; who deemed romance defilement; who took pride not in a love-match but in being a bride received through old customs—this was why Hiroko could not grasp Nomura’s heart. That she had delivered such a woman to Nomura—children notwithstanding—now filled Mine with such remorse she felt she had nowhere to stand. Nomura’s letter to Sadako compounded that regret with shame and bitterness. Mine, spilling tears, found herself pleading even with Yūkichi.

“Look, Mr. Nomura says this problem isn’t about Hiroko’s lack of grace—and of course I don’t think it’s just that either—but still, I believe that’s the main cause.” “Because from the start, Mr. Nomura said Hiroko resembled Kechinbo’s sister, didn’t he?” “I should have flat-out refused back then.” “But by then Hiroko’s heart was already completely set on Mr. Nomura—there was nothing I could do.” “And now she’s being compared to Mrs. Sen—who wore nine-mon tabi and threw herself into men’s arms.” “Mr. Nomura is surely making these comparisons without even realizing it.” “Even if he had noticed, you couldn’t call that wrong.” “Everyone prefers what’s beautiful over what’s plain.” “But does that even make sense?” “The person who wore nine-mon tabi has long turned to bones.” “Hiroko is alive.” “To say her hands, feet, waist, eyes, and voice are all completely different—what an insult now!” “If she found out, how do you think Hiroko would feel?”

Recalling Hiroko, who had been overjoyed that someone had taken her despite her plain looks, Mine spoke resentfully as if the man in question were Yūkichi.

“Give me a break already.” “It can’t be helped, you know.” “We’ll take care of the rest ourselves.”

When Yūkichi said that to her, Mine began to feel as though she alone had been borrowing trouble and finally settled her heart.

“You’re right.” “Since you’re telling me to stay quiet, I’ll keep silent about this matter until Hiroko comes to me for advice.” “Hiroko has her own feelings too.” Ah… Oh… Men—truly, even among us women, it’s still men who matter. Women might just be women after all. A woman is just a woman. They make too much of a pretty face. The less beautiful one is, the more that might be true. Beautiful people don’t understand this. Beautiful people don’t understand the self-consciousness of those who aren’t. Even if they understand, it’s someone else’s affair after all. Hiroko was a woman who scorned such things yet cared deeply about them. She wore an innocent face while nursing those cares. Yet she remained oblivious to everything else. Does she still not understand? For all her edgy nerves, there’s something fundamentally lacking in her. It must be from being alone too long. “If she knew—oh, how bitterly she would resent it.”

Mine kept her senses taut toward Hiroko every day, poised for contact. Yet nothing came from Hiroko, until at last she received a letter passed along from Nomura. The thick envelope stiffened within the fold of her kimono. Pressing a handkerchief draped over her forehead against the streaming tears, Mine walked toward the station. She entered a burnt-out lot where summer grass grew in clumps and sat upon one of the Oya stones haphazardly piled together. Whether from courage gained through reading Nomura’s letter or not, her tears had dried. It said continuing this way would only deepen their mutual unhappiness. It said his wife of twenty-one years had become ingrained in his very being and now stood in his way. It said being an unfaithful sort of man who knew few types of women left him unable to conquer Hiroko—wandering as if abroad, never achieving a proper marital state. Reading this far left Mine stunned. She thought Hiroko might be deficient. Yet the next line added again that Hiroko wasn’t lacking—rather his former wife’s presence kept him from adjusting to her. In essence, his true wife remained not Hiroko but the woman who’d shared twenty-one years with him. Just as in his letter to Sadako, he wrote he could find no trace of his late wife in Hiroko anywhere. Yet Mine felt neither anger nor fresh tears—only a vast bewilderment flooding her heart. This was trouble. Nomura asked Mine to lend him any wisdom she possessed. What did he mean to do? Why couldn’t he simply confront it himself and have done?

However, as she kept rereading it, Mine came to understand Nomura’s timidity—how he continued agonizing over what he couldn’t even bring himself to do—and let out a deep sigh. There was only one path. Poor Hiroko... And Nomura too. To think she’s being pitied by me. He even wrote that he had considered reckless things. What did he mean by 'recklessness'? Was he talking about killing himself? That’s absurd. However, this letter was not a lie. Ms. Hiroko treats me well. The more she does for me, the more I suffer. When I consider the blow that would befall my family due to bad consequences (the children have only just regained their composure), I think if only I could manage things somehow and try to muster courage—but again I am rebuffed.—

Mine felt as if she were being humiliated and involuntarily stood up. She walked briskly as if shaking off something pressing down on her. As she walked, her heart kept repeating each line of the letter. Nomura would bear full responsibility. What did that mean? He would bear full responsibility. Then was he saying he’d just silently endure it? That wasn’t it. Nomura wanted to escape from Hiroko at the earliest possible moment. To think he’d shoulder all responsibility alone. If they spoke of responsibility, it didn’t lie solely with Nomura. What Mine found unbearably regrettable was why, when matters had once stumbled, they had made everything regress so drastically again. Neither Nomura nor Mine could claim they’d had no premonition of this day. They had been wrong. As for Nomura’s conditions—completely sidelining his own feelings with phrases like “for the children’s sake” and “a woman who can sew”—Mine, who had imposed them like a professional matchmaker, couldn’t escape responsibility either. For the children’s sake—a mother. Yet even so, everyone had considered Hiroko more as Nomura’s wife than as a mother for the children. The children would soon grow up and build their own lives—both Nomura and Mine had used this reasoning to convince Hiroko. She could only conclude that everyone had far too naively underestimated the situation. If they were to assign blame for having underestimated things, wouldn’t Nomura—the one most underestimated, the Nomura who’d presented himself as someone to be underestimated—bear the greatest responsibility?

Two months into the marriage, Hiroko—who still couldn’t grasp Nomura’s state of mind—had no right to claim responsibility; she was the very model of a foolish woman. Wasn’t everyone troubled precisely because Hiroko was a fool? Even I had to feel ashamed. Thinking this, Mine found Hiroko exasperating yet pitiful beyond measure. I must tell Hiroko. She surely remained oblivious to these behind-the-scenes machinations. Nomura had written that he would depart for Izu on work within two or three days and wanted Mine’s reply sent there. Until her response arrived, he explicitly stated he would keep pretending nonchalance toward Hiroko as before. Ah Hiroko—is this truly what you are? Pathetic creature. Are you such a fool that he cannot even consult you directly? Lost—utterly lost. To think there existed not one quality in her that might draw a man’s heart. You might have boasted of reaching forty alone without misstep. But that you lacked something essential as a woman—this truth escapes you still. If you believe marriage amounts to this ignorant pantomime—preposterous! Can’t you see its emptiness, you dull-witted fool!

One day, Mine was riding the train to Nomura’s house. As she approached Nomura’s house, she shuddered at what she now tried to sever with a great axe. Depending on how things unfolded—when faced with the letter that must be shown—what face would Hiroko make? She might have some inkling. When she reached into her pocket, the letter bulked under her obi. It was the baton of anguish passed from Nomura. I will use all my wisdom to wash this away in a small stream. I must become clever—so I must never shed tears again. Mine stiffened her resolve within her own heart. But when she found Hiroko crouching by Nomura’s fence, her figure draped with a hand towel, she couldn’t help speaking gently.

“Hiroko.”

“Oh my, what’s wrong? Isn’t today the conference?”

Hiroko stood up with apparent delight and brushed off dirt-covered hands.

“Planting seeds?”

“Yes. “They’re snow peas.” That was the snow peas Hiroko had harvested with her own hands back when she lived in the countryside. If planted now, they should endure the cold and bloom next spring. Mine could no longer say anything and silently sat down at the edge of the veranda. With dirt-covered hands still unwashed, Hiroko came and sat down beside her.

“Your shoulders aren’t stiff anymore?” “Why don’t you come over tomorrow?” “Tell Mr. Nomura that.”

Mine said testingly.

“But Nomura will be traveling in two or three days.” “He’s going for work.” “So I can’t come during that time.” She didn’t know anything at all. Mine averted her eyes and gazed around the house as if beholding something rare. The cleaning had been done thoroughly, and in the alcove, tea flowers and yellow chrysanthemums were arranged in a small vase. It was Hiroko’s preference. Polishing the veranda, arranging flowers in the rooms—was Hiroko laboring under the delusion that such things constituted life’s beauty? Once, when Mine visited Nomura—who claimed to be ill—and Hiroko accompanied her to the station, Hiroko suddenly stopped, covered her face with both hands, and said in a tearful voice:

“Sis, I think I’ll change my approach.” Nomura would fly into inexplicable fits of temper, and as the children grew accustomed, it became increasingly difficult to keep them in check. “Well, Hiroko, that’s quite different from teaching students from a podium.” “Just look at Yūkichi.” “There’s not a day we don’t argue, you know.” “Once you get more used to it and can shout back or talk back, you’ll be fine.” “Who on earth doesn’t even raise their voice?” “That’s precisely what’s so damn boring.”

When Mine said this with deliberate lightness, Hiroko shook her head,

“That’s not it. The people here are different somehow. I shouldn’t have come after all.” “Then leave whenever you want—but I don’t think it’s like that.”

After that, Hiroko never spoke of such things again. Even when she came to Mine's house, she would still leave in a bustling manner. But looking back now, that perception of Hiroko's had been entirely shaped by her absorption of Nomura's emotions. If only she would say that now, Mine thought. But Hiroko was planting peas outside the fence. Even upon seeing Mine, she made no move to wash her hands. Was she completely oblivious to Mine's visit?

“Well, goodbye then. I’m going to the conference now. Then come by when you’re free. Make sure to tell Mr. Nomura that I came.” Feeling as though she were lying, Mine was tormented. However, clinging to a secret hope that if Nomura heard she had come here, he might send Hiroko over as soon as tomorrow or perhaps even lead to an open conversation between them, Mine parted ways. Regretting that she couldn’t see her off, Hiroko stood outside the fence until Mine turned the street corner, waving her hand each time Mine looked back. Such things, too, would end today. Mine walked at a speed akin to running. And as soon as she returned straight home, she gave an order to her surprised daughter Masako.

“Make sushi and buy ¥100 worth of daifuku.” “But you said we were having meat.” “That’s canceled. Auntie will probably come.” “Ah, right.” Sushi and sweets were Hiroko’s favorites. Yet Hiroko didn’t come that day. Mine waited through the next day too, but she never appeared. Nomura might have gone to Izu. Though she knew fretting was pointless, Mine couldn’t calm herself. Unable to focus on work, she went to Sadako’s house and showed her Nomura’s letter while pretending composure.

“It would be nice if Ms. Hiroko would follow him to Izu afterward.” Sadako said to place hope only there and let out a deep sigh. “It’s no use. That’s precisely why it’s hopeless—because that’s where it fails. And besides…” Despite having spoken in a calm voice as if it were someone else’s affair—perhaps due to letting her guard down in front of Sadako—Mine was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and silently hid her face.

After a while,

“I do believe I understand Mr. Nomura’s feelings.” “I find it tragic.” “But I also think Hiroko is pitiful.” “She’s that foolish sort of woman who thinks she’ll be acknowledged someday if she just keeps working.” “And this is what she gets in return, you see.” “Yet she lacks the sensitivity to even perceive it…”

While finding it mortifying to cry before others, she still wept. She had resolved not to cry—and indeed hadn’t shed tears this time before Hiroko or during talks with Yūkichi—yet before Sadako she could always weep. It was because she believed Sadako alone would understand.

“I sent a letter saying, ‘Ms. Mine is crying.’”

Sadako said that. But no matter how much Mine cried, it would change nothing. Upon hearing that Mine was crying, Nomura must have sent a letter. Nomura, who did not cry, was more sincere; even if Mine found this difficult to accept, he must have been experiencing far more acute anguish.

“In Mr. Nomura’s heart, his former wife still lives.” “There’s no place there for Hiroko to sit.” “What a mess.” With a voice declaring no remedies remained, Sadako sighed again. Both women stayed silent for a time. Suddenly ashamed of herself for sensing—through distorted eyes—the intricate shifts in Sadako’s impartial stance, Mine turned her gaze away and spoke of other things.

“This autumn feels rather early, doesn’t it.”

“That’s true.”

In the wide garden visible from Sadako’s room, the yellowing autumn leaves of yam vines creeping up through osmanthus thickets at the corner, together with maple foliage, painted a beautiful checkerboard pattern against the backdrop of evergreen trees.

Stopped by Sadako，Mine had dinner as her guest before hurrying home．The sight of Yūkichi frowning at Nagajiri weighed heavily on Mine’s heart．Why must women endure such feelings？Even if a man came home somewhat late，even if it turned midnight，women did not furrow their brows．And yet—it was such a ridiculous story between them—Mine turned into the alley leading home while feeling secret rebellion．From the opposite direction approached a woman like a traveler，a backpack on her shoulders and bag in hand．It was Hiroko．Mine waited by the gate．

“Sis.” Hiroko’s voice was hoarse.

“I’ve come back.” “I left without a word.” “Don’t try to stop me now.” “Since I have the evidence in hand, no matter what anyone says, I don’t intend to go back.” As she spoke, Hiroko’s voice began to tremble. “Come on, let’s go into the house.” “I understand, I understand.” Speaking as if soothing a child, Mine took the bag and invited Hiroko to her study. After helping her take off the backpack from behind, Hiroko straightened her back as if bracing herself, turned toward her, and remained standing—

“The former wife was beautiful and noble like an aristocrat, you know.” “And it says here asking me to step down without a word.” “It’s the diary.” “So I came back without a word.” “Nomura is going to Izu tomorrow—without me there, he’ll be in trouble immediately, won’t he?” “But I’m not going back.” “Who would go back there?” She hurled out. While painfully aware of Hiroko’s simplicity—how she had resolved that she would be told to return home as society expected and entreated to come back—Mine nodded tersely. There was no need to go back. Hiroko was so simple that it felt cruel to have to tell her she could never go back. Two large bundles—they must contain all of Hiroko’s personal belongings she could carry. With those, Hiroko had returned. However, Mine could not help but feel that Hiroko’s heart still belonged to Nomura’s household. Could it be that Hiroko had stormed out in a fit of anger—to make trouble, out of simple jealousy?

“Come now, let’s sit down.”

While sitting down herself, Mine took Hiroko's hand and pulled. With eyes narrowed as if under accusation, Hiroko stood stubbornly. The room was already beginning to grow dark.

III

Perhaps the heaviness of her spirit had naturally steered her feet away from the main street—when she realized it, she found herself on a back alley mired in terrible thaw. By the time she recognized her mistake, she was already trapped in a quagmire she couldn’t retreat from; though the main street lay just within sight, she found herself paralyzed, unable to move. When she stood at the crossroads leading to the farm road, a cold wind—unthinkable for early spring—numbed her cheeks and seeped into the core of her body. “It’s freezing!” Along with her muttering, Mine readjusted her shawl over her head and tucked up her kimono hem. She had to place each step with deliberate care as she pondered her path. Moreover, each deliberated step offered no guarantee of safety. Mine’s tabi socks had turned completely mud-colored around the edges. She felt like donning rubber boots and striding confidently. Though this was not her first encounter with this mire, what struck her as strangest was having forgotten about it entirely. Until early April—for at least a third of the year—this road remained churned into mud, and it baffled her that no one had devised any solution. In summer, the same path would billow with dust thick as smoke. Along this road bordering fields—in an area said to have been mostly farmland until a decade prior, lacking even sewer systems—modest houses stood spaced at comfortable intervals, suited to residential living. The houses, appearing to have strictly followed building size limits from their construction era, maintained a prim facade reminiscent of a class who had scrimped grain by grain to finally cherish this sole asset, their hedges meticulously trimmed. But beyond those hedges lay this reality. Pressing close to the hinoki hedges as if treading a cliff’s edge, people navigated this path with self-preserving care—yet whenever they relaxed their guard, their feet inevitably became caked in mud. Everyone knew this and whispered about it. Mine counted herself among them. Today again, her tabi socks muddied beyond recognition, she let out a sigh. From where that sigh escaped, the road improved slightly.

because it became a narrow grassy farm path. Why was it that the farm paths walked in tabi work shoes were better than the residential streets where people wore socks and geta, yet upon reentering the residential area, the road once more became a muddy field?

Kawahara Sadako’s house stood on the hill across, connected by this farm path. Mine moved toward that hill. The small package concealed beneath her shawl’s drape was Hiroko’s congratulatory gift for Sadako’s eldest daughter, whose wedding ceremony approached. Inside lay a pair of charming geta. The wooden clogs had vermilion-lacquered middle teeth meant for fair weather. Pale green thongs attached to them, while on matching green toe guards, a single red origami crane stood out vividly against the verdant backdrop. They were precisely the sort of geta a young bride might wear. Yet as Mine clutched this delicate gift to her chest, her spirits failed to lift. A present from Hiroko—so recently divorced—could not be received lightly; imagining how the recipient might harbor reservations made true ease impossible. When Hiroko fretted over this, Mine tried to gauge her sister’s true feelings—

“You’re fine.” “They’re family.” “If we give it, that should be acceptable.” Hiroko’s eyes suddenly flashed. “If getting a gift from a returned woman is bad luck, I’ll stop.” “Don’t twist it like that.” “If you want to congratulate her, Hiroko, they’ll appreciate it. Even a haori cord makes a fine celebration gift.” “It’s not about wanting to congratulate her.” “I’ve no interest in joining your literary circles.” “I received gifts before—I must return the courtesy.” “That’s all.” “I’m done hobnobbing with important writers.”

Mine was silent. She had no choice but to remain silent. As a result of that exchange of words, Hiroko had gone and bought the geta. In her long years of rural living, she had developed a scrupulous nature that viewed ceremonial occasions solely through the lens of social obligation and formality. The obligation from having once received congratulations was something she had to fulfill no matter what, or she wouldn’t feel at ease. These were geta she had bought out of obligation, but at the time, Hiroko showed them to Mine and Masako with great pride.

“They’re nice, aren’t they? When I pictured Ms. Asako wearing these and holding a snake-eye patterned umbrella, I thought how fortunate someone must be to wear such geta. A beautiful person would look especially nice.” Hiroko was genuinely pleased. Mine even wanted Sadako to recognize this sincerity—for she knew how gloomy and oppressive Hiroko became in Sadako’s presence. Sadako must think Nomura’s distaste understandable. Even Mine found herself increasingly sharing Nomura’s perspective when seeing Hiroko lately. She felt pity for her sister because of this. Had Hiroko become a burden even to her own sibling? Mine pondered the roots of Hiroko’s nature: A woman who had lived alone until forty; who had taught girls from lecterns for twenty years; who knew nothing of romance, having likely passed through youth without writing a single love letter; who had deemed this solitary virtue admirable—perhaps therein lay the problem. Hiroko, who had hidden her flaws through simple solitude, had abruptly become mother to four children and wife to a fifty-year-old man. She who had surveyed classrooms with two eyes now endured ten eyes scrutinizing her in cramped domesticity. Where ordinary couples grew gradually into parenthood through shared naivety, Hiroko had been thrust into stepmotherhood of near-grown children and marriage to a writer whose profession she scarcely considered. She brought her lectern’s measuring stick into a home where her womanly heart had never developed. How could this succeed? That they had judged Nomura solely by his upbringing rather than his present writerly self made everyone culpably careless. By that measure, Hiroko bore no blame. Yet the heaviest blow fell upon Hiroko herself.

Moreover, Hiroko still could not come to terms with the predicament she had been cast into. If she had been a woman who could accept it, she might not have been cast out. Hiroko was so unversed in the world of human emotions that she could not even comprehend as natural the affection Nomura had built up over twenty years with his former wife. On the day she returned home furious after reading Nomura’s diary, she cursed him without restraint, grinding her teeth.

“You said he was ‘splendid’ and ‘trustworthy’ and all that—but what’s so splendid about Nomura? After saying all those smooth things, didn’t he tell me to come as soon as possible? Then what was all that about? He couldn’t forget his previous wife—going on about how noble she was like aristocracy, how she kept those beautiful eyes until her dying day, how her intelligence spanned both literature and politics, wondering where such nobility could’ve come from—it’s all written there. Doesn’t it just mean I’m stupid and ugly? He knew I wasn’t a beauty when he married me, didn’t he? As if I’m some handsome man or aristocrat? He goes on about being a proletarian writer and all that—yet has the gall to call aristocrats noble! How shameless! Even children—all girls are selfish, but I thought that was fine and did all sorts of things for them. But their mother wouldn’t even let them touch her belongings—that’s no joke! The mirror stand and sewing box were my own rare ones, so I was the only one using them. Even towels, even footwear—they were all mine. Embroidery thread isn’t sold anywhere these days, so they kept wanting it, and I had to wind it little by little onto my own spool. He turns a blind eye to all that and writes about how their mother couldn’t indulge them. The diary’s just filled with things like him acting like some lovesick youth and going on about how his late wife’s smile melted his soul.”

Hiroko spoke in a domineering tone, as if this constituted Nomura’s defining flaw. Though Mine had already learned the essentials through Nomura’s letter before Hiroko herself, hearing it now filled her with deepening despair. What poverty of heart. Here was a woman incapable of rejoicing in her fifty-two-year-old husband’s youthful desire for love—and Nomura’s expectations of such a woman had been too vast from the start. That they went unfulfilled was inevitable.

“Look, Hiroko, I’m not taking Mr. Nomura’s side here, but writing in his diary is his own right.” “Especially since he’s a writer.” “Writing comes as naturally as drinking tea.” “Even his thoughts are more detailed than ordinary people’s.” “Ordinary people might think all sorts of things, but few would actually write them in a diary.” “That honesty in writing is what makes one a writer.” “I write such things too.” “My notebook’s filled with complaints about Yūkichi.” “Things I couldn’t say aloud are written there.” “I’ve written about wanting to run away when fed up, and even gushed about our marriage.” “A diary can’t lie about what’s in the heart.” “So even if Yūkichi wrote about wanting love in his diary, I couldn’t object.” “If you hate it, leave—if you can’t leave, take that man’s yearning spirit into yourself along with everything else.” “That’s what I would do.”

While acutely aware of Hiroko’s immaturity that forced her to say such things, Mine found herself bursting into laughter at her sister’s words. She had pictured their white-haired married selves as clearly as if seeing them in a mirror. Yet what flickered through her mind like scenes from a revolving lantern were painful memories from over twenty years of marriage—the trials she had endured as a woman. Back then, Mine too had been young. Whenever she imagined what might have happened had she rashly sought divorce during those years, she could not help contrasting her own past self—weeping with even greater foolishness than Hiroko now displayed—against her sister’s present state. But their circumstances defied comparison. Unlike Nomura—who had wanted Hiroko to leave quietly and shared barely any marital bond—Mine and her husband were fundamentally ordinary spouses. It happened shortly after Yūkichi’s accident. There was that time he lost his footing on the second-floor ladder and plummeted straight down. With a thunderous crash he landed hard on his backside and lay motionless gritting through the pain; when he finally caught his breath, his first words were:

“Thank god it wasn’t you!” The straw mat that had been rolled up and propped in the corner of the wooden floor was crushed under the full force of a foot, its middle dented like a rice cracker and bent out of shape. Mine often recalled that time.

“If you die before me, I’ll make sure to write about this in my memoirs.” “That he was such a devoted husband.” They had often made such jokes. Yet even now, the two remained a married couple who never ceased to clash. How many times had Mine tasted that chilling despair after losing patience with Yūkichi’s temper tantrums? And Mine herself would often fly into terrible rages. Exhausted by their “final” exchanges of words, yet they remained—after all—a married couple. Nomura and Hiroko had likely never exchanged a single harsh word, yet their marriage had shattered after just two months. Nomura simply bowed his head with hands on the floor before Mine and the others, but the more he prostrated himself, the more Hiroko became convinced her position had been faultless. In her belief that she’d lent hand towels to Nomura’s children and made clothes for them lay her lack of worth as a mother—and there must have been Nomura’s dissatisfaction too. Yet for someone in Hiroko’s position, it was only natural her emotional capacity couldn’t expand so suddenly to that extent. It had been fundamentally flawed from the start.

“After all, I think it was a mistake.” “Telling you to shoulder Mr. Nomura unconditionally—that’s impossible.” “To me, Mr. Nomura’s diary isn’t the problem.” “But for you—it’s an enormous problem.” “Even setting aside the diary,” “If daily life isn’t how married couples should live—nothing could be more absurd.” “That’s what Mr. Nomura means.”

“You think I’m the one at fault, Big sister.”

With quivering lips, Hiroko said something irrelevant to the matter at hand.

“It’s not about who’s right or wrong.” “Well, if you consider appearances, someone like Mr. Nomura is exasperating.” “Clinging to a dead person forever—that’s like walking through life backward.” “He’s not even trying to build a new life.” “In that case, he’ll never move forward, no matter how much time passes—” “So it says he wants to die, that he wants to die and go to his late wife.” “No matter how you look at it, that would render everything utterly pointless.”

“But it’s true, I tell you!” “Do you think I’m lying?”

As Hiroko seemed about to flare up again, Mine hurriedly tried to suppress it, her voice growing quiet as she spoke in a placating tone. “If that’s the kind of man he is, isn’t that all the more reason to give up?” “It’s hard on you, Hiroko, but I’m sure coming back was for the best.” “So just give up.”

“Of course.” “That’s why I came back, isn’t it?” “By now he’s lying there holding his wife’s memorial tablet.”

Hiroko’s excuses only deepened Mine’s disappointment, leaving her at a loss for words. Yet this was her own flesh-and-blood sister. If Mine didn’t intervene, who would? She had described Hiroko to Nomura as a gentle woman skilled at sewing—someone who met his shallow criteria—without ever glimpsing this darker aspect. That same gentle seamstress had transformed within two months into a fury-like woman, then into a vacant-eyed shell of herself. Facing this specter, Mine repeated the same explanations over and over with forced patience, as if instructing a stubborn child, each repetition compounding her despair. You’re the idiot! Even when she swallowed these screams and instead apologized—pleading for understanding—none of it ever reached Hiroko. So it was that Hiroko came to sit by Mine’s pillow the next morning while she slept, acting as though she’d forgotten her own vicious curses against Nomura. She was preparing to leave.

“Last night I thought about it—I think it was my fault for leaving without a word.” “So I think I’ll go back and apologize.” “I said that, but I don’t think there’s anyone in the world without complaints.” She said it as if it were entirely her own idea.

“W-wait!” Mine bolted upright. “I think Mr. Nomura will come around today.” “To settle things.” “Hmm.” Hiroko blinked rapidly with bloodshot eyes from lack of sleep. Clouded small eyelids drew upward at one corner. Nomura shuddered at these filthy-looking orbs. They were unsettling pupils. Even knowing they resulted from tearful insomnia, the sight remained repulsive.

"But will he really come?" Hiroko paused briefly, then spoke with uneasy hesitation.

“He’ll come. I sent a telegram yesterday.” Then Hiroko suddenly became animated and grew restless. Even during breakfast, every time the front door opened, she would half-rise from her seat, strain her ears, and rush out to check for mail delivery. Feeling sorry for Hiroko in that state, Mine spoke to prepare her as much as possible for the coming blow. “Mr. Nomura is coming today to settle things.” “Letters have come to Ms. Sadako’s place too, so I think it’s better for you to prepare yourself for that.” “There’s no hope with that man.” “Everyone says so.”

Mine vaguely presented Hiroko’s husband’s lack of prospects in that regard as everyone’s opinion. It was her meager act of compassion for the defeated. However, Hiroko remained resolute, burning with a passion that transformed her into someone unrecognizable,

“But there are times when I don’t think that’s the case.” “If I just endure, that’s all.” “So if he comes today, I’ll tell him that.” “I think he’ll understand.” “If I’m not there, everyone in that household will be in trouble, you know.” “Most of all, the poor children.” “They may all be willful children, but when I think about who will call me ‘Mom,’ I feel like I’ve done something terrible.” “For the children’s sake too, I think I should go back.”

“The problem isn’t in such half-hearted things. It’s something far more decisive.” “Decisive—”

“It’s that he can’t love you.” “It’s that the marital feelings aren’t there.” Hiroko lowered her eyes. Mine continued in the same crushing tone she used with first-year students: “At first I said it was for the children’s sake, but I think that was just a pretext.” “No matter what anyone says, marriage being for children’s sake is a lie.” “You’re no different, Hiroko.” “In what world does a woman go become a mother in a house without a man?” “That such an obvious thing went unconsidered—that a writer who dared call himself progressive got manipulated by those vulgar platitudes into pushing forward a reckless marriage like some gamble—that was the failure.” “Mr. Nomura has reflected on that point too, and I think I was foolish.” “You might consider enduring it once more like ordinary people do, but our circle can’t tolerate that kind of pretense.” “Who do you think would consider divorcing a wife they introduced to all their friends over some trivial matter?” “Even Mr. Nomura must have given it proper consideration.” “For having pushed you into this situation, I bow my head in apology.”

To what extent Mine’s earnest words were being accepted remained unclear—Hiroko remained distracted, her attention still fixated on the front door.

“Ah, he’s here.”

With a lightness she had never shown before, Hiroko stood up and went out in small, hurried steps. From the entrance of Mine’s room, down the long central corridor that ran straight to the front door, Mine watched with infinite sadness as Hiroko hurried away—her back hunched in a stoop, one hand smoothing her hair, her steps quick with buoyant energy. The woman who had been welcomed into that household after the death of his beautiful petite wife—according to that wife’s will, as a mother capable of sewing for the children—was a large-framed woman with curly hair and thick lips. Did that unsightly appearance determine the greater part of her worth? Mine, who shared many similarities with her, looked back on herself with a sense of mutual humiliation. Not beautiful. They were never beautiful. But—

Hiroko returned looking disappointed. It wasn’t Nomura. A large, dark face wore a slightly awkward smile. As she paced back and forth along the narrow corridor—her figure appearing and disappearing—the afternoon wore on. Then came a telegram from Nomura: “Unable to come today.” After all, the wife had run away from home—and yet… A thick dissatisfaction swelled in Mine’s chest. Perhaps sensing this acutely, Hiroko began apologetically defending Nomura.

“He must be busy. “Oh right, there was definitely supposed to be a symposium today. “That’s why. “Well then, I’ll just step out for a bit.”

She briskly stood up and tightened her obi. Hiroko hadn't registered Mine's words at all. Now that dinner approached—having skipped lunch—she shouldered the backpack she'd brought back and went out. Mine was frustrated this went beyond mere marital strife. Yet Hiroko's lightheartedness gave her a faint glimmer of hope. As Hiroko left, Mine saw her off to the street—and at parting— "If you mean to go back, become a fool." "There are times you lose to win." "Don't try to be clever." "A woman can't win unless she plays dumb."

What a tragic piece of advice this was. Yet Hiroko nodded obediently and hurried down the road with a bright “Goodbye,” her body leaning forward as if propelled by urgency. Her gait seemed saturated with the guilt of a wife who had left home without a word to her husband. Mine lowered her head and returned home. When she entered the room, Yūkichi was waiting there. “What’s wrong?” “There’s nothing to be done about it.” She answered curtly. Then, as if Yūkichi himself were the guilty party, Mine sat down heavily before him—

“That’s sly of you, Mr. Nomura—trying to make me shoulder all the blame alone.” “Hiroko only saw the diary and hasn’t heard a word from your own mouth.” Even as she spoke, it suddenly occurred to Mine that her own attitude today might have driven Hiroko closer to Nomura instead. Should we have joined forces and torn them apart? But no matter what anyone did, the outcome had already become clear.

And then it was the next day. Nomura arrived in a hurry. With a restlessness as if terrified of something, he bowed deeply before Mine and Yūkichi, hands on the floor pleading for mercy—adopting an attitude of trying to force his way through by that gesture. It looked as abject as a peasant prostrating before a feudal lord, but at its core conveyed an unyielding tenacity that could no longer be swayed. The mere fact that Hiroko had left home for just two days eliminated any need for Nomura to seek Mine’s counsel through letters, and his resolve must have grown even firmer. While bowing his head more times than necessary, he asked them to come take Hiroko back. Nomura, who wouldn’t lift a finger when his wife ran away, now came rushing here in a panic to beg them to take her back—the same wife who had returned. While Nomura’s emotional honesty was evident in this, it still amounted to sheer irresponsibility.

“You should have either brought her here yourself or sent her over.” Masking her anger, Mine said. “However, I feel too sorry for Ms. Hiroko to say it.” “Well—this is an entirely selfish request—but I believe having you bring her here and properly discuss matters would be best.” He spoke while blinking his frightened eyes rapidly. “Without telling Hiroko?” “Doesn’t Hiroko know you came here now either?”

“That’s correct. She was quite agitated last night, saying she’d read my diary.”

It was a low, hoarse voice—lacking confidence and listless. To have come this far and still be unable to speak the truth— Or—even if he were called irresponsible—was Hiroko such a repulsive presence that he couldn’t bear to be involved with her? The feeling of being unable to do anything about an unpleasant situation—like hesitating to reach out again for baggage one had cast aside because its weight became unbearable—the desperate desire to escape it all; even Mine understood this. There were times when even seeing a face became unbearable. So had Nomura come here to escape Hiroko? Mine tried to force herself to understand Nomura by putting herself in his position. At the same time, she had to stand in Hiroko’s position. But if she were Hiroko... A surge of fierce emotion welled up inside. At that moment, Mine slapped Yūkichi’s cheek with all her might. The sharp crack of the slap rang out violently. Mine grabbed the woman’s shoulders and shook her with all her strength. The woman’s head wobbled unsteadily, her hair coming loose and scattering over her shoulders. That became the first thread of resolution. Ah, but Hiroko could never do such a thing. Nomura must have prostrated himself before Hiroko as well. Who could strike down a prostration?

“Ah!”

Suddenly, Nomura fell backward onto the tatami. Tears overflowed his eyes. Though he must have turned onto his back to hide them, tears spilled from the corners of his eyes, soaking his ears. Mine too covered her face with both hands and wept over the desk. Hiroko, please give up. Mr. Nomura is crying—a man is crying— How many hours had they spent like that? In any case, they decided to consult Kawahara—their mutual friend and a poet—and the three of them set out. Yūkichi had stayed silent throughout, but once aboard the train, he began speaking with a relieved expression about their literary group—about the recently acclaimed novel by the young workplace-born writer Nomura had discovered; about the harsh tones of young critics these days; about the stories and poems submitted to the creative competition. As she listened to his words like passing wind, Mine’s mental gaze remained fixed on Hiroko and the others. How pitiful those two were. Weren’t they both utterly spineless? Both such petty people. And in the end, the final weight always fell solely on the women’s side. In situations like these, only men could break free and breathe easy—women were left shouldering unforeseen blame. Crushed beneath that weight, making themselves small to survive—this was the history of Japan’s women. Even as they—Nomura and Mine—had joined hands under shared ideals to sweep aside such burdens and forge new paths, they now carelessly seemed about to push another woman back into that very abyss. At least let them avoid wounding each other—but would things truly go that way? Nomura was crying.

Hiroko was agitated. And Mine and the others were merely letting their bewilderment take on greater form. Sadako let out a sigh and watched steadily and impartially. What wisdom could Kawahara possibly have? Kawahara’s house stood right next to Nomura’s. Kawahara—looking youthful in his military uniform, apparently forewarned by Nomura—nodded “Ah” as he welcomed the three. Nomura did not utter a word, leaving Mine alone to speak. Perhaps having lowered her guard with Kawahara, Mine tearfully recounted the entire sequence of events with raw emotion.

“Whether she’s plain or not isn’t the issue here—in any case, Mr. Nomura needs to take a clear stance now.” “Ah, right—Ōgai wrote about a man’s attitude in such situations.” Kawahara brought out two or three thick volumes of Ōgai’s works from his study and began leisurely turning the pages. The high-quality paper rustled crisply as it was manipulated by Kawahara’s dark fingers, producing a clean, satisfying sound. Even after a considerable amount of time had passed and he still seemed unable to find the passage he sought, flipping the pages back and forth,

“In other words—in such cases—one must either resolutely face the firing line of criticism and take responsibility to resolve matters or—if that’s impossible—be prepared to throw away one’s entire life and sink into oblivion with one’s wife. There are only these two options.” “But this is just a reference.” “In our case, rather than throwing our lives away, I think we must find some way to break this deadlock.” Kawahara, without looking at anyone’s face and still flipping through Ōgai’s works, stated his opinion: that Nomura must clearly inform Hiroko of the situation; that he must not allow Mine and the others to feel even slightly that he was evading responsibility—for instance, by delivering Hiroko’s belongings himself if all else failed, or handling the transfer procedures at the ward office with his own hands—and that he ought to reduce Hiroko’s worries by even one, for it was imperative he do so. The situation took on the appearance of being settled. Nomura no longer held even a hair’s breadth of hope for Hiroko. However, even as things were settled this way, Mine sensed a vague shadow of dissatisfaction lingering on Nomura’s face. In front of Mine and the others, Nomura had been doing nothing but bowing his head in acknowledgment of all responsibility, but Mine suddenly wondered if he resented being told by Kawahara to take full responsibility. But Nomura seemed to be actively avoiding saying that.

Outside, it had already grown dark. At Nomura’s house, where dinner seemed to have just ended, Hiroko and the children sat around the built-in dining table atop the sunken kotatsu in the living room, their expressions holding an air charged with tension as they welcomed the three. As Mine called Hiroko and spoke with her in the room next to the entrance, from the living room came a sudden “Waa!” The tangled sound of crying voices reached them. The three daughters were crying out in unison. Upon hearing the outcome from Nomura, they must have burst into tears out of the simple-heartedness of daughters.

“No—no—” “Don’t go!”

“Dad, you idiot!”

“Mom—”

It was like a theatrical commotion. Hiroko wept as she packed her belongings. Mine watched with hollow detachment, as if observing someone else’s drama. Nomura entered wearing an expression of conflicted emotion,

“I’m truly at a loss here. With the children being like that, I’m conflicted. I know it’s odd to say this now, but please allow me a little more time to think. Three days. And I’ll give my answer then.”

Nomura delivered the latter part in polite language. He was asking Hiroko to return home without her belongings during those three days. It went without saying that there was an implication he might ask her to return again. Hiroko suddenly brightened, and the children’s crying ceased because of it. But he did not ask her to stay. And so Hiroko had to leave.

“Goodbye.”

When Hiroko, standing in the entranceway, spoke, the children managed smiles on their tear-streaked faces and said in unison,

“Goodbye.” “Take care.” “We’ll come to pick you up, Mom.” It was a farewell as if seeing off a mother departing on a journey. Nomura alone wore a somber expression and bowed deeply and politely. Outside was pitch black, and the direction couldn’t be discerned. As someone stood rooted, peering into the darkness, Nomura’s eldest daughter emerged holding a lantern. The face that smiled and held it out appeared frighteningly shadowed by the lamplight.

“Mom, don’t worry.” “We’ll make sure to ask Dad properly.” She said in a small voice and went inside without waiting for a reply. While illuminating their feet with a small lantern, the three walked in silence along the narrow path.

Thus did Hiroko return. Three days passed, then five. There was no word from Nomura. "After three days of consideration, and then the mail might take about three days or so." Hiroko grew weary of waiting. Seven days passed, then ten. Hiroko's face turned gloomy, her brows perpetually furrowed. "I'm going."

“Stop it.” “If he wants you back, he’ll come for you.”

“But I’m going. I’ll go hear his reply. It was a promise, after all. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” “I don’t understand. You should withdraw gracefully.”

“But—” “I don’t know what Nomura intends, but if I return, the children will be happy.” “On the wedding day, we exchanged cups as mother and children.” “Stop this!” “And now you want to go back to the children?” “If you’re going to Mr. Nomura’s place, I’d understand—if you were in love with him, if you’d go no matter what anyone says.” “Go carve out your own path then.” “You’re allowed that much.” “If you can accept such things happen between men and women, logic be damned—” “However, I oppose this.” “Make sure to tell Mr. Nomura that clearly.” “You overrode my opposition when you left.” “A woman who’s fallen for a man does such things without consulting anyone.” “If that’s how it is, I won’t stop you.” “Quit this nonsense about doing it for the children.”

Mine said in a harsh voice. She knew that words like “falling in love” would shake Hiroko’s self-respect enough to make her retch—and had deliberately wielded them. Hiroko lowered her eyes as if peering into her own heart, biting her lip, but then resolutely stood up. “You told me to play the fool, didn’t you? You told me to lose to win, didn’t you? I’ll go and play the fool. Besides, I’ve done plenty wrong myself. I realized that as long as I keep trying, things will work out. I’ll try asking Nomura.”

Didn't Hiroko even realize the situation had completely changed from before? Yet Mine had never seen such an assertive Hiroko. She was trying desperately. With no reply from Nomura, this Hiroko—who had no recourse but to cling to the children—was doing exactly that. Ordinary as she was, even Hiroko couldn't avoid causing this much commotion. Mine saw her off to the station—Hiroko having gathered all her remaining luggage—and spoke in a gentle voice.

“You told me to crash through and see what happens, so I’m letting you try it.” “You must do all that can be done—otherwise even you yourself couldn’t accept it.” “On the whole, it seems I had others set things up too much behind the scenes, didn’t I?” “To you, that’s how you’d think, right?” “If that doesn’t work, you’ll finally be able to resign yourself.” “When that time comes, cheer up and come straight back home.” “The world is wide, after all.” Mine, trying to compensate even slightly for Hiroko’s unseemly return appearance, bought apples and mandarins at a greengrocer in front of the station and had the children carry them.

“I don’t plan on coming back over some minor setback.” “Even if I’m told to leave, if it comes to that, I intend to persevere.” “There’s no rule that only I have to obediently comply with every single demand, right?” “If even I am resolved, I can’t just be driven out like a thief’s dog.” Hiroko had resolved to sacrifice herself. Carrying the woman burning with tragic resolve, the sparsely occupied midday train started off with unexpected lightness. Standing by the rear driver’s cab, Hiroko pressed her spread palms against the glass door like a child and nodded. It was a lonely woman’s face. Mine walked unsteadily down the avenue, sniffling loudly as she felt a prickling deep in her nose. She had no intention of stopping by the bookstore. She couldn’t bring herself to go to Sadako’s house either. She peered into the flower shop but had even lost the desire to buy flowers. Across from the flower shop was an antique store. In the dust-coated window, a single knife lay among an assortment of knickknacks—tobacco cases, small pots, and flower shears. Mine had them show it to her. It was a tool fitted with various implements. There were two knives—one large and one small—along with an awl, a can opener, and even an ear pick. All manner of stratagems from daily life were concealed within what could be called, in a word, a knife. While it might have been convenient in its way, it didn’t quite align smoothly with her sensibilities. While puzzling over why she had been drawn to such a thing, she found herself now connecting it to Hiroko—and even she herself was startled by this association.

She wondered what kind of tool Hiroko would bring out to resolve things. Even when walking or returning home to sit at her desk, Hiroko would not leave her mind. Hiroko’s declaration that she wouldn’t return over some minor setback now seemed like a woman’s stubborn obsession congealed into a mass, and Nomura’s bewildered face floated into her mind with a pang of pity. Hiroko will expose my shame as well, I suppose. It can’t be helped.

In the evening, Mine stood in the garden. Her eyes gazed at the sky, though its color left no impression on her mind. In her daze, Hiroko alone occupied her thoughts. She couldn't begin to imagine what words or attitude Hiroko might be using to convey her intentions. Hiroko wasn't one for theatrical displays. What sort of awkwardness was Hiroko enduring at this moment? She couldn't remain like some dejected stray kitten they'd taken in, nor could she fill the silence with empty chatter. The only conceivable image was of her weeping awkwardly before Nomura - though Nomura might well have escaped outside to avoid such a scene. As Mine stood envisioning this distant version of Hiroko - at that very moment - the real Hiroko materialized before her. Clattering geta against stone, clutching a Boston bag, her face bearing every ounce of bodily weariness - Hiroko had returned. As though unaware of Mine's presence, Hiroko ascended from the engawa. She entered the three-mat room least frequented by others and snapped its shoji shut. It had all come to nothing. Mine followed her inside afterward. Hiroko sat facing the wall. She didn't turn around.

“Hiroko.”

When she called out, Hiroko faintly shook her head. When she sat down beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder, Hiroko said in a murmuring whisper, “No one showed me a spot where I could sit.” “It was a horrible household.”

She remained staring at the wall as before. Mine’s tears streamed down. But Hiroko was not crying.

“No doubt… We really were strangers after all.”

Thus, Hiroko had indeed returned. A quick-eared newspaper company promptly arrived and tried to make Nomura and Mine write statements from their respective positions. Mine would not engage. The woman journalist close to Mine insisted that she absolutely wanted Mine to write a protest from a woman’s standpoint and have it published in a magazine. In such cases, women were typically placed at a disadvantage as a matter of course, but she insisted that in this new social order, they wanted Nomura—a writer considered progressive—to serve as a model by showing what demands men and women should make and what method of compensation he had used to resolve the matter.

“Don’t say such things—how cruel.” Mine laughed bitterly through her anger. Shunning the surrounding winds, Hiroko lived cloistered like a hiding cat. Even when Mine urged her, she showed no inclination to venture outside. Moreover, she did nothing—each day mired in listless stagnation. In those sequestered days, she would perform mad acts—lashing out at Mine and Masako without reason—or bring up Nomura and spend entire days weeping beneath her futon. Would time allow new buds to sprout naturally again? For Hiroko, this was now life’s winter season. Mine and the others exercised utmost consideration, careful not to touch that wounded place. Yet Hiroko’s shadowy presence cast itself upon everyone, filling the once carefree, bright house with an indescribably heavy air. Mine felt lonely realizing even Sadako and the others no longer visited with their former casual ease. Now that Sadako’s eldest daughter’s marriage arrangement had finally been settled—perhaps due to her busyness—her visits had grown even more infrequent of late. When she could no longer endure the heavy air at home, Mine would feel herself drifting toward Sadako’s house. Today had been no different.

“I’m going for a walk.” Mine took the shawl from the clothes rack and spoke to Hiroko, who was rattling the drawer of the nearby chest. Hiroko did not even turn around. “To Ms. Sadako’s place.” It had a mean-spirited ring to it. Suppressing the pang she felt in her chest, Mine approached Hiroko’s side and, without responding to that remark, said in a comforting tone: “You look tired. I’ll call a masseuse for you while I’m at it.” “While I’m out.”

Even so, Hiroko did not turn toward her. “No need. I’m not in a position to hire a masseuse.” She rebuffed it with self-deprecating words. Mine was annoyed, but knowing that if she retorted, it would only result in being cried at, pleaded with, resented, and lamented, she kept silent to avoid that trap. “Hey, if it’s Ms. Sadako’s place, I want to ask a favor. Won’t you take Asako’s congratulatory gift over there?”

She said with a sulky face. Mine now held the geta package to her chest as she repeated Hiroko’s words in her heart. Hiroko, who had bought such lovely geta and who could joyfully envision Asako wearing them with a snake-eye patterned umbrella—why did her marriage have to fail? The Hiroko offering congratulations was now an ashamed divorced woman bringing this gift, while Asako being celebrated was a young beauty radiating wifely pride. Wondering at her own role in bridging these extremes through mere clogs, Mine suddenly recalled walking this same path four or five days prior with Chieko Takagi. It had been after a novel study meeting at Sadako’s house. Chieko had shrilled, “Why won’t anyone let them choose their own marriages instead of shipping them off as brides?” She’d insisted it was strange how neither Sadako nor Mine let their daughters or sisters pick partners, just assigning husbands like handouts. At that moment, Mine had felt a prickling resistance while—

“But you know, there are plenty of women who can’t choose for themselves.” “For women like that, doesn’t society have to arrange marriages for them?” “You could say they lack gumption and leave it at that, but if people don’t look out for such women, they’ll end up alone forever.” "My own sister falls into that category." “That’s true too.” “But there’s such a thing as compatibility, you know.” “In Ms. Hiroko’s case, that arrangement simply didn’t suit her at all.” “It was so awkwardly mismatched.” “I thought it was quite strange.”

Now that she mentioned it, Mine recalled that Chieko had even given a table speech at Hiroko’s wedding about how unexpected the combination of Nomura and Hiroko was. Mine’s eyes—the eyes that had deemed the two a perfect match—had indeed been deluded. Had her judgment of their compatibility been clouded by a relative’s partiality? Was there truly something so lacking in Hiroko? As Mine walked while thinking such thoughts, she suddenly remembered the sandals Hiroko had given to Nomura’s eldest daughter as a wedding gift and was aghast. The sandals with tatami-mat uppers had crimson thongs and were of high quality with felt lining. Long ago, during a time when such sandals could still be bought, they had been a New Year’s gift from Mine. When Hiroko lived in the countryside, she would love and cherish her beautiful sandals, attempt to take them out to wear several times only to give up, and end up putting them back in their box to gaze at them. Hiroko had brought the now overly gaudy sandals with her when she moved to Tokyo. And so the sandals were never once worn on Hiroko’s feet and ended up being given away to someone else just like that. Hiroko was reluctant to wear her beautiful footwear—she was indeed a fragile woman. Hiroko, oh Hiroko—wasn’t your misfortune rooted there as well? It’s not too late even now, Hiroko—why not start wearing those beautiful geta too? Why not put them on and stride through the muddy fields? You must not abandon your right to wear beautiful geta. Beautiful geta aren’t meant only for beautiful people, you know. Hiroko, I want to give you beautiful geta once more. I want to make that happen.

IV

For the first time in ages, Mine—who had luxuriated in sleeping late without worrying about anyone—lay contentedly in her futon. The weather appeared fine; even the light filtering through the rain shutters’ gaps cast bright patterns on the shoji screens. “Māma, let’s have today’s meal on the engawa.” Calling out to her daughter Masako using this long-forgotten term of endearment felt startlingly natural. Mine realized with surprise that “Māma” had slipped out not because she was well-rested, but because Hiroko wasn’t there. Had she really been unconsciously restraining herself even over such trivial matters?

“Shall I open the rain shutters?”

Masako’s considerate words sank deep into her heart. What a stark contrast compared to Hiroko. If it had been Hiroko, she would have done it with grating pointedness. And she would often say—

“The best thing about Nomura was how early he woke up.” “People always say writers stay up late and sleep in like they’ve all conspired.” “But he was quite meticulous about that.” Hiroko praised Nomura as though reminiscing about a deceased spouse. Yet Mine knew this wasn’t genuine admiration—it was Hiroko’s veiled demand for Mine’s household to rise early and share meals together. Yūkichi furrowed his brows at her words. Detecting Hiroko’s subtle emotional currents even in these offhand remarks, Mine suppressed a quiet sigh.

“Well, Mr. Nomura’s household has four children all in school—naturally they’d wake early.” “There’s no one here bound by schedules at all—you and the others should sleep in more if you want.” When Mine said this, Hiroko made a ‘hmph’-like face and muttered something about freeloaders having no right to such luxuries. Mine nearly retorted If that’s how you feel then fine!, but swallowed her words instead—resolving to rise earlier and spare Hiroko’s feelings—yet decades of habit inevitably slowed her mornings. Her chronic spinal caries didn’t help either.

“I’ve been walking on eggshells around Hiroko.” When Mine appealed to Yūkichi, he would express his dissatisfaction by pursing his lips and saying, “Exactly.”

A married couple laying out futons to sleep in one room—they had to feel constrained even about that most ordinary act. What other method could there be? Even when they tried expanding the problem to housing reforms or economic issues, reality remained immovable. Everyone had become mired in that immovable stagnation. What must Hiroko be feeling through all this? Hiroko, who had always loved work and tidying, hadn’t been putting her heart into a single task these days. Yet she woke up early every morning only to be prickly. When Mine and the others’ late mornings neared ten o’clock, the sound of Hiroko’s dusting grew different. Though it had been Mine and the others’ twenty-year habit to read newspapers in bed, the moment newsprint rustled, dusting would commence on the sliding door’s far side—as if someone had been lying in wait there with ears pricked. The ferocious sound—like someone slamming down with brute force—and its reproachful intensity laden with emotion were feats beyond someone as good-natured as Masako.

“She’s on edge.” When Yūkichi clicked his tongue in disapproval, Mine found herself unable to stay silent,

“Now, Masako, be quieter.”

she said in a calm voice. The dusting cloth stopped abruptly, “Yes yes, it was me. “I’m sorry.”

This too was a voice feigning calm. And Hiroko continued: “Um, if you were sleeping, then I’m sorry.” “The meal has been ready for quite some time.” “The miso soup has already been reheated three times, but aren’t you getting up yet?” Her tone was brusque.

“I’m sorry. Everything had gone cold.”

Though she apologized, Mine was inwardly grinding her teeth. Whether Hiroko knew it or not, she came barging in. “It would’ve been better if I’d just waited.” “I’m terribly sorry.”

Mine always had no choice but to fall silent. There had even been a time when she proposed to Mine and the others: “If you’re going to sleep anyway, why not get up once, finish your meal, then go back to bed?” Once things had reached this point, she was no longer a reasonable person to deal with.

Mine brushed it off with noncommittal huffs. This too appeared to irritate Hiroko. Should tempers flare, the conversation would inevitably turn to Nomura—and Hiroko, anticipating this outcome, began adopting a confrontational stance in every interaction. Chie, Hiroko’s younger sister who had come from rural Saitama out of concern, seemingly unable to bear watching any longer, once intervened to mediate.

“I wonder if I should invite Hiroko to my place.” “In that case, Sis, you can’t get anything done.”

“Please, even three days would be enough.”

Mine involuntarily clasped her hands. The discussion had taken place during Hiroko’s brief absence, but Chie promptly put it into action.

“Hiroko, why don’t you come stay at my place?” Hiroko narrowed her eyes in that characteristic way and turned defiantly toward Chie. “Whose idea is that?” “It’s Chie’s idea. The countryside would be nice for a change of pace.” Chie reverted to her girlish way of speaking—referring to herself in the third person as “Chie”—with an innocence unbefitting a mother of three. Hiroko, who loathed such affected sweetness, retorted in a voice that slapped down—

“A change of pace?” “I think it would clear my mind.”

“It’ll clear up! Come on, just come for a little while.” “No— I’d be ashamed. I’m already nothing but a heap of reservations at my elder sister’s place—and now you want me to go parade my shame at your house?”

Hiroko burst into wailing tears. Chie, who had made the suggestion, also began shedding tears as she—

“You don’t need to think that way.” “Who would make such an issue out of you?” “No one will know a thing.” “And honestly,I’m being greedy here—I want you to help me out.” “Far from being a burden,I want to ask a favor of you.”

Chie pleaded earnestly, but Hiroko, sobbing quietly, ultimately refused.

“There, there, isn’t this fine?” “You can stay right where you want to be.” “When you want to go, you can go.” Reluctantly, Mine said this. She tried to savor as her own Hiroko’s mental processes—which seemed to suspect Mine had schemed with Chie to send her away. She could only feel utterly sorry. She hadn’t made the request, but it was true she had hoped. Hiroko must have sensed it. It wasn’t that Mine alone suffered unbearably for Hiroko’s sake, as Chie claimed—but they absolutely needed to soothe their spirits. By avoiding meetings, she felt calmer and even imagined their hearts might connect better; lately Mine had kept trying to redirect Hiroko’s feelings toward their hometown. This had been shrewdly detected by Chie who happened to visit—yet Hiroko herself harbored no such intentions, appearing solely consumed by her determination to remain in Tokyo at all costs. This fire wasn’t lit to forge new paths—it seemed kept burning only to mercilessly illuminate every aspect of the woman cast out from her husband’s home. Through this, Mine discovered unexpected hidden facets—not just in Hiroko but in Nomura and Yūkichi too—even within herself. Irony and despair and spite—and the meager hope opposing them. Yet she had to rise. She must not lose. Let all hatreds and stumbles become stepping stones toward new hope.

Less than ten days had passed since Chie arrived. Hiroko suddenly declared she would go to Chie’s place. In a habit she had when being stubborn, Hiroko pulled one corner of her mouth tightly forward and distorted her lower lip into a severe lopsided shape. When her mouth took on that shape, Mine had to steady her nerves. While thinking Aha, that’s it, Mine said nonchalantly. “That’s fine. Go help Chie and come back.”

Chie had severe rheumatism and disabled hands and feet. When Hiroko had first come to Tokyo, her purpose had been twofold—to help at Mine’s household while carrying pity for her rheumatic sister, and because the ration registration that couldn’t be transferred to Tokyo had been moved to Chie’s household. In that regard, she should have felt no reservations—but Hiroko was the type who more often than not forgot such things. “Chie’s place is fine too.” “The worst of the cold is over now.” “Breathe in the Kanto Plain air and take your time to relax.”

Then Hiroko formed a sarcastic smile,

“That way, Sis, you’ll be able to relax too, won’t you?” “We both would.”

When Mine’s remark was taken as a joke, Hiroko suddenly covered her face with both hands and said in a tearful voice.

“To have a home of my own and yet be unable to return to it...” Having decided her family home in the countryside would be her lifelong residence, there had been a certain enjoyment in solitude—the kind suited to being alone. For Hiroko, even shuttling between Mine’s and Chie’s homes after moving to Tokyo had been a pleasure born of a single woman’s carefreeness. But through her marriage to Nomura, that forty-year residence had already been rented out to others. Divorce didn’t mean they could reclaim it now. While living together in some form might have been possible, Hiroko—who considered even visiting Chie’s house a disgrace—wept as she imagined the misery of returning to a home occupied by strangers as being tenfold worse than reality. And it was Nomura, she insisted, who had cast her into this misery. Nomura would likely feel relieved having driven me out, but I—the one driven out—weep with no home to return to.

“Didn’t we promise not to talk about that anymore?” “Let’s not bring up things that won’t lead anywhere.” “It’s not some precious treasure you’d regret letting go of, after all.” “In other words, it’s a rotten bond, isn’t it?” While suddenly realizing this rotten bond actually described the opposite situation, Mine couldn’t help pitying Hiroko, who seemed desperate enough to cling even to such decayed ties. The impetus for Hiroko declaring she would go to Chie’s house had been the letter from Nomura’s middle daughter that arrived the day before. Addressed to the temporary mother who had even reclaimed her belongings after their separation, the envelope bore the inscription “Ms. Nomura Hiroko.” A small pink square envelope embossed with roses contained stationery decorated with an illustration of a bob-haired girl’s face. The text brimmed with girlish sentimentality, tearful from the very first line. “MotherMotherMotherMother—no matter how many times I call, Mother is no longer here—” Half the letter overflowed with “Mother,” saturated with a motherless girl’s cries to her parent. These might have been appeals to her deceased birth mother. Nowhere in the letter—which ended with nothing but repetitions of “Mother”—could be found any words asking her to return. Just like her dead mother, she was merely addressing Hiroko as another mother who could never be summoned back to her side. When Mine had gone with Yūkichi to retrieve Hiroko’s belongings, the daughters—who had wept and made a scene over parting with Hiroko, temporarily dampening Nomura’s spirits—had been giggling in the next room while Mine was present, engrossed in some amusement. Their innocence had been startling in its intensity. Feeling a faint loneliness yet thinking This is how it should be—it must be this way, Mine had admired their resilience at the time. The daughters, handed a letter from their father Nomura that listed in meticulous Hiroko-like detail every item to be returned, suddenly huddled together and began packing each article before Mine’s eyes.

“The scissors.” Prodded by a small voice, the daughter who was using the scissors hurriedly placed them on the tatami mat.

“Electric iron.” “There! We used that yesterday, didn’t we?” So the younger daughter hurried off to the living room. “The wool half-length coat… Oh.” The eldest daughter, her face flushed red, hurriedly took off the navy blue coat she had been wearing. She lowered her long eyelashes, and it became clear that embarrassment was rising to her face. “I’m sorry.” Mine offered a consoling smile. She recalled how Hiroko had once taken that coat out from the luggage stored at Mine’s house, saying she might have to give it to the eldest daughter. Wasn’t it Hiroko who had said she would give it? However, now that things had come to this, thinking it better for both their sakes not to leave it behind, Mine silently watched the daughter folding the coat. The daughters, who had been giggling with a youthful exuberance that seemed to bubble up, had now taken on stern expressions. They were still girls who needed a mother.

As Mine was packing up the small items into her luggage while thinking about Nomura’s deceased wife, Nomura emerged from his room and held out a small object, saying, “Here.” It was lipstick. It was what Mine had given Hiroko when she got married. Where in Nomura’s room had it been kept? On the way back, Mine recalled how strangely that had bothered her. Hiroko had probably had no use for lipstick during her two months of living in Nomura’s household. And yet Mine discovered that Hiroko sometimes used lipstick now.

“I thought I looked a bit haggard.”

While making excuses, she would sometimes dust her face with powder as if suddenly remembering. It was an attitude she had never shown before. Mine thought it must have been Hiroko who had prompted this letter from Nomura’s children by connecting these actions. Who could imagine that gloves knitted by Hiroko hiding in her three-tatami room or beanbags she made would be sent to any daughters but Nomura’s? Hiroko was trying to cling to a thread of hope there. Clutching the rose-patterned letter, Hiroko thrust it into Mine’s hands with a look of feigned delight laced with irony—as if demanding she look. Having read it, Mine found herself speechless,

“You see, the children have no complaints.” “He could at least let me exchange letters.” “I think the children are sweet too, you know.” “No matter what the parents say, the children still send me letters like this—”

Was she trying to regain Nomura's feelings? Was Hiroko attempting to ignore that Nomura had already clearly refused her? Had she forgotten? Hiroko had gone to Nomura's house two or three times before, each time returning in despair. Each time, Mine comforted her as if rubbing her back. But those were only words that papered over Hiroko's despair. There were times when Hiroko would appeal to Sadako in a high-pitched tone, wanting her grievances fully heard. Even Sadako could do nothing but listen and console her; even if she thought Hiroko's reasons were valid, it wasn't an issue that would lead anywhere. When Sadako and Mine made clear they had no intention of reconnecting Hiroko with Nomura, Hiroko would spit out desperate words and leave, stopping by Kawahara's place to tell his wife Takeko that she was defying Mine and Sadako's opinions and would now go to Nomura's house solely of her own will. In Hiroko's mind, she may have hoped Takeko—who had served as their neighborhood guide during the wedding—would lend her a hand, but the outcome of that encounter ended up crushing her resolve. Hiroko returned with a more cheerful face than usual and informed Mine.

“Sis, I’ve truly made up my mind to give up.” “Ms. Takeko clearly said, ‘It isn’t worth sacrificing one’s entire life for.’” And there was a time when Nomura, after gossiping about Takeko, tried to mention that Takeko was what they call a Fire Horse woman—only to realize Hiroko shared the same Fire Horse sign. He began saying “Ms. Takeko is a Hino—” before trailing into incoherent mumbles, then doubled over laughing. Mine also laughed along, never imagining that Nomura would be the type to care about the Fire Horse superstition—yet in the letter he had sent earlier, he had excused himself, insisting that their separation had absolutely nothing to do with Hiroko being a Fire Horse. Mine recalled that at the time, she had been lightly bothered by the thought that a man of Nomura’s standing would even in such a way take the Fire Horse into consideration. Mine herself didn’t think anything of Hiroko being a Fire Horse, but as a practical matter, it was undeniable that the superstition had greatly influenced Hiroko’s life. Mine knew that part of the reason she had lived alone until forty was undeniably due to the Fire Horse. Not limited to Hiroko, even in Mine’s hometown, people could not remain indifferent to the Fire Horse. How much had Mine, in various ways since long ago, tried to enlighten Hiroko, who had been putting on airs against it? In that sense, Mine too had taken the Fire Horse into consideration. But what about Nomura’s? But in any case, Mine thought that Hiroko being able to laugh and talk about the Fire Horse was a sign of her growth. And having felt relieved that Hiroko would finally settle down now, before she knew it, Hiroko was attempting to reestablish contact with Nomura’s children, suggesting that exchanging letters at least should be permissible.

“I’m against it. It’s ridiculous.” Having been casually dismissed, Hiroko seemed to grow sullen and made a dark face without saying a word. Though she was crying, Mine deliberately pretended not to notice. After crying herself out, if Hiroko had resolved to visit Chie’s place, Mine had tried to let her go calmly—but it seemed Hiroko would not settle unless she confronted matters head-on.

“Going to Chie’s place isn’t some carefree trip where I’ll let myself be blown about by the Kanto Plain winds.” “Because I’m going to sell the kimono—I’ve finally fallen this low.” If it weren’t for Nomura, she could settle down and work—the fact that she spent her days unable to focus was likely something she wanted to blame on him. But even Nomura must have been having dreary days—this too had reached Mine’s ears from somewhere. There were stories of him hemming kimono hems and clattering about with a charcoal stove, or standing in ration lines; and in a letter to Yūkichi, he had written that ever since then, he’d felt vaguely ashamed and found it wearisome to show his face in public. Amidst this disarray and hardship, Nomura harbored no desire for Hiroko’s return and was rebuilding his life from there. Yet Hiroko still refused to reach any conclusion about herself, drifting aimlessly. Perhaps through this drifting, she fantasized that some chance occurrence might push her back toward Nomura. Was she trying to make herself pitiable enough to garner sympathy and exploit that opening? How pathetic you are, Hiroko. That’s the mentality of someone truly degraded. While thinking this sadly, Mine took several bills from her clasp purse,

“Don’t sell the kimono; leave it here. Even if you end up selling it later, you can’t call that being down and out. Look at Chie. Before anyone knew it, she sold off everything she had, yet she’s keeping up appearances just fine, isn’t she? She hasn’t fallen into destitution at all.”

“Well, Chie has a son-in-law like Mr. Minoru and three children.” “No matter where I look, I’m not the only one who’s all alone.” Hiroko sobbed like a child as she packed her belongings into a Boston bag and left without so much as a glance toward Mine, her shoulders shaking. Knowing Hiroko wouldn’t stay even if stopped, Mine silently let her go—but imagining Hiroko departing on a journey with no solace for the heart, weeping as she left, her anxiety gradually spread. The vision of that woman standing utterly alone on the cold platform—no one to talk to, waiting for the train—her hollow heart vulnerable to any creeping temptation made goosebumps erupt across Mine’s skin. She hurried out. After telling Masako, Mine left home without even changing her kimono. After transferring from the suburban train to the national line and enduring an hour of gnawing futility, she arrived at Akabane. Mine ran across the footbridge toward the train platform with unprecedented agility. The stair climbs constricted her plump heart. Her legs grew heavy as she ran, yet she kept gasping forward. With the train’s departure imminent, people ran both ahead and behind. Trunks and bundles knocked against her hips and shoulders as others overtook her. Calling “Hiroko! Hiroko!” silently in her mind, she finally descended the stairs and crouched there. She tried to soothe her parched throat. Still, Mine’s eyes kept searching for Hiroko in the crowd ahead.

“Sis.”

Hiroko found her and came running. “What’s wrong?” Even she looked genuinely startled. Mine, relieved, slumped against Hiroko. Mine was relieved that Hiroko had the expression of an ordinary woman. She was neither crying nor angry. It was Mine who had tears overflowing. Prompted by this, Hiroko, also becoming teary, stroked Mine’s back. She wanted to drink water, but the faucet was broken. After her shoulders finally stopped heaving, Mine said.

“Don’t go today.” Hiroko took the ticket out from the monpe pocket, gazed at it slowly, and showed it to Mine. “But it’s only valid for two days.” “If I cancel today and it becomes invalid tomorrow, that’d be such a waste—”

Just then, the train pulled in. With it now irrevocably settled, Mine had to see her off.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I’ll bring back a souvenir.”

Not appearing like a woman bearing sorrow, Hiroko said in a calm voice and melted into the crowd jostling near the narrow entrance. Mine peered into the train carriages, but unable to spot her, the train began to move.

By the time she arrived home, it was already evening. As soon as she entered the room, Mine buried her face in the kotatsu and wept without even unwrapping her scarf. The fact that Hiroko had looked so utterly ordinary when she saw her outside had filled her with relief. Moreover, the sorrow Hiroko concealed beneath that composed expression—made all the clearer by their recent parting—now melted unreservedly into Mine’s heart, bringing tears to her eyes. The evening meal table struck them as conspicuously marked by the absence of Hiroko’s seat. It wasn’t because they were lonely now that she was gone. They wanted to feel relieved, but somehow that very absence weighed on them as an oppressive void. But it was certain that everyone wanted to feel relieved. Worried, she had chased after her and wept at her pitiful state, yet Mine’s eyes remained red and swollen.

“Hiroko’s changed, hasn’t she.” “From just a little stumble, she turns spiteful or acts unpleasant, doesn’t she.” “She’s honest at heart—a kind soul—and yet...”

"But that’s when it becomes troublesome." "When women turn forty, they inevitably become overbearing." "I never mean to be in the way, yet she seems so domineering." "Am I being heartless?" "It’s exhausting, I tell you."

Mine and the others had such conversations. And truly exhausted, Mine went to bed as night approached. Then Yūkichi and Masako too said they would turn in early that day. Everyone was thoroughly worn out.

“Hiroko—what on earth was that? What does she think she’s doing? Making people feel guilty even about sleeping—what a vile woman.” Mine’s irritation steadily mounted. Once when Sadako had visited, Mine had called for Masako to make tea. Masako apparently hadn’t been there, so Hiroko emerged instead, calling out from behind the shoji screen without regard for Sadako’s presence. “This is about tea, isn’t it? It has to be Masako who does it.” That familiar blunt tone. Mine remembered how Sadako had sighed audibly while shooting her a pitying glance. It seemed Hiroko was scattering some toxic residue of emotion even in front of others, utterly oblivious to Mine’s efforts—quietly shielding her dignity while trying to help her regain footing. Recalling this now made her stomach churn with renewed disgust.

“It’s like she’s going around blaming me for what happened this time.” “She’s so dense—it’s infuriating.” Hearing Mine voice the tangled feelings she couldn’t express to Hiroko—as if trying to spill them out now—the good-humored Yūkichi burst out laughing, “Cut it out—I can’t handle you getting hysterical too.” “Let’s take it easy while we have the chance with Hiroko gone.” He burrowed into the futon while saying this.

“Sorry. You’re right.”

She immediately reconsidered, but hearing Yūkichi put it that way made Hiroko seem pitiful anew. This sort of time did not exist for Hiroko. When Mine considered how such moments were absent wherever Hiroko went, she felt she understood how her sister’s emotions had grown lopsided. Yet realizing even Yūkichi was constrained by it all, Mine resolved never to speak of Hiroko again.

“Ah—the Age of Maitreya.” "I never thought myself happy, but someone like me surely can’t be called unhappy."

Mine stretched both hands upward and groaned as she arched her back. No matter how much she stretched, it never felt enough—she kept groaning while bending backward until her body curved like a bow. Before she knew it, sleep had taken her, and when she awoke, the sun hung high in the sky. Masako had single-handedly fried eggs and prepared taro miso soup, then moved the dining table out to the sunlit veranda. Even after finishing their meal, Mine and the others remained rooted there. They stayed motionless past noon, as if they had finally returned home after years of wandering. Yūkichi began writing letters at the low table while Mine fetched a half-read book and turned her back to the sunlight. Normally they would retreat to their rooms immediately after eating, but today it felt like they were recovering some forgotten happiness they’d thought lost forever.

Are we to say Hiroko had been stealing this peace? Poor Hiroko. But soon enough, Hiroko would return bearing that oppressive atmosphere with her.

As Mine thought without thinking, the uneven clatter of geta reached her ears. It's Chie! Mine closed her book and waited in readiness. The figure of Chie, afflicted with rheumatism, came crossing over the garden stones toward them.

“What’s wrong?”

She opened the window and let her in.

“Sis, it was really tough for you, wasn’t it.” Without even a greeting, Chie blurted out. Tears were spilling down her face. “Is it your turn to have it rough now?” “Yeah.” Chie took a deep breath, asked for a refill of the tea Masako had poured, drained it in one go, “Even if I go talk to him, do you think Mr. Nomura will refuse?”

According to Chie’s account, Hiroko simply couldn’t bring herself to part with Nomura, and last night had written a letter and had consulted Chie.

“Honestly, it’s so embarrassing—if you saw that letter, it’d make you sick.” “I told her not to send it and said I’d go talk to him instead.”

Chie blushed as she spoke about the letter. Listening, Mine reddened too. The letter reportedly laid bare Hiroko's marital experiences with Nomura in raw terms. When natural feelings had finally welled up in Hiroko, Nomura's passion had already cooled. Mine couldn't respond. A belated awakening of physical desire—why couldn't they have nurtured it into bloom? It was too late now. The issue had detached from flesh and abandoned spirit. If anything new arose now, it would only be hatred, contempt, bewilderment, antipathy. Whose fault could this be called? Nomura shouldn't have lost his first wife. But the war stole his beloved spouse. Hiroko should've kicked aside Fire Horse superstitions and family system shackles to grasp human love's preciousness. Hiroko remained trapped in old customs equating ignorance of love letters with virtue; Nomura couldn't change this. Though seeking a sewing-skilled woman tied to Japan's traditions, they'd failed to harness that very tradition. Yet who could be deemed at fault? Still, women suffered incomparably greater blows than men. Japan's marriage history—cruel to women—branded female divorcees "returned women," this contemptuous label applied regardless of circumstance. Women themselves faced this "returned" status as their own failing. Who could've shown responsible concern for these women?

The figures of women ousted from their positions as wives flitted through Mine’s mind. In the village where Mine and the others were born, a woman named Oki-san had fled her marital home, leaving behind one child, after her mother-in-law found fault with how she washed the pot used for boiling starch. A farmer’s bride living in poverty had to wipe the last starch pot as if licking it clean with a starch bag; otherwise, she could not win her mother-in-law’s favor. They said if even two or three grains’ worth of starch remained stuck to it, the mother-in-law would raise a fuss. A woman named Ms. Koume, who was the same age as Mine, had divorced her husband out of dissatisfaction when he took a concubine. A woman named Tsurue, a close friend of Mine’s, could not bear her husband—a cousin to whom she had been betrothed—and fled. Three women who defied the bridal code. Oki-san had remarried as if to spite her circumstances, but there she became the mother of three children. And the child she had borne came to call another woman mother. Ms. Koume too had remarried a man with two children, but there again, her husband had another woman entangled in his life. Ms. Koume was welcomed into the household as mother to the children and wife of the home. Even Tsurue-san—who had fled her first marriage out of unbearable frustration—had left her second marriage entirely to a matchmaker’s arrangement, with an age gap akin to that between father and son. Ms. Koume’s former husband had taken his concubine as his new wife, while the husband Tsurue-san had abandoned—perhaps out of sympathy for having been fled by his wife—had been assigned a never-married young woman and seemed to live contentedly. What thoughts must Oki-san have harbored, entrusting her own child to others and raising another’s child? What feelings must Ms. Koume have nursed as she faced her second husband’s mistress? As for Tsurue-san—could she ever have come to love a husband who was like a father to her? Had she resigned herself? There was also a pitiful woman named Otsuji-san whose husband, unable to bear losing face to his wife who persistently endured despite his disdain, ended up leaving home himself. Everyone seemed to have relinquished any thought of leaving their homes or husbands again, maintaining a surface calm—but what truly lay beneath? Even with just three or four examples, one noticed the deterioration in women’s circumstances.

The sorrow inherent in women’s position was a misfortune Japanese women had inherited since ancient times. Was Hiroko contemplating this while trying to involve even Chie? Or had something awakened in her heart after separating from Nomura? But—but—it was already too late. The problem had shattered into fragments before they could even part. Unaware of this, and thinking Mine wouldn’t lift a finger to help, she must have gone to Chie’s place. Chie resigned herself and returned home. Dragging her unsteady legs, Chie went back. Mine had urged her to stay overnight and rest, but she left in time for the last train, insisting her husband was meeting her at the station. Mine noticed Chie’s limp had worsened since her arrival. Yet she didn’t try to stop her.

“Hiroko seems to be causing disturbances wherever she goes.” “What on earth could that be?” Mine’s brow remained tightly furrowed. Did Hiroko carry some invisible toxin within her, like a bodily odor?

The day after Chie’s visit, Hiroko returned hastily with hurried, restless footsteps. Then—as if she had thought of something—she began working diligently while avoiding Mine’s gaze. She was washing and starching kimonos for alterations. She was tending to tabi socks and undergarments. She was busily organizing her belongings. Ever since that incident, Hiroko—whose blood pressure had risen—had kept her face perpetually flushed.

“Don’t push yourself too hard. You should start taking it easy.” When Mine showed concern，Hiroko’s face softened as expected，yet her tone carried a certain weight of emotion，

"I think I'll go to Kobe." Mine leaned forward in surprise. "For fun?" "No, as a housemaid." As if performing an act, she took out a letter from the sewing box drawer. It was a reply from an elder sister figure in Kobe to Hiroko's own letter. Though called a housemaid position, it stated she'd be entrusted with all household matters in a familial way. The master was absent, it explained, with the wife running a business in Kobe. There were two school-going daughters and one meal-cooking maid. Since the store operated separately, the wife commuted daily. While their lavish lifestyle might startle Hiroko, the letter suggested she might find this aspect intriguing. They wanted someone to handle tasks beyond a regular maid's duties—as Mine read further, she felt her own spirits lifting inexplicably. The conditions listed seemed tailored for Hiroko: light work due to existing staff, a four-and-a-half tatami room provided, permission for side jobs using their sewing machine during free hours. Hiroko had always shown particular fondness for machine sewing.

“Did you send a reply?” “Not yet, but I think I’ll leave around tomorrow.”

“Then let’s have a farewell party today.”

She promptly told Masako to make mixed sushi and had her buy black-market sugar to add to the red bean soup. As a result, Hiroko became completely cheerful and sang schoolgirl-like songs in two-part harmony with Mine and Masako. When departure came, Mine and Masako saw her off as far as the ticket window at Tokyo Station. Hiroko set out wearing work pants with a rucksack on her back.

“I’ve been nothing but selfish toward you, Sister. I’m sorry.” “I intend to repay the favor somehow, but please wait a little while longer.” “Take care too, Masako.” “I don’t know when we’ll meet again next time.”

Mine nodded along with each word, humming in agreement. All three of them had tears in their eyes. As Hiroko climbed the broad staircase leading to the Tokaido Line platform, she kept turning back to linger over their farewell. Mine waved her hand, thinking how Hiroko always softened at moments of parting. Even after the rucksack vanished from sight, Mine stayed rooted in place a while longer—she half-expected Hiroko to come rushing back for some forgotten item. But Hiroko didn’t return. Mine took Masako’s hand and turned away without a word. The image of Hiroko’s rucksack flickered through her mind. That same rucksack, hauled everywhere, journeying onward with Hiroko. The rucksack that had accompanied both her wedding and domestic service—when would it be emptied out, folded flat into obsolescence? When would that hour descend upon her?

Though they had parted this way, Hiroko reappeared before Mine just four days later. Without even washing her face smudged with soot from the night train, Hiroko said irritably.

"Why would anyone help people like that?" At that house in Kobe, they had apparently been lying in wait for Hiroko’s arrival and held a welcoming dance party. The beautifully made-up mother and child looked like sisters, just like actresses from the movies, she said. "Everyone wore beautiful Western clothes, acting all spoiled and fooling around with each other—it made me sick to watch," Hiroko said resentfully.

“If it means being ordered around by those people, I thought I’d rather be dead.”

But when they tried to have Hiroko take on work connected to their principles and hopes, she shook her head. Mine had hoped that working within a collective might allow one to better oneself, but Hiroko insisted she wanted nothing to do with any arrangement involving Mine's connections. Understanding this sentiment, Mine didn't press the matter—though it left Hiroko with nowhere to go, unable to return to the countryside either. As Hiroko sensed Mine doing nothing but silently nod along to her words while weighing these thoughts, she suddenly burst into tears.

“What should I do—there’s no place for me anywhere—”

She sprawled her large body heavily onto the tatami mats and sobbed violently.

Five

On the damp black soil, patches of green lay scattered here and there. The autumn-sown peas retained their winter-enduring form—shrunken clusters with their green hue still muted. The cold spring morning's surface, where frost pillars still remained, made even the sparrows appear to huddle their necks. With their chests puffed out roundly, there were two of them. Whether mates or parent and child, one would hop ahead in quick little steps while another followed in the same brisk manner. They would scurry across the soil with backs turned to each other, then suddenly line up face-to-face as if whispering secrets, only to dart off and vanish into garden thickets. It was a quiet morning where only sparrows moved. Before she knew it, five sparrows flitted above the home vegetable garden where peas grew. Yet Mine's face—watching through the glass door on her sunlit veranda these innocent sparrows mingling like infants—betrayed a weariness unbefitting dawn. She had stayed up late last night.

“Go wash your face.” Yūkichi approached with a freshly washed face, his expression clear. His tone carried concern for his wife who had barely slept after working through the night. “Yeah.”

Mine was still watching the sparrows. She wondered whether there had been this many sparrows every morning. She wondered whether the way they were scattering the soil with their beaks meant there might be food there. On the black soil that appeared to hold nothing but the blue sprouts of peas, the sparrows paid no heed to the peas. Mine suddenly recalled Yamamoto Yasue, a New Theatre actress who had long ago portrayed "Tojin O-Kichi." Yamamoto Yasue’s O-Kichi was scattering leftover food for the sparrows. There had been women who walked such a path. O-Kichi—a woman who became a victim of Bakumatsu diplomacy, her beauty treated like a commodity, made into a tribute—found that her unconscious rebellion against authority could only isolate herself. They say that in her later years, the only ones O-Kichi opened her heart to were the sparrows that visited her eaves each morning. To put it bluntly, it could be called the misfortune of women born from beauty. Even so, O-Kichi had let down her guard only to the sparrows. What a modest comfort that must have been. In a similar way, Mine thought that even Hiroko, who was trying to shut herself away into a world of solitude, had a place in her heart where she could entrust herself to grasses and trees, much like O-Kichi’s sparrows. Hiroko’s peas, sown without forgetting the seasons even amidst agonizing mental anguish, were putting out green leaves at neat intervals, true to Hiroko’s character. The way sparrows and pea pods played their roles in women’s lives—strangely compelling a comparison between O-Kichi and Hiroko—stirred a certain emotion in Mine. Just as the sparrows paid no heed to the peas, Hiroko and O-Kichi were people whose paths lay far apart. And yet, they were the same in being women burdened with misfortune.

“Hey, why don’t you wash your face and let’s eat?” While urging her again, Yūkichi examined each piece of the morning mail one by one. This was unusual. Usually before breakfast, Yūkichi would assert his ill humor as if it were a man’s prerogative. Mine’s nerves would tense up and push back just as fiercely, but when exhausted from work, they both became calmer.

“You must be tired.” “Not really.”

“You look terrible.” “You were snoring like crazy.” “Oh, really?” Mine, who had turned pale, lowered her voice and said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mine said. The habit of snoring, which she hadn’t had before, was something Mine developed after she began writing novels. While there was no reason to think it related to her work, for Mine—who had begun her career as a writer at a relatively late age—gripping a pen amounted to significant labor. That fatigue undeniably became the source of the snoring habit Mine developed as she approached forty. However, Mine only grew conscious of her snoring after receiving a letter from Nomura stating that Hiroko had this habit. When Mine saw that letter, she shuddered as if doused with water. It was a chill that struck at her heart. Hiroko snores— Nomura’s letter read: “Until now I’ve refrained from saying more than that I couldn’t grow to love her, but truthfully, I’m afraid of Ms. Hiroko.” “There were not just one or two nights when I lay awake without sleeping a wink, pressing down on the futon from inside while listening to Ms. Hiroko’s snoring.” “It’s likely a difference in our personalities, but even as sisters, there may be aspects only someone of the opposite sex could understand—” It was written in such terms. At that time, Mine quietly asked Masako, who always slept in the same room with her.

“Does Auntie snore?”

“Yeah, sometimes. But she hardly does anymore.”

“Really?” “I’m telling the truth, I wouldn’t lie.” “Hmm—” Mine pondered. Now that she thought of it, back when Hiroko was still at Nomura’s house, she would go out to buy ointment whenever her shoulders stiffened, and even during the day, she would snore as she slept. She recalled that even Masako had said, “Auntie must be tired,” attributing it to exhaustion. When had Hiroko developed the habit of snoring? Could her marriage to Nomura have been the trigger? Or had it been that way all along? After all, was the view of snoring in Mine’s household nothing more than consideration wrapped in affection? When Mine snored, that snoring became a pretext for Masako and Yūkichi’s concern,

“You were snoring—I thought you were having a stroke.” Masako was so worried she would stay by Mine’s pillow until she awoke, listening intently to her snoring. At such times, parent and child grew deeply close. Yet when it came to Hiroko, that same snoring brought forth talk of “incompatible personalities,” becoming one of those trite reasons for divorce. The reason Nomura had written that letter ultimately lay with Mine. When Ikawa—Nomura’s friend who had served as Hiroko’s official matchmaker—came to Mine’s house inquiring about the situation, Hiroko happened to be absent. So Mine told him of Hiroko’s subsequent foolish words and actions. And finally she said.

“I’m at my wit’s end too—even though I know full well this can’t possibly work out, whenever I see Hiroko, she starts acting so… vulgar.” “Moreover, letters come from the children as well.” That was Nomura’s response to Ikawa’s attempt to intervene. In that letter, Nomura further wrote: “Ikawa and I sat together all day deliberating back and forth, but as I see no prospect of making Ms. Hiroko happy, I stated my position frankly to Ikawa and declined.” “I also heard from Mr. Ikawa about how the children were supposedly clinging to her, but since this too is somewhat inaccurate, I believe it best not to exaggerate matters so as not to prolong Ms. Hiroko’s suffering,” he continued. Mine took these words as a sharp slap to the face. It seemed Nomura thought Mine had exaggerated when speaking to Ikawa. For Mine, who did not probe into the deepest layers of things, she could only state the facts that had surfaced. If Mine’s view of Hiroko was clouded by familial bias, then perhaps Nomura himself did not know the contents of the letters the children sent to Hiroko. Furthermore, as a postscript, he added that he had visited twice since then, and various letters had arrived addressed to me and the children. The details of those two visits would not be recounted. “However, as the children are now trembling with fear, I must ask that you let matters rest here.”

Mine felt as though she wanted to run away somewhere. On one of those days when Hiroko—who had pressed forward with abnormal resolve—returned utterly dejected, Mine remembered how she had moaned in a hollow voice that there had been no opening to slip through. That day, in that very place, Hiroko must have fought by laying bare a woman’s disgrace. The details need not be recounted—to the extent that Nomura had been compelled to write as much—it must have been the height of repulsiveness. Hiroko must have acted so foolishly that Nomura’s heart grew colder still. She must have turned into such a demon that she made the children tremble uncontrollably. And in the end, she must have had to flee back like a stray dog doused with water. One of Nomura’s acquaintances had once remarked about his previous household. When it came to fortifying themselves against outsiders, Nomura’s family was said to be truly united—geniuses at it. If that were true, then perhaps on that day Hiroko had been unable to breach their barbed-wire defenses and had howled like a rabid dog instead. By this point, even the children who had once wept over their separation now saw Hiroko only as a shared enemy with their father; every flaw they had perceived during their two months together might have grown monstrously large in their hearts. Among those flaws, Hiroko’s snoring must have echoed loudest of all—deafeningly so. Unfortunate Hiroko. Yet if one believed Masako’s claim that Hiroko no longer snored after those events—and if one compared it to Mine’s own situation—couldn’t it be said that life with Nomura had done nothing but compound Hiroko’s exhaustion? That might be stretching it. But not entirely without basis. For who could deny that her abrupt transition from solitary quietude to hectic housewifery might have contributed to her snoring? For women, this was a shame so profound it withered the soul. If possible, one wouldn’t snore at all. If surgery could cure snoring as it did tonsils, Mine thought she would gladly undergo it.

Even snoring that received care from a husband and daughter like Mine’s made her think this way. Women unconsciously tried to bear responsibility even for the snoring they produced in their sleep. Yet there was something that defied easy resolution in the position of a woman who had even her snoring during sleep written about. Were there women who had returned home because they feared their husband’s snoring? There might be such cases, but she didn’t think there were. Were there men who had divorced their wives because they snored? She didn’t know. However, if it had been known from the start that she was a woman who snores, the marriage arrangement would likely have fallen through. What about men? Such a thing would never happen. Was snoring a man’s privilege? Even men would be better off not snoring. Nomura must surely have been a man not prone to snoring. But what if, instead of Hiroko, it had been his former wife who snored? Though he might have muttered “And she’s a woman,” he would still have felt compelled to care for his wife. Because there must have been something that mitigated the snoring. Hiroko had lacked that. That must have been far more dreadful than a hired woman’s snoring. Women who snore—ah, women who snore—what caused snoring to exist? The snoring of a woman undone by misfortune.

Come to think of it, Chieko Takagi too would let out a hearty, almost masculine snore when exhausted. What must Chieko's husband think of that? Sadako's had always been quiet—unmistakably feminine. Could it be that snoring plagues full-figured women like Chieko, Mine, and Hiroko more severely? The snoring that kept Nomura awake—the same snoring over which he and Ikawa spent entire days agonizing with their knees nearly touching—must have been truly monstrous. Mine felt an inexpressible revulsion. That this revulsion extended not just toward Nomura but also Hiroko and herself was truly bitter indeed.

"I wonder if I should write a novel about a woman who snores."

In a self-deprecating tone, she said this and slid the letter toward Yūkichi. While Yūkichi read, she idly flipped through the Jien dictionary on the desk.

snoring (n.) The sound of breathing through the nose during sleep.

An explanation of snoring was written in small print. Mine suddenly burst out laughing and said teasingly.

“So that’s what it is—the harshness of the snoring.” “To be shocked by a woman’s snoring—how petty-minded.”

Two or three days later, a letter arrived from Ikawa as well. Ikawa, not being directly involved, refrained from Nomura’s nakedly blunt language: Hiroko had gotten along well with the children, and as a housewife, there was nothing particularly displeasing about her—yet somehow they simply failed to harmonize. Ikawa went so far as to propose that if they lived as casually as one might hire a housemaid for six months or a year, some path forward might open up. But Nomura seemed utterly terrified; one could only conclude he had shut himself away within the framework of his previous marriage. Inside that shell, he huddled rigidly, leaving no space for anything new to enter. Though Nomura likely remained unaware of it himself, one sensed he was constantly comparing this marriage to the last in some subconscious layer. This might be my own biased thinking, he had written, but under such circumstances, she should consider it like suffering misfortune from a tree leaning precariously over a thoroughfare—and rise anew. Mine silently placed it atop Hiroko’s sewing box alongside Nomura’s letter. She felt she was dealing the final blow. Hiroko said nothing about it. She only seemed to withdraw into herself, dark and gloomy.

No sooner had the frost melted and the soil turned a whitish parched color than the pea sprouts shot up vigorously. The new leaves were fresh and dewy, large and pale green—the color of spring. Slender stems swayed in the gentle breeze yet stretched straight up toward the sky. They were Hiroko’s pride and joy—her large silk-pod peas. The seeds were ones Hiroko had taken from her hometown field. For the peas she had sown separately from those at Nomura’s house, Hiroko was setting up bamboo poles to make a trellis. Worried that something might happen, Mine deliberately tried to view Hiroko’s demeanor as ordinary.

“The peas have grown quite a bit.”

Hiroko said. The movement of her neck was utterly stiff. "That's right," Mine answered. "I'm looking forward to it."

Mine answered. “I keep thinking I should have at least split them half and half.” “I sowed two-thirds over there.” “What a waste.”

“It’s fine.” “There are so many people over there, after all.”

Mine slipped her shoulders free and entered her room. When she peeked in later, Hiroko was silently fastening the bamboo supports. Just as she finished, a voice called from beyond the shoji of Mine’s room. Perched on the damp veranda edge and brushing dust from her monpe-clad knees, “Hey... should I go pull up those peas I planted?”

She said with unexpected casualness, but Mine felt something drop heavily within her.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” “Is it so bad?”

“There’s no ‘shouldn’t’ or ‘should’ about it. You’ll be laughed at.” “But I thought my peas must look unsettling.” “Then pull them out yourself if you want.” “I see.” Hiroko stuck out her tongue playfully. Mine felt intensely gladdened by that gesture—it was like flesh swelling over a wound. Though secretly relieved, two or three days later Hiroko entered Mine’s room again.

“Hey, if they’re flower bulbs, I should be allowed to go get them back, right?”

She had even finished getting ready. “That’s enough. It wouldn’t be bad if they at least left the flowers.”

"But I put such care into growing those flowers." "I'd hate to see them thrown away." "Then let's ask Ms. Takeko to retrieve them for us." "That would be best."

Hiroko resigned herself with apparent helplessness. As she gazed at the overwintered buds of peonies, tree peonies, lilies, and daffodils pushing through soil in their natural vivid greens and reds, she must have been remembering. Hiroko had been furious that Nomura wrote scornfully in his diary about her love of flowers. "If it's a woman he dislikes," Hiroko said, "he comes to despise even her fondness for flowers." Those were blooms she had specially brought from her hometown to transplant into her new life with Nomura. Thus Hiroko departed, leaving only flowers rooted in Nomura's garden. Though Hiroko must have felt something, Mine opposed retrieving them. Then one day, without telling even Takeko, a letter came from Nomura: "I noticed unfamiliar plants sprouting around the garden—they've begun blooming. Realizing Ms. Hiroko planted them, I bow to these flowers daily—" A letter steeped in Nomura's innate decency. Mine reread that passage repeatedly. He added: "Since then I've felt such shame meeting people that I still avoid gatherings." Indeed, Mine hadn't seen Nomura at recent study group meetings. Likely avoiding public scrutiny over the Hiroko affair—yet even here his timidity showed. If he had legitimate reasons for separating, shouldn't he face society boldly? Didn't Nomura wallow excessively in vacillation? This exasperating trait reminded Mine how Chieko Takagi once remarked—

"That man couldn't even decide to become a Writers' Union committee member without consulting his wife," Chieko Takagi had once remarked. This occurred during his first wife's lifetime. Though Chieko's harsh criticism—directed at everyone—couldn't be fully accepted, Mine did believe Nomura truly possessed that passive side. She stopped showing Hiroko those letters. The thought of him bowing to flowers as if clinging to some lingering attachment to his ex-wife became unbearable. Afterward, Hiroko too ceased mentioning the flowers. She must have resigned herself. Yet Hiroko seemed to be gradually transforming into a spiteful woman. Mine grew increasingly vexed. Then one day, Mine suddenly collapsed in the toilet and remained bedridden thereafter. The official diagnosis was cerebral anemia, though lately she'd begun flushing scarlet like Kintarō with alarming frequency. Her wildly fluctuating blood pressure—extreme spikes and crashes—wreaked emotional havoc too, leaving her cheeks burning at minor upsets or paling with rage. Her frustrations with Hiroko made her lash out at Yūkichi and Masako. By the bedside of their seemingly sleeping Mine, Yūkichi and Masako conversed.

“Mom’s been getting irritated so easily lately.” “It’s frightening. At least it was cerebral anemia—if it had been apoplexy, she’d have had a stroke by now. Oh, how frightening.” “Let’s try not to upset her as much as possible. And I’ll stay by her side whenever I can.” Their words clearly regarded Hiroko as a nuisance. Mine lay in her futon pretending to sleep. When she realized no one worried about Hiroko like this, Hiroko seemed unbearably pitiful to her. Hiroko was alone in the kitchen, likely preparing food for Mine who had no appetite. When Mine ate heartily, Hiroko’s face would relax in relief; when she refused food, visible anxiety would flood Hiroko’s expression—yet Hiroko never voiced these feelings. What escaped her lips were only sarcastic remarks and self-deprecations that rattled Mine’s heart.

“I can’t help feeling I’m the root cause of your illness.” “I feel so guilty I want to leave somewhere—but going now would inconvenience you.” “I’ll stay on as your housemaid until you recover.”

Her lips quivered as she spoke. How bitterly sad and frustrating that must be, Mine thought, feeling her own heart ache with sorrow.

Mine, who was vulnerable to heat, had been ill all summer; she finally rose from bed around the time when cool breezes had begun seeping into the skin. After Mine’s house—the regular meeting place—had been moved to Sadako’s home and elsewhere due to her illness, Mine, who had spent her days without meeting anyone, attended the November gathering at Sadako’s house for the first time. Her hands and feet were pallid, their color almost translucent. Having sat before the mirror stand in the room adjoining the tatami hall, she absently lifted the mirror cover and stared in shock at the proliferation of her white hair. The white hair was her mother’s legacy, but this was excessive. Over the past year, she felt she’d aged seven years—a haggardness that begged consolation for all she’d endured. When the entrance opened, Nomura walked in and settled into the circle in the tatami room. It placed him directly facing Mine. A year had passed—exactly one year. Nomura’s complexion too showed aging. He gave Mine a friendly nod. She smiled back. Brushing aside lingering awkwardness, Mine struck up conversation with him. Nomura asked after her health. Their exchange held mutual concern yet carried an air of studied nonchalance for those nearby. From here, they had to depart and return to where they began—Mine thought this.

Sadako herself seemed to have sensed this sentiment too, subtly weaving her meticulous considerations into an attempt to mend their fractured friendship's bridge. The first manifestation came when it was decided that Mine and her husband would visit Nomura's house in January as a trio. The visit took place under Nomura's formal invitation. Since Yūkichi had prior commitments, Mine went out with just Sadako. They didn't tell Hiroko their destination, adopting New Year's visitation manners. Nomura had purchased beef piled mountainously while awaiting them. It truly rose in peaks upon bamboo sheaths. Tofu, vegetables and other provisions were equally abundant. The extravagance could have entertained ten guests. Mine became aware she was viewing this beef mountain with spiteful intent. Yet that feeling lingered stubbornly. Mine remembered Hiroko's words.

“We were supposed to stay two nights but came back after one, didn’t we? Back then, they bought fifty monme of beef for sukiyaki. I’d brought a hundred monme as a souvenir and added it to theirs—that startled me. I’d never bought less than a hundred monme before. A hundred monme of beef—was that extravagant? Maybe he disliked that too.”

Going so far as to say such things, Hiroko blamed herself. During Hiroko’s absence—when she didn’t even like beef—why had they bought only fifty monme? Was this the consideration of the daughter left in charge of the kitchen during her absence, or Nomura’s arrangement? That remained unclear. What struck Hiroko was the very extravagance with which she had bought a hundred monme of meat at least every three days, reassured after being told he hated stinginess. A hundred monme of beef was an exorbitant daily expense that no ordinary housewife could purchase without considering her purse, yet Nomura’s finances ought to have differed from those of salaried workers or petty bourgeois. But how had Nomura actually viewed this? Nomura—who had once told Sadako that Hiroko was exceptionally skilled at managing finances—did “skilled” here mean frugality? If so, what had the fifty monme signified? And today—did this mountain of beef bear any relation to that? Before forming his bond with Hiroko, Nomura had declared he detested stinginess. Mine had been contrasting “stinginess” with frugality. Both Nomura and Mine were children of poor laborers by upbringing. Having endured the hardship of working to survive—laboring still today—their lives could not possibly be extravagant. Even if Nomura had pressed his dislike of stinginess, Hiroko might still have felt apprehensive. How had that registered? And for Nomura—was this truly being “skilled at finances,” or was it a rhetorical inversion of extravagance? The mountain of meat and fifty monme even evoked conflicting feelings in Mine’s heart. Could it be that Nomura—rebelling against his own miserliness—had unconsciously sought its opposite from Hiroko? Was it spiteful of Mine to think so? Mine thought that among sisters, Hiroko lacked young Chie’s adventurous spirit—how Chie would dismantle kimonos in frustration over daily hardships to create dazzling luxuries that occasionally astonished her husband and children. Yet Hiroko did possess a boldness to live expansively with whatever she had.

How that boldness connected to Nomura's finances was something she couldn't grasp at all. However, Mine believed that while it had left Hiroko with a trace of lingering unease, it hadn't been a major reason for their divorce.

Nomura kept standing up and sitting down repeatedly in good spirits. Mine vaguely wondered if the daughters' refusal to help might stem from unresolved feelings toward Nomura and herself. Even though it was New Year's, the daughters seemed holed up in the house. Each time someone moved about, they peeked through the narrow gap in the sliding door. The meal began in Nomura's study. Transparent kasutori liquor was poured into white cups with orchid patterns, but neither Sadako nor Mine drank any. Feeling sorry for Nomura that Yūkichi wasn't there, Mine ate her sukiyaki in silence. Sadako kept replenishing the pot. With little progress being made, the meat and vegetables had become mushy from overcooking. Using a ginkgo-leaf-shaped sake flask with an open bottom, Nomura drank alone with practiced motions. He appeared happy. Mine recalled how Hiroko had indiscriminately disliked heavy drinkers and wondered if Nomura had felt constrained in that regard too. This wasn't what she'd come here for—Mine thought painfully—yet her observations never relented. Most of the beef remained on bamboo sheaths. It laid bare a household without a housewife. Had this been Sadako's home, she would have arranged everything beautifully to whet appetites; here, male domesticity offered only abundant messiness. Something like widower's wretchedness seemed to permeate every corner of the room. "He'll never manage like this," Mine secretly thought. Yet strangely, no impulse arose to reconnect Hiroko to this scene. Hiroko's shadow could no longer be found anywhere—if pressed, only an unpleasant aftertaste lingered in her stepdaughters' melancholy faces.

When leaving, the daughters, prompted by Nomura, all came out to the entryway. What beauty there was.

The eldest daughter, who must have been nineteen now, bore the radiant countenance of a girl blossoming into womanhood. Her fair complexion, swathed in downy fuzz, showed skin as soft as sasanqua petals—yet the innocence she had displayed when first coming to welcome Hiroko was gone, her long lashes cast down in gloom. Only the youngest child laughed with artless joy. Hiroko had never become a mother to these girls. They were all such lovely children, and yet—

Mine felt an inexpressible sense of regret. "Mother, let’s sleep together." That innocent little girl who had laid out Hiroko’s futon near them on her own accord—the children who had welcomed Hiroko not as their father’s wife but as their own mother—how must they have endured those unpleasant days?

Outside had already grown dark. Sadako and Mine walked in silence, but when they exited the alley, Sadako—

“Mr. Nomura has aged, hasn’t he.”

She said, tilting her face at an angle and pressing a hand to it.

“Yes… He really has gone quite gray.”

When they stopped by Kawahara’s house on their way, Kawahara’s country sister Sumiko was alone house-sitting. It turned out that the couple had gone to the countryside, with Sumiko taking their place. Sumiko was also a poet; before the war, she had lived in Tokyo, where they had frequently visited each other. It had been a long time. Now that they had come this far, they finally had the composure to laugh out loud, and both Mine and Sadako relaxed and untied their obi sashes. Indeed, Sumiko once again skillfully made them laugh as she had them untie their obi sashes. She had become thoroughly countryfied, speaking in her rustic dialect about the old men and young women back home. Sumiko’s manner of speaking made them lose track of time, and Mine and the others ended up missing the last train. The two ended up having Kawahara and his family lay out their futons in the room where Kawahara and his family slept, and slept side by side.

“I might snore. If I do, I’m sorry.”

Mine first apologized and got into bed. Her heart was heavy. Even though there was nowhere to return to until tomorrow morning anyway, she disliked feeling obliged to Yūkichi for staying over. When she returned tomorrow, she would hide her fatigue and complain—her own attitude would be all too visible. Sadako was liberated from all such thoughts—

Mine spoke to Sadako. “I’m envious of you right now.” “Yes.” Sadako nodded simply.

Sadako nodded simply.

"But if you're going to remain alone forever from now on, it'll be lonely." Then Sadako replied in her light tone again, "You're right," she said with a hearty laugh. Sadako—who had discarded her position as a wife with her own hands—appeared utterly unconstrained. Moreover, in Sadako's case, there wasn't the slightest trace of that gender-neutral quality often seen in single women; she remained imbued with the gentle abundance of someone who had been both a wife and mother to children. Even if the human confidence gained from bearing and raising children granted her this stability, what exactly allowed a woman to become so liberated upon parting from her husband? Economic independence was likely the greatest factor, while her strong character must have enhanced her radiance as a woman. What manifested outwardly wasn't dignity or forcefulness, but solely a woman's richness. Mine found herself deeply envying this version of Sadako. That said, though she neither could nor wished to emulate Sadako herself, she couldn't help admiring the courage it took to lose patience with wifely duties and strike out alone.

“You know, everyone must envy you.” “Yes.” “If all women had your rebellious streak, men would be put in their place—and what a spectacle that’d be—but the world doesn’t bend that way, does it.” “Heh heh.” Sadako smiled as if inviting her to voice her thoughts. “Just having financial power and a strong will isn’t enough either. “There must be plenty of men who’d heave a sigh of relief if we walked out on them—and that’s galling too—but it’s not like all men are bad either.”

“Ah.”

At that response, Mine burst out laughing. Sumiko called out from behind the sliding door. "Sounds like fun." "That's right—after all, there's nothing but three women under this roof."

Mine said in a lively voice, “Ms. Sumiko, do come over here too.”

However, Sumiko politely declined to come. Mine suddenly remembered that Sumiko was the same age as Hiroko. Sumiko, too, was a woman who in her youth had entered into a marriage that did not suit her heart—or rather, had been forced into it—and ultimately fled her husband’s household. According to the story, Sumiko had been in love with someone at the time. That must be why Sumiko had even gone so far as to leave her husband’s household—but when she did, she found the man had already married another woman. For twenty years since then, Sumiko had remained alone. Mine had heard that love story from Sumiko herself on multiple occasions before. In a city in the Hokuriku region, Sumiko’s love was said to have first taken root. The description of how Sumiko and the high school student—a friend of Kawahara—had climbed a nearby hill one Sunday, spent the entire day avoiding prying eyes, and finally risen to begin their return journey at sunset, their shadows stretching long across the slope behind them as they walked, their slender silhouettes trudging down the mountain in pairs alongside them, had etched an unforgettable impression into Mine’s heart. Even when at her marital home, she could not settle down; in her desperation, she would wander back to her parents’ house—and her mother, upon seeing her, would already begin preparing gifts for her to take back before she had even stepped over the threshold. At times shielding herself from the sun with taro leaves like a fox’s umbrella, she would recount her own frantic figure—racing headlong down the path to her parents’ home—in a tone as though narrating a film heroine’s tale, spinning it with seven parts humor and three parts self-deprecation. Yet her expression always brimmed with sorrow when the story ended. Despite mustering the courage to rebel to the point of breaking free, Japanese women were ultimately made to stamp their feet in frustration—and yet, what a woman Sumiko was, persisting in such an antiquated romance. And that pure-heartedness and stubbornness had by now become ingrained as Sumiko’s very uniqueness. What had formed this mold? And could it be that Hiroko, in her own way, was also trying to form a mold from which she could not escape? Even as women who had failed in family life, what a vast gulf there was between them and Sadako.

Mine remained unable to sleep. As if triggered by the beef invitation, Nomura and Mine began meeting frequently. Nomura would come to Mine’s house with a nonchalant air, and Mine in turn made even greater efforts to attend gatherings at Nomura’s place. By meeting Nomura as often as possible, there was an expectation that they might liberate each other from the unpleasant feelings they had incurred. And truly, that returned to Mine’s heart.

“Mr. Nomura seemed very happy, didn’t he.” “He looked like he was in love.”

That came out of Mine’s mouth without a second thought—it was because at Sadako’s gathering she had heard Nomura’s voice brimming with uncharacteristic vigor and seen his smile welling up from some inner spring. And Mine, who had lingered after others left, said this to Sadako.

“Was he?” “Now that you mention it, I suppose he was.”

Sadako replied as if turning to look back and confirm. "That’s right—there must be something good happening."

Though she had said this, Mine grew slightly self-conscious, feeling as if she alone had been observing Nomura with particular attention. However, Nomura had indeed been buoyant. It even reminded her of Nomura back when his marriage arrangement with Hiroko had been settled. Yet seeing that Sadako—usually so perceptive—hadn’t noticed this made Mine think she might be overimagining things, and she found her own fixation odd. But sure enough, news bordering on that premonition reached her from Sadako not long after. It was said that the elderly writer Yamanaka Keiji was concerned about finding a marriage partner for Nomura. When Mine heard this, half proudly,

“See? I told you so—someday.”

Mine smiled. Her heart had been entirely untroubled, but after parting with Sadako, Hiroko’s situation weighed on her mind. If word of this reached Hiroko’s ears, would she not find her heart stirred despite herself? As Mine walked home lost in these thoughts, she found Hiroko squatting in the vegetable patch in her usual *monpe* work pants, examining the seeds for spring planting. Even though it was the second spring since parting with Nomura, there she was, unchanged from the previous year. The flowers and plants she had tenderly nurtured were peeking out their red and green buds as if sensing the spring warmth, just as they had the previous year. Hiroko, gazing silently at the vegetables and flowers, was no longer repeating last year’s desperate antics and had finally begun to turn her heart toward her rural hometown. Compared to men’s resurgence, how pitifully sad was the figure of this woman. Although the house in her hometown was Hiroko’s own property, because she had rented it out when she married Nomura, she would have to return there and live uncomfortably as a cohabiting tenant. Her streak of misfortune did not end there—the shifting winds of the times had, in mere months, stripped away even the single tiny field she depended on for survival, a plot no larger than a cat’s forehead, all under absentee landlord reforms. It wasn’t that there was dissatisfaction with the reform itself, but for the woman returning home with her life in ruins, it had been an unbearably tragic outcome. Not a single patch of land remained for her who loved tilling the soil. To the hometown where no brothers or parents awaited to welcome her, Hiroko would be returning. Though it was the countryside, its proximity to Osaka and Kobe meant prices rivaled those of the city; a woman without even a patch of land or savings would have to start working from the very day she returned. And before working, she would have to think about food and fuel. "If one were to return carelessly without considering the season, one would have to weep," Hiroko said. It was the land where she had been born and raised. Believing that if one smiled at others, they would smile back—Hiroko flatly rejected Mine’s optimistic belief in human hearts, declaring such a thing impossible from the start. If she sealed herself shut like a turban shell and fortified her armor, who could cling to her? Mine thought that prying open the turban shell’s lid was her role.

Without prying it open, she had to make Hiroko herself want to lift the lid within that brimming sea. Mine decided to have Hiroko take the sewing machine home and told her so. Hiroko, whom she had expected to be pleased, rebuffed her with an irritated look.

“No, something this precious would weigh on my mind.” Mine was surprised. Even as her own sister, she was appalled. She could only think Hiroko was tormenting herself. It was as if she were declaring that no mere object could cancel out the blow she had suffered. “But if you have a sewing machine, you could start working right away.”

“I can manage without it.” “Would it trouble you?” When Mine smirked, Hiroko’s expression grew increasingly strained,

“It’s not that I can’t manage—I just hate borrowing other people’s things.” “Do I have to say I’m giving it to you?!”

Even Mine finally snapped irritably. The sewing machine had been sent by Yūkichi’s brother in America just before the outbreak of the Pacific War and was an excellent seven-drawer model. There was an obligation that couldn’t exactly be called giving it to her. But if she took it home and used it, was there not a chance she might end up demanding its return? For Mine, that, at the very least, was what she believed to be the greatest material contribution she could make for her. Among all the things in Mine’s house, the sewing machine was among the finest. Words that could have been hurled at Nomura were now being thrown by Hiroko at Mine. When, after the divorce was finalized, Nomura asked through Sadako if she had any demands, Hiroko refused, saying that not even a million yen could compensate her. She was using that same tactic on Mine as well. However, Mine could not simply cut ties and walk away like Nomura had. The next day, Mine requested a nearby transport company, had them pack up the sewing machine promptly, and directed it to be sent to Hiroko’s still-unoccupied house in the countryside so that it would be waiting when she returned. Hiroko simply rejoiced at this and suddenly showed vigor in preparing to return home. She tidied the closets, did laundry, mending, alterations—working diligently for Mine and the others as well. The bedding and floor cushions had been starched, leaving them crisp and pleasantly smooth. Several new dustcloths had been made. Not a single stained item remained. When that was done, she next headed out aiming for the closets in Chie’s house in Saitama.

“What a practical woman. Utterly practical. She thinks working oneself to the bone is humanity’s true calling. How heartbreaking.” “What an unfortunate woman—to have others relieved when she’s absent. It was like this at Nomura’s too. You understand?” “To work and not be appreciated… How wretched.”

Mine and the others discussed Hiroko’s absence forlornly.

The next day, when Mine visited Sadako, Sadako came out upon hearing her voice and said it was perfect timing. She informed Mine that Nomura’s marriage had finally been settled and that he had been consulting about whether to invite Mine and the others to the wedding celebration.

“What do you think?”

With deliberate consideration, Sadako asked; Mine smiled and, “No matter what—if we’re invited, I can’t very well not go.” “I don’t consider myself to be that petty, you know.” “Or would it be odd to attend? Wouldn’t it be even odder not to?” “That’s that, and this is this.” “That’s right.” Sadako had a relieved look on her face, “I’ll go ahead and tell him.” “Mr. Nomura will be pleased.” “But wait—if they’re going to send an invitation, I want it done through you.” “If it’s found out, well… you know how it’ll be.”

The matter was neatly settled.

That day, she decided to go out without telling Hiroko. Since she didn’t have to sew any hem patterns or family crests, it was simple. Despite having been so composed in that way, the moment she left Sadako’s house, Mine’s chest quivered. As Mine passed houses fragrant with daphne, crossed a small stream’s bridge, and came upon the rice field path, she let out a muffled sob and wept. Along a deserted farm path at approaching dusk, Mine walked with her head down, clutching her chest. It’s over, she repeated to herself. It’s all over now. What exactly was over? Even though she hadn’t particularly held any hope for Hiroko, tears welled up as if that last thread of hope had been severed. For Nomura’s sake, this should have been a joyous departure, and even for Hiroko, it should have brought greater clarity—so what were these tears for? Was she still pitying Hiroko after all?

When she passed through the rice fields, the path divided between the houses on this hill. Here too, the daphne hung in the air like an evening mist. Walking along the hedge, Mine held back her tears. And upon returning home, she went straight to Yūkichi’s room and knelt by the brazier with her heels raised.

“News.” “Mr. Nomura’s getting married.”

“Hmm.” “This time, it’s a love match, they say.” “Oh?”

When Yūkichi genuinely turned toward her, Mine inadvertently laughed. And then it struck her—that by that age, one could no longer easily fall in love, leaving no choice but to have others find someone for you. The snoring issue flashed through Mine’s mind. “It would be nice if things could work out this smoothly for the woman’s side too.” Compared to Nomura’s cheerful excitement, Mine couldn’t help sensing the inherent disadvantage of a woman’s position in Hiroko—who had sunk her depression deep into her very character. Just as Hiroko had bitterly complained back then—men could walk away unburdened after a separation, while women had to drag that weight with them forever. For women to reach that refreshed state of mind—like changing into clean clothes—they had to pass back and forth through countless tollgates of anguish. They would fret and fume, weep and rage, and even when they finally glimpsed a destination ahead, they could only shuffle toward it with bowed heads. They could never have imagined it would grow so heavy. Yet if one turned their gaze outward even once, real society’s movements flowed like a mighty river, swallowing dust and debris alike as it surged toward its destined course. Daily newspapers reporting this current’s path kept shaking Mine’s heart. The sight of workers awakening came rushing in. The momentum of Den-sangyo’s strikes, Zen-tei’s twenty-four-hour strike orders, private railway movements—growing vigorous as saplings—could be felt even by stationary Mine. What particularly gripped her was the Toho film studio dispute. The kinship of fellow culture-bearers made her feel living people’s breath warm against her cheeks. On Nomura’s wedding day, when the long-stagnant Tokyu and Odakyu private railways finally went on strike, one could imagine Nomura’s predicament—needing either line to reach Tokyo. Yet this was no ordinary confusion. There were those who took peculiar satisfaction in this turn of events, finding odd delight in a bride-and-groomless reception that strangely lightened their spirits.

“It won’t work.” “No good at all.”

Mine had exchanged such decisive words with Sadako, but Sadako too remained more interested in how they'd been outplayed. Around noon, a telegram arrived from Nomura stating his intent to cancel. To her surprise, Mine realized she actually felt relieved. She was grateful that this turn of events had erased the lingering shadow in her heart. Somehow feeling that the Nomuras would get along well after all, she felt deeply grateful for this natural course of things. Unaware of everything, Hiroko returned from Chie’s house and finished preparing to return home at any time. It was the end of April.

The Nineteenth May Day was about to be held under the firm unity of workers and cultural figures, heralding remarkable advances on the cultural front. The Toho labor dispute and others were undoubtedly among the issues being broadly advocated. Mine couldn't stay still either. She went out with Yūkichi and Sadako carrying boxed lunches. Though her complexion—not yet fully recovered—gave her a faint unease, seeing Haraguchi the critic arrive sprightly despite his own poor health made Mine's anxiety vanish completely. Like elementary students on an excursion, they all set out buzzing with excitement. The meeting place for Mine's literary group was in front of the Nichigeki Theater. There they would gather their ranks before proceeding to People's Plaza. When they arrived, four or five acquaintances had already clustered around small red flags and placards. Around the shuttered Nichigeki—apparently serving as a meeting point for others too—several small groups had formed here and there. The familiarity of it all must have come from their shared purpose. Everyone waited with shining eyes for those yet to arrive.

"Oh my!" came a woman's voice as she ran toward them, her face alight with laughter. Mine and Sadako both greeted her with matching exclamations of "Oh my!" It was Ogawa Reiko, the painter. Clad in a crude handmade Western-style dress and *geta*, Reiko had aged considerably—yet her smile and voice remained unchanged from their younger days. They exchanged smiles like comrades who could slip effortlessly back into their shared past. A decade earlier, she had worked with Sadako and Mine editing the magazine *Hataraku Fujin* ("Working Women"). Her role had been handling illustrations. Like Sadako and Mine, her husband too had been imprisoned under the Peace Preservation Law. Back then, Reiko would pass through prison gates pregnant with their second child while leading her four-year-old son by the hand. When her time neared, she cut an impressive figure—wearing an oversized specially tailored coat and walking with what some called frog-like dignity. Mine remembered how buttons had clustered like medals on the boy's sleeves and chest. Though they weren't proper button placements, whenever her son asked her to sew them there she obliged without question—parading him around Tokyo adorned this way. Had this mother who always needed to keep her child close used buttons as makeshift toys? Now wrinkles etched deep into Ogawa Reiko's face—that same unadorned countenance from her days as a young painter.

“Well, that boy must have grown up quite a bit, don’t you think?” When Mine asked, Reiko broke into a grin as if proud of it,

“Oh, he’s not just grown—he’s shot right past me! Like this, see?”

She jerked her face sideways and tilted it upward in a demonstrative pose, then mentioned he would enter university next year. While speaking, she kept restlessly scanning the area—likely seeking fellow painters who remained nowhere to be seen. When the time came, Mine’s group finally prepared to depart. “Let me join here,” Reiko said, clinging like a child as they began walking together. But spotting her painter colleagues along the way, she cried “Ah! There they are!” and dashed toward them, waving her hand while her geta clattered loudly against the pavement—a girl of eleven in spirit. Mine’s route turned from the Nichigeki Theatre toward the Mainichi Shimbun building, then through Mitsubishi Street toward Horibata. From both ends of narrow alleys between towering buildings, small groups advanced with red flags at their forefront, voices rising in song as they surged toward plazas. Crowds pressed in endless waves; faces layered against office windows like stacked panes. As they neared, every street in all directions became rivers of footsteps flowing seaward. Songs saturated sky and earth. Behind Mine’s group unfurled the Esperanto society’s vast green banner—stretching full width to engulf smaller clusters as it surged ahead. Caught in the momentum, they dissolved into countless masses gathered under open skies. Against a forest backdrop loomed diagonal white characters on red: “19th May Day.” Around this swarmed thousands of flags and placards amid jostling crowds standing or seated. To reach their cultural groups’ designated area required navigating human gaps—finding toeholds with each step while murmuring “Pardon” and “Excuse me” for every intrusion. None scowled at their passage.

The place they finally managed to squeeze into had uneven ground; clinging to a pine tree and bending their bodies, they had to make way for those passing through next. The clover at their feet had been trampled into something resembling blanched greens. They spread newspapers over it and waited for the time to come. Looking around—there they were, everywhere. There were women’s groups, journalists’ unions, film and theater workers, educators, painters, writers, and clusters of people wearing white-banded caps and square student hats. The faces of several couples still together, like Mine’s own situation, could be seen. The faces of several mother-child pairs still together, like Sadako’s situation, could also be seen. There was also a poet’s family with a small child. There were even groups where couples and parent-child pairs had split up to join separate organizations. When Yūkichi jabbed her shoulder and she turned around, Nomura stood behind her.

“That’s his wife.”

Yūkichi said. Mine was caught off guard and flustered, but immediately composed herself to bow. Yūkichi and Sadako’s group had already exchanged their greetings. Nomura’s wife inclined her head with a faint smile. She maintained this modest posture, conscious of their scrutiny. The petite woman wore a white wool sweater over black trousers. She appeared nearly the same age as Nomura. Mine suddenly recalled Hiroko’s figure in vivid detail. Hiroko! She had departed Tokyo on the last train the previous night. Having fulfilled his social obligation, Nomura blinked his characteristically restless eyes and turned toward Yūkichi.

“Our household—you see, today we’ve all come out here together.” When Mine was told and looked behind Nomura’s wife, she found Nomura’s eldest daughter crouching with her knees drawn up. Perhaps sensing she had been noticed, the girl smiled and gave a slight bow, but at the gloominess of that expression, Mine felt her heart suddenly gripped. What a sad-looking face that was. What a face that concealed its thoughts within. It was a melancholy face similar to the one that had newly formed on Hiroko—a face wrapped in unhappiness that couldn't be unleashed upon others, an unpleasant face that could not be removed unless resolved by oneself. Even if one were to search through this plaza filled with hundreds of thousands of people, this might be a face that could not be found elsewhere.

She was unhappy. That was what first struck Mine’s heart. Mine recalled the rumor about Nomura’s wife—how she had told a newspaper bill collector who came to the front door to go around to the back entrance with an air of authority, and how Nomura’s children had rebelled against this new mother’s attitude, leaving things unsettled—stories that, whether true or false, had reached her as though seeking to take root in her mind. At the time, Mine had found this unpleasant. What did any of it have to do with her? But now, with different feelings, she recalled it and sensed Nomura’s complicated maneuvering. From the eldest daughter’s complexion—bearing even deeper sorrow than when they had met at Nomura’s house during New Year’s—Mine felt his life still hadn’t found its proper course. How was Nomura navigating this? Amidst the great crowd gathered in this plaza—people forgetting their daily cares and chatting cheerfully—only Nomura’s wife and daughter remained silent. The wife wore an expression born of modesty; the daughter, one born of melancholy.

The neighboring group was a women’s organization. Everyone had red flowers pinned to their chests. Through Mine’s membership there, an artificial red dahlia came into her hands. Mine, wearing a kimono, held it in her hand but impulsively gave it to Nomura’s eldest daughter. Accepting it with a faint smile, she twirled the stem between her fingers before finally pinning it to her chest. She looked happy. Mine felt relieved. Then she tried to scrub away her earlier thoughts from her mind as though erasing them with vigorous rubs of an eraser. Nomura was doing something good after all, she thought. However complicated things might be, she believed Nomura’s focus lay in having brought his wife and daughter here together. Nomura’s resolve—to take his first steps here toward resolving the manifold sorrows of countless wives and daughters along that distant path—had dragged even the wife who made newspaper collectors use the back entrance all the way to this place. But Hiroko wasn’t here. Mine struggled to extinguish smoke that kept billowing out no matter how she tried to smother it. Hiroko’s misfortune—the homecoming visit made without her husband, the flaws of a woman’s lifetime exposed in mere two months—rose in her mind with the bitterness of biting into an unripe persimmon. How had Nomura shouldered half that responsibility? In bringing his new wife here, Hiroko’s suffering had been discarded and forgotten as mere formality. The fault didn’t lie with Nomura alone, much less connect to his new wife by even a rabbit-hair’s breadth. That Hiroko alone bore this harsh burden felt unbearably cruel. The persimmon’s astringency needed removing soon. The smoldering smoke must be set ablaze.

At that moment, the young man in front of Mine jerked his upper body upward as if leaping up, “Whoa!” he let out a strange cry. Then two or three men around him burst into laughter—wah-ha, wah-ha. When she peered in to see what was happening, the man was opening his bamboo-wrapped lunch with an awkward smile. The lunchbox bundle had been completely crushed. Surrounded by snickering people, the man peeled off the bamboo sheath as if resigned to his fate. A burst of laughter erupted all at once. Several rice balls had been flattened into a single cracker, the pickled plums inside forming a floral pattern. The man had apparently forgotten about his lunchbox and sat on it. He began tearing off pieces of the cracker and eating them without embarrassment. Then once again, everyone found it amusing. As Mine stifled a laugh along with them, a man in her group who had made eye contact with her—

“Even this… it’s a lunchbox my newlywed wife made, you know.” “This is proof he’s got his wife under his thumb, eh?” As she listened, Mine completely lost her composure, bent over, and burst out laughing. The humor showed no sign of subsiding. When she told Yūkichi about it, he too laughed foolishly. Amidst the people’s laughter, the man leisurely finished eating and, while looking at Mine’s face and laughing, said—

“You probably don’t know me, but I know you. The other day at our district’s reading club, your novel became quite a topic of discussion.”

he said slowly.

“Oh, is that so?” Mine was finally regaining her composure from the laughter. “Didn’t you bring your wife?”

Then he made a somewhat embarrassed face, "Well... you see, it's because of this."

With that, he demonstrated by enlarging his abdomen with one hand. A chorus could be heard. The voices were youthful. When she heard it, Sadako stood on tiptoe and looked toward the stage. Sadako’s son was supposed to be part of the chorus group. On the distant stage, about twenty men and women were singing, linking arms and swaying their bodies from side to side. The singing voices reached their ears through loudspeakers, but they couldn’t make out the singers’ faces. Thinking the tallest one must be her son, Sadako kept stretching up to look. Then, young women from Nippon Type involved in the labor dispute appeared with collection boxes. They wore red headbands and had energetic faces. When they moved through the crowd holding fund boxes shaped like dove nesting boxes against their chests, everyone had already opened their coin purses and waited. As they approached, hands reached out toward the boxes in competition. Amid this, labor union and political party representatives’ speeches flowed through loudspeakers one after another. Soon, the march began. Divided into several groups, the cultural contingent took the route toward Shiba Park. Without knowing which organization led or which union brought up the rear, they simply kept waiting their turn in line. For some misalignment reason, a construction union group had stationed themselves near Mine and the others. About twenty sunburned women were mingling there. There were also women with towels draped over their heads. They were women who sang work chants.

Women who likely had both children and husbands—these women who sang labor chants had come here. They stood alongside Sadako and Mine, who wrote novels. Mine watched intently with a certain emotion. There was also an older woman who appeared to be participating for the first time this year, her face not yet fully immersed in this atmosphere. There were women in their prime as well. Everyone, each in their own way, was trying to fill their chests with the air of this era.

When exiting the venue, the Pook people had set up a small stage by the roadside and were manipulating finger puppets. A little further on, the red Platalk chorus group were singing as they watched the procession pass by. In time with that, Mine and the others also sang. The roadside was a sea of people, and there were women waving from the windows of buildings. Through waving their hands, they were uniting their hearts as one. The procession began moving along the tram-lined street near the broadcasting station. Countless footsteps—within those footsteps, everyone was present. There were husbands, there were wives. There were men who had been husbands, and women who had been wives. There were many young people who would become husbands and wives. There were big women and small women. There were gentle women and harsh women. Gathered there were people of all entangled dispositions, combining various worries, various torments, various sorrows, and various joys. Moreover, they were keeping pace within a single current.

However, there was a woman who boarded a train alone, as if fleeing this great current. What must Hiroko have been feeling in that very moment? Even along the roadside, the singing must have been echoing. (August 1947; February–April and July 1949)