Places by Setouchi Jakuchō

Author:Setouchi Jakuchō
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

8

Tōnosawa

SOMETHING HAPPENED WHILE I WAS LIVING in the detached room at the Shimoda house in Mitaka Shimorenjaku. Every so often Oda Jinjirō and I would get together for drinks at a cheap bar on the outskirts of the city. Those occasions were hardly as glamorous as secret dates—they were just times we shared together. The reason I didn’t refuse the invitations is that they made me feel peaceful and at ease.

“I suppose I will just go on writing children’s stories and teenage fiction,” I sighed.

“Is that because you have no talent?” he asked sharply.

“It’s just that it’s so painful, writing a real novel …” I replied slowly.

So earnest was my word “painful” that our eyes met, sake cups still in hand, and he fixed me with a sad gaze that did not seem at all drunk.

“That’s too pitiful, really …” he said gravely.

And from those scraps of conversation I began to think that I was loved.

Though he would unexpectedly show up at my rented lodgings, there was no particular conversation I could point to—indeed, I came to feel serene and satisfied with countless wordless conversations during the time I spent with this most taciturn of men. And then one day, while helping himself to a drink, and staring at his sake cup, he said in a low voice, almost as if talking to himself, “Let’s go on a trip.”

And right away I answered, “Yes, let’s!”

I wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before.

Right then and there we decided when we would go. He fixed a time to meet at Shinagawa station. That station was on his way to Tokyo from his home in Shōnan. His usual route when he came to see me was to ride the Yamanote line to Shinjuku, where he would change to the Chūō line for Mitaka. So, we would meet at Shinagawa station. We hadn’t decided where we would go from there.

On the appointed day, just as I was about to leave, a policeman from the Mitaka substation dropped in. He used to come by occasionally to rehash the local gossip at Shimoda Shun’s store. For some unfathomable reason, he had decided to come to the verandah outside my room on this day, where, drinking the tea he had asked Shun to bring, he proceeded to ask how things were going for me. It should have been obvious that I was getting ready to go out, but he just sat there asking nosy questions about the publishers I was using and the sorts of things I was writing. Annoyed, I brought out three or four issues of the children’s magazines I had contributed to.

“If this is some kind of survey you’re doing, would you mind if we did it some other time, please? I’m going to be late.”

Maybe he took offense at my impatient tone. In any case, he dug in his heels and continued to ask about all kinds of unrelated things.

“You’re really a strong drinker, I hear,” he said with a strange grin.

“That’s not true,” I answered.

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