by Osamu Dazai
I am a child of the sea
In the pine grove on the beach
The whitecapped waves play
However, because this was our first glimpse of the sea in our lives, our singing of this song of children born on the shore was stilted. My child's heart felt embarrassed and uncomfortable.
I was zealous about my eccentric clothes for that trip. As instructed, I wore a straw hat with a wide brim, carried a plain wood cane cleanly branded several times at the temple and used by my older brother to climb Mount Fuji, received a pair of the lightest possible straw sandals from the teacher, was the only student wearing useless hakama trousers, and wore high-laced shoes with long socks. I started out playing the toady. Before we walked two miles, I was exhausted and first took off my hakama and shoes. One of the sandals was made from red cord and the other was straw. I had been given mismatched, worn out, miserable sandals. Soon I took off my hat and had someone else carry my cane. Finally, I was riding in the cart hired by the school for the sick. When I got home, not a speck of the brilliance I had when I set out remained. My shoes were dangling from one hand and I clutched the cane. When told about my condition, everyone laughed.
"Hey," a voice called. It was my oldest brother.
"Hey," we all called back. Aya ran to meet him. My brother appeared carrying an ice axe. Unfortunately, I drank every beer we had and was in bad shape.
My brother ate immediately, then we all walked toward the far side of the pond. We heard a loud rustling sound and a water bird took flight. The son-in-law and I looked at each other and for no reason nodded. Was it a goose or a duck? We asked with no confidence. At any rate, it was definitely wild waterfowl. We were struck by the energy of a ravine deep in a mountain. My brother walked in silence with his shoulders hunched. How many years had it been since I walked with my brother outside?
About ten years ago, my brother walked silently several steps ahead of me with his back hunched through a path in a field on the outskirts of Tokyo. I walked alone watching my brother from behind and sobbing; this may be the first time since then. I don't think he's forgiven me yet for that incident. It may be the worst event of my whole life. Nothing can be done about a cracked rice bowl. We can't go back. The people of Tsugaru, in particular, are a race that cannot forget a crack in the heart. After this, I thought I would not have another chance to walk outside with my brother again. I heard the sounds of water gradually getting louder.
At the edge of the pond was a famous local site called Kanoko Falls. Soon, the narrow falls just fifty feet high could be seen at our feet. We walked down a narrow path about a foot wide along the edge of Souemon-sawa. Immediately to our right, a mountain stood like a folding screen. To the left at our feet was a cliff. The basin of the waterfall at the bottom of the ravine coiled on itself producing a blue that made the basin look deeper.
"Oh, I'm feeling a bit dizzy," said my brother's wife half joking and walked timidly clinging to Yoko's hand.
Azaleas were in bloom on the mountainside to our right. My brother carrying the pickaxe on his shoulder went over to the azaleas blooming in their full glory and slackened his pace a little. Wisteria flowers were slowly beginning to open. The path gradually sloped downhill, and we followed it to the top of the waterfall. At the small mountain stream nearly six feet wide, tree stumps were placed near the center of the current. After gaining a foothold, it looks like the stream could be crossed in two quick steps. One by one, we jumped across. Only my sister-in-law was stranded.
"It's no good," she idly said and smiled but did not try to cross. She crouched and did not move one leg forward.
"Please carry her piggyback," my brother ordered Aya. Although Aya went to the other side, she only laughed and waved him away. This time, Aya displayed his superhuman strength. He came hugging a giant root and threw it at the top of the waterfall with a splash, and managed to build a bridge. My sister-in-law started to cross but her leg didn't move forward. She placed her hand on Aya's shoulder and finally crossed halfway. The rest of the way was shallow, and she jumped down into the river from the impromptu bridge and waded through the water. The hem of her monpe pants, her white tabi socks, and her sandals were soaking wet.
"I'm ready to return home from Takayama," said my sister-in-law and smiled like she recalled my pitiful appearance after returning home from my earlier excursion to Takayama. Both Yoko and her husband burst out laughing, and my brother turned around.
"Huh? What?" he asked. Everyone stopped laughing. My brother looked odd, I thought he was waiting for an explanation. My story was too stupid, and I lacked the courage to begin the history of the "Return from Takayama." My brother said no more and walked off. My oldest brother was always alone.
Chapter Five
* * *
The West Coast
As I've explained many times before, although I was born and raised in Tsugaru, until today, I knew next to nothing about the land of Tsugaru. Aside from "Going to Takayama" in second or third grade on the west coast on the Sea of Japan side of Tsugaru, I never went anywhere. Takayama is nothing more than a fairly large village with a population close to five thousand people. Takayama is reached by leaving Kanagi and going due west by rickshaw about eight and a half miles. The shrine to Oinari-san on a small mountain on the coast is soon reached and is said to be a famous site. I remember some events from my youth, but only the failure of that outfit remains strong in my heart. All of what follows is rambling and hazy. From early on, I included plans to take this opportunity to tour the west coast of Tsugaru.
The day after going to the pond at Kanoko River, I left Kanagi for Goshogawara. Around eleven in the morning, I changed to the Gono Line at Goshogawara station and in less than ten minutes arrived at Kizukuri Station, which is on the Tsugaru Plain. I thought a short tour around this town was in order. When I got off, I saw a quiet, old town. The population was no more than four thousand, smaller than Kanagi's, but the town had an old history. I dully listened to the clanging sounds flowing from the machinery in a rice polishing mill. Somewhere under the eaves, a pigeon sang. My father was born in this place.
The generations of my family in Kanagi were only the women; the son-in-laws usually married into the family. My father was the third son in an old family called M in this village and became the whatever-generation head of the family having married into the family. Because my father died when I was fourteen, I can't say I knew my father as a human. I'll borrow a passage from my work Memories.
My father was a very busy man and rarely home. Even when home, he wasn't with the children. I feared my father. I wanted my father's fountain pen but never said so. I agonized alone over various matters. One night, I was talking in my sleep in bed with my eyes shut. I softly called, "Fountain pen. Fountain pen," to my father in conversation with a guest in the adjoining room. Naturally, it didn't seem to enter my father's ears or heart.
When my younger brother and I went inside the huge rice granary packed with bags of rice and played, my father stood in a wide stance at the entrance and shouted, "Get out of here. You brats." The huge shadow of my father with the light behind him looked black. Even now I think about my terror at that time and feel horrible… The following spring, while the snow was still piled high, my father coughed up blood and died in a hospital in Tokyo.
A local newspaper reported on my father's death in a special edition. Since his death, I was agitated by the sensation of it all. My name appeared in the newspaper mixed in with the names of the bereaved family. My father's corpse was laid in a large coffin, placed on a sleigh, and returned home. I went with many townspeople to a nearby village. I gazed at the hoods of some number of sleighs slipping out from the shadow of the forest under the moonlight and was transfixed. The next day, the people in my house gathered in the altar room where my father's coffin lay. When they removed the lid from the coffin, everyone's weeping voices rose. My father seemed to be sleeping. The high bridge of his nose was pale. Hearing everyone crying made my tears flow.
This may be about the only matter I can remember about my father. After he died, I felt the same admiration I had for my father toward my oldest brother. For that reason, I had peace of mind and relied on him and never once felt lonely for not having a father. However, as I got older, I disrespectfully speculated about my father's personality. My father also appeared in my dreams during my naps in the thatched hut in Tokyo. He actually had not died and was hiding for some political reason. He was a little older and more tired than the father I remember. While I longed for his presence, talking about dreams is inconsequential. At any rate, my interest in my father intensified recently.
All of my father's brothers had weak lungs. My father did not have tuberculosis but died after vomiting blood caused by some kind of obstruction in his respiratory tract. He died at fifty-three years old. With my child's mind, I believed someone was senile at that age and had a peaceful death. Now, I've come to consider death at fifty-three as being far from a peaceful death in one's declining years but a horrible death at a young age. If my father had lived a little longer, I had the conceit that he may have accomplished great work on behalf of Tsugaru. I wanted to see the house where my father was born and the town where he grew up.
The town of Kizukuri was only one road with houses standing on both sides. Fine paddy fields were cultivated behind the houses. Poplar trees stood scattered around the paddy fields. This is the first time I saw poplar trees on this trip to Tsugaru. Although I have seen them many times, no vivid memories remain of the poplars of Kizukuri. The light green, young leaves of the poplar swayed in a light breeze. Tsugaru Fuji seen from here is not very different than the view from Kanagi and has a fragile, graceful form. The legend goes that rice and beautiful women are produced in locations where this beautiful mountain profile can be seen. Rice is certainly abundant in this region. On the other hand, I wonder about the beautiful women. Like Kanagi, this place is also a little desolate. Concerning this point, I suspect that legend may be the reverse. In lands where the beauty of Mount Iwaki is visible, no, I will say no more. This sort of talk is liable to cause problems, so it may not be reasonable for a traveler passing through to make hasty conclusions.
The weather was excellent on that day, too. A misty smoke hovered like a fine spring haze over the straight concrete road leading from the railway station. I was affected by the spring heat and walked with my brain in a fog. I mispronounced the kanji characters on the bulletin board at the Kizukuri Police Station as the Mokuzou Police Station, a police station made of wood. Of course, I was convinced the building was made of wood mokuzou and anxiously gave a wry smile.
Kizukuri was a town of komohi sheltered sidewalks. Long ago, komohi protected against the afternoon sun rays in Ginza. A tent to block the sun was stretched in front of every shop. The reader could walk under the tents to cool his face and think of it as a long, unplanned corridor. That long corridor was not constructed from tents but from the eaves of each house extended about six feet out and well built to last. There's no doubt the komohi are from the north country. They were not built to ward off the sun's rays. They aren't stylish. The eaves built close to each other make contacting neighbors easier when snow accumulates in the winter, and long corridors are created. And during blizzards, you can go out and shop with ease without fear of being exposed to the snowstorm. The most useful aspect is the absence of the danger found when children use Tokyo's sidewalks as a playground. On rainy days, this long corridor is a godsend to pedestrians. And for a traveler like me who's beaten by the spring heat will fly inside to cool off and be glared at by the annoyed people sitting in the shops. These corridors are appreciated. Although it is generally believed that komohi is the local word for komise (small shop), I think it fits the kanji for konose (hidden shallows) or komohi (hidden sun), but is not easily understood. I pondered this to amuse myself. While strolling down the komohi I came to M's Pharmaceutical Wholesale.
I didn't stop but passed by, as I walked straight down the komohi, I wondered what to do. This town's komohi is rather long. Although there are structures called komohi in the old towns of Tsugaru, few towns are like Kizukuri that depends on komohi that run through the entire town. Finally, I decided Kizukuri was the town of komohi. I walked a little while longer, and the komohi ran out at last. I did an about-face, sighed, and went back.
I never visited M's house before, not once, or Kizukuri. Perhaps, someone brought me here to play when I was young, but I have no memories now. M, the head of the house, is an energetic man, four or five years older than me and a friend who visited Kanagi now and then for many years. Even if I visited him now, he would not look displeased, but my visit would be without warning. If I called on M for no particular reason as I groveled and smiled, he may out of surprise say something like, "This guy went broke in Tokyo and has come here to borrow money." One time before I die, I want to see the house where my father was born and felt terribly smug.
A man old enough to know better shouldn't talk like that. While walking, I agonized over whether I should go home. Again I found myself in front of M's Pharmaceutical Wholesale. I may not have a second chance. Being disgraced doesn't bother me. I'm going in. I immediately prepared to enter.
"Excuse me," I called into the shop.
M came out. "Ah, hey. Well, well," he stuttered with excitement and invited me to come into the sitting room without speaking and forced me to sit in front of the alcove.
"Hey, bring sake," he called to others in the house. In a few minutes, the sake arrived. In fact, it came quickly.
"It's been a long time. So long," said M as he gulped down his drink, "How long has it been since you've been in Kizukuri?"
"Let me see. I came when we were kids, so about thirty years."
"Yes, it's been that long. Well, please drink. You've come to Kizukuri, so make yourself at home. It's great you came. It's truly wonderful you're here."
The floor plan of the house was fairly close to that of our house in Kanagi. I heard that the current house in Kanagi underwent major renovations using a design by my father when he arrived in Kanagi as the son-in-law who married into his bride's family and took their name, but the changes didn't matter. My father simply went to Kanagi and reproduced the identical floor plan of his birth home in Kizukuri. I thought about the mental state of my father as the son-in-law and smiled. This led me to ponder the similarities in the arrangement of plants and rocks in the garden. By discovering this minor fact, I felt like I touched the human of my late father. I thought this was the reason I came to M's house. M was determined to entertain me.
"No thank you, I've had enough. I have to catch the one o'clock train to Fukaura."
"To Fukaura? What will you do there?"
"Nothing special. I just want to see it one time."
"Are you writing?"
"Yes, I'm doing that too."
I couldn't say something to him that would spoil the fun like "I don't know when I'm going to die."
"So you'll write about Kizukuri. If you're writing about Kizukuri…," said M candidly, "First of all, you should write about the quantity of rice delivered. By comparing the jurisdictions of the police stations, the jurisdiction of the Kizukuri Police Station is first in the nation. Why? It is Japan's best. I believe it does no harm to say it is a monument to our hard work. When the water dried up in a band of fields in this area, I went to the neighboring villages for water and was very successful. I transformed into a huge tiger and was called the Water Tiger God. We're also landowners and have no time to fool around. Despite my bad back, I weed the fields. This time, I'll supply you and your people in Tokyo with a lot of good rice."
He was utterly dependable. Since we were small, M had a generous spirit. His big, round eyes, like a child's, were filled with charm. All the people in this area seemed to love and respect him. I prayed in my heart for M's happiness. Being delayed made me break into a sweat, but I left and was able to make the one o'clock train to Fukaura.
About thirty minut
es after leaving Kizukuri on the Gono Line, the train passed Narusawa and Ajigasawa. Tsugaru Plain comes to an end in this area. Then the train ran along the coast of the Sea of Japan. I gazed through the window on my right at the sea and was soon admiring the mountains at the northern end of the Dewa hills as they evolved in about an hour into the scenic beauty of Odose. The rocks in this area are all sharp, jagged rocks of volcanic ash. This bedrock had been eroded flat by the sea and spotted with green. It erupted from the sea like a monster at the end of the Edo period and became a parlor large enough to hold a banquet for hundreds of people on the beach. This place was dubbed Senjojiki (a thousand tatami mats). Places here and there in this bedrock had sunken into curved shapes. When flooded with seawater, they resembled large cups filled to the brim with sake. This place should be called the Swamp of Cups, but the many large holes with diameters from one to two feet resembling cups led to the name of the Big Boozer.
If bizarre rock formations were chiseled on the seashore in this area and those tentacles continuously washed by angry waves, it's probably written about in guidebooks about famous places. Lacking an air of eeriness like the seashore in the northern end of Sotogahama, it becomes an ordinary landscape to the rest of the country. The atmosphere is not particularly hard to understand by people from other provinces who say it's the rigidity peculiar to Tsugaru. In short, Tsugaru is opening up to the world but is underrated in the eyes of people accustomed to it. In A Brief History of Aomori Prefecture, Takeuchi Umpei wrote that a long time ago, the region south of this area was not a part of Tsugaru but of Akita. In year 8 of Keicho (1603), after consulting with the neighboring Satake clan, this land was incorporated into the Tsugaru domain. This is only the irresponsible intuition of a vagabond like me, but somehow this area does not feel like Tsugaru. The unfortunate fate of Tsugaru is missing. The essential badness particular to Tsugaru is not in this area. I knew only by looking at the mountain streams. All of them were wise, culturally speaking. A stupid arrogance is missing.
