I never actually met the madman who composed these journals. I do, however, have a passing acquaintance with the woman described as “the Madam of the Kyōbashi bar.” She is a small woman with a sallow complexion. She has narrow, pinched eyes, a prominent nose, and a general steeliness about her associated less with a “beautiful woman” than, perhaps, with a “handsome youth.” The Tokyo described in the journals appears to be mainly that of 1930 to 1932, but since my friend didn’t take me to the Kyōbashi bar for highballs until around the time “militarists” started parading about openly—1935 or so—I never had the opportunity to meet the author who wrote these pages.
It was this past February when I went to pay a visit on an acquaintance who had evacuated Tokyo for the city of Funabashi, just to the east in Chiba Prefecture. He was a friend from my university days and now holds a post lecturing at a women’s college. The purpose of my visit was to ask his assistance with arrangements surrounding the marriage of one of my relatives. As Funabashi was near the shore, I thought I might as well get some fresh seafood while I was there and treat my family to a feast. Thus, backpack slung across my shoulders, I set out.
Funabashi is a fairly large city overlooking the muddy sea. My friend’s house was in a newer part of the city, and, though I showed the locals his address and asked directions, nobody seemed to know quite where it was. Not only was I getting cold, the straps of my backpack were digging into my shoulders, and so, drawn by the sound of classical music, I opened the door to a coffee shop.
The woman running the shop looked familiar and, inquiring, I discovered she was none other than the Madam of that tiny Kyōbashi bar of some ten years ago. She apparently recognized me too and we greeted one another, laughing with exaggerated surprise. Dispensing with the all-too-familiar stories of air raids burning us out of house and home, we seemed to grow almost boastful as we talked.
“Look at you! You haven’t changed at all!”
“Nonsense. I’m an old lady with aching bones now. You’re as young as ever, though!”
“I wish I were. I’ve got three kids now. They’re the reason I’m out here today—foraging for food.”
We continued in this vein for a little while, exchanging the sort of pleasantries you’d expect to hear from two companions meeting after a long absence. We were speaking of mutual acquaintances and what had become of them when she suddenly grew serious and asked me if I knew Yō-chan. When I told her I didn’t she went into the back and returned with three notebooks and three photographs.
“They might give you ideas for a novel,” she said, handing them to me.
Normally I find it impossible to write about material that someone else has foisted on me, and I was about to hand the journals back when the photos caught my eye (I describe these very peculiar photos in the preface), so I took the journals and told her I would stop by again on my way home. I asked if she knew the lecturer at the woman’s college at such and such an address and it turned out that she did, being a newly established resident herself. He lived just down the street and even stopped by the coffee shop from time to time.
That night my friend and I shared what little liquor he had on hand, and he invited me to spend the night. I stayed up the whole time, absorbed in the journals.
Though they describe events of some time ago, I was certain they would be of great interest to readers even today. Rather than make a botch of things by trying to rewrite them myself I thought it better by far to find a magazine willing to publish them as they were.
The only gifts I’d been able to find for my children were dried seafood so, settling my pack on my shoulders, I left my friend’s house and stopped in at the coffee shop again.
“It was nice seeing you again yesterday. By the way, may I hold on to these notebooks a little while longer?” I said, getting straight to the point.
“Of course. Please do.”
“Is he still alive? The man who wrote them?”
“Well now, I’m afraid I have no idea. The journals and photos were sent to my old place in Kyōbashi about ten years ago. It must have been Yō-chan who sent them but there was no return address, not even a name. It’s a wonder they weren’t lost along with everything else in the air raids. It was only the other day that I read them all the way through.”
“Did you cry?”
“Cry? No, I didn’t cry. Only . . . well, it’s just no good. There’s nothing you can do when someone gets like that.”
“If that was ten years ago, I suppose he might’ve died by now. He must’ve sent them by way of thanking you. No doubt he exaggerated a bit here and there but it sounds like you went through a lot as well. If it’s all true and I were his friend, I suppose I would’ve been tempted to take him to an asylum too.”
“It’s all his father’s fault,” she said absently. “The Yō-chan I knew was kind and so gentle. If only he didn’t drink—no, even when he did drink . . . He was such a good boy. An angel.”