900 words, 4 minute read.
Takano Tsugi (1890-1943) was a novelist from Shizuoka, who developed an interest in women’s literary circles during her early teens. After dropping out of Shizuoko Women’s High School (which acted like a university) due to sight problems, at 19 she went against her family’s wishes by marrying journalist Takano Yatarou and, in following his work, lived in Nagoya, Toyohashi, Numazu, Fukushima, Tokyo, and elsewhere. She was part of the Bluestocking society, and was mentored by naturalist, romantic novelist Shimazaki Touson. Six of her eight children died during a period of impoverishment when her husband was unemployed. Despite suffering from tuberculosis, she wrote continuously until her death aged 52.
The essay I’ve translated was first published by Yajiyama in 1979, in Vol. 2 of a collection of Takano’s works, and by Sakuhinsha five years later, in Vol. 18 of Japan’s Essential Essays. It’s on Aozora here.
In summer in Hamamatsu, where the southern winds blow in, the sea breeze reaches everywhere, even at high noon. But because at night hot air comes in off the sea, there are times when it’s warm and humid, too.
On those nights, we’d spread out thin mats for our beds, and sometimes imitate the grownups by casting damp hand-towels around our shoulders for a while before nodding off. But that would happen around August. When September would be ending, the sky would turn a clear, dewy gray at dawn and sunset. Crisp autumn winds would start up during the daytimes, and my household, like others, would begin airing things out to keep them from rotting or attracting bugs.
On a day when all our clothes were put out to air, I bent at the waist and walked beneath where they were hung up on a line of string. As I brushed against them, the twin aromas of camphor and wrapping paper struck my nose, like the mustiness of things which have been stored for a long time, yet are still loved. As my mother cautioned me not to touch the clothes too much, she pointed, and began to tell me what she recalled about them.
I saw my grandfather’s old, gold-leafed samurai outfit, and my grandmother’s clothes and obis, embroidered in patterns. I saw the short leather jacket my father wore when he was young, and the momentous clothes my mother wore at their wedding. And I saw everything else there, such as yellow, Hachijo cloth, and fine, creamy silk; and my mother taught me about old kimonos made from thin, tozan cotton, as well as other kimonos and obis and whatnot.
There were also kids’ Seven-Five-Three celebratory attire strung up to air. Among that was a wide-sleeved kimono, with cord embellishments on its back. When I heard that was what I’d worn the day of my ‘San’ shrine visit, I thought about how far away the time was when I was a toddler, which I couldn’t myself remember. It felt uncanny.
Among the hanging belts was one with its emerald band embroidered with gold, silver, and vermillion thread, exactly like a miniatured sumo wrestler belt.
“That, there? When your biggest big brother was little, he used to go to grass sumo, so that imitation belt was made. Look closely, his name is embroidered on it.”
“Ah, it is too.” Running my fingers over the tufts of twisted, metallic thread, I found the characters for ‘Shintarou’ standing out among embroidered koi fish swimming in a waterfall.
My mother seemed to have memory after memory coming back to her, but I stopped listening for the most part and went off to keep playing outside.
On another day, my father’s miscellany, collected from all over for however many years, was also out airing. That day, I came to see what was there. There was a sword, hanging scrolls, old documents including books, and many other things as well. The way they were all laid out, the place looked like an antique furniture store.
A glass container was inlaid in the compartment top of a three-legged, black lacquered table. My father called it a ‘glass goldfish bowl.’
I had a go touching the sword for a bit, and riffled through the library. In it, I found my grandfather’s collection of his haiku poems, and items like travel journals and calligraphy practice books.
My father let me look over what he treasured above all else: a small tea caddy made of carved, red lacquerware. I thought it’d have made a great container to store my tiddliwinks.
When he saw me peering around here, there, and everywhere, my father pointed out one corner and said, “If you’re after pictures, here’re some funny woodblock prints. Look at these.”
Each time I picked up bulky, rolled-up, color woodblock prints, which were stuck fast together with glue, my father would come and gently prise them apart, always stopping just when he’d freed pages to the very edge of their margins.
Those picture scrolls were full of long faces, big eyes, heads wrapped in cloth bandannas, snake eye umbrellas, weeping willows, black lacquered sandals, and more. It was like every color print was competing to be the most lustrous. The images were so dazzling they looked like they were glowing.
The time came when I messed up on one of those rare airing-out days. I knocked something over by accident—the red pitcher for cool water in the tea set my father loved. Its handle was broken beyond repair. At the time, my heart was pounding so hard that I didn’t even say sorry right away.
But all he said was, “What’s done is done. Be more careful from now on.” His kindness in that moment was something so profound that it struck me as significant, despite my immaturity.
Translations from Japanese 