I will borrow a little of the edge of precious paper of a journal called Tōhoku Literature. Why borrow a page from the journal Tohoku Literature? I will give my reasons below.

As you know, this journal Tōhoku Literature is published by Kahoku Shinpō-sha located in Sendai. Of course, it appears in shop fronts throughout Kantō, Kansai, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. However, we can guess that most of the primary readers of this journal are, naturally, in the Tōhoku region and most of them around Sendai.

I wish to say, as a last resort, I am borrowing a corner of this literary journal Tōhoku Literature.

The truth is there's someone I wish to meet. I don't know that person's name or address, but I'm sure that person lives in Sendai city or nearby; and that person is a woman.

I believe she is resolved to publish this humble note by me in a corner of Tōhoku Literature published in Sendai and lives in Sendai or nearby. Perhaps, this note of mine has touched the eyes of this woman. Or she has not seen this note but an acquaintance read it and told her about it. That's a one in a million lucky break … No, no, that's unlikely. Things like that never happen … Oh, I fully understand the impossibility. However, this far-fetched situation is my hope. I feel I can't live without writing.

"Young lady, you saved me that time. The man begging for food back then was me."

Before his words reached the woman's ears, a situation arose similar to when you board an airplane to memorialize a valiant warrior by tossing a bouquet of flowers from high in the sky above the battlefield where the brave warrior rests, but it does not drop where the warrior lays but ends up falling into an eagle's nest in the forest in the wrong direction, mischievously surprising a baby chick, or floating between waves on an empty ocean. In the end, this is not the problem of hearing or not hearing, or reaching or not reaching. If the person who tossed out those words or the flower bouquet is satisfied, it becomes nothing more than the ultimate, self-centered scheme that concludes that went well. Of course, I wanted to say that.

"Young lady, you saved me that time. The man begging for food back then was me."

At the end of July 1945, my family of four boarded a train from Ueno. From there, we suffered in Tokyo, fled to Kōfu for refuge, and were roasted again in Kōfu. The war continued. I think if we were to die, it would be best to die back home and not cause any trouble. I, my wife, five-year-old daughter, and two-year-old son would leave Kōfu. Within the day, I intended to board the express train from Ueno to Aomori, but the air raid sirens blared. The several thousand travelers filling Ueno Station were frenzied. Together with our children, we faced disaster and didn't board the express train. We ended up lying on the ground near the ticket gate at Ueno Station.

I would like to borrow a bit of the edge of a precious page from a journal called Tōhoku Literature. Why borrow a page from the journal Tōhoku Literature? I will give my reason below.

As you know, this journal Tōhoku Literature is published by Kahoku Shinpō-sha in Sendai. Of course, it appears in shop fronts throughout Kantō, Kansai, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. However, we can guess that most of the primary readers of this journal would be in the Tōhoku region, and the majority of them around Sendai.

I wish to say, as a last resort, I am borrowing a corner of this literary journal Tōhoku Literature.

The truth is there's someone I wish to meet. I don't know that person's name or address, but I'm sure that person lives in Sendai city or nearby. That person is a woman.

I believe she is determined to publish this humble note of mine in a corner of Tōhoku Literature published in Sendai and lives in Sendai or nearby. Perhaps, my note has touched the eyes of this woman. Or she has not seen this note but an acquaintance read it and told her about it. That's a one in a million lucky break … No, no, that's unlikely. Things like that never happen … Oh, I fully understand the impossibility. However, this far-fetched scenario is my hope. I feel I can't live without writing.

"Young lady, you saved me that time. The man begging for food back then was me."

Before those words reached the woman's ears, a situation arose similar to when you board an airplane to memorialize a valiant warrior by tossing a bouquet of flowers from high in the sky above the battlefield where the brave warrior rests, but it does not drop where that warrior lays but ends up falling into an eagles' nest in the forest in the wrong direction, mischievously startling a baby chick; or floating between waves on an empty ocean. In the end, this is not the problem of hearing or not hearing, or reaching or not reaching. If the person who tossed out those words or the flower bouquet is satisfied, it becomes nothing more than the ultimate, self-centered scheme that concludes all went well. Of course, I wanted to say that.

"Young lady, you saved me that time. The man begging for food back then was me."

At the end of July 1945, our family of four boarded a train from Ueno. We had suffered in Tokyo. From there, we fled to Kōfu for refuge and were roasted again in Kōfu. The war continued. I think if we were to die, it would be best to die back home and not trouble others. I left for Kōfu with my wife, five-year-old daughter, and two-year-old son. Within the day, I intended to board the express train from Ueno to Aomori, but the air raid sirens sounded. The several thousand travelers who filled Ueno Station were frenzied. With our children, we faced disaster and didn't board the express train. We ended up lying down on the ground near the ticket gate at Ueno Station.

That evening was an amazing moonlit night. Very late that night, I went out alone to look around. The area was mostly burned out. I climbed the stone steps at Ueno Park and looked toward Asakusa from the bronze statue at Nanshū Shrine. I recalled seeing a swarm of aquatic plants at the bottom of the lake water. If I believed that was my last look at Tokyo, and it's been fifteen years since I entered school in Hongō, this is my last look at the town called Tokyo that nurtured me for a long time, I could not have peaceful feelings. The next morning, it didn't matter where the earliest train leaving Ueno Station was headed. If a train went north even for just ten or twelve miles, we would be on it. We boarded the first train leaving Ueno Station, headed to Shirakawa at 5:10 at dawn.

Soon, we arrived at Shirakawa. We got off and next found and boarded a train going north for just ten or twelve miles from Shirakawa. At one-thirty in the afternoon, the train to Kogota entered at Shirakawa Station. The two parents and two children entered from a window of the train. Unlike the previous train, this train was packed. In the horrible heat, my two-year-old boy held to my wife's bare breast wailed.

This younger brother had been weak and small from birth because of his mother's malnutrition. His growth after than was unsatisfactory because of the lack of mother's milk. I feel he simply lives and moves. The older five-year-old girl is relatively strong but contracted conjunctivitis a little before the disaster in Kofu. At the time of the air raid sirens, she could not see a thing. I carried her on my back and ran around trying to escape beneath a shower of flames. I searched for a hospital that survived the fires to get treatment and was out of sorts for three weeks in Kofu. Finally, she opened her eyes. This was the reason we took this child out of Kofu.

When night fell, her eyes shut. Morning came, but she didn't open them. I washed her eyes with the boric acid the doctor gave us and applied the eye medication. She didn't open her eyes after a short time passed. When we boarded the train at Ueno Station that morning, the child's eyes never opened. If I tried to force them open with my fingers, blood poured out.

In other words, our party was certainly a family of beggars: the father wore a faded dark navy cotton pants with a dirty shirt, a sloppily wrapped gaiter around it, tabi work socks, tousled hair with no hat; a mother with unkempt hair and a face spotted with soot, wearing poor quality monpe work pants, and a bare chest; a girl with an eye disease; and a boy, thin and bawling.

The little boy cried constantly. Although my wife pushed her nipple into his mouth, he knew not even a little milk would come out and turned his face away, leaned back, and howled. A woman with children standing nearby couldn't bear to watch.

She asked my wife, "No milk?"

"Here, give him to me. I still have milk."

My wife handed the crying baby to the lady. It looked like plenty of milk came from her breast. The baby stopped crying right away.

"My, my, what an easy baby. The way he suckles is refined."

"No, he's just weak," said my wife. A slight smile appeared on the woman's sad-looking face.

"My children suckle like little brutes. They suck so strongly it almost hurts. Maybe this baby is holding back."

The weak child sucking on the breast of a woman not his mother fell asleep.

The train arrived at Kōriyama Station that looked like it had been bombed and smelled of gunpowder. Dense clouds of yellow sandy dust rose from the destroyed station buildings.

By the time the Tōhoku region was bombed in air raids, Sendai had already been mostly burned down. On the night we slept on the concrete of Ueno Station, the train went north like a firebomb attack was leveled on Aomori city. We hear rumors of what happened here and there. Particularly in the Aomori region, some people seriously repeated exaggerations such as the entire transportation network in Aomori Prefecture had stopped, like some horrible injury. Sometimes, I got depressed thinking about whether we could make our way to my hometown at the edge of Tsugaru.

Around the time we passed Fukushima, the passenger car emptied slightly. Finally, we could sit down. I breathed a sigh of relief but then began to worry about food. We brought rice balls prepared about three days old. Because of the horrid summer heat, while eating, I put rice grains that pulled starchy strings like nattō in my mouth, chewed the mushiness but couldn't swallow. We carried powdered milk for the younger boy, but with no hot water, the milk was useless. I got off the train at a station somewhere and explained our situation to the station master. He gave me hot water to prepare the milk. On the train, I gave out a little soft steamed bread. However, that steamed bread came with a damp crust, so all of it had to be thrown out. After that, our only food was boiled beans. The little rice we carried might have been useful as the meal in an inn when we got off somewhere along the way. We faced the situation and were hard pressed for food from that day on.

The father and mother endured nibbling on boiled beans and drinking water for a day or two to the point where the five-year-old girl and two-year-old son could no longer look at them. The younger boy was dozing off thanks to the milk he drank earlier. The eldest girl was sick of boiled beans and glared at strangers eating bento and little by little became miserable.

Ah, if people have nothing to eat, they can't live. In some way, that is indecent.

"Hey, the war has gotten worse. If we can't live unless we fight over one rice ball, I've already given up on life. I intend to relinquish the right to join the struggle over rice balls. It's pitiful, but at that time, you were also ready to die with the children. Right now, at least that pride is my strength," I declared to my wife and could think "that time" had become now.

While lazily gazing at the view outside the window, no particularly good wisdom rose in my thoughts. At some small station, a woman lowered a basket brimming with peaches and tomatoes and boarded the train.

The woman was instantly surrounded by riders and whispers.

"No, stop it," said the woman, who seemed forceful. She rejected them in a shrill voice.

"These aren't for sale. Please let me through. Can't I walk?"

The wave of humanity parted. She came straight to where I was and sat.

This time, I felt a little strange. I was under the illusion that because I was some sort of sex maniac who was extremely well-versed in the psychology of women. A man dressed like a beggar in raggedy clothes was not a sex maniac traveling with two children, but there's a bit of psychological bargaining in me. While the other passengers set their sights on the fruit basket and gathered around creating a commotion, I acted totally uninterested and vacantly looked at the scenery outside the window.

My innermost thoughts certainly had more interest than anyone else in the contents of the basket. However, I restrained myself and did not glance in her direction. I believed I probably succeeded and, considering myself to be a man with a genius for womanizing, felt I was being underhanded.

Sounding agitated, the woman asked my wife, who was sitting in front of her, "Where are you going?"

"The other side of Aomori," bluntly answered my wife.

"Oh my, that's dreadful. Wasn't there a disaster there?"

"Yes."

My wife is a tight-lipped woman.

"Where?"

"Kōfu."

"Traveling with children makes it more trying. Can I give you something?"

She promptly placed just ten peaches and tomatoes in my wife's lap.

"Please hide them. These pests will bother you."

As expected, a man suddenly approached, gripping and flaunting a high-value paper bill in one hand. He quietly said, "Please sell me some. Any number is fine."

"Get lost."

The woman frowned.

"They're not for sale," she yelled to drive him away.

Then, my wife did an awful thing. She tried to force the money into the woman's hands.

"Here!"

"No!"

"No!"

"Okay!"

"Why!"

Like fireworks, the words exploded from the two women in brief shouts not quite forming words. Meanwhile, at speeds unbelievable to the eyes, the money shot back and forth.

"Humanity!"

That word definitely came from the woman's mouth.

"You're being rude," I said quietly, chiding my wife.

I'm writing too much about this, but after my wife offered her the money, the fireworks started. I interceded. My wife reluctantly withdrew the money probably five seconds later. Like electric light, it all happened in an instant.

According to my observations, the woman said, "These aren't for sale," but she only meant she didn't want to sell them on the train and was no different from a merchant. I don't know whether she'd allow us to take them home and sell them to anyone or a particular person, but they seem to be no different than items for sale. However, after saying the laudable word of humanity, we no longer had a reason to treat the woman as a merchant.

Humanity.

Of course, the woman's spirit was not unexpectedly grateful or happy, but in the depths of my heart, I felt a bit at a loss.

Humanity.

I was at a loss of words to express my gratitude. After some thought, the most important thing I was holding was what I gave to this woman. I still had twenty cigarettes. I gave ten of them to the woman.

The woman spurned them as forcefully as she did the money. I was relieved. The woman got off the train at a small station a little before Sendai. After she left, I smiled wryly at my wife. "I was surprised by humanity."

I spoke quietly as if making fun of our benefactor. Was it the bitterness or the vanity of a beggar? My psychology resembled whispered criticisms of the taste of canned squid from America. I'm truly sorry, I'm incorrigible.

We had a plan. We would go as far as Kogota, the last stop, by train. We heard the rumor that we'd be ordered to get off the train long before Aomori city on the Tōhoku main line and thought the crowds on the main line would be huge. I had no confidence our family of four could cut through that crowd, changed direction, and escaped toward the Sea of Japan from Kogota. In other words, at Kogota, we would transfer to the Rikū Line, leave for Shinjō in Yamagata Prefecture, transfer to the Ōu Line, go north, travel past Akita, get off at the Higashinoshiro Station, and transfer to the Gono Line. That is to say, we would go in through the back door of Aomori Prefecture and get off at Goshogawara Station.

Finally, we changed to ride the Tsugaru Railway and arrived where I was born and raised, Kanagi. Thinking about it, beyond the clouds and smoke ahead, even if nothing went wrong, the journey would last three days and nights. The gift of tomatoes and peaches meant we had a day's worth of food for the older child, but the younger one was awake, wanted milk, and was crying. What should we do? We were still at least four hours from Kogota. Because we'd probably arrive at Kogota close to ten at night, we would have none of the conveniences to make milk or boil rice porridge.

If Sendai had not burned, I had several friends in Sendai. We could get off along the way and ask for help. As you know, Sendai had mostly burned down so that never happened. Well, the boy would go hungry. In my thirty-seven years, I have endured various hardships. Thinking about it, the thirty-seven years were tedious. My thoughts were foolishly chaotic and scattered. While peeling off the peach skin and giving the peach to the girl, the boy slowly woke up and was grumpy.

"There's probably nothing."

"Yes."

"The steamed bread may be okay."

As though responding to my despairing voice, I heard a mysterious whisper from Heaven say, "Uh, if it's steamed bread you want, well, I …"

I'm not exaggerating. I heard this in my head. When I looked up, a young woman who seemed to be standing behind me reached out her arms and lowered a white canvas bag onto the overhead luggage rack. Sanitary kraft paper wrapping appearing wrap around a lot of steamed bread was set on my knees. I said nothing.

"Oh, they were baked today so they should be fine. And this is food for babies. And these are eggs."

One after another, the kraft paper wrappings piled up on my lap. I simply gazed out the window. The forest illuminated by the red sunset burned dark red. The train stopped. It was Sendai Station.

"This is my stop. Goodbye, young lady," said the woman, quickly getting off near my window.

My wife and I spoke no greeting during the pause.

I wanted to meet that person, that woman. She was around twenty years old and wore a white short-sleeve shirt and loose-fitting monpe pants made from Kuruma Kasuri fabric.

I wanted to say, "I'll see you." With a hint of remorse, I wanted to speak. "Miss, you saved me that time. The man begging for food back then was me."

The End