幼い魂に「この世の外(ほか)」の感覚か最初に訪れたのは、おそらく汽車の中で、だった。祖母に連れられて八女の叔母の家に向う途中、あるいは親戚の若い女に伴われて下関へ母を迎えに行く途中、私は車窓の窓枠に両手をかけ、顎を乗せるようにして、進行方向から大急ぎでやって来ては後方に行ってしまう風景をぼんやり見ている。

「そげん外ぱっかい見よるげにや、いんま気持ン悪うなって、吐(あ)ぐるけんで」

しかし、私は見つづける。電信柱か退(さし)り、藁屋根か退り、稲架(はざ)か退り、木立か退る。汽車はトンネルの闇に呑み込まれ、吐き出され、ぶつ切りの音を立てて鉄橋を渡る。

突然、がたんと身を揺すって汽車か停る。鉄道服に鉄道帽の車掌か廻ってきて、神妙な顔で叫ぶ。

「しんごオオまちィィィ」

ああ、シンゴー町だ。私は車窓の外に町らしい風景を、二重瞼の眼科の看板を、表に水を打ち、玄関の暗い硝子か表をひっそり映している旅館を、七五三の日のように晴着を着てぽつんと立っている女の子を、そして何よりも、小ぎれいな町の駅をさがすか、目に入るのは切通しの片側の崖か、

人気のない暗い山田ばかりである。

私はあわてて反対側の車窓の外を見る。しかし、そこにも町はない。そのうち、がたんと揺れて、また汽車は動き出す。幻のシンゴー町は、永遠に後方になる。というのは、もう一度同じ汽車に乗っても、同じシンゴー町に停ることは、ふたたびないからだ。

シンゴー町はふしぎな町たった。どこにもなく、しかし、どこにでもあった。汽車か身を揺すって停り、車掌か廻って来て「シンゴー町」と宣言すると、そこが山の中であれ、海岸であれ、まちシンゴー町になるのだった。車窓の外には切通しの赤土の崖か、しらしら寄せてくる海以外に何もない。けれども、おごそかに宣言された以上、そこは疑いもなくシンゴー町であり、私は何もない場所に蜃気楼の町を現出させることを強制されるのだ。こうして、私は、目には見えない、この世の外の場所かあることを知るのだった。

この世の外(ほか)の場所のありかを最初に知らせてくれたのかシンゴー町だとすれば、この世の外に生きている人のありようをはじめて教えてくれたのは勘六橋のお玉さんだった。直方の町の東側に沿って流れている遠賀川か、町並の南のはずれに近く一つの橋を渡している。この橋を渡ると、道ははるかに薄藍にかすむ福智山のふもとの頓野の在に出る。その橋が勘六橋だった。

頓野の在に親戚の女の人を訪れに行く母は勘六橋を渡りきると、それまでさしていた絵日傘をすぼめて、傘の先でこちら側の川岸の橋の下を指し示す。

「ほら、勘六橋のお玉さんばい」

母の右手か伸ばした絵日傘の、その先には橋の下の、橋桁と橋桁に横木を渡し、炭俵を掛け渡しただけの俄造りの小屋か、そして、小屋の前には小犬の顔のようなそらまめの花がいっぱい咲いていた。

「唐豆(とうまめ)の花のあるばい？」

「お玉さんの、お汁(つい)の実に植えなったとやろたい」

晩い春のゆったりと瀬(ものう)い遠賀川の水照(みで)りを浴びて、微風(そよかぜ)に揺れ動いているそらまめの花はいかにもそこに人が生きているという、人間くさい生活(たつき)の匂いをさせていたが、その匂いの本体であるお玉さんの姿は、どこにもなかった。

「お玉さんな？」

「物乞(ほいと)にでん、行(い)とんなるとやろたい」

母に間くお玉さんは、もともと直方の裕福な町方の娘だった。年頃になって、頓野の大百姓の御寮人(ごりおん)さんになり、玉のような男の子も生んだ。夫は優しく、身代は豊かに、男衆(おとこし)、女衆(おなごし)にかしずかれ、お玉さんは何不自由ない、しあわせな身の上のはずだった。それか急に、ほんとうに急に、「狐のついた如(ごと)」気がふれて出奔し、勘六橋の下に住むようになったと言うのだ。

夫や身寄りの者は勘六橋まで出向いて、この狂女をつれ戻す。さして抵抗するでもなく、狂女は婚家の夫と息子のもとへ連れ戻される。しかし、二、三日すると、この大人しい狂女はもう勘六橋の下の、日だまりにいて、着ている長総社を細く裂いて、こよりにしているのだった。

どんな頑乗な座敷牢に入れても、どんなに厳重な監視付きでも、お玉さんは「幽霊のように」いなくなった。そして、いなくなると同時に勘六橋にいた。頓野から勘六橋に向う道筋で逃げて行くお玉さんを見たという人は一人もないと、母は怖ろしそうに言う。

お玉さんの息子は当然、「気狂いの子」「物乞(ほいと)の子」とはやされ、いじめられた。いまは大きくなり、死んだ父親に替って、家をとりしきっている。どこぞの在から新嫁(にいよめ)ももらい、村の信望も篤い。息子もまた、母親思いで、勘六橋まで出向いては、何度か狂える母親を連れ戻そうとした。しかし、いまではあきらめて、月に三度、十日ごとに早朝出かけては勘六橋のほとりに笊(しようけ)に入れた精米(しらげ)を置き、盆暮れには腰巻や着物を置いておく。

朝な朝な、炊(かし)ぎの煙が橋の下から昇り、腰巻や着物か橋桁から橋桁に渡した綱にかかっているのを見ると、息子の心づくしはたしかに母親の手に渡っているのだろうか、さて、それがいとしい息子からの贈りものだとわかっているかの段になると……。

「何ちゅうても、気のちごうとんなるとやきね」

と、母は言う。

「お玉さんな、まァだ？」

「物乞(ほいと)に行とんなるとやもん、何のそげ早よ戻んなるもんね」

物乞(ほいと)……と言うとき、母はちょっと眉をしかめた。

「物乞(ほいと)ちゃ何(なん)？」

「……自分な働かんで、他人にお辞儀ばして、銭はもらいよう人たい」

「ふんなら、悪か人？」

「……悪か人じやなかばって、仕事を好かっしゃれんき、横着者(おうどもん)のして、怠けもんたいね」

私はお多賀さんの祭りの日、お宮に渡る陸橋の階段や、砂利道に坐って、ぶっぶつ呟いている汚い身なりをした人びとを思い乏べていた。着飾った大人たちに手を引かれた着飾った子供たち、飲んだくれた男たち、消防団員たち、国防婦人会、それら、ぞろぞろすぎる足たちの前に額垂れ、わずかな投げ銭にお辞儀をするこの苦行の人びとが横着者だとは、私には思えなかった。

「本当(ほん)な事(こと)、好いて物乞(ほいと)しよんなるとやろか？」

「好いてくさ。好いてやなからにゃ、良ゥか身分ば捨てて、どけして家ば跳び出すもんね」

ここでは、母は明らかにお玉さんのことを言っていた。

「お玉さんも、お多賀さんの日にゃ、石段のとこに坐んなると？」

私は、祭りの日の石段に坐っていた人びとの記憶の中から、お玉さんらしい人影を探そうとした。しかし、母の答は、

「お玉さんな気は狂(ちご)うとっても、気位の高いき、祭りの物乞はしなれん」

母はお玉さんに同情していた。というより、むしろ、お玉さんになりたかったのではないだろうか。気が狂う条件なら、はるかに自分のほうか揃っている。いっそ気狂いになって世の外へ逃れたほうかどんなにらくか知れない……と、母はそう言いたかったのではあるまいか。そうでもなければ、母か次のように言って、翳った笑いを見せたのか、理解できない。

「もし、もしかして……ばい、母ちゃんかお玉さんの如なったなら、如何(どげ)すんね？」

「…………」

返答に困って黙っていると、母は小さな威しでしめくくった。

「嘘たい。ばって、お前のちゃんと言うことば聞かんなら、いつお玉さんの如なるかわかちんよ」

絵日傘を開いて、母は歩き出していた。小走りに追っかけなから、私はまだお玉さんのことか気になっていた。

「まァだ戻んなれんと？　お玉さんな」

「頓野から帰りがけにゃ、居(お)んなろうばい」

しかし、頓野からの帰り途、勘六橋を渡る時にも、お玉さんの姿はなかった。

私は、ふとシンゴー町のことを思い出していた。そうだ、お玉さんはきっとシンゴー町に行ったにちかいない。どこにもあって、どこにもない幻の町、そこにお玉さんはいるのだ。

いや、そう言うだけでは充分ではない。まず、お玉さんの住まいである勘六橋、つまり、いまのいま、自分か母といっしょに渡っている足の下の橋じたいか、どこにもあってどこにもないシンゴー町ではないのか。さらに言えば、お玉さんという存在じたいか幻のシンゴー町ではあるまいか。

母や祖母、そのほかの大人たちは、お玉さんについて、さも見て来たように話す。けれども、ほんとうはお玉さんを見た人はないのではないだろうか。どこにもいてどこにもいない存在、それがお玉さんなのではあるまいか。そうだとすれば、自分たちもいつお玉さんにならないとも限らない･･････。

しかし、私は母には何も言わなかった。夕焼けの世界に架かった長い橋を渡って、私たちは誰そ彼の町に入った。

『十二の遠景』より（1970）

The first time I was ever visited by a sensation of something “outside of this world” was probably when I was in a train. I am not sure where I was going. Perhaps I was in the train going with Grandmother to visit my aunt in Yame-gun, or perhaps I was on my way to Shimonoseki to go meet Mother, accompanied by a young relative. In any case, I do remember that I had propped my chin on my hands, which were placed against the glass window, as I gazed absentmindedly out the window at the landscape which approached us with great speed from the front of the train then quickly retreated to the back.

“If you keep looking out like that the whole time, you’ll get sick to your stomach and throw up.”

But I continued to look outside anyway. All sorts of things went by — telephone poles, stands for drying rice, and clumps of trees. The train was swallowed up in the darkness of a tunnel then spit out again. There was an interruption in the regular rhythm of the track, then we crossed a metal bridge.

All of the sudden, the train jerked and came to a halt. The conductor, who was wearing a railway uniform and cap, came around to where I could see him, made a strange face, and shouted, “Shingooo-machiii!”

What he was saying was “waiting” (machi) for a “stoplight” (shingō), but to me, it sounded like he was saying, “the town of Shingō” since the word machi also means “town.” I looked around hoping to see the landscape of a town. I looked for an ophthalmologist’s sign shaped like an eye with creased eyelid. I looked for a Japanese-style inn with water spread in front to keep the dust down and a dark, glass door to mark the entrance. I looked for a little girl wearing the brightly colored kimono you might see at the seven-five-three festival. Most importantly, I looked for the quaint station you might expect to find in a tiny town. I didn’t see any of these things, however. The only things that greeted my eyes were the cliffs created when the engineers cut the hills away for the train tracks and the dark, unpopulated rice fields that the farmers had created among the hills.

I looked around hoping to see the landscape of a town. I looked for an ophthalmologist’s sign shaped like an eye with creased eyelid. I looked for a Japanese-style inn with water spread in front to keep the dust down and a dark, glass door to mark the entrance.

I quickly rushed over to the opposite side of the train to have a look, but there was no town there either. Meanwhile, the train shook again and started to move. The illusory town of Shingō retreated into the distance where it would remain forever. Even if I were to get the same train again, we would never stop there again.

The town of Shingō was a strange place indeed. It was nowhere, but it was everywhere at the same time. Every time the train stopped and the conductor came round to shout “the town of Shingō,” whatever was in front of me — be it the middle of the mountains or the seashore — would immediately be transformed into the town of Shingō. I would look for signs of the town, but strangely enough, there was nothing there but reddish cliffs alongside the tracks or seashores with lapping, white waves. Nonetheless, because the conductor had made his solemn declaration, I was compelled to think this must undoubtedly be the town of Shingō, and I conjured up visions of a town located there in the middle of nowhere. That was how I learned there were places outside this world which we cannot see with our eyes alone.

It was the town of Shingō that first taught me there were places outside of this world, but it was Otama-san who lived by the Kanroku Bridge that taught me there were people who lived outside the world too. The Onga River flowed parallel to the eastern edge of Naokata, and the Kanroku Bridge crossed it near the southern edge of town where the rows of houses ended. On the other side of the bridge, the road led to a cluster of houses known as Tonno. These houses were at the foot of distant Mount Fukuchi, which was shrouded in pale blue mist.

I sometimes went with Mother as she went to visit a female relative in Tonno. When we would cross Kanroku Bridge, she would close her decorative parasol then point with the tip at the riverbank below.

“Down there, below Kanroku Bridge is where Otama-san lives.”

The decorated parasol in her right hand pointed below the bridge where the horizontal beams of the bridge passed from pillar to pillar. There were straw bags, the kind that originally held coal, hanging between the pillars to form a makeshift shelter. In front of that was a bunch of fava bean flowers, which always looked to me like the faces of little puppy dogs.

“Down there with the flowers?”

“Yeah, Otama-san must have planted them so she can make them into soup later.”

Stirred by the wind and bathed in the shallows of the Onga River which flowed so listlessly in late spring, the fava bean flowers did make it appear someone was indeed living there. Still, Otama, the woman whose existence was suggested by these plants, was nowhere to be seen.

No matter how hard they would try to keep her at home, no matter how strictly they kept watch over her, Otama-san would always find a way to escape — sometimes simply disappearing ‘like a ghost.’

“Where is she?”

“She’s probably gone out to beg.”

According to Mother, Otama was originally the daughter of a well-to-do family in Naokata. When she got to be of marriageable age, she became the wife of a wealthy farmer in Tonno and gave birth to a lovely, little boy. Her husband was kind; she had plenty of money, and she had male and female servants to wait on her. She lived a life free of want, and should have been entirely happy. All of the sudden, however, she lost her senses and began living under Kanroku Bridge. It was so sudden that it was as if she had been possessed by some malevolent spirit.

Her husband and other relatives set out to Kanroku Bridge to bring the madwoman back. She did not resist as they took her back home to where her husband and son lived, but only a few days would go by before the madwoman was back at her sunny spot below Kanroku Bridge, ripping the undergarments of her kimono into long strips and twisting them to form strings.

No matter how hard they would try to keep her at home, no matter how strictly they kept watch over her, Otama-san would always find a way to escape — sometimes simply disappearing “like a ghost.” No sooner had she disappeared than she would reappear at the Kanroku Bridge. Mother told me that not a single person had ever seen Otama-san escape along the road from Tonno to the Kanroku Bridge. As she said this, she made a scary voice.

Naturally, people teased Otama-san’s son. They bullied him, calling him “the crazy lady’s son” and “the beggar’s boy.” By the time I went to the bridge, however, he had grown up. His father had passed away, and he had taken charge of his father’s household. He had taken a bride and had a great reputation in town. Still, he thought of his mother. I was told he had gone over and over to the bridge to try to bring back his mother, but eventually he gave up completely. Three times a month — every ten days — he went early in the morning and put a basket full of uncooked, polished rice next to the bridge. At the end of the Obon season, he also left her a kimono and a sash. It was clear his gifts had reached her when he saw the smoke rising from the fire at the base of the bridge where she cooked the rice every morning or when he saw the kimono and sash hanging on her clothesline between the pillars. Still, was she aware that these gifts were from her beloved son…?

“After all, she is crazy,” Mother said.

“Isn’t she back yet?”

“She’s gone out begging. She probably won’t be back anytime soon.” When Mother said the word “begging,” she knitted her eyebrows slightly.

“What does ‘begging’ mean?”

She was silent for a moment. “It’s when you don’t work. Instead, you bow in front of people and get money from them.”

“Does that mean they’re bad people?”

She paused again. “They’re not bad people, but because they don’t like to work, they just act lazy and don’t do anything.”

I remembered the people I had seen on the day of the festival at the Taga Shrine. They sat on the bridge to the shrine, the steps, and the gravel road, dirty and mumbling to themselves. They were the ones who lowered their heads in front of the dressed-up people who dragged their dressed-up children by the hands. They were the ones who crouched on the ground before the drunkards, the firemen, and the ladies of the National Protection Housewives’ Association shuffling by. They were the ones who bowed when the slightest bit of change was thrown their way. I couldn’t believe that these people, who suffered so much, were lazy.

“Are they begging because they want to?”

“Of course. If they didn’t want to, why do you think they’d throw away perfectly good positions in society and leave their homes?” Her answer made it clear she was thinking of Otama-san.

“So does Otama-san also sit there on the stone steps when the Taga festival’s going on?” I looked back through my memories to see if I could remember anyone sitting on the steps the day of the festival who matched Otama-san’s description.

But Mother said, “Otama-san’s crazy, but she’s still proud and won’t come to beg at the festival.”

Mother sympathized with Otama-san — or rather, I wonder if there wasn’t some part of her that wanted to be like Otama-san. If she was crazy, then it would be much easier to resign herself to her situation as a single mother without any support. I suspect Mother thought, “It would be so much easier if I were just a little bit crazier and could escape to someplace outside the world…” If that was not what she was thinking, I do not know what to make of her next utterance, which she delivered with a shadowy smile: “What would you do if — just if — Mommy were to become like Otama-san?”

I clammed up, not knowing what to say.

Seeing that I was at a loss for words, Mother retracted her little threat. “I’m just kidding. But if you don’t listen carefully to what I’ve got to say, who knows? Maybe I might end up like Otama-san someday.”

Mother opened her decorated parasol and began walking. Walking briskly behind her, I was still preoccupied with thoughts of Otama-san. “Isn’t she back yet? Otama-san, I mean.”

“She’ll probably be there when we go home from Tonno.” But when we crossed the Kanroku Bridge on our way back from Tonno, Otama-san was still nowhere to be seen.

I suddenly remembered the town of Shingō. No doubt that was where she had gone. The illusory town that was everywhere and that was nowhere at the same time — that was where Otama-san had to be.

But no, that wouldn’t explain everything. Otama-san lived at the Kanroku Bridge. Didn’t that mean that the bridge that Mother and I had crossed with our very feet just now was itself the town of Shingō — the place that was everywhere and nowhere at the same time? Or maybe it was even simpler than that. Perhaps Otama-san herself was the illusory town of Shingō.

Mother, Grandmother, and all the other adults talked about Otama-san as if they had seen her with their own eyes, but I couldn’t help wondering if anyone had ever seen her for real. Someone who was everywhere and also nowhere — she was like that, wasn’t she? If so, there was no guarantee that we not might also end up like her…

However, Mother didn’t say a thing. We crossed the long bridge leading into the sunset and entered the town which lay before us.

— EXCERPT FROM THE MEMOIR Twelve Views from the Distance (1970)