叔父かビルマに発ったという報らせが届いたころから、祖母はボタン占いをはじめた。ボタンに糸を通して、叔父の写真の上に吊るさげ、その揺れかたで安否を占うのである。祖母は営繕所のだれかに、このインチキくさい占いを教わったのだった。

一年後の或る夜、母は叔父の夢を見た。夢の中で叔父は、出発のときのように戦闘帽を被って、挙手の礼をしていた。叔父は何か言いたげだったが、手術後のあのときのように目だけで笑っていた。声をかけようかと思うところで、母は目が覚めた。

次の日、町に買物に行きかけた母は、金子さんの角を曲るとすぐ、血相を変えて戻ってきた。「祖母ちゃん、健ちゃんの死んだ！」

どういうわけか、祖母はその日、家にいた。日頃、仲がよかったとは言えない嫁と姑も、この時ばかりは手をとり合って、悲しみ合った。死者か宥和させた母と祖母との関係は、その後しばらくつづいた。

そのうち、遺骨箱が届いた。遺骨箱と言っても、白木の箱に晒木綿を巻いただけの、まるで空気のように軽い、たよりないものだった。母と祖母がいっしょになって開くと、戦病死というのに、中には頭髪か二筋三筋入っているきりだった。

ただひとり残った跡取り息子をどうしてもあきらめきれず、そのゆえにその死を信じたくなかった祖母は、或る日私をつれて、町に叔父のかつての同僚で、隣の小隊にいた「兵隊さん」の生家を訪ねた。

その家は町の繁華な通りをはずれた路地裏にあり、格子戸を開けて入ると暗い三和土(たたき)で、両側に座敷があった。その三和土はそのまま中庭につづき、中庭を突切るともう一つ格子戸かあり、戸を開けると、障子明かりの中で六十ばかりの老女か、琺瑯引きの洗面器に浸したガーゼを割箸で目に運んでいた。目なうらの赤くただれた肉と、そこに運ぱれるなまあたたかい顧酸水の感触か想像され、身うちがぞくりとしたのを、私は覚えている。

その老女のところには息子から手紙か来ているかも知れず、その息子か叔父のかつての同僚で隣の小隊の戦友であってみれば、叔父の消息について、その手紙の中にふれている箇所があるかも知れないと、祖母は思ったのだろう。しかし、老女は叔父のことはおろか、自分の息子のことさえ知らなかった。この老いた母親のところにも、やがて息子の死が伝えられたのを、のちに私は祖母に聞いた。

母と祖母のかりそめの宥和は長くつづかなかった。つづくはすはない、二人は叔父についてまったくべつの考えかたをしていたから、その死についてもかかわりかたかちがっていた。

或るのどかな午後、私は日当りのよい縁側で絵本を見ていた。その絵本は「兵隊さん」を主題にした本で、そのおしまいの頁には、瀕死の兵隊さんが「天皇陛下ばんざい」と叫んでいた。私は、そばでつくろいものをしている母に尋ねた。

「兵隊さんな、死ぬとき、本当(ふんと)に『天皇陛下ばんざい』ち言うと？」

「本当は『おかあさん』ち言うげなよ。ばって……」

と、母は縫う手を止めて、針を頭髪に通した。私は、言い淀んだ母を見つめた。

「ばって、健ちゃんな『おかあさん』ちゃ言わんやったろうばい」

母は、叔父か「嫂さん」と言って死んだと思いたかったのだろうか。その後、母は叔父のことをほとんど語らなかった。語らないことは、母の叔父の死に対する心づくしでもあったのだろう。叔父にとって、母は処女であり、聖母的な存在にとどまった。母にとって、叔父は聖なる童貞であることを全うし、或いはそれに終った。

そして、母が叔父のことを語らないことで、私の中で、叔父は一つの抽象化された定理となり、男性の理想像となった。いつか不用意にも母が洩らした「健ちゃんな祖父(じい)ちゃんの子や無い」という言葉は、それを助けた。私にとって、健市叔父は「彼方から」来て、「彼方へ」帰った男性の美徳の神格となったのである。

『十二の遠景』より（1970）

After we received word he had left for Burma, she started using a button to tell his fortune. She would pass a string through a button and dangle it over his picture. From the swaying of the string, she could tell whether he was safe or not. Apparently, someone in the building and repairs facility taught her this far-fetched method of divination.

One night about a year later, Mother saw Uncle Ken’ichi in a dream. In it, he was wearing his army cap and saluting like on the day of his send-off. He looked like he wanted to say something, but just like after his surgery, he was only able to smile with his eyes. Right as Mother was starting to call out to him, she woke up.

The next day, Mother set out to buy some things in town. She had gone no farther than the corner of the Kanekos’ house when she came back, her face completely changed. She cried out to Grandmother, “Ken-chan is dead!” For some reason, Grandmother happened to be in the house that day. Although my mother and her mother-in-law were not always on the very best of terms, that day, they clasped one another’s hands and wept. The reconciliation brought about by the death of their shared loved one continued for some time.

Eventually the box containing Uncle Ken’ichi’s ashes arrived. The box was made of unfinished wood wrapped in bleached cotton cloth, and although his remains were supposed to be in it, the box was as light as air. Not believing it to be genuine, Mother and Grandmother opened it together. The army told us he had died of sickness on the battlefield, but inside there was nothing but two or three strands of hair.

The box was made of unfinished wood wrapped in bleached cotton cloth, and although his remains were supposed to be in it, the box was as light as air.

Grandmother simply could not bring herself to give up on her only remaining son. One day, she took me to town to visit the home of one of his former colleagues who also happened to have been assigned to a neighboring platoon. The house was behind an alley off of one of the more bustling streets. We opened the latticed door and went inside. There, we found a dark concrete floor flanked on two sides by sitting rooms. The concrete floor lead into a courtyard and on the other side of that was another door. When we opened that door, we saw a sixty-year old woman using the light from the shōji to pick up some gauze bandages spread in an enamel sink. She was using a pair of disposable, wooden chopsticks to lift them to her eyes. I remember the swollen red flesh of her eyes and the thought of the disagreeably warm touch of the gauze soaked in boric acid was enough to send shivers up my spine.

Grandmother was probably thinking the old lady had received some letters from her son, and since he and Uncle Ken’ichi were once colleagues and were now in neighboring platoons, perhaps one of those letters might have mentioned him. The old lady, however, did not have any news about her own son, much less my Uncle Ken’ichi. I later heard from Grandmother that the old lady had also received word her son had also died.

The temporary reconciliation between Mother and Grandmother did not last very long. That is only natural. Both of them had completely different feelings for him, so those came to bear on the way that they thought about his death.

One quiet afternoon, I was seated on the veranda in the sun looking at a picture book. The book was about soldiers, and on the last page, one of the soldiers who was on the verge of death shouted, “His Majesty, Banzai!”^[2] I asked Mother who was doing some mending nearby, “When soldiers die, do they really shout that?”

“No, what they really shout is, ‘Mother…’ But…” Mother stopped her mending and stuck the needle in her hair. I watched as she hesitated. “But I doubt Ken-chan said ‘Mother’ at the end.”

What did she mean by that? Could Mother have hoped that instead, he called out “Nee-san” as he was dying?

After that, she hardly spoke about my Uncle Ken’ichi. Her silence was probably partly out of consideration for him — a man who had passed away. In his eyes, my mother had been a virginal maiden; she had been like the sacred mother to him. In her eyes, Uncle Ken’ichi had been holy — a chaste innocent — and that was how his life ended.

Because Mother did not talk about him, his memory became an increasingly abstract principle; he became the ideal embodiment of manhood. It only helped that sometimes in an unguarded moment, Mother would slip and say, “You aren’t Uncle Ken-chan’s little boy…” No, I was not like him. In my eyes, Uncle Ken’ichi was a divine incarnation of masculine virtue who had come from the Great Beyond and returned there far too swiftly.

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