Chapter 6 postscript

I do not actually know the madman who wrote the above-mentioned notes directly, but I have a slight friendship with another person. She may be the proprietress of the bar in Kyobashi that appears in the above-mentioned notes.She was a small woman with a pale complexion, slender eyes poking upwards, and a high bridge of nose that gave off a tough look. She was more like a handsome young man than a beauty.These three notes mainly describe the style of Tokyo during the period from Showa 5 to 7.Led by a friend, I stopped by a bar in Kyobashi and drank whiskey on ice three times. It was around Showa 10, when Japan's "Military Department" became more and more blatantly rampant in the world.So, it is impossible for me to meet the man who wrote these notes.

However, this February, I went to visit a friend who was evacuated in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture.He was a so-called schoolmate in my college days, and now he is a lecturer at a certain women's university.In fact, I once asked this friend to be a matchmaker for a relative of mine. Because of this reason, and because I planned to buy some fresh seafood for my family, I put on my canvas bag and set off for the bridge. . Funabashi is a large town on the edge of a sea of ​​mud.No matter how I told the locals the house number of that friend, no one would know because it was a new move.It was extremely cold, and my shoulders were already aching from the rucksack. At this time, I was attracted by the sound of the violin on the record player, so I pushed open the door of a cafe.

The lady proprietress there seemed to have known her before, and after asking, she found out that she was the lady proprietress of the bar in Kyobashi ten years ago.She seemed to remember me right away, too.We were surprised at each other, then looked at each other and smiled.Instead of asking each other about our experience of being bombed, as was customary at the time, we exchanged pleasantries with great pride: "You really haven't changed at all." "No, you're all old women. Your bones are falling apart. You're the only one who is young." "Where is it? There are three children. It is for them that I came out to buy things today."

We greeted each other, talked about the common things between people who had been reunited for a long time, and then inquired about the future news of mutual friends.After a while, the proprietress suddenly changed her tone and asked me: "Do you know Aye?" "Maybe it could be the stuff of a novel." My nature is such that I can’t process and write novels about the materials that others forced me to, so I planned to return them to her on the spot, but I was attracted by those photos (about the weirdness of those three photos, I wrote in the preface already mentioned in ) so that I decided to keep those notebooks for the time being.I said: "I will drop by when I come back, but do you know the XX person at XX Street XX? He is a teacher at a women's university." After all, she has just moved here, so she does know her.She also said that my friend who lives nearby also frequents this café.

That night, I had some drinks with the friend and decided to stay with him.I couldn't fall asleep until the morning, and I kept reading those three notes. What is described in the diary is all things of the past, but even modern people will read it with great interest.I think it would be more meaningful to let some magazine publish it as it is, rather than add it clumsily. The seafood bought for the children are all dry goods.Putting on my rucksack and saying goodbye to my friends, I folded into that bar again. "Thank you so much yesterday. But..." I cut right to the point and said, "Can you lend me those notebooks for a while?"

"Okay, you can take it." "Is this person still alive?" "Oh, I don't know that. About ten years ago, a parcel containing notebooks and photos ended up in Kyobashi's shop. The sender must have been Aye, but there was no Aye's address on the parcel. And names. During the air raids, these things got mixed up with other things and miraculously survived, and I've only read them all for a while now..." "Are you crying?" "No, it's not so much crying...it can't be done. Once a person becomes like that, he can't do it anymore."

"If it has been ten years, then maybe he is no longer in this world. This is sent to you as a thank you. Although some places are exaggerated, it seems that he has indeed suffered quite a lot. .If all of this is true, and I am his friend, then maybe I will take him to a psychiatric hospital too." "It's all because of his father's fault." She said casually, "The Aye we know is honest and well-behaved. If he doesn't drink, no, even if he drinks...he is a good boy like a god."