In Yaizu, your pen found other ways to express itself that made this reader laugh out loud. A sleepy-eyed snail drawn at one corner, a scrawny duck at another, a Tani-no-oto toad, a coiled snake, and a straggly blackbird lived on these pages too. Once, there was even a Jizō statue, weeping pebble tears. These little bodies, offering themselves as comical asides, interrupted your wobbly rows of hiragana and katakana. These letters—their Herun-san’s language, their childlike drawings, their keen desires to see this plain face again—could not have been written by any other man, Yakumo.

Your August letters were delivered to the Tomihisachō quarter at the western fringe of Tokyo, where the house of Koizumi, upon its arrival in this city, had been growing in numbers, under the eaves of yet another rented dwelling. How I rejoiced when your letters arrived at this house instead, Yakumo.

“According to the maps, the house is in Ōkubo village, just west of Tokyo’s city lines,” I had told you when I first found this property. “It is small and will need more rooms added, but the gardens are old and established. They have seen life, as you say, Husband. There is a bamboo grove at the back, and, Husband, I heard a bush warbler singing there.”

Do you remember your response, Yakumo?

“Do you have money?” you asked, not looking up from the page that you were writing.

“Yes,” I replied, hard and sharp, not echoing the playful tone of your question.

You looked up and saw a plain woman’s face staring back at you, and you saw in those straight lines a warning that you should put down your pen and listen.

“Good!” you said, “Tell me more, Sweet Wife.”

“Husband, all the houses in the village are in the old style. There are no Western buildings there yet,” I said.

You nodded your head, and soon the decision to purchase this house was made.