When we still lived in our house in Mitaka, Tokyo, bombs were falling in the neighborhood practically every day. While I personally didn't mind dying, I was deeply troubled by the thought that if a bomb were to fall on my daughter's head, the girl would end up dying without having seen the sea—the actual thing—even once.
I was born in the middle of Tsugaru Plain, so it took a long time before I finally got to see the sea; I first saw it when I was about ten years old. The great excitement I felt at that time is one of my most cherished memories.
I wanted to show my daughter the sea, too, at least once.
My daughter was five years old when our house in Mitaka was destroyed by a bomb. None of us was hurt. We moved to my wife's hometown, Kōfu.
Shortly afterward, Kōfu was attacked by enemy bombers, and the house we were staying in was burned to the ground.
The war was still going on. At that point I had no alternative but to take my wife and daughter and go back home.
That was the final destination for us, where we would die if we had to.
We left Kōfu and headed to my hometown in Tsugaru.
After three days and three nights, we finally made it to Higashinoshiro, Akita Prefecture. There we changed trains for the Gōno line, and felt somewhat relieved.
"The sea—from which side do we get a view of the sea?" I asked the conductor.
This line ran right along the coast. We sat on the side of the train that had a view of the sea.
"Here's the sea. We're about to see it! We'll get a view of Urashima Tarō's sea!"
I kept talking about the sea, though everyone else was silent.
"Here! The sea. Look, it's the sea! Oh, the sea. Hey, it's big, isn't it? Right? The sea!"
At long last I could show the sea to my daughter, as well.
"It's a river, right, mom?" my daughter asked. She didn’t seem excited.
"River?" I asked. I was astonished.
"Yeah, river," my wife said, half-asleep.
"It's not a river! It's the sea! You're completely, utterly wrong! A river—what an outrageous thing to say!"
Feeling totally disappointed, I gazed at the sea in the twilight all by my lonesome.
THE END
Translator's Notes
津軽平野, Tsugaru Plain: An expansive plain in the middle of Aomori Prefecture, Dazai's native region.
浦島太郎, Urashima Tarō: The hero of a famous folk legend. Urashima was a fisherman who rescued a turtle and was rewarded with a seemingly short visit to an underground palace, during which 300 years passed in the human world.
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