Sensei’s briefcase lies beside my dressing table. Once in a while I still go to Satoru’s place. Not as often as before. Satoru doesn’t say anything. He’s always moving about, busy at work. It’s warm inside the bar, and there have been times when I even doze off. One mustn’t behave so poorly in public, I’m sure Sensei would say.
In loneliness I have drifted this long way, alone.
My torn and shabby robe could not keep out the cold.
And tonight the sky was so clear
it made my heart ache all the more.
Sensei taught me this poem by Seihaku Irako at some point. I try reading it and other poems out loud when I’m home alone. I’ve been studying a bit since you passed away, Sensei, I murmur.
Sometimes when I call out, Sensei, I can hear a voice reply from the ceiling above, Tsukiko. I’ve started making yudofu like you, Sensei, with cod and chrysanthemum greens. Sensei, I hope we see each other again one day, I say. And from the ceiling, Sensei replies, Surely we shall see each other one day.
Those nights, I open Sensei’s briefcase and peer inside. The blank empty space unfolds, containing nothing within. It holds nothing more than an expanse of desolate absence.
Author photograph by Tomohiro Muta
about the author
and the translator
hiromi kawakami is one of Japan’s most popular contemporary novelists. She was awarded the Akutagawa Prize in 1996 for A Snake Stepped On (Hebi o fumu). Her novel Strange Weather in Tokyo (Sensei no kaban) was short-listed for both the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and has been translated into thirteen languages. Manazuru won the 2011 Japan–U.S. Friendship Commission Prize.
allison markin powell is a literary translator, editor, and publishing consultant. She has translated works by Osamu Dazai, Fuminori Nakamura, and Kanako Nishi. She lives in New York City, and maintains the database www.japaneseliteratureinenglish.com.
Strange Weather in Tokyo Page 17