"Oh, it's an alias."
"Yes, yes, I know. I heard about a younger brother who changed his name and wrote novels. I'm sorry about last night. Please have some sake. This is a small dish of salted abalone intestines, a good side dish for sake."
I finished my meal and enjoyed one salted intestine, which was good. In fact, it was delicious. I came to the edge of Tsugaru, and of course, I am grateful for the reach of the powers of my older brothers. In the end, I realized I can't do one thing through my own efforts which made the intestines more of a delicacy. In short, what I found at this port was the sphere of influence of my older brothers. I boarded the train with my mind in a fog.
On the way home from Fukaura, I stopped at the old port town of Ajigasawa. Near this town was the center of the west coast of Tsugaru. During the Edo period, the port prospered as the dispatch point of much of Tsugaru's rice and the depot of Japanese-style boats to and from Osaka. Marine products were abundant. The fish caught off this shore first landed near the castle and then crowded the dining tables of homes in each region of the vast Tsugaru Plain. But with the current population of four thousand, five hundred, fewer than in Kizukuri and Fukaura, the town is beginning to lose its former power to thrive.
Sometime long ago, I believe many mackerel were caught in Ajigasawa. However, when we were young, we rarely heard stories of the mackerel here, but it was famous for sandfish. Because sandfish are supplied to Tokyo these days, the reader may know about them. They're about six or seven inches long when scaled. They may be mistaken for sweetfish but seem too big. Among the specialty production on the west coast, Akita is the center of production.
Tokyoites said it was bad to season them with oil, but oil added a lightly seasoned flavor to us. In Tsugaru, we eat fresh sandfish from one side after cooking it in light soy sauce. It's not amazing for one person to eat up twenty or thirty with ease. I've often heard about sandfish clubs where the biggest eater gets a prize. The sandfish sent to Tokyo are stale and considered disgusting probably because the people have no idea how to cook them.
Sandfish is mentioned in glossaries for haiku poets. I remember once reading the verse of a poet from the Edo era in which sandfish meant the light flavor of sandfish or may be a delicacy to the worldly man of Edo. In either case, eating sandfish is nothing more than the enjoyment of the hearth in a Tsugaru winter. Sandfish are the reason I've known the name of Ajigasawa since childhood. This was my first time seeing this town. A mountain is carried on the back of this town, which is slender and elongated. The streets of this town were smelly and had strangely stale, sweet and sour smells reminiscent of the verses of Boncho. The river waters were also murky. I was a bit tired. This town had long komohi like Kizukuri but was a little decrepit. The cold isn't as bad as in Kizukuri. The weather was excellent that day. Even if I walked down the komohi to avoid the sun, I had a queer sensation of choking. There seemed to be many restaurants. Long ago, there were so-called high-quality sake shops, but they have long since disappeared from developed areas. A total of four or five soba noodle shops remains. Nowadays, they call out to passersby with the unusual "Come in. Take a break."
At exactly noon, I entered a soba shop to rest. For forty sen, I enjoyed two servings of yakisoba. The broth was not bad. At any rate, this town was long. One street follows the coast, so no matter how far you go, the rows of houses don't change but continue on. I felt like I walked about two and a half miles when I finally reached the edge of town and turned around. This town had no center. The power of the town center in most towns hardens in one place that becomes the force of the town. Travelers simply passing through may feel they've reached the pinnacle at the center of town. Ajigasawa does not have one. It felt like the pivot of a fan had broken and it came apart. Going back and forth in my heart like a typical Degas-style political discussion wondering whether the rivalry for power among the towns causes problems, the pivot to this forlorn town is somewhere.
As I write this, I force a faint smile. If dear friends of mine had been in Fukaura and Ajigasawa to happily greet me, welcome my visit, and show me around, I would foolishly throw away my intuition and write with emotion-laden brush strokes about the stylishness of Tsugaru in Fukaura and Ajigasawa. In fact, the notes of a traveler are treacherous. If the people of Fukaura and Ajigasawa read this book, I hope they form a muted smile and give me a pass. Essentially, I have no intention of sullying their hometowns in my notes.
I left Ajigasawa on the Gono Line back to Goshogawara and arrived at two o'clock in the afternoon. I went straight from the station to Nakahata's home. I planned to write a lot about Nakahata in a series of works entitled Kikyorai (I Quit My Job and Moved Back Home) and Kokyou (Hometown). I didn't come here repeatedly, but he is my benefactor who settled the many untidy matters of my twenties without showing the least bit of disgust. Nakahata, who hasn't been himself for a long time, has a miserable, deep addiction. Last year, he fell ill and lost a great deal of weight.
"It's the times. You came here from Tokyo looking like that," he said sadly. He
