Sweet Bean Paste

by Durian Sukegawa

‘Can I apply? I always wanted a job like this.’ Sentaro laughed before he could stop himself. ‘May I ask how old you are?’ ‘I’m seventy-six.’

‘The cherry tree,’ she repeated, turning her face toward the blossoms. ‘Who planted it?’ Sentaro looked up at the flowers, now at their peak. ‘What do you mean, who?’ ‘Somebody must’ve planted it.’

Sentaro never sold enough to use up a whole container of bean paste in one day; there were always leftovers. Every morning he combined the previous day’s leftover bean paste with a new batch so that eventually it all got used up.

When the temperature was right he carefully ladled spoonfuls of batter onto the hot surface with the gong-shaped spoon from which dorayaki took their name: dora for gong, and yaki for grilled.

‘I had one of your dorayaki the other day. The pancake wasn’t too bad, I thought, but the bean paste, well…’ ‘The bean paste?’ ‘Yes. I couldn’t tell anything about the feelings of the person who made it.’

I’ve been making it for fifty years.’ Sentaro almost dropped the dorayaki he was about to put in a paper bag. ‘Fifty years?’ ‘Yes, half a century. Bean paste is all about feeling, young man.’

Tokue’s bean paste was like nothing he had ever tasted before. It had a rich aroma, and sweetness that spread across his palette. The substance he bought in plastic containers could not compare.

‘Fifty years, eh?’ he mused, lifting the sake cup to his lips again and recalling the taste which had so unexpectedly rooted him to the spot. ‘She’s been making it longer than I’ve been alive.’

By the time he was out from behind bars his mother was no longer in this world. You never knew what the future held, he mused. Look at the path he’d ended up on, instead of becoming a writer as he hoped. And how he had passed the days these last few years, standing in front of a griddle cooking dorayaki. Never once had he imagined himself doing that.

Because his mother had a sweet tooth, and whenever they had the sweet things that she liked, such as manju buns or cake, she would be in a good mood and he could also feel at peace. He loved his mother when she smiled and said to him, ‘Mm, isn’t this delicious, Sen?’

‘Excuse me for asking, but what happened to your hands?’ ‘Ah, my hands.’ Sentaro noticed they were tightly gripped. ‘I had an illness when I was young and this is a side-effect. I know they don’t look so good but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.’

Reminder to look this up

All that concerned him was if she could make a good-quality, sweet bean paste to draw in the customers and help get him away from this shop as soon as possible.

Looking at the address, Sentaro saw she had written the name of a district that was on the outskirts of the city. He had an odd feeling it should mean something to him, but couldn’t say why.

Even though he’d made it clear she was coming only to make bean paste, Sentaro still felt uneasy. Tokue sometimes said things that seemed off the mark. Although her deafness could account for it, Sentaro did not think that was the reason.

Sentaro was in his fourth year at Doraharu. He worked hard, with no regular day off, but never once had he risen that early to get to work.

‘It’s just good hospitality,’ Tokue countered. ‘For the customers?’ ‘No. The beans.’ ‘The beans?’ ‘Because they came all the way from Canada. For us.’

Unlike the ready-made paste, this was the smell of fresh, living beans. It had depth. It had life. A mellow, sweet taste unfurled inside Sentaro’s mouth. Sentaro was bowled over. He smiled at Tokue and took another bite. Same again. He was knocked out by this flavour.

‘Well, I was more interested in this,’ said Sentaro, lifting his hand up in the motion of pouring sake. Tokue wrinkled up her nose. ‘You should be running a bar.’

While one part of him relished the novel sensation, another part was wary. Whatever happened, though, unless he bid farewell to this life constantly chained to the grill, he could not devote his days to writing again. That much was certain.

‘Give them a little extra, boss, go on.’ It was only then that Sentaro would be driven to say loudly, in spite of himself, ‘Isn’t it time for you to be leaving?’ Upon which Tokue would open the back door and quietly disappear.

Yet a part of him was still prepared to give it up. It was hard to imagine pushing himself any harder than he was already. He did nothing else all day except make dorayaki. Time would pass doing exactly the same thing over and over.

It was around this time that Sentaro began to get dizzy spells as he stood in front of the griddle. In addition to being rushed off his feet all the time, the oppressive summer heat was beginning to take its toll.

A flickering image of his mother’s face floated out from the shadow of the leaves. She had visited him when he was in prison, but had always remained silent, her face through the clear acrylic barrier looking more aged with each visit.

All of a sudden Sentaro felt like weeping. With tears threatening to spill over, he headed for the road along the train line to avoid the shopping street where people might see him. Upon reaching the road he stopped and watched several trains go by. There seemed no way forward, or back. After a while he became scared of his thoughts in that place and set off walking toward a residential area.

Die, he thought he heard a voice whisper. By the time he returned to his flat he had wandered so long and so far he had no memory of where exactly he had been.

‘Fate?’ Tokue’s voice was charged. ‘What do you mean? Don’t throw around words like fate, Sentaro.’ ‘Huh?’ ‘Young people shouldn’t talk about fate.’

There was something else that bothered Sentaro: the expressions on customers’ faces when they caught sight of Tokue sitting in the back. These included the school girls. He had not missed the way some of them looked at her and suddenly lapsed into silence, or the momentary flash in their eyes.

Wakana was not a talkative girl. She would sit and eat dorayaki while staring into the kitchen with dewy eyes. That gaze bothered Sentaro, who sometimes asked – unusually for him – if she was all right.

To Sentaro her chewing sounded like a wordless conversation between Tokue and Wakana. From that day on Wakana did not come to Doraharu any more.

‘Only adults look while pretending not to. Is that better? Or is it better to ask straight out?’ ‘Ah, difficult question.’

‘I guess things were hard after the war, the country was poor.’ Instinctively Sentaro tried to anticipate Tokue, and create a space for her words. ‘Everybody was poor, not just my family.’

‘And is her face paralysed as well?’ Sentaro gave her a puzzled look. ‘My friend says – I’m sorry, but this is not good – my friend says it looks like leprosy.’

‘This is where they keep the lepers.’ Her voice was a whisper though no one else was present. ‘There’s a sanatorium.’ Sentaro put both hands on the countertop. In silence, he looked at the address Tokue had written. So that was it. That’s why it had triggered something the first time he saw it. At the time he couldn’t figure out why, but now it was mentioned he remembered that he’d heard rumours about this district before, because of the sanatorium.

To begin with, he discovered that everybody currently living in sanatoriums around Japan was cured of the disease. There were no current patients. And in the unlikely case that there was an outbreak of Hansen’s, modern methods of treatment were capable of quickly achieving a complete cure with no further possibility of the patient being contagious to others.

There were still sanatoriums, it was true, but no more patients, and most importantly, there were no carriers any more. Even if Tokue had suffered from this disease in the past, as the owner suspected, there should be no issue about it now.

He had been imprisoned for a direct violation of the Cannabis Control Act. It was his first offence, but he had also been involved in trafficking. Although he wasn’t the prime culprit, he had ties with the fringes of an organized-crime group, from which he received certain financial benefits.

It was true this couple had helped him during an unsettled period in his life after his release from prison. When Sentaro thought about it like that, leaving the shop before he’d finished paying back his debts was inconceivable. He understood that very well.

Unable to find any answer, Sentaro simply kept on doing what he did every day: cooking pancakes for dorayaki, filling them with bean paste and smiling for the customers. And like his late boss, he drank, night after night.

In his heart Sentaro suspected there might be another reason. Given the busy period during the rainy season back in June, this explanation didn’t make sense. Customers had lined up in the rain, holding umbrellas, in spite of the heat and humidity, and sales had grown. So what was going on now? Ordinarily, this should be the start of the season for dorayaki, when the air began to feel cool on the skin.

was it Hansen’s disease?’ ‘Yes, it was. I should have told you before.’ ‘Oh…’ Sentaro mumbled vaguely, but could say no more. ‘Once you get diagnosed that’s the end of your life. That’s how it used to be with this sickness.’

‘But you were cured, weren’t you?’ Tokue nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, we got the medicine from America. But I still got these side effects in my fingers. Other people too.’

‘No. I was diagnosed a non-carrier forty years ago. But I still wasn’t allowed to go out into town like this. When I first got sick, I was only…’ Tokue’s voice trailed off. She pressed her lips together and brought the edge of the apron up to her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Tokue.’ Sentaro looked at the floor. ‘I was still only about the same age as those young girls that come here.’

‘I’ve been shut up ever since.’ ‘You’ve been in a sanatorium all this time?’ ‘Yes. Tenshoen.’ So that was it. Sentaro realized he had heard the name before. He knew roughly where it was but had never been in the neighbourhood.

There was a time when I’d given up all hope of ever going outside those gates into the world again. But now look at me. I could come here. I met so many people. All because you gave me a job.’

‘Oh, get on with you, boss. I’m an old woman. With hands like this. And my face is half-paralyzed too. You took me on in spite of all that. And you let me talk with those sweet girls. I always wanted to do this kind of work, so I’m happy.’

‘When I first came here the blossoms were out, but it’s a sad sight now,’ she said. ‘The wind’s cold, too.’ ‘I wonder if I’ll see next year’s blossom.’

Tokue was the one who’d brought up the topic of quitting. Sentaro had merely accepted her resignation, yet he felt as if he had driven his own mother away.

Sentaro surveyed this scene through bleary, hung-over eyes. He was drinking more nowadays, going into the first bar he saw open after work, and although he never got violent, he would stay there clutching a glass until his legs became unsteady.

There were moments when Sentaro thought he should dispose of himself rather than the reject dorayaki pancakes. If he gave himself up to the moment, he might just be able to do it. At times he seriously considered this.

‘Yes. When you took your mental-health break?’ ‘My mental-health break?’ ‘That’s what Tokue said.’ The time he’d disappeared from the shop in early summer.