Ayase nodded. For some reason, she seemed a little happy.
“With some old castles, the main structure has been lost, and only part of it remains. It might be just the walls, the moat, some pillars, or the base where the pillars once stood.”
“Is that interesting to look at?”
“Yeah, it is. It’s said that you can tell to some extent the period in which the structure was built by the way they piled the stones. People who know what they’re doing can learn all sorts of things just from the walls. When I learned that, I was so impressed. It’s like they can see something even after it’s gone.”
“I didn’t know there were different ways of stacking stones.”
“You didn’t? Wasn’t it in our textbooks? …Maybe not. I tend to remember things like that from checking out photo collections and videos.”
“They have videos about that stuff?”
“Sure. Try searching Japanese castles, and you’ll find tons of them. I don’t watch many videos, but I’ve always been fond of those.”
“Are you a Japanese history buff, then?”
She nodded.
I recalled that Ayase had gotten a 100 on her Japanese History test both times. Maybe I should have expected her to know things like this. So she likes history…
Ayase gazed out the window again and murmured, “That’s why I like looking at houses like that. Old buildings carry lots of memories. I knew I’d spot some out here, so I was pretty excited.”
I could understand why. We didn’t see many houses like that back in Shibuya.
Nagano, however… Come to think of it, this area came up in a poem by Toson Shimazaki that I’d seen in one of our textbooks.
By the ancient castle at Komoro
Clouds are white; the traveler sorrowful.
For just a moment, the monochrome scene outside the window looked like a faded, sepia-toned photograph.
We drove on, and even the scattered houses disappeared into the snowy landscape. We passed through Komoro into Nagano City and then got off the expressway. From there, we drove farther into the mountains, along endlessly curving roads, until we finally reached a wide basin.
A large one-story house came into view. It didn’t have a parking lot, but there was a spacious yard out front. The snow had been shoveled away, and the soil was visible.
Dad parked in a corner of the yard.
“We’re here,” he declared.
Everyone got out of the car. The cold air made me shiver. The surrounding area was still covered in snow, and our feet would have sunk into the piles of white if the yard hadn’t been cleared. My breath came out white, and my cheeks ached from the cold. The air was thin.
“The garden is huge,” Ayase said as she stepped out of the car and stretched.
“I’m not sure you could call it a garden. It’s just some undeveloped land. We’ve got a lot of land, if nothing else.”
“It’s a fine house.” Ayase gazed up at the traditional structure.
“Well, it sure is old,” Dad said. “I heard my grandfather built it.”
The building, with its tiled roof, was easily over fifty years old. It was definitely the type Ayase had said she liked.
“Wow…”
“The inside has been renovated, so it shouldn’t be too inconvenient. All right, Saki. Akiko. Let’s go inside. It’s cold out here.”
“Okay, Taichi.”
“Dad, I’ll take the bags,” I said.
“Let’s all take a few,” he replied.
Dad and I grabbed the heavy bags, and he led the way to the front door. Akiko walked next to him, looking more anxious than ever, and Ayase and I followed them side by side.
We had left close to dawn, and now the sun was already tilting toward the west. I could see Ayase’s breath in the frozen air as she stared at the house where my dad had grown up.
“I like to look at old buildings.”
“Old buildings carry lots of memories.”
I wondered what Ayase would find in Dad’s old house.
Dad opened the front door and shouted toward the back of the house. “I’m home!”
Every time I heard him say that, I was reminded that this was where he was born and raised.
Someone shouted back, and we heard footsteps approaching.
It was Dad’s mother—my grandmother.
“Welcome back, Taichi. Kanae and the others just arrived.”
She gave him a warm smile. Her back was straight and her voice vibrant, despite her age. I was relieved to see that she still hadn’t changed.
Dad nodded, and Akiko bowed at his side.
“Hello, Mrs. Asamura,” she said.
“Yes, hello. It’s been a while, Akiko.”
At the older woman’s smile, Akiko’s expression loosened up. Then she put her hand around Ayase’s shoulders and introduced her.
“Um… This is my daughter, Saki.”
“Hello.” Ayase took a step forward and bowed deeply.
When Dad and Akiko went to dinner with my grandparents, it’d been a weekday, so Ayase and I had to sit it out. Ayase was meeting my grandmother for the first time.
“Saki, welcome,” she said. “I’ve been wanting to see you.”
“It’s nice to meet you.”
“Come on in and make yourself at home. Everyone’s in the living room. I’ll prepare tea.”
“Oh, I’ll help,” Akiko said.
My grandmother looked lost for a moment, then she said, “Yes, all right. But first, let me show you to your rooms.”
“Thank you.”
We took off our shoes at the front door, and my grandmother led us down the wooden hallway. I’d visited this house many times in the past and knew where everything was, but I didn’t mind.
As we stepped inside the house, Ayase murmured, “They have a tataki…”
She sounded almost moved, looking at the hard-packed earth below us. I shot her a confused look, unsure why it was such a big deal. Then it occurred to me. Maybe she’d never seen a room like this before. Or maybe she’d seen it, but this was her first time entering one in person.
Japanese houses aren’t built directly on the ground. The floor is elevated slightly to create space for air to flow through. Otherwise, wooden structures would quickly rot in the humidity.
Because of that, this house’s floor was raised off the ground. In old houses, you step up to enter the main building, and only the entrance area, where people take off their shoes, is at ground level. This part of the house is called the doma, which means “dirt room,” and the floor is made of hard-packed earth. If it’s hardened with plaster, it’s called a tataki.
At that point, something occurred to me. Maybe Ayase knew a lot more about this stuff than I did. After all, she’d gotten a perfect score in Japanese History. As she proceeded down the hallway, her eyes scanned everything that came into view.
Not far from the entrance, the hallway split in two directions—left and right. The kitchen was to the left, but my grandmother turned right.
From there, the hallway transitioned into an open, veranda-like corridor. The shutters had been moved aside, and we could see out into the garden. It looked like a veranda right now, but once the shutters were closed, it would turn back into a typical hallway. The passage was flooded with light from the afternoon sun.