But the split had occurred generations back, and the blood relationship
was distant, Uryu said. Uryu Momosuke’s father and grandfather had been
the local rebels, the local runaways. Momosuke’s grandfather went to
Tokyo and became a public servant and then sold the residence in the
country. The house was dismantled and brought to Tokyo, where it was
reassembled as a “country residence’ in the garden of a certain house in
Shiba. The house had survived the air raids without burning and was
apparently still standing. Momosuke’s father had become a military man.
Momosuke, taking after his grandfather perhaps, rebelled against his father
and ran away from home. His father, a commander in the artillery, resigned
his position in the army because of this, but was immediately hired by a
munitions company.
“Having a rebel for a son pained him so much that I hear he thought of
committing seppuku, but now having lost the war it seems that his failing in
the military on my account was really a good thing. He’s still doing
something or other, I hear. . . .” Uryu said, then lifted his face slightly and
continued. “My father went to visit the old man in the country this past
March. He went out to the other house and made his greetings, but from
what I hear the old man just kept sleeping. He hasn’t been awake much
lately, the attendant said, with an expression on her face like she knew
everything, and then suddenly the old man woke up, so my father
introduced himself several times in a loud voice. The old man said—What
was that? Toranosuke Hashimoto? I’ve forgotten the past, all of it. Then he
went back to sleep, and the younger old man and my father smiled wryly
and went back to the main house. I don’t ever see my father, but I heard the
story from the younger old man when I went out to the country a month
later. . . .”
Momosuke’s father’s name was Uryu as well, but because there were a
good many Uryus in the village they had come to be known as the
hashimoto no Uryu, the Uryu at the foot of the bridge, after the location of
their ancestral home. This was shortened, and now they were called
