　故郷の写真が添えられていた。ご両親のお眠りの墓地であろうか・・・小高い山の上から俯瞰して、セルリアンブルーの駿河湾を挟んで真っ正面に富士を遠望する。
　貴簡によって私は知ったのだが、土肥港と清水港を結ぶ海上線を県道223号線というのですねー。
　ヘーッ！と思いながら調べてみると、2013年にその名称になったのだそうだ。海上の道・・・従来の三分の一弱という距離と時間短縮の経済効率を措いて、何ともロマンチックだ。私はついつい華厳経の観音菩薩の御座す補陀落への海上の路を連想した。ご両親のお墓と、さらにその写真と共に義理の故御母上に因む土地の風習の贈り物が同封されていたからでもある。

　勝呂くんの故郷であり、また私の生地でもある町を私は訪ねたことがないのだが、実は亡母は弟と二人で訪ねていた。まだ亡母が元気な頃だったから40年くらい前のことだ。弟が母をドライヴに連れ出したのだ。
　母が亡くなってから遺品を整理していたら、書付が出てきた。そこに、そのドライヴのことが書かれていた。そして、「タダミは仕事が忙しくて一緒に行けなかった」とあった。たしかに出版社からの依頼が重なって、睡眠時間もとれないほど忙しい時期だった。
　その書付から私が思いだしたことがあった。私が生まれたときに若い両親と祖父母が住んでいた家の隣家の奥さんに、そのドライヴで偶然に出逢ったと母は言ったのである。昭和20年の半ば以来の遭遇だった。お互いに良く認識できたものだ。

　思い出しついでだ。
　・・・私が小学5年生のときだっただろうか。或る夜の夢に、浴衣のような着物姿で縁先で遊んでいた幼児の私を、隣家の主婦が手招きした。そして、「これをお母さんに持って行ってちょうだい」と言いながら平たい竹笊に入った若布を渡された。・・・目覚めて憶えていたのはそれだけだった。

　戦時中の食糧不足の折り、少しの余剰をお互いに贈りあっていたのであろう。若布をくれた隣家の主婦が、母がドライヴのときに遭遇した人である。

　勝呂くんの手紙を読みながら私自身の思い出が引きずられて出て来た。
　それにしても勝呂くん、貴君は、学生時代の私の「いつも寝不足ぎみの顔」をよく憶えていますねー。びっくりしました。そうなんです、先日もブログに書きましたが、あのころ私の神経は最悪で不眠状態でした。大学へ向かう土手道をふらつきながら歩き、気がつくと下の電車路に飛び込みそうになったりして・・・。街で出逢う犬たちは、何か恐ろしいものを見るように後ずさりしながら私に向かって牙をむき出し、低く唸るのでしたよ。・・・大学の卒業記念写真アルバムのクラス集合写真には、私が写っていません。写真撮影日時に学校に行っていなかったからです。
　しかし、そんな私の顔を勝呂くんが記憶しているとは、いやー驚きました。嬉しいお手紙をありがとうございました。

In the evening, I pulled out the newspaper from the
post and touched something strange in the back.
When I put my hand in and took it out, it was a letter
from Mr. Suguro who was my classmate of the law
department of the university. Mr. Suguro sent me a
his portrait photo the other day.
Recently, the number of good Japanese characters

situation while feeling the address of his fine hand
writing.
A picture of his hometown was attached. Maybe
it's the graveyard where his parents slept ... Looking
down there from a small mountain, and looking at

cerulean blue.
I knew from the letter that the sea line connecting
Toi Port and Shimizu Port is prefectural road 223.
Hey! When I looked it up, I knew that it became
that name in 2013. Maritime Road: It's a romantic
one, with the distance of less than one-third that
of the past and the economic efficiency of time
saving. I was remind of the sea route to the Paradise
of the Kannonbosatsu (Guanyin Bodhisattva) of the
Kegon Sutra. This is because the photo of the grave
of his parents and the present thing of the customs
of the land attributed to his late mother-in -law were
enclosed together with the letter.

I have never visited the town that was the home
of Suguro- kun and my birthplace, but in reality
the late my mother was visiting with my younger
brother. It was about 40 years ago when my moth-
er was still fine. My younger brother took her to a
drive.
When I was organizing her belongings after my
mother died, I got a copy. That drive was written
there, "Tadami was too busy to work with us," she
wrote. It was a busy time that I could not get
enough sleep time because of requests from pub-
lishers.
I had something that I had in mind from the
mother's note. My mother told me, she met a wife
who was next to the house where my young
parents and grandparents lived when I was born,
that my mother happened to meet the wife at the
drive. It has been an encounter since the middle
of 1945. They were able to recognize each other
well.

By the way...
I wonder if I was in fifth grade of the elementary
school. In a dream of one night, a housewife next
door beckonned to me, an infant (it's me) playing
in a kimono like a yukata at the veranda. Then she
handed me some wakame seaweeds in a flat
bamboo basket, saying, "Give this to your mom,"
... that was the only thing I remebered when I
work up.
I immediately told my mother the story of this
dream, and she said it was true. Then, she took
out an old bamboo basket about 20 cm in dia-
mater from the top of the so-called built-in
cabinet in the kitchen. My mother said, "This is
the basket which got wakame seaweeds tht
came out in your dream last night,"
It seems that they were giving each other a
little surplus due to the food shortage during
the war. The beighbor's housewife who gave
me the wakame seaweeds is the one my moth-
er encountered when she was driving.

While reading the letter of Suguro-kun, my
own memories came out.
Even so, Suguro- kun , you remember well
my "always sleepy face" when i was a student.
Surprised. That's right, I wrote it on the blog
the other day, but at that time my nerves were
the worst I was not in sleep. I walked down
the causeway to the university, and when I
noticedit, I tended to jump into the train path
below. The dogs that I met in the city groaned
low, barking back toward me, looking back at
something homble, ... I don't appear in the
class group photo of the university graduation
photo album. I did't attend school at the time
of the photo shoot.
However, I was really surprised that Suguro-
kun remembered my face, Thank you for your
happy letter.

Tadami Yamada

お気に入りの記事を「いいね！」で応援しよう