O: Which part of Setagaya-Daita?

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T: It was a five or six-minute walk from the station. There used to be a river there—now it’s a culvert —and my family lived in front of it.

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O: Was it on the west side, facing toward Shinjuku? Didn’t that area suffer from war damage?

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T: Yes, it was on the west side. That part of town used to be a residential area before the war, and I had lived there before entering elementary school. When the war became severe, my family evacuated to Shikoku,  and when that area became dangerous, they moved to my father’s hometown in Mie prefecture  in the mountains. But I, for the life of me, didn’t want to leave Tōkyō at all. My sister and her husband had rented a house near where my parents lived after they were married. So I stayed at my sister’s house and attended an all-girls’ school from there. There were some houses in my neighborhood that suffered damages, but fortunately, my sister’s house survived. After the war, my whole family returned to Tōkyō, and we all lived together in that tiny house.

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O​: Right after the war was a period when the entire family lined up futons and slept together in one room, some as small as six tatami mats.  

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T: Yes, everyone lived like that. My sister’s house had only four small rooms, and my whole family lived together.

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O: And your sister’s house was close to Takemitsu’s house?