Sweet Bean Paste, by Sukegawa Durian

Translated by Alison Watts

(2013, translated 2017)

Oneworld Publications

(Novel)

Ms. Sukegawa tells a deceptively simple story of lonely people drawn together by food. Sentaro is a loveless, bitter, middle-aged man. He always dreamed of being a writer, but he found himself living among small-time thugs and solving his problems with alcohol and violence. He spends time in prison, and on his return to society, he is still burdened by debts to his old boss. To assure that he is compensated, the boss makes Sentaro run a dorayaki stand. Dorayaki is a popular street food made from sweet bean paste served between two light pancakes. One day an elderly woman approaches Sentaro with one of his “Help Wanted” signs. She asks if there is an age restriction. When Sentaro says no, she expresses her desire to work for him. Sentaro notes to himself that the woman has an odd shuffle and one side of her face is rigid. Thinking that she might have a bad “look” for his shop, he tells her that he does not think she will be appropriate for the job. The woman persists. She returns with a plastic container and asks him to try her dorayaki. He smilingly accepts her gift but surreptitiously drops it in the garbage. Later that day he fishes the container out of the trash and tries the dorayaki; needless to say, he must find the old woman and hire her. Sweet Bean Paste is a delightful story about the art and spirit of cooking, but there are darker currents following. Among them are the struggles of one of Sentaro’s regulars, a high school girl who comes by every day to pick up a plastic bag of poorly-formed dorayaki that were not fit to be served to customers. The other is the cause behind the old woman’s gnarled hands and Japan’s history of treating its citizens who suffered from Hansen’s disease. 

“Tokue at least made a show of trying to stay out of sight, even if she made no move to leave, but if a customer holding a baby happened to appear in front of the window, she would lean out of the shadows, half-showing her face, and cluck, ‘Oh, my, my, my.’ When groups of children appeared, she would say within earshot, ‘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.” (33)